115 Facts About Joseph Goebbels

Joseph Goebbels was one of Adolf Hitler's closest and most devoted followers, known for his skills in public speaking and his virulent antisemitism which was evident in his publicly voiced views.

Joseph Goebbels advocated progressively harsher discrimination, including the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust.

Joseph Goebbels joined the Nazi Party in 1924, and worked with Gregor Strasser in its northern branch.

Joseph Goebbels was appointed Gauleiter of Berlin in 1926, where he began to take an interest in the use of propaganda to promote the party and its programme.

Joseph Goebbels was particularly adept at using the relatively new media of radio and film for propaganda purposes.

In 1943, Joseph Goebbels began to pressure Hitler to introduce measures that would produce "total war", including closing businesses not essential to the war effort, conscripting women into the labour force, and enlisting men in previously exempt occupations into the Wehrmacht.

Hitler finally appointed him as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War on 23 July 1944, whereby Joseph Goebbels undertook largely unsuccessful measures to increase the number of people available for armaments manufacture and the Wehrmacht.

Paul Joseph Goebbels was born on 29 October 1897 in Rheydt, an industrial town south of Monchengladbach near Dusseldorf, Germany.

Joseph Goebbels's father, Fritz, was a German factory clerk; his mother, Katharina Maria, was born to Dutch and German parents in a Dutch village close to the border with Germany.

In 1932 Joseph Goebbels commissioned the publication of a pamphlet of his family tree to refute the rumours that his maternal grandmother was of Jewish ancestry.

Joseph Goebbels had a deformed right foot, which turned inwards and was due to a congenital disorder.

Joseph Goebbels wore a metal brace and a special shoe because of his shortened leg and walked with a limp.

Joseph Goebbels was rejected for military service in World War I because of this deformity.

Joseph Goebbels was educated at a Gymnasium, where he completed his Abitur in 1917.

Joseph Goebbels was the top student of his class and was given the traditional honour of speaking at the awards ceremony.

Joseph Goebbels studied literature and history at the universities of Bonn, Wurzburg, Freiburg and Munich, aided by a scholarship from the Albertus Magnus Society.

Joseph Goebbels went on to Wurzburg to continue studying, as did Goebbels.

At the University of Heidelberg Joseph Goebbels wrote his doctoral thesis on Wilhelm von Schutz, a minor 19th-century romantic dramatist.

Joseph Goebbels had hoped to write his thesis under the supervision of Friedrich Gundolf, a literary historian.

Waldberg, who was Jewish, recommended Joseph Goebbels write his thesis on Wilhelm von Schutz.

Joseph Goebbels found work as a journalist and was published in the local newspaper.

Joseph Goebbels's writing during that time reflected his growing antisemitism and dislike for modern culture.

Joseph Goebbels continued for several years to try to become a published author.

Joseph Goebbels was dismissed from the bank in August 1923 and returned to Rheydt.

Diary entries from mid-December 1923 onwards show Joseph Goebbels was moving towards the Volkisch nationalist movement.

Joseph Goebbels first took an interest in Adolf Hitler and Nazism in 1924.

Joseph Goebbels was drawn to the Nazi Party mostly because of Hitler's charisma and commitment to his beliefs.

Joseph Goebbels joined the Nazi Party around this time, becoming member number 8762.

In late 1924, Joseph Goebbels offered his services to Karl Kaufmann, who was Gauleiter for the Rhine-Ruhr District.

Joseph Goebbels was put to work as party speaker and representative for Rhineland-Westphalia.

Strasser founded the National Socialist Working Association on 10 September 1925, a short-lived group of about a dozen northern and western German Gauleiter; Joseph Goebbels became its business manager and the editor of its biweekly journal, NS-Briefe.

Joseph Goebbels was horrified by Hitler's characterisation of socialism as "a Jewish creation" and his assertion that a Nazi government would not expropriate private property.

In 1926, Joseph Goebbels published a pamphlet titled Nazi-Sozi which attempted to explain how National Socialism differed from Marxism.

Joseph Goebbels was impressed when Hitler sent his own car to meet them at the railway station.

That evening, Hitler and Joseph Goebbels both gave speeches at a beer hall rally.

Joseph Goebbels has thought through everything," "Such a sparkling mind can be my leader.

At Hitler's invitation, Joseph Goebbels spoke at party meetings in Munich and at the annual Party Congress, held in Weimar in 1926.

Joseph Goebbels was first offered the position of party Gauleiter for the Berlin section in August 1926.

Joseph Goebbels was given control over the local Sturmabteilung and Schutzstaffel and answered only to Hitler.

The party membership numbered about 1,000 when Joseph Goebbels arrived, and he reduced it to a core of 600 of the most active and promising members.

Joseph Goebbels adapted recent developments in commercial advertising to the political sphere, including the use of catchy slogans and subliminal cues.

Joseph Goebbels's entrance was timed for maximum emotional impact.

Joseph Goebbels gave him the derogatory nickname "Isidore" and subjected him to a relentless campaign of Jew-baiting in the hope of provoking a crackdown he could then exploit.

Joseph Goebbels continued to try to break into the literary world, with a revised version of his book Michael finally being published, and the unsuccessful production of two of his plays.

Joseph Goebbels was quick to fall in love, but easily tired of a relationship and moved on to someone new.

Joseph Goebbels was one of the first 12 Nazi Party members to gain election to the Reichstag.

The Reichstag changed the immunity regulations in February 1931, and Joseph Goebbels was forced to pay fines for libellous material he had placed in Der Angriff over the course of the previous year.

Joseph Goebbels considered himself well suited to the position, and began to formulate ideas about how propaganda could be used in schools and the media.

Joseph Goebbels complained vehemently about the rival Strasser newspapers to Hitler and admitted that their success was causing his own Berlin newspapers to be "pushed to the wall".

In late April 1930, Hitler publicly and firmly announced his opposition to Gregor Strasser and appointed Joseph Goebbels to replace him as Reich leader of Nazi Party propaganda.

Joseph Goebbels was given control of other Nazi papers across the country, including the party's national newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter.

Joseph Goebbels took charge of the Nazi Party's national campaign for Reichstag elections called for 14 September 1930.

Joseph Goebbels proposed a new German society based on race and national unity.

In late 1930 Joseph Goebbels met Magda Quandt, a divorcee who had joined the party a few months earlier.

Joseph Goebbels worked as a volunteer in the party offices in Berlin, helping Goebbels organise his private papers.

For two further elections held in 1932, Joseph Goebbels organised massive campaigns that included rallies, parades, speeches, and Hitler travelling around the country by aeroplane with the slogan "the Fuhrer over Germany".

Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary that the Nazis must gain power and exterminate Marxism.

Joseph Goebbels undertook numerous speaking tours during these election campaigns and had some of their speeches published on gramophone records and as pamphlets.

Joseph Goebbels was involved in the production of a small collection of silent films that could be shown at party meetings, though they did not yet have enough equipment to widely use this medium.

Joseph Goebbels was disappointed not to be given a post in Hitler's new cabinet.

Bernhard Rust was appointed as Minister of Culture, the post that Joseph Goebbels was expecting to receive.

Joseph Goebbels hoped to increase popular support of the party from the 37 per cent achieved at the last free election held in Germany on 25 March 1933 to 100 per cent support.

Later that month, Joseph Goebbels travelled back to Rheydt, where he was given a triumphal reception.

On 3 October 1933, on the formation of the Academy for German Law, Joseph Goebbels was made a member and given a seat on its executive committee.

In 1934, Joseph Goebbels published Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, his account of Hitler's seizure of power, which he based on his diary from 1 January 1932 to 1 May 1933.

Joseph Goebbels was present at the arrest of SA leader Ernst Rohm in Munich.

Joseph Goebbels would suddenly change direction and shift his support between senior associates; he was a difficult boss and liked to berate his staff in public.

Joseph Goebbels promoted the development of films with a Nazi slant, and ones that contained subliminal or overt propaganda messages.

Joseph Goebbels was particularly interested in controlling the radio, which was then still a fairly new mass medium.

Sometimes under protest from individual states, Joseph Goebbels gained control of radio stations nationwide, and placed them under the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft in July 1934.

Manufacturers were urged by Joseph Goebbels to produce inexpensive home receivers, called Volksempfanger, and by 1938 nearly ten million sets had been sold.

Joseph Goebbels was involved in planning the staging of the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin.

Meanwhile, Joseph Goebbels was disappointed by the lack of quality in the National Socialist artwork, films, and literature.

Joseph Goebbels widely publicised the trials in his propaganda campaigns, showing the cases in the worst possible light.

Hitler often vacillated on whether or not the Kirchenkampf should be a priority, but his frequent inflammatory comments on the issue were enough to convince Joseph Goebbels to intensify his work on the issue; in February 1937 he stated he wanted to eliminate the Protestant church.

Joseph Goebbels began to see the Jews as a destructive force with a negative impact on German society.

Joseph Goebbels described Himmler's ideology as "in many regards, mad" and thought Alfred Rosenberg's racial theories were ridiculous.

Joseph Goebbels continued his intensive antisemitic propaganda campaign that culminated in Hitler's 30 January 1939 Reichstag speech, which Joseph Goebbels helped to write:.

In preparation for the deportations, Joseph Goebbels ordered that all German Jews wear an identifying yellow badge as of 5 September 1941.

On 6 March 1942, Joseph Goebbels received a copy of the minutes of the Wannsee Conference, which indicated indirectly that the Jewish population of Europe was to be sent to extermination camps in occupied areas of Poland and killed.

Joseph Goebbels had frequent discussions with Hitler about the fate of the Jews, a subject they discussed almost every time they met.

Joseph Goebbels was aware throughout that the Jews were being exterminated, and completely supported this decision.

Joseph Goebbels was one of the few top Nazi officials to do so publicly.

Joseph Goebbels was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Hitler aggressively pursuing Germany's expansionist policies sooner rather than later.

Joseph Goebbels privately held doubts about the wisdom of risking a protracted war against Britain and France by attacking Poland.

Joseph Goebbels did not participate in the military decision-making process, nor was he made privy to diplomatic negotiations until after the fact.

Hitler made fewer public appearances and broadcasts as the war progressed, so Joseph Goebbels increasingly became the voice of the Nazi regime for the German people.

Joseph Goebbels found films to be his most effective propaganda medium, after radio.

Joseph Goebbels became preoccupied with morale and the efforts of the people on the home front.

Joseph Goebbels believed that the more the people at home were involved in the war effort, the better their morale would be.

Hitler suggested watering the beer and degrading the quality of the cigarettes so that more could be produced, but Joseph Goebbels refused, saying the cigarettes were already of such low quality that it was impossible to make them any worse.

Partly in response to being excluded from the Committee of Three, Joseph Goebbels pressured Hitler to introduce measures that would produce "total war", including closing businesses not essential to the war effort, conscripting women into the labour force, and enlisting men in previously exempt occupations into the Wehrmacht.

Joseph Goebbels's next speech, the Sportpalast speech of 18 February 1943, was a passionate demand for his audience to commit to total war, which he presented as the only way to stop the Bolshevik onslaught and save the German people from destruction.

Joseph Goebbels' efforts had little impact for the time being, because Hitler, who in principle was in favour of total war, was not prepared to implement changes over the objections of his ministers.

In December 1943, Hitler asked Joseph Goebbels to take on the job of Stadtprasident of Berlin, and Joseph Goebbels agreed to this as a means of obtaining more direct control over the municipal authorities, though Hitler delayed the formal appointment for several months.

Joseph Goebbels took over direct administrative control of the city when he was formally named Stadtprasident on 7 April 1944, thus uniting under his control the city's most powerful party and governmental offices.

Joseph Goebbels recorded in his diary that 100,000 recruits were sworn in from his Gau alone.

Joseph Goebbels suffered a series of setbacks as propaganda became less important compared to warfare, the war economy, and the Allied bombing of German cities.

Joseph Goebbels was still influential when he had the opportunity to meet with Hitler, who became less available as he moved his headquarters closer to the military front lines.

Joseph Goebbels was an astute observer of the war, and historians have exhaustively mined his diary for insights on how the Nazi leadership tried to maintain public morale.

Joseph Goebbels tentatively discussed with Hitler the issue of making peace overtures to the Western Allies, but Hitler again refused.

Privately, Joseph Goebbels was conflicted at pushing the case with Hitler since he did not want to lose Hitler's confidence.

When other Nazi leaders urged Hitler to leave Berlin and establish a new centre of resistance in the National Redoubt in Bavaria, Joseph Goebbels opposed this, arguing for a heroic last stand in Berlin.

Joseph Goebbels's family moved into their house in Berlin to await the end.

Joseph Goebbels knew how the outside world would view the criminal acts committed by the regime and had no desire to subject himself to the "debacle" of a trial.

Whether Hitler really saw this event as a turning point as Joseph Goebbels proclaimed is not known.

Joseph Goebbels moved with his family into the Vorbunker, connected to the lower Fuhrerbunker under the Reich Chancellery garden in central Berlin, that same day.

Joseph Goebbels told Vice-Admiral Hans-Erich Voss that he would not entertain the idea of either surrender or escape.

Joseph Goebbels felt compelled to remain with Hitler "for reasons of humanity and personal loyalty".

Joseph Goebbels was depressed, and said he would walk around the Chancellery garden until he was killed by the Russian shelling.

Joseph Goebbels' letter informed Chuikov of Hitler's death and requested a ceasefire.

Joseph Goebbels enjoyed staying at the Goebbels' Berlin apartment, where he could relax.

Joseph Goebbels became an unofficial representative of the regime, receiving letters from all over Germany from women with questions about domestic matters or child custody issues.

In 1936, Joseph Goebbels met the Czech actress Lida Baarova and by the winter of 1937 began an intense affair with her.

Joseph Goebbels had short-term affairs and relationships with numerous other women.