Introduction

Abstract

Do we need a new biography of the most notorious demagogue of the twentieth century? Joseph Goebbels was a man who lived most of his adult life in the full glare of publicity, much of it self-created. When, in 1926, he arrived to take charge of the Nazi Party in Berlin, he quickly became a controversial public figure, delighting in the title of ‘super bandit’ which was bestowed on him by his opponents. From 1932 until shortly before his death in 1945 Goebbels was seen regularly by German cinema audiences in newsreel film, and his speeches were heard by millions of radio listeners. After the Nazi accession to power in 1933 Goebbels and his growing family were frequently photographed for the German press. Internationally Goebbels was indissolubly linked with the mass hysteria of Nazi rallies, and with the persecution of the Jews. Well before the collapse of the ‘Third Reich’ in 1945, Goebbels’ name and public image had become synonymous with the most paradoxical aspects of Nazism, its doctrine of racial superiority, its unconcealed aggression towards the outside world, and its huge popularity inside Germany. The uniquely shocking circumstances of Goebbels’ death, and the decision he took with his wife Magda to kill themselves and all six of their children in Hitler’s bunker as the Soviet forces closed in around them, have served only to heighten the repugnance he evokes.