As a general proposition, loyalty is a morally commendable trait. Unless, of course, it is loyalty to an evil person and cause. Few examples highlight that exception to the rule than the loyalty exhibited by Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda to Adolf Hitler and the tenets of his regime. The Nazi propaganda minister and his spouse were active enablers of and avid participants in the horrors of the Third Reich. When it all came crashing down in ignominious defeat, with the Red Army storming into Berlin, they chose to follow their beloved Fuhrer into death by committing suicide. Worse, they opted to take their offspring with them, and before killing themselves, they murdered their six children, ranging in age from four to twelve.
The Proud Parents
Despite his diminutive size and pronounced limp from a clubfoot – which he attributed to a WWI injury despite his never having seen action in that conflict – Joseph Goebbels was somewhat of a babe magnet. What he lacked in physical ᴀssets, he more than made up for with a quick wit, sense of humor, and an effortless ability to charm. Unlike most Nazi bigwigs, who were often hamfisted, hate-mongering buffoons, of average intellect and reliant more on brawn than brains, Goebbels was actually an intellectual, who understood nuance and finesse.
Goebbels’ natural talents would probably have taken him far as a Madison Avenue ad executive. Unfortunately, he came of age in the wrong country and era. Goebbels attained young manhood in a bitter Germany, dealing with the physical, economic, and psychological aftermath of defeat in WWI, and with wide swaths of its population casting about for culprits to blame for the disaster. He fell under the spell of an Austrian rabble-rouser who pinned the defeat squarely upon Jews, democrats, liberals, and other leftists. Joining the Nazi party, Goebbels swiftly rose in its ranks, and attracted the attention of Adolf Hitler, whose devoted acolyte he soon became.
In 1930, Goebbels was the chief Nazi in Berlin, tasked with growing the party in the German capital and throughout Prussia, when Magda Quandt joined his staff. In 1921, she had married a businessman, Gunther Quandt, with whom she had a son, Harald, before the couple divorced in 1929. The following year, Magda joined the Nazi party as a volunteer, and after a stint at her local branch, she was moved to party headquarters in Berlin. There, she was tasked with overseeing Joseph Goebbels private papers. It did not take long before the smooth talking Goebbels made his move, and by early 1931, he and Magda had started a relationship. They were married on December 19th of that year, with Hitler acting as best man.
Magda’s son from her previous marriage, Harald Quandt, was quickly won over by his new stepfather, and formed a strong attachment to Joseph Goebbels. When the Nazis took power in 1933, Goebbels used his influence as a Reich minister to lean on Harald’s father, to modify the terms of his 1929 divorce settlement with Magda. Gunther Quandt agreed to free his ex wife from her obligation to surrender custody of Harald if she ever remarried, and the kid ended up moving in permanently with his mother and stepfather.
As to Magda and Joseph, it was not long before the duo got started on producing a biological brood of their own. Their eldest, Helga, was born in September of 1932. Next came Hildegard, in April of 1934. She in turn was followed by Helmut, Magda and Joseph Goebbels’ only son, in October of 1935. He was followed by Holdine, in February of 1937. Next came Hedwig, in May of 1938, and finally, Heidrun arrived in October of 1940.
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Hitler’s Favorite Children
The quick succession of children pumped out by Magda did not signify steady bliss and tranquility in the Goebbels home. Indeed, the couple came close to divorcing because of Joseph Goebbels’ notorious womanizing, which reached a peak in the summer of 1938, when he fell head over heels for a Czech actress named Lida Baarova. The propaganda minister sought to abandon his family to be with Baarova, until Hitler, leery of the negative PR from a scandal involving one of his top henchmen, demanded that Goebbels end the relationship.
Goebbels kept backsliding, however, so Magda sought a divorce, and once again, Hitler personally intervened. The Fuhrer brokered a reconciliation by banishing Baarova. He demanded that the couple maintain at least the appearance of marital bliss in public, and agreed to let Magda get her divorce if, after a year’s separation in which he hoped the duo would cool off, she still wanted out of the marriage. Goebbels laid on the charm once more, and became the model of a solicitous and repentant husband. The couple eventually got back together, and their last child, Heidrun, was called their “reconciliation child”, because she was conceived after her parents had smoothed things over.
Hitler’s efforts to save the Goebbels’ marriage did not stem solely from his fears of public scandal tarnishing his regime. The Nazi leader saw the Goebbels’ as personal friends, and he was quite fond of their children. While Hitler was one of history’s most horrible figures, he did have some soft spots, and one of those was for children. Or, to be more accurate, he had a soft spot for the type of blond and blue eyed children featured on Nazi posters as ideal Aryan offspring. Children who did not meet those criterion, Hitler had no trouble condemning to their deaths by the million.
The Goebbels’ children met Hitler’s criterion of the Germanic ideal, and their eldest, Helga, was always said to be Hitler’s favorite girl. During the twelve years of his rule, Hitler often visited the Goebbels home, where he played with and showed marked affection towards their children, or had them visit him in his office and residence. Helga Goebbels, in particular, was regularly seen and pH๏τographed with the Fuhrer, and he often sat her on his lap, while conducting meetings late into the night.
During the war, the Goebbels children were featured in dozens of newsreels as examples of ideal Germanic children, and film and pH๏τos of them with the Fuhrer were frequently displayed in the media. However, as the doom of Germany drew nearer, so did that of the Goebbels’ and their offspring. In April of 1945, with the Red Army mᴀssing outside Berlin, Joseph Goebbels moved his wife and children into Hitler’s bunker compound beneath the Reich Chancellery. The Fuhrer was determined to go out in an operatic manner worthy of Richard Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods. Goebbels was equally determined to follow his master into the great beyond – and to take his family with him.
