Dr. Joseph Goebbels diary

[Klaus]

A lot to read but worth reading.

The Reichspropagandaministers thoughts: scary!



March 16, 1942 (p. 126)

I read a report of the SD about the situation in the occupied East. The activity of Partisans has increased noticeably during recent weeks. They are conducting a well-organized guerrilla war. It is very difficult to get at them because they are using such terrorist methods in the area occupied by us that the population is afraid of collaborating with us loyally any longer. The spearheads of this whole Partisan activity are the political commissars and especially the Jews. It has therefore proven necessary once again to shoot more Jews. There won't be any peace in these areas as long as any Jews are active there. Sentimentality is out of place here. Either we must renounce the lives of our own soldiers, or we must uncompromisingly prevent further propaganda by criminal and chaotic elements in the hinterland.

In the East, nationalistic currents are increasingly observable in all former Baltic States. The populations there apparently imagined that the German Wehrmacht would shed its blood to set up new governments in these midget states, which at the end of the war, or possibly even during the war, would veer over to the side of our enemies. That is a childish, naïve bit of imagination which makes no impression upon us. One would have to take the imperial regime of Kaiser Wilhelm as a model if one were to inaugurate so shortsighted a policy. National Socialism is much more cold-blooded and much more realistic in all these questions. It does only what is useful for its own people, and in this instance the interest of our people undoubtedly lies in the rigorous establishment of German order within this area without paying any attention to the claims, more or less justified, of the small nationalities living there.

March 20, 1942 (p. 138)

Finally we talked about the Jewish question. Here the Fuehrer is as uncompromising as ever. The Jews must be got out of Europe, if necessary by applying most brutal methods.

March 27, 1942 (pp. 147-148)

Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40 per cent can be used for forced labor.

(By General Government is meant German-occupied Poland)

The former Gauleiter of Vienna, who is to carry this measure through, is doing it with considerable circumspection and according to a method that does not attract too much attention. A judgment is being visited upon the Jews that, while barbaric, is fully deserved by them. The prophesy which the Fuehrer made about them for having brought on a new world war is beginning to come true in a most terrible manner. One must not be sentimental in these matters. If we did not fight the Jews, they would destroy us. It's a life-and-death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus. No other government and no other regime would have the strength for such a global solution of this question. Here, too, the Fuehrer is the undismayed champion of a radical solution necessitated by conditions and therefore inexorable. Fortunately a whole series of possibilities presents itself for us in wartime that would be denied us in peacetime. We shall have to profit by this.

[Hitler in a Reichstag speech on January 30, 1939, prophesied that the outbreak of another world war would mean the end of the Jews in Europe. He then said: "I want today once again to make a prophecy: In case the international Jewish financiers within and outside Europe succeed once more in hurling the peoples into a world war, the result will be, not the Bolshevization of the world and with it a victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."]

The ghettoes that will be emptied in the cities of the General Government now will be refilled with Jews thrown out of the Reich. This process is to be repeated from time to time. There is nothing funny in it for the Jews, and the fact that Jewry's representatives in England and America are today organizing and sponsoring the war against Germany must be paid for dearly by its representatives in Europe - and that's only right.

April 14, 1942 (pp. 168-169)

The Grynzpan trial is now to start in the middle of May. I still have a few preparations to make. Preparations by the Department of Justice are in some respects not very clever psychologically. Thus, for instance, the problem of homosexuality, which really isn't under discussion, has been drawn into the trial procedure, and the question of Jewish evacuations is also to be dealt with publicly. I think this is about as bungling as possible.... I shall see to it that these two sets of questions are not raised in court at all. All the other preparations were made in accordance with my directives and, if carried out, will undoubtedly make the trial a perfect success.

April 20, 1942 (p. 177)

The most recent act of sabotage [in France] against a German military train which resulted in several deaths will be punished with severe reprisals. The number of people to be shot will be doubled, and over a thousand Communists and Jews will be put into freight cars and shipped East. There they will soon cease to see any fun in disturbing Germany's policies for order in Europe.

April 27, 1942 (pp. 190-191)

I talked to the Fuehrer once more in detail about the Jewish question. His attitude is unrelenting. He wants, under all circumstances, to push the Jews out of Europe. That is right. The Jews have brought so much misery to our continent that the severest punishment meted out to them is still too mild....

April 29, 1942 (p. 195)

The SD gave me a police report on conditions in the East. The danger of the Partisans continues to exist in unmitigated intensity in the occupied areas. The Partisans have, after all, caused us very great difficulties during the winter, and these difficulties have by no means ceased with the beginning of spring. Short shrift is made of the Jews in all eastern occupied areas. Tens of thousands of them are liquidated.

May 11, 1942 (p. 211)

Schach reported to me on questions regarding the gau of Berlin. We must deal again with the Jewish problem. There are still 40,000 Jews in Berlin and despite the heavy blows dealt them they are still insolent and aggressive. It is exceedingly difficult to shove them off to the East because a large part of them are at work in the munitions industry and because the Jews are to be evacuated only by families.

[Gerhard Schach was one of Goebbels's personal aides in his capacity of Gauleiter of Berlin. Schach was chief of Goebbels's gau staff and liaison officer from the gau to the Propaganda Ministry.]

May 15, 1942 (p. 214)

A report from Paris informs me that a number of those who staged the last acts of terror have been found. About 99 per cent of them are eastern Jews [Ostjuden]. A more rigorous regime is now to be applied to these Jews. As far as I am concerned, it would be best if we either evacuated or liquidated all eastern Jews still remaining in Paris. By nature and race they will always be our natural enemies anyway.

[By eastern Jews (Ostjuden) are chiefly meant the Jews from Galicia and Poland.]

December 13, 1942 (p. 241)

The question of Jewish persecution in Europe is being given top news priority by the English and the Americans.... At bottom, however, I believe both the English and the Americans are happy that we are exterminating the Jewish riff-raff. But the Jews will go on and on and turn the heat on the British-American press. We won't even discuss this theme publicly, but instead I give orders to start an atrocity campaign against the English on their treatment of Colonials.

Efforts are under way to declare Rome an open city, so that it won't be bombarded. The Pope is studying the question of air raids on Italian cities and seems to be exerting pressure on the English to spare at least certain districts. The declarations issued by the Vatican on this question are extremely clever and cannot but win favor for the Pope, at least in Italy. But the Italians are willing to accept any help offered them in this painful situation.

The Italians are extremely lax in the treatment of Jews. They protect the Italian Jews both in Tunis and in occupied France and won't permit their being drafted for work or compelled to wear the Star of David. This shows once again that Fascism does not really dare to get down to fundamentals, but is very superficial regarding most important problems. The Jewish question is causing us a lot of trouble. Everywhere, even among our allies, the Jews have friends to help them, which is a proof that they are still playing an important role even in the Axis camp. All the more are they shorn of power within Germany itself.

[Throughout Germany and the countries occupied by the Nazi Wehrmacht, the Jews had to wear a yellow band with a Star of David and the word "Jew" in the language of the country. The Nazis expected their allies to treat their Jews similarly.]

December 14, 1942 (pp. 243-244)

Jewish rabbis in London have held a great protest meeting. The there was "England, Awake." It is just too funny for words that the Jews are now compelled, after fifteen years, to steal our slogans and to call upon the pro-Semitic world to fight us, using the same battle-cry with which we once called upon the anti-Semitic world to fight Jewry. But all this won't avail the Jews anything. The Jewish race has prepared this war; it is the spiritual originator of the whole misfortune that has overtaken humanity. Jewry must pay for its crime just as our Fuehrer prophesied in his speech in the Reichstag; namely, by the wiping out of the Jewish race in Europe and possibly in the entire world.

[The battle cry of the Nazis in the time of their struggle for power was "Deutschland, erwache" ("Germany, Awake"). Goebbels took sardonic delight in seeing the Jewish rabbis of London adopt as their slogan, "England, Awake."]

December 15, 1942 (p. 244)

The Jews are making a terrible rumpus about the revival of the Mosley Fascist party. Generally speaking, the Jewish propaganda has become extraordinarily active of late. The Jews in London proclaimed a day of mourning for the atrocities allegedly committed on Jews in Poland by us.

December 18, 1942 (pp. 249-250)

The Jewish question is receiving a big play both in the enemy and in the neutral news services. The Swedes protest hypocritically against our treatment of the Polish Jews, but are by no means willing to receive them in their country. The leading newspapers of Stockholm warn emphatically against having the Ghetto Jews from Warsaw forced upon them. It would probably be a good thing if the Swedes were to admit several thousand such Jews into their country. That would give them a practical lesson on the Jewish question. In all likelihood they would understand our measures much better than appears to be the case today.

The Jews of Jerusalem have held noisy demonstrations of protest against us. They had a day of fasting. At the Wailing Wall they invoked the Old Testament Jewish curse against the Fuehrer, Goering, Himmler, and me. Until now I haven't noticed any effect on me. One must know these Jews to be able to handle them right. They are now trying to stir up the entire world merely to incite public opinion against the National Socialist Reich and its anti-Semitic convictions. There's only one answer to this, viz., to continue as at present, rigorously and without compromise. You're sunk if you give the slightest indication of weakness.

December 19, 1942 (p. 251)

Eden delivered a speech in the House of Commons on the Jewish problem and answered planted questions. Rothschild, the "venerable MP," as the English press calls him, took the floor and delivered a tear-jerker bemoaning the fate of the Polish Jews. At the end of the session the Commons observed a minute of silence. All members of Parliament rose from their seats as a silent tribute to Jewry. That was quite appropriate for the British House of Commons, which is really a sort of Jewish exchange. The English, anyway, are the Jews among the Aryans. The perfumed British Foreign Minister, Eden, cuts a good figure among these characters from the synagogue. His whole education and his entire bearing can be characterized as thoroughly Jewish.

December 20, 1942 (p. 254)

Enemy propaganda is exceedingly aggressive. The Jews, too, are talking again. Emil Ludwig Cohn, in an interview in the American press, demands the complete destruction of the German economy and the German war potential. The Jewish campaign against us is growing in volume. What won't the Jews do to discredit the Reich! They are working arrogantly and on a large scale. But they won't reach their goal after all, just as they haven't attained it in the Reich.

[The Mr. Cohn here referred to is better known by his pen name of Emil Ludwig.]

March 2, 1943 (pp. 261-262)

We are now definitely pushing the Jews out of Berlin. They were suddenly rounded up last Saturday, and are to be carted off to the East as quickly as possible. Unfortunately our better circles, especially the intellectuals, once again have failed to understand our policy about the Jews and in some cases have even taken their part. As a result our plans were tipped off prematurely, so that a lot of Jews slipped through our hands. But we will catch them yet. I certainly won't rest until the capital of the Reich, at least, has become free of Jews.

[To the casual reader this "premature tipping off" may not seem very surprising. It must be remembered, however, that every German who was caught giving shelter to a Jew or notifying him of pending measures was either executed or sent to a concentration camp.]

(p. 266)

Goering realizes perfectly what is in store for all of us if we show any weakness in this war. He has no illusions about that. On the Jewish question, especially, we have taken a position from which there is no escape. That is a good thing. Experience teaches that a movement and a people who have burned their bridges fight with much greater determination than those who are still able to retreat.

March 6, 1943 (p. 276)

Schach gave me a long report on the situation in Berlin as affected by the last air raid. It is extremely serious, after all. The damage done to the Reich capital is very heavy, and it will take us an estimated six or eight months to repair it even halfway.

Yet that's the very moment the SD thinks favorable for continuing with the evacuation of Jews! Unfortunately there have been a number of regrettable scenes at a Jewish home for the aged, where a large number of people gathered and in part even took sides with the Jews. I ordered the SD not to continue Jewish evacuation at so critical a moment. We want to save that up for a couple of weeks. We can then go after it all the more thoroughly.

March 9, 1943 (p. 290)

With regard to the Jewish question he [Hitler] approved of my measures and specifically ordered me to make Berlin entirely free of Jews. I shall see to it that there is no concubinage between Berlin Jews and foreign workers....

March 11, 1943 (p. 294)

The evacuation of Jews from Berlin has led to a number of untoward happenings. Unfortunately a number of Jews and Jewesses from privileged marriages were also arrested, thereby causing fear and confusion. The scheduled arrest of all Jews on one day has proven a flash in the pan because of the shortsighted behavior of industrialists who warned the Jews in time. We therefore failed to lay our hands on about 4,000. They are now wandering about Berlin without homes, are not registered with the police and are naturally quite a public danger. I ordered the police, Wehrmacht, and the Party to do everything possible to round these Jews up as quickly as practicable.

[Jews married to Gentiles were registered by the Nazis as living in "privileged wedlock." That meant they were originally not slated for deportation and extermination. In the closing months of their regime the Nazis seized Jews thus married.]

The arrest of Jews and Jewesses living in privileged wedlock caused a terrific commotion, especially in artistic circles, since these privileged marriages are still prevalent among actors. But I can't be squeamish about them. If a German still finds it possible to live with a Jewess as his legal wife, that's a point against him, and it's out of place to be too sentimental about this question in wartime.

March 15, 1943 (p. 300)

You just can't trust the Jews across the street. I therefore told the Fuehrer emphatically once more that I deemed it essential to force the Jews out of the entire Reich as fast as possible. He approved, and ordered me not to cease or pause until no Jew is left anywhere in Germany.

March 20, 1943 (p. 314)

The Fuehrer is happy over my report that the Jews have for the most part been evacuated from Berlin. He is right in saying that the war has made possible for us the solution of a whole series of problems that could never have been solved in normal times. The Jews will certainly be the losers in this war, come what may.

April 17, 1943 (p. 332)

The United States has published statistics according to which there are 5,000,000 orthodox Jews in the United States. The United States can certainly be described as a Class-1 Jew state. We are going to step up our anti-Semitic propaganda so much that the word "Jew" will again be pronounced in the derisive manner that it deserves, just as it was in the time of our struggle for power. It must come to pass that even an enemy statesman won't dare to be seen in the company of a Jew without immediately being suspected by his own people of being a stooge of the Jews.

April 18, 1943 (p. 334)

It was an exceptionally good idea that we raised the Jewish problem again on orders of the Fuehrer. Anti-Semitism is growing rapidly even in the enemy states. Reports to that effect reach us, especially from England. If we continue to high-pressure the anti-Semitic question, the Jews, in the long run, will be much discredited. All one needs to do is be tough and determined, for the Jewish problem has now been frozen so tight that it will be difficult to thaw it out again.

(p. 335)

I gave orders to investigate all Jews still left in Berlin. I don't want to see Jews with the Star of David running about in the capital. Either the Star must be taken from them and they be classed as privileged, or they must be evacuated altogether from the capital of the Reich. I believe I shall have completed one of the greatest political achievements of my career once Berlin is free of Jews. When I consider how Berlin looked in 1926 when I came here, and how it looks now in 1943 when the Jews are being evacuated completely, I get a feeling of what has been achieved in this sector.

April 25, 1943 (pp. 343-344)

From a report from the occupied areas I gather that a truly grotesque situation obtains in Warsaw. The Jews tried to leave the Ghetto by subterranean passages. Thereupon these underground passages were flooded. The Ghetto is now under artillery fire. When such conditions prevail in an occupied city, it certainly can't be said to be pacified. It is high time that we evacuate the Jews just as quickly as possible from the General Government.

(p. 344)

The Fuehrer would like to talk to me before I go on leave, especially to discuss the next measures in the Jewish question of which he has very great expectations.

May 8, 1943 (pp. 353-354)

Much to my surprise my article "The War and the Jews" has attracted much attention, even in neutral countries. I should have thought the Jews would try to give it the silent treatment. But that is not the case. It is being quoted to an extent that is simply amazing. That showed the Jews are either so foolish as to let my arguments get out into the world, or else in every editorial office sit secret opponents of the Jews who gladly identify themselves with my anti-Semitic arguments by publishing my article.

(p. 357)

The Fuehrer argued that the anti-Semitism which formerly animated the Party and was advocated by it must again become the focal point of our spiritual struggle. He thinks a great deal of the anti-Semitic movement in England, although he is naturally aware that it lacks organization and therefore cannot constitute a political factor. Nevertheless this anti-Semitism is most embarrassing to the Churchill Government. It is comparable to the anti-Semitic endeavors of certain bourgeois organizations in Germany in the old days. These, too, would never have achieved their end had not the revolutionary National Socialist movement taken up the campaign....

The Jewish question is being solved least satisfactorily by the Hungarians. The Hungarian state is permeated with Jews, and the Fuehrer did not succeed during his talk with Horthy in convincing the latter of the necessity of more stringent measures. Horthy himself, of course, is badly tangled up with the Jews through his family, and will continue to resist every effort to tackle the Jewish problem aggressively. He gave a number of humanitarian counterarguments which of course don't apply at all to this situation. You just cannot talk humanitarianism when dealing with Jews. Jews must be defeated. The Fuehrer made every effort to win Horthy over to his standpoint but succeeded only partially.

(pp. 358-359)

The East will forever regard Europe as an attractive jewel. The East will again and again try to break into this continent in order to dominate it. Our constant, untiring effort must therefore center upon taking the necessary measures for our security. If it be true today that the Bolshevism of the East is mainly under Jewish leadership and that the Jews are also the dominant influence in the Western plutocracies, then our anti-Semitic propaganda must begin at this point. The Jews must therefore be thrown out of Europe....

May 10, 1943 (pp. 364-365)

The fights in the Warsaw ghetto have largely petered out. I received a secret report on the mysterious question as to how the Jews got hold of the large supplies of arms with which they defended themselves. For the most part they bought them from our brave allies as they were fleeing homeward and in Warsaw got rid of their weapons for good money. There are soldiers for you!

May 11, 1943 (p. 370)

It is interesting to note that many of the London papers printed my article against the Jews. I can't figure it out. Are the Jews so foolish as to believe this article would militate against us and not, on the contrary, strengthen the anti-Semitic feeling in England considerably?

May 13, 1943 (pp. 376-377)

I have devoted exhaustive study to the Protocols of Zion. In the past the objection was always made that they were not suited to present-day propaganda. In reading them now I find that we can use them very well. The Protocols of Zion are as modern today as they were when published for the first time....

[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were a scurrilous publication of alleged Jewish aims for world conquest and of the existence of an occult Jewish Government which formed the basis of a celebrated libel suit at Berne, Switzerland, in 1935. Experts from a number of countries, including Germany, were summoned to testify. One claim was that the Protocols had been fabricated by the Russian Czarist police. The ruling of the court on May 14, 1935, was that the Protocols of Zion were forged and faked.]

At noon I mentioned this to the Fuehrer. He believed the Protocols were absolutely geniune.... The Jewish question, in the Fuehrer's opinion, will play a decisive role in England.... In all the world, he said, the Jews are alike. Whether they live in a ghetto of the East or in the bankers' palaces of the City or Wall Street, they will always pursue the same aims and without previous agreement even use the same means. Once might well ask why are there any Jews in the world order? That would be exactly like asking why are there potato bugs? Nature is dominated by the law of struggle. There will always be parasites who will spur this struggle on and intensify the process of selection between the strong and the weak. The principle of struggle dominates also in human life. One must merely know the laws of this struggle to be able to face it. The intellectual does not have the natural means of resisting the Jewish peril because his instincts have been badly blunted. Because of this fact the nations with a high standard of civilization are exposed to this peril first and foremost. In nature life always takes measures against parasites; in the life of nations that is not always the case. From this fact the Jewish peril actually stems. There is therefore no other recourse left for modern nations except to exterminate the Jew....

There is no hope of leading the Jews back into the fold of civilized humanity by exceptional punishments. They will forever remain Jews, just as we are forever members of the Aryan race.

The Jew was also the first to introduce the lie into politics as a weapon. Aboriginal man, the Fuehrer believes, did not know the lie.... The higher the human being developed intellectually, the more he acquired the ability of hiding his innermost thoughts and giving expression to something different from what he really felt. The Jew as an absolutely intellectual creature was the first to learn this art. He can therefore be regarded not only as the carrier but even the inventor of the lie among human beings. Because of their thoroughly materialistic attitude, the English act very much like the Jews. In fact, they are the Aryans who have acquired most of the Jewish characteristics.... The nations that have been the first to see through the Jew and have been the first to fight him are going to take his place in the domination of the world.

May 19, 1943 (pp. 383-384)

The English and Americans discuss practically nothing but air warfare. Their successful raid on the German dams created a great sentation both in London and in Washington. Of course they know exactly what they have achieved by this attack. The former Berlin Reuter correspondent, Bettany, claimed that the plan for the attack stemmed from a Jew who emigrated from Berlin. I had this claim written up as a short news item for papers in the Reich, especially in the areas that suffered the disaster. This shows once again how dangerous the Jews are and how right we are in putting them behind bars....

May 22, 1943 (pp. 388-389)

The battle of the Warsaw Ghetto continues. The Jews are still resisting. On the whole, however, resistance is no longer dangerous and has virtually been broken. Within the area of the General Government assassinations, acts of sabotage, and raids by bandits are on the increase. Conditions there are in some respects truly chaotic. Unfortunately the Fuehrer has refrained from a personnel change in the General Government as intended. Greiser returned to Posen without accomplishing anything. Frank is to be given one more chance to prove his worth. I should have thought it better to kick Frank right out. When you are once convinced that a man is in no way equal to his job, the necessary conclusions should be drawn.

May 26, 1943 (p. 398)

An interesting report tells about the conference at Casablanca. According to this report it was decided that the Anglo-Saxon powers would create a national home for the Jews in Palestine after their eventual victory. This national home is to take care of 20,000,000 Jews. These Jews are to engage chiefly in intellectual and managerial tasks; the work is to be done, as decided in Casablanca, by middle European and especially German workers. For this a large-scale resettlement would be necessary that would, to a certain extent, depopulate Central Europe. It isn't hard to imagine what's going on in the brains of these plutocratic statesmen who are dependent upon the Jews; but we also know what we must do to protect the German people against such a fate.

[Jim O]

If he really believed all of this (and likely he did!) it amazes me how obsessed he was with the "Jewish Question". And this was allegedly an intelligent man.

[Klaus]

Vrey often intelligence and madness go together very well. Sad but true.

[Jim O]

Originally Posted by Klaus

Vrey often intelligence and madness go together very well. Sad but true.

Indeed. That is very true.

[Hagen]

I have his "Final Entries" and remember thinking how delusional he was. He could see the end coming, but for some reason didn't think it would happen. It was like reading the same diary, but written by two different people. As stated before one intelligent, the other quite mad.