‘We live in such a lunatic time that human reason is completely unhinged,’ Goebbels dictates on 2 April. He, however, is the prime example of that, his reason long ago unhinged, completely subordinate to Hitler, atrophied, replaced by faith in the Führer.
‘Sometimes one wonders desperately where all this is going to lead.’ Goebbels, however, reassures himself: everything is in the hands of the Führer. ‘I trust he will master this situation’ (8 April).
In Goebbels’ mind the outcome of the war depends ultimately less on the actual situation than on whether the Führer will manage by an effort of will to overcome everything and, like a deus ex machina, manifest himself an instant before catastrophe strikes.
The Führer believes… that this year, one way or another, there will be a turning point in the course of the war. The enemy coalition will fall apart, no matter what happens. The only question is whether it will fall apart before we are felled…
The situation is getting ever more trying.
The position on the fronts is like never before. We have all but lost Vienna. The enemy has made deep breakthroughs in Königsberg. The Anglo-Americans are stationed close to Brunswick and Bremen. In a nutshell, if you look at the map it is clear that the Reich is today reduced to a narrow strip.
In the concrete bunker under the Reich Chancellery, where Hitler was waiting for events to turn in his favour, Goebbels read to him and retold pages from the biography of Frederick the Great. Hitler had put considerable effort into encouraging his compatriots to see him as having a spiritual affinity with this successful king of Prussia. He had a portrait of Frederick hanging on the wall in his bunker. Now they had a further affinity through the military adversity the king had faced. At the point in the book where Frederick is facing defeat in the Seven Years War and has decided to end his life, the book’s author cries out to him, ‘Wait yet a little, and the days of your torments will be behind you. The sun of your good fortune is already there behind the clouds, and soon will shine upon you.’ The timely arrival of news of the death of his enemy, the Russian Empress Elizabeth, brings the king deliverance from humiliating defeat.
Hitler was greatly moved and decided he would like to consult his horoscopes, which Goebbels had been holding back for several days for just this eventuality. It is curious to go back and open Goebbels’ diary at the place where he is recording with exultant derision that all astrologers, mesmerists and anthroposophists have been arrested and an end put to their charlatan practices. ‘How amazing, not a single fortune-teller foresaw he was going to be arrested. Not much of an advertisement for the profession…’ (13 June 1941). Everything was being rationalized. Only the predictions of one person in the Reich, the Führer, were to be available to the people. In order to avoid inconsistencies, mistaken interpretations, duplication, unfavourable prophecies or, ultimately, competition, all other fortune-tellers were to be hounded mercilessly.
But that was then, on the threshold of a war with Russia which was predicted to be victorious. Now anything hinting at last-minute salvation was more than welcome.
‘I have been presented with voluminous material for astrological or spiritualist propaganda, including the so-called horoscope cast for the German Republic on 9 November 1918, as well as one for the Führer. Both horoscopes correspond remarkably to the truth,’ we now read in Goebbels’ diary on 30 March 1945.
I can understand the Führer forbidding the performance of such phenomena outside our control. Nevertheless, it is interesting that both the Weimar Republic’s horoscope and the Führer’s horoscope predict an easing of our military situation in the second half of April… For me such astrological predictions hold no significance, but I still intend to use them for anonymous and covert propaganda, because at a critical time like this most people will clutch at any straw, however insubstantial, if it promises salvation.
Predictions offering hope were so prized that they were forwarded through Party channels to the wife of Reich Minister Goebbels, which suggests that his ‘anonymous and covert’ propaganda was taking off. Horoscopes were becoming convincing. In Goebbels’ Berlin apartment our agents found the horoscope of his little son, Helmut, and brought it to me.
But then, the two most important horoscopes, which until recently had been kept by Himmler under lock and key in the ‘scientific’ department of the Gestapo, the Führer’s horoscope and the horoscope of the German Republic which Hitler had called for, were brought to the bunker. With the assistance of his Reich Minister of Propaganda, Hitler was able to see for himself that both horoscopes promised military success in the second half of April 1945, after severe defeats early in the month.
A few days after this, late at night on 12 April, the news was received that President Roosevelt had died. How could that not be a portent, a historical analogy? How could it not be a turning point in Germany’s destiny? ‘At this moment in time, when destiny has removed from the Earth the worst war criminal of all time, the war will turn in our favour!’ Such was the exclamation with which Hitler concluded his orders to the troops. In it he spoke of the new offensive by the Red Army.
We foresaw this blow, and since January of this year everything has been done to create a strong front. The enemy is being met with powerful artillery. The losses of our infantry are being replenished with countless new divisions. Amalgamated subdivisions, new formations and the Volkssturm consolidate our front. This time it is the Bolshevik who will experience the ancient destiny of Asia: he must bleed to death, and will, in front of the capital of the Reich.
This order from Hitler, dated 16 April, began to arrive at the headquarters of the troops on the evening of 15 April, and was to be sent immediately all the way down to company level.
Look out first and foremost for those few traitors, officers and soldiers who, to protect their miserable lives, will fight against us in the pay of Russians, perhaps even in German uniform. If you are ordered to retreat by someone you do not know well, he must be immediately arrested and, if necessary, rendered harmless, irrespective of his rank.
Berlin will remain German, Vienna will again be German…
A day later the order was published in the Völkischer Beobachter and other newspapers.
From the bomb shelter Goebbels spoke on the radio:
The Führer has said that this year our fortunes will change and success will again attend us… True genius can always foretell and predict when change is imminent. The Führer knows the exact time this will happen. Destiny has sent this man to us so that we in this time of great outer and internal ordeals may be witness to a miracle…
On 16 April the Red Army began its offensive. The Oder defensive line was considered impregnable by the German high command. It was here, at the Oder, they firmly believed, that the advance of the Red Army would be repulsed.
Until quite recently Hitler had been intending to institute a reorganization of the army. The itch to reorganize gave Goebbels too no rest. In his ministry he was busying himself that April with projects to reform the press and radio departments (‘They need to become more flexible’), changing the staffing arrangements to ensure that the influential press chief, Dietrich, who, at Goebbels relentless insistence, had finally been sent off by Hitler ‘on leave’, would not be able to return to his old position for the simple reason that it would no longer be there; and thinking through harsh measures against Berlin’s arts elite and ‘superintellectuals’.