Magda Goebbels
Encyclopedia
Johanna Maria Magdalena "Magda" Goebbels (11 November 1901 – 1 May 1945) was the wife of Nazi Germany
's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels
. A prominent member of the Nazi party, she was a close ally and political supporter of Adolf Hitler
.
As Berlin
was being overrun by the Red Army
at the end of World War II
, with Goebbels she murdered her six children
and then she and her husband committed suicide
.
to 22-year-old Auguste Behrend, and was the acknowledged daughter of engineer Oskar Rietschel (sometimes spelled 'Ritschel'). Rietschel and Behrend married later that year and divorced in 1904. Some sources, including Hans-Otto Meissner (son of Otto Meissner) suggest that the marriage took place before her birth, and that she was legitimate, but there is no particular evidence to support this.
When Magda was five, her mother sent her to stay with Rietschel in Cologne
. Rietschel took her to Brussels
, where she was enrolled at the Ursuline Convent in Vilvoorde
. At the convent, she was remembered as "an active and intelligent little girl".
Magda's mother Auguste married a Jewish manufacturer named Richard Friedländer and moved with him to Brussels
in 1908. They remained in Brussels, on cordial terms, until the outbreak of World War I
, when all Germans were forced to leave Belgium
as refugees, to avoid repercussions from the Belgians after the German invasion.
They moved to Berlin where Magda attended the high school Kolmorgen Lycée. Auguste Behrend divorced the now impoverished Friedländer in 1914. Richard Friedländer later died in Buchenwald concentration camp
.
It was at this time that Magda met and became close to another refugee from Belgium, Lisa Arlosoroff. It is commonly claimed that she later dated Arlosoroff's brother Haim Arlosoroff. He became a prominent Zionist
and was assassinated in Palestine in 1933
.
In 1919, Magda was enrolled in the prestigious Holzhausen Ladies' College near Goslar
.
, a rich German industrialist twice her age, whose holdings later grew into VARTA
batteries among other businesses. He also had large shareholdings in BMW
and Daimler-Benz
. It is claimed that although a physically unremarkable man, Quandt courted Magda at school by posing as a family friend and swept her off her feet with courtesy and grand gestures. He demanded that she change her name back to Rietschel (having borne the name of her mother and stepfather, Friedländer, at her own request, for many years) while converting from Rietschel's nominal Catholicism
to Protestantism
. She and Quandt were married on 4 January 1921, and her first child, Harald
, was born on 1 November 1921. Harald was her only child to survive the war.
Magda soon grew frustrated in her marriage, because Quandt spent little time with her, and at the age of 23 she became attracted to her 18-year-old stepson Helmut Quandt. However, he died of complications from appendicitis
in 1927. She and Günther Quandt then went on a six-month automobile tour of America, where she captured the attention of a nephew of the U.S. President Herbert Hoover
. Later, after her divorce from Quandt, he travelled back from America to visit her and ask her to marry him, an episode that ended in a car crash in which Magda was seriously injured.
On Saturday morning, October 22, 1927, Gunther and Maria M. (Magda) Quandt boarded the RMS Berengaria (Cunard Line
; previously, SS Imperator
of the Hamburg America Line
) at the Port of Cherbourg, France, bound for the United States, by way of England. The ship departed for a half-day visit at the Port of Southampton
, England, and then departed that Saturday evening for the United States. Gunther and Maria M. Quandt were listed with personal details on the steamship's manifest. According to the ship's manifest, Gunther last visited the United States for three months in 1924, when he visited Chicago
, Illinois. The Quandts' brief stay in the United States began when the Berengaria entered the Port of New York
on Friday morning, October 28, 1927. On this visit, Gunther (with Maria M.) was to travel to conduct business with the H. Lloyd Electric Storage Battery Company located on Allehenny Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gunther reported that the trip was to last two months.
Quandt hired detectives and divorced Magda in 1929, but was ultimately generous with the divorce settlement.
, then the Gauleiter
of Berlin. She joined the party on 1 September 1930, and did some volunteer work, although she has not been characterized as politically active. From the local branch, Magda moved to the party headquarters and for a brief period became secretary to Hans Meinshausen, Goebbels' deputy, before being invited to take charge of Goebbels' own private archives.
Otto Wagener claims that Magda met and was attracted to Adolf Hitler
, who was impressed by her, and that her marriage to Goebbels was somewhat arranged. Since Hitler intended to remain unmarried, it was suggested that as the wife of a leading and highly visible Nazi official she might eventually act as "first lady of the Third Reich". Magda's social connections and upper class bearing may have influenced Goebbels' own enthusiasm.
Meissner, on the contrary, makes no suggestion of this, claiming rather that Hitler (though undoubtedly impressed by Magda) was an exceptionally close friend of the couple in the earliest days, who would often arrive late at night and was as likely as Goebbels to sit with the baby Helga on his lap while they talked into the night. He also claims that after an abortive attempt to poison him at the Kaiserhof Hotel in Berlin in January 1933, Hitler asked Magda to prepare all his meals.
Magda married Goebbels on 19 December 1931, at Günther Quandt's farm in Mecklenburg
, with Hitler as a witness.
Joseph and Magda Goebbels subsequently had six children :
Joseph Goebbels had many affairs with other women during his marriage to Magda. One of the most widely known was with the popular Czech
actress Lída Baarová
. He was so smitten with Baarová that he even contemplated marrying her. During the premiere of the film Die Reise nach Tilsit
, showing a virtuous German wife watching helplessly as a foreign woman seduced her husband, Magda rose up and ostentiously left the showing, owing to the blatant though accidental analogy. Magda resorted to asking Hitler for permission to divorce Goebbels, and Baarová was eventually sent away, while Goebbels was in such disgrace that for a time it was rumored that he might be sent to Japan
as German ambassador. Magda was also rumored to have had affairs, including one with Goebbels's deputy Karl Hanke
.
There is no evidence that Magda intervened to save her Jewish stepfather from the Holocaust. Though his fate has not been established, it is widely assumed that he perished in the camps, perhaps misnamed as 'Max Friedlander', a man known to have died in Sachsenhausen
. A plea from a Jewish school friend on behalf of her daughter seems to have also fallen on deaf ears. Asked about her husband's antisemitism, she answered: "The Führer wants it thus, and Joseph must obey".
At the beginning of the war Magda threw herself enthusiastically into her husband's propaganda machine. Her other official functions involved entertaining the wives of the foreign heads of state, supporting the troops and comforting war widows.
Magda's first son, Harald Quandt
, became a Luftwaffe
pilot and fought at the front, while, at home, Magda strove to live up to the image of a patriotic mother by training as a Red Cross nurse and working with the electronics company Telefunken
. She insisted on traveling to work on a bus, like her co-workers.
Towards the end of the war, Magda is known to have suddenly begun to suffer from trigeminal neuralgia
. This condition affects a nerve in the face, and although usually harmless is considered to cause more intense pain than any other condition and can be notoriously hard to treat. This often left her bedridden and led to bouts of hospitalization as late as August 1944.
entered Berlin, and the Goebbels family moved into the Vorbunker
, that was connected to the lower Führerbunker
under the Reich Chancellery
gardens. One of the rooms they occupied had been recently vacated by Hitler's personal physician Theodor Morell
. The only bathroom with a bath was Adolf Hitler's own, and he gladly made it available to Magda and her children. Meanwhile, reports of Soviet troops looting and raping
as they advanced were circulating in Berlin.
Two days earlier, Magda wrote a farewell letter to her son Harald Quandt
, who was in a POW
camp in North Africa
. This letter is her only handwritten bequest.
Joseph Goebbels' last will and testament, dictated to Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge
, stated that Magda and their children supported him in his refusal to leave Berlin and his resolution to die in the bunker. He later qualified this by stating that the children would support the decision [to commit suicide] if they were old enough to speak for themselves.
Hitler and his bride Eva Braun
committed suicide
on the afternoon of 30 April. The following day, on 1 May 1945, Magda and Joseph Goebbels drugged their six children with morphine
and killed them by breaking cyanide
capsules in their mouths. Accounts differ over how involved Magda Goebbels was in the killing of her children. Some accounts claimed that the SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger
crushed the cyanide capsules into the children's mouths, but as no witnesses to the event survived it is impossible to know. O'Donnell concluded that although Stumpfegger was probably involved in drugging the children, Magda Goebbels killed them herself. O'Donnell suggested that witnesses blamed the deaths on Stumpfegger because he was a convenient target, having disappeared (and died, it was later learned) the following day. Moreover, as O'Donnell recorded, Stumpfegger may have been too intoxicated at the time of the deaths to have played a reliable role.
Meissner claims that Stumpfegger refused to take any part in the deaths of the children, and that a mysterious "country doctor from the enemy-occupied eastern region" appeared and "carried out the fearful task" before disappearing again.
Magda appears to have contemplated and talked about killing her children at least a month in advance. She refused several offers from others, such as Albert Speer
, to have the children smuggled out of Berlin. The children's bodies were later discovered by the Soviet troops who stormed the bunker. They were dressed in their nightclothes, with ribbons tied in the girls' hair. There was evidence in the form of bruises that the eldest child, 12-year-old Helga, had awakened and struggled before she was killed.
The last survivor of Hitler's bunker, Rochus Misch
, gave this eyewitness account of the events to the BBC
:
After their children were dead, Magda and Joseph Goebbels walked upstairs to the bombed-out garden, avoiding the need for anyone to carry their bodies. By some accounts, she was shaking uncontrollably. The details of their suicides are uncertain. One SS officer later said they each took cyanide and were shot by an SS trooper. An early report said they were machine-gunned to death at their own request. According to another account, Joseph Goebbels shot Magda and then himself. This idea is presented in the film Downfall
. Their bodies were doused in petrol
, only partially burned and not buried. The charred corpses were found on the afternoon of 2 May 1945 by Russia
n troops and a photograph of Goebbels' burned face was widely published. Thereafter, the remains of the Goebbels family were repeatedly buried and exhumed, along with the remains of Hitler, Eva Braun, General Hans Krebs
and Hitler's dogs. The last burial had been at the SMERSH
facility in Magdeburg on 21 February 1946. In 1970, KGB
director Yuri Andropov
authorised an operation to destroy the remains. On 4 April 1970, a Soviet KGB team with detailed burial charts secretly exhumed five wooden boxes. The remains from the boxes were thoroughly burned and crushed, after which the ashes were thrown into the Biederitz river, a tributary of the nearby Elbe
.
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
. A prominent member of the Nazi party, she was a close ally and political supporter of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
.
As Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
was being overrun by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
at the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, with Goebbels she murdered her six children
Goebbels children
The Goebbels children were the five daughters and one son born to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda Goebbels. The children, born between 1932 and 1940, were murdered by their parents in Berlin on May 1, 1945, the day both parents committed suicide.Magda Goebbels had an...
and then she and her husband committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
.
Childhood and youth
Magda was born in 1901 in Berlin, GermanyBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
to 22-year-old Auguste Behrend, and was the acknowledged daughter of engineer Oskar Rietschel (sometimes spelled 'Ritschel'). Rietschel and Behrend married later that year and divorced in 1904. Some sources, including Hans-Otto Meissner (son of Otto Meissner) suggest that the marriage took place before her birth, and that she was legitimate, but there is no particular evidence to support this.
When Magda was five, her mother sent her to stay with Rietschel in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
. Rietschel took her to Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, where she was enrolled at the Ursuline Convent in Vilvoorde
Vilvoorde
Vilvoorde is a Belgian municipality in the Flemish province of Flemish Brabant. The municipality comprises the city of Vilvoorde proper with its two outlying quarters of Koningslo and Houtem and the small town of Peutie...
. At the convent, she was remembered as "an active and intelligent little girl".
Magda's mother Auguste married a Jewish manufacturer named Richard Friedländer and moved with him to Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
in 1908. They remained in Brussels, on cordial terms, until the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, when all Germans were forced to leave Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
as refugees, to avoid repercussions from the Belgians after the German invasion.
They moved to Berlin where Magda attended the high school Kolmorgen Lycée. Auguste Behrend divorced the now impoverished Friedländer in 1914. Richard Friedländer later died in Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...
.
It was at this time that Magda met and became close to another refugee from Belgium, Lisa Arlosoroff. It is commonly claimed that she later dated Arlosoroff's brother Haim Arlosoroff. He became a prominent Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
and was assassinated in Palestine in 1933
Assassination of Haim Arlosoroff
On the night of Friday, June 16 1933, left-wing Zionist leader Haim Arlosoroff was assassinated as he was walking with his wife on the beach in Tel Aviv. Initially believed to be carried out by his right-wing political enemies, the subsequent court case ended in acquittal for the two accused of the...
.
In 1919, Magda was enrolled in the prestigious Holzhausen Ladies' College near Goslar
Goslar
Goslar is a historic town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Goslar and located on the northwestern slopes of the Harz mountain range. The Old Town of Goslar and the Mines of Rammelsberg are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.-Geography:Goslar is situated at the...
.
Marriage and son with Günther Quandt
At the age of 17, while returning to school on a train, Magda met Günther QuandtGünther Quandt
Günther Quandt was a German industrialist and Nazi who founded an industrial empire that today includes BMW and Altana .Eight of the hundred currently richest Germans are among his descendants.- Early life :...
, a rich German industrialist twice her age, whose holdings later grew into VARTA
VARTA
VARTA AG was a company based in Germany manufacturing batteries for global automotive, industrial and consumer markets. A sales slogan was "you're smarter to fit Varta!" in the mid 1990s...
batteries among other businesses. He also had large shareholdings in BMW
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
and Daimler-Benz
Daimler-Benz
Daimler-Benz AG was a German manufacturer of automobiles, motor vehicles, and internal combustion engines; founded in 1926. An Agreement of Mutual Interest - which was valid until year 2000 - was signed on 1 May 1924 between Karl Benz's Benz & Cie., and Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, which had...
. It is claimed that although a physically unremarkable man, Quandt courted Magda at school by posing as a family friend and swept her off her feet with courtesy and grand gestures. He demanded that she change her name back to Rietschel (having borne the name of her mother and stepfather, Friedländer, at her own request, for many years) while converting from Rietschel's nominal Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
to Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
. She and Quandt were married on 4 January 1921, and her first child, Harald
Harald Quandt
Harald Quandt was a German industrialist, stepson of Joseph Goebbels. After World War II, Harald and his half-brother Herbert Quandt ran the industrial empire that was left to them by their father.-Early life:...
, was born on 1 November 1921. Harald was her only child to survive the war.
Magda soon grew frustrated in her marriage, because Quandt spent little time with her, and at the age of 23 she became attracted to her 18-year-old stepson Helmut Quandt. However, he died of complications from appendicitis
Appendicitis
Appendicitis is a condition characterized by inflammation of the appendix. It is classified as a medical emergency and many cases require removal of the inflamed appendix, either by laparotomy or laparoscopy. Untreated, mortality is high, mainly because of the risk of rupture leading to...
in 1927. She and Günther Quandt then went on a six-month automobile tour of America, where she captured the attention of a nephew of the U.S. President Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
. Later, after her divorce from Quandt, he travelled back from America to visit her and ask her to marry him, an episode that ended in a car crash in which Magda was seriously injured.
On Saturday morning, October 22, 1927, Gunther and Maria M. (Magda) Quandt boarded the RMS Berengaria (Cunard Line
Cunard Line
Cunard Line is a British-American owned shipping company based at Carnival House in Southampton, England and operated by Carnival UK. It has been a leading operator of passenger ships on the North Atlantic for over a century...
; previously, SS Imperator
SS Imperator
SS Imperator was an ocean liner built for the Hamburg Amerikanische Packetfahrt Actien Gesellschaft launched in 1912. She was the first of a trio of successively larger Hamburg America ships that included and built by the line for transatlantic passenger service...
of the Hamburg America Line
Hamburg America Line
The Hamburg Amerikanische Packetfahrt Actien Gesellschaft was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, Germany during...
) at the Port of Cherbourg, France, bound for the United States, by way of England. The ship departed for a half-day visit at the Port of Southampton
Port of Southampton
The Port of Southampton is a major passenger and cargo port located in the central part of the south coast of England. It benefits from shelter provided by the Isle of Wight and Southampton Water, unique "double tides" and close proximity to the motorway and rail networks...
, England, and then departed that Saturday evening for the United States. Gunther and Maria M. Quandt were listed with personal details on the steamship's manifest. According to the ship's manifest, Gunther last visited the United States for three months in 1924, when he visited Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois. The Quandts' brief stay in the United States began when the Berengaria entered the Port of New York
New York Harbor
New York Harbor refers to the waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay. It is one of the largest natural harbors in the world. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental,...
on Friday morning, October 28, 1927. On this visit, Gunther (with Maria M.) was to travel to conduct business with the H. Lloyd Electric Storage Battery Company located on Allehenny Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gunther reported that the trip was to last two months.
Quandt hired detectives and divorced Magda in 1929, but was ultimately generous with the divorce settlement.
Marriage and family with Joseph Goebbels
Young, attractive, and with no need to work, on the advice of a friend, Magda attended a meeting of the Nazi Party, where she was impressed by one of the speakers, Joseph GoebbelsJoseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
, then the Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
of Berlin. She joined the party on 1 September 1930, and did some volunteer work, although she has not been characterized as politically active. From the local branch, Magda moved to the party headquarters and for a brief period became secretary to Hans Meinshausen, Goebbels' deputy, before being invited to take charge of Goebbels' own private archives.
Otto Wagener claims that Magda met and was attracted to Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, who was impressed by her, and that her marriage to Goebbels was somewhat arranged. Since Hitler intended to remain unmarried, it was suggested that as the wife of a leading and highly visible Nazi official she might eventually act as "first lady of the Third Reich". Magda's social connections and upper class bearing may have influenced Goebbels' own enthusiasm.
Meissner, on the contrary, makes no suggestion of this, claiming rather that Hitler (though undoubtedly impressed by Magda) was an exceptionally close friend of the couple in the earliest days, who would often arrive late at night and was as likely as Goebbels to sit with the baby Helga on his lap while they talked into the night. He also claims that after an abortive attempt to poison him at the Kaiserhof Hotel in Berlin in January 1933, Hitler asked Magda to prepare all his meals.
Magda married Goebbels on 19 December 1931, at Günther Quandt's farm in Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
, with Hitler as a witness.
Joseph and Magda Goebbels subsequently had six children :
- Helga Susanne
- Hildegard "Hilde" Traudel
- Helmut Christian
- Holdine "Holde" Kathrin
- Hedwig "Hedda" Johanna
- Heidrun "Heide" Elisabeth
Joseph Goebbels had many affairs with other women during his marriage to Magda. One of the most widely known was with the popular Czech
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
actress Lída Baarová
Lída Baarová
Lída Baarová was a Czech actress and mistress of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister.-Biography:...
. He was so smitten with Baarová that he even contemplated marrying her. During the premiere of the film Die Reise nach Tilsit
Die Reise nach Tilsit
Die Reise nach Tilsit is a German 1939 film directed by Veit Harlan. It is a sound remake of the silent film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, which was based on Hermann Sudermann's short story "Die Reise nach Tilsit"; Harlan maintained it was a true film, whereas Sunrise was only a poem, and it...
, showing a virtuous German wife watching helplessly as a foreign woman seduced her husband, Magda rose up and ostentiously left the showing, owing to the blatant though accidental analogy. Magda resorted to asking Hitler for permission to divorce Goebbels, and Baarová was eventually sent away, while Goebbels was in such disgrace that for a time it was rumored that he might be sent to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
as German ambassador. Magda was also rumored to have had affairs, including one with Goebbels's deputy Karl Hanke
Karl Hanke
Karl August Hanke was an official of the National Socialist German Workers Party . He served as governor of Lower Silesia from 1941 to 1945 and as the final Reichsführer-SS for a few days in 1945.- Early life :Hanke was born in Lauban in Silesia, on 24 August 1903, the son of a locomotive...
.
War years
Both Magda and Goebbels derived personal benefits and social status from their close association with Hitler. Joseph (as propaganda minister) and Magda remained loyal to Hitler and publicly supported him. Privately, Magda expressed doubts, especially after the war began to go badly on the eastern front. On 9 November 1942, during a gathering with friends listening to a speech by Hitler, she switched off the radio exclaiming, "My God, what a lot of rubbish". In 1944, she reportedly said of Hitler, "He no longer listens to voices of reason. Those who tell him what he wants to hear are the only ones he believes".There is no evidence that Magda intervened to save her Jewish stepfather from the Holocaust. Though his fate has not been established, it is widely assumed that he perished in the camps, perhaps misnamed as 'Max Friedlander', a man known to have died in Sachsenhausen
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
. A plea from a Jewish school friend on behalf of her daughter seems to have also fallen on deaf ears. Asked about her husband's antisemitism, she answered: "The Führer wants it thus, and Joseph must obey".
At the beginning of the war Magda threw herself enthusiastically into her husband's propaganda machine. Her other official functions involved entertaining the wives of the foreign heads of state, supporting the troops and comforting war widows.
Magda's first son, Harald Quandt
Harald Quandt
Harald Quandt was a German industrialist, stepson of Joseph Goebbels. After World War II, Harald and his half-brother Herbert Quandt ran the industrial empire that was left to them by their father.-Early life:...
, became a Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
pilot and fought at the front, while, at home, Magda strove to live up to the image of a patriotic mother by training as a Red Cross nurse and working with the electronics company Telefunken
Telefunken
Telefunken is a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft...
. She insisted on traveling to work on a bus, like her co-workers.
Towards the end of the war, Magda is known to have suddenly begun to suffer from trigeminal neuralgia
Trigeminal neuralgia
Trigeminal neuralgia , tic douloureux is a neuropathic disorder characterized by episodes of intense pain in the face, originating from the trigeminal nerve. It has been described as among the most painful conditions known...
. This condition affects a nerve in the face, and although usually harmless is considered to cause more intense pain than any other condition and can be notoriously hard to treat. This often left her bedridden and led to bouts of hospitalization as late as August 1944.
Suicide
In late April 1945, the Soviet Red ArmyRed Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
entered Berlin, and the Goebbels family moved into the Vorbunker
Vorbunker
The Vorbunker or "forward bunker" was located behind the large reception hall that was added onto the old Reich Chancellery, in Berlin, Germany. It was meant to be a temporary air-raid shelter for Adolf Hitler, his guards, and servants...
, that was connected to the lower Führerbunker
Führerbunker
The Führerbunker was located beneath Hitler's New Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. It was part of a subterranean bunker complex which was constructed in two major phases, one part in 1936 and the other in 1943...
under the Reich Chancellery
Reich Chancellery
The Reich Chancellery was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany in the period of the German Reich from 1871 to 1945...
gardens. One of the rooms they occupied had been recently vacated by Hitler's personal physician Theodor Morell
Theodor Morell
Theodor Gilbert Morell was German Führer Adolf Hitler's personal physician. Morell was well known in Germany for his unconventional treatments....
. The only bathroom with a bath was Adolf Hitler's own, and he gladly made it available to Magda and her children. Meanwhile, reports of Soviet troops looting and raping
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
as they advanced were circulating in Berlin.
Two days earlier, Magda wrote a farewell letter to her son Harald Quandt
Harald Quandt
Harald Quandt was a German industrialist, stepson of Joseph Goebbels. After World War II, Harald and his half-brother Herbert Quandt ran the industrial empire that was left to them by their father.-Early life:...
, who was in a POW
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
camp in North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
. This letter is her only handwritten bequest.
Joseph Goebbels' last will and testament, dictated to Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge
Traudl Junge
Traudl Junge was Adolf Hitler's youngest personal private secretary, from December 1942 to April 1945.-Early life:...
, stated that Magda and their children supported him in his refusal to leave Berlin and his resolution to die in the bunker. He later qualified this by stating that the children would support the decision [to commit suicide] if they were old enough to speak for themselves.
Hitler and his bride Eva Braun
Eva Braun
Eva Anna Paula Hitler was the longtime companion of Adolf Hitler and, for less than 40 hours, his wife. Braun met Hitler in Munich, when she was 17 years old, while working as an assistant and model for his personal photographer and began seeing him often about two years later...
committed suicide
Death of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot on Monday, 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. His wife Eva , committed suicide with him by ingesting cyanide...
on the afternoon of 30 April. The following day, on 1 May 1945, Magda and Joseph Goebbels drugged their six children with morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
and killed them by breaking cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
capsules in their mouths. Accounts differ over how involved Magda Goebbels was in the killing of her children. Some accounts claimed that the SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger
Ludwig Stumpfegger
SS-Obersturmbannführer Ludwig Stumpfegger was a German SS doctor in World War II and Adolf Hitler's personal surgeon from 1944....
crushed the cyanide capsules into the children's mouths, but as no witnesses to the event survived it is impossible to know. O'Donnell concluded that although Stumpfegger was probably involved in drugging the children, Magda Goebbels killed them herself. O'Donnell suggested that witnesses blamed the deaths on Stumpfegger because he was a convenient target, having disappeared (and died, it was later learned) the following day. Moreover, as O'Donnell recorded, Stumpfegger may have been too intoxicated at the time of the deaths to have played a reliable role.
Meissner claims that Stumpfegger refused to take any part in the deaths of the children, and that a mysterious "country doctor from the enemy-occupied eastern region" appeared and "carried out the fearful task" before disappearing again.
Magda appears to have contemplated and talked about killing her children at least a month in advance. She refused several offers from others, such as Albert Speer
Albert Speer
Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...
, to have the children smuggled out of Berlin. The children's bodies were later discovered by the Soviet troops who stormed the bunker. They were dressed in their nightclothes, with ribbons tied in the girls' hair. There was evidence in the form of bruises that the eldest child, 12-year-old Helga, had awakened and struggled before she was killed.
The last survivor of Hitler's bunker, Rochus Misch
Rochus Misch
Rochus Misch is a former Oberscharführer in the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler during World War II. He served as a courier, bodyguard and telephone operator for German leader Adolf Hitler from 1940 to 1945...
, gave this eyewitness account of the events to the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
:
After their children were dead, Magda and Joseph Goebbels walked upstairs to the bombed-out garden, avoiding the need for anyone to carry their bodies. By some accounts, she was shaking uncontrollably. The details of their suicides are uncertain. One SS officer later said they each took cyanide and were shot by an SS trooper. An early report said they were machine-gunned to death at their own request. According to another account, Joseph Goebbels shot Magda and then himself. This idea is presented in the film Downfall
Downfall (film)
Downfall is a 2004 German/Italian/Austrian epic war film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, depicting the final ten days of Adolf Hitler's life in his Berlin bunker and Nazi Germany in 1945....
. Their bodies were doused in petrol
Gasoline
Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...
, only partially burned and not buried. The charred corpses were found on the afternoon of 2 May 1945 by Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n troops and a photograph of Goebbels' burned face was widely published. Thereafter, the remains of the Goebbels family were repeatedly buried and exhumed, along with the remains of Hitler, Eva Braun, General Hans Krebs
Hans Krebs (general)
Hans Krebs was a German Army general of infantry who served during World War II.-Early life:Krebs was born in Helmstedt. He volunteered for service in the Imperial German Army in 1914, was promoted to lieutenant in 1915, and to first lieutenant in 1925...
and Hitler's dogs. The last burial had been at the SMERSH
SMERSH
SMERSH was the counter-intelligence agency in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially founded on April 14, 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin...
facility in Magdeburg on 21 February 1946. In 1970, KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
director Yuri Andropov
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.-Early life:...
authorised an operation to destroy the remains. On 4 April 1970, a Soviet KGB team with detailed burial charts secretly exhumed five wooden boxes. The remains from the boxes were thoroughly burned and crushed, after which the ashes were thrown into the Biederitz river, a tributary of the nearby Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
.
In popular culture
Magda Goebbels has been portrayed by the following actresses in film and television productions.- Helga Kennedy-Dohrn in the 1955 West German film Der Letzte Akt (Hitler: The Last Ten Days).
- Yulia Dioshi in the 1971 Eastern Bloc co-production Liberation: The Last AssaultLiberation (film series)Liberation is an epic five-part film series considered the most large-scale World War II film ever made in the Soviet Union. Filmed from 1967 to 1971, the first part was released during 1970 for the 25th anniversary of Victory Day...
. - Eléonore Hirt in the 1972 French television production Le Bunker.
- Marion MathieMarion MathieMarion Mathie is an English actress who appeared in the last four series of Rumpole of the Bailey as his fearsome wife; and many other roles in other productions, including Mrs Susan Wyse in the London Weekend Television adaptation of the Mapp and Lucia books by E. F. Benson.-Notes:...
in the 1973 British television production The Death of Adolf Hitler. - Barbara JeffordBarbara JeffordBarbara Jefford, OBE is a British Shakespearean actress best known for her theatrical performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic and the National Theatre, and her role as Molly Bloom in the 1967 film of James Joyce's Ulysses.-Early life:Jefford was born Mary Barbara Jefford in...
in the 1973 British film Hitler: The Last Ten DaysHitler: The Last Ten DaysHitler: The Last Ten Days is a 1973 film depicting the days leading up to Adolf Hitler's suicide. It stars Alec Guinness and Simon Ward. The original music score was composed by Mischa Spoliansky...
. - Piper LauriePiper LauriePiper Laurie is an American actress of stage and screen known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks and the films The Hustler, Carrie, and Children of a Lesser God, all of which brought her Academy Award nominations...
in the 1981 United States television production The BunkerThe Bunker (1981 film)The Bunker is a 1981 CBS television film, Time/Life production based on the book The Bunker. The movie makes significant deviations from James O'Donnell's book--published in 1978. The deviations are mainly due to an effort to clarify the events, and allowing the actors license to interpret some of...
. - Elke SommerElke SommerElke Sommer , born Baroness Elke Schletz, is a German actress, entertainer and artist.-Career:Sommer was born in Berlin to a Lutheran minister and his wife...
in the 1982 United States television production Inside the Third Reich. - Hanna SchygullaHanna SchygullaHanna Schygulla is a German actress and chanson singer. She is generally considered the most prominent German actress of the New German Cinema.-Life and career:Schygulla was born in Königshütte, Upper Silesia,...
in the 1998 Spanish comedy drama La niña de tus ojosLa niña de tus ojosThe Girl of Your Dreams is a 1998 Spanish drama film produced and directed by Fernando Trueba based on facts: during the Spanish Civil War, cinema studios supported the Republic, so Franco's followers had to go to Germany or Italy to make fictional films at Universum Film AG, known as UFA studios...
(The Girl of Your DreamsLa niña de tus ojosThe Girl of Your Dreams is a 1998 Spanish drama film produced and directed by Fernando Trueba based on facts: during the Spanish Civil War, cinema studios supported the Republic, so Franco's followers had to go to Germany or Italy to make fictional films at Universum Film AG, known as UFA studios...
). - Yelena Spiridonova in the 1999 Russian drama Molokh.
- Eva MattesEva MattesEva Mattes is a German-Austrian actress.Mattes appeared in four films directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and A Man Called Eva , as a bearded film director based on the then recently deceased Fassbinder...
in the 2001 German comedy Goebbels und Geduldig. - Jill Richardson in a 2003 episode of the British television series Days That Shook the WorldDays That Shook the WorldDays That Shook the World is a British documentary television series that premiered on the BBC on September 17, 2003. The programme features various milestones throughout history. Currently in its third season, it airs on the BBC, The History Channel, and Viasat History. The show also currently...
. - Corinna Harfouch in the 2004 German film Downfall (Der Untergang)Downfall (film)Downfall is a 2004 German/Italian/Austrian epic war film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, depicting the final ten days of Adolf Hitler's life in his Berlin bunker and Nazi Germany in 1945....
. - Annette Uhlen in the 2004 German television production Propaganda.
- Emma Buckley in the 2005 British television production Uncle Adolf.
Further reading
- E. Ebermayer, Hans Roos: Gefährtin des Teufels - Leben und Tod der Magda Goebbels (Hamburg, 1952)
- Joseph Goebbels: Tagebücher 1945 - Die letzten Aufzeichnungen (Hamburg, 1977) ISBN 3-404-01368-9
- Anja Klabunde: Magda Goebbels - Annäherung an ein Leben (Munich, 1999) ISBN 3-570-00114-8
- Hans-Otto Meissner: Magda Goebbels - Ein Lebensbild (Munich, 1978)
- James O'Donnell: The BunkerThe BunkerThe Bunker is an account, written by American journalist James P. O'Donnell, of the history of the Führerbunker in early 1945, as well as the last days of German dictator Adolf Hitler...
(Da Capo Press, 1978) ISBN 0-306-80958-3 - Erich Schaake: Hitlers Frauen (Munich, 2000)
- Wolfgang Schneider: Frauen unterm Hakenkreuz (Hamburg, 2001)
- Anna Maria Sigmund: Die Frauen der Nazis Volume 1 (Vienna, 1998) ISBN 3-8000-3699-1
- Der SpiegelDer SpiegelDer Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
No. 35/04 Hitlers Ende Spiegels (H. 35, 2004) - Robert Wistrich: Wer war Wer im dritten Reich (Frankfurt am Main, 1987)
- Dieter Wunderlich: Göring und Goebbels (Regensburg, 2002)