• November 27, 2021

Who was Joseph Goebbels?

Joseph Goebbels was a German Nazi politician who was the principle propagandist for the German Nazi Party, and after that Adolf Hitler’s Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in 1933 to 1945. Goebbels ended up being one of Adolf Hitler's closest and most loyal ministers. Joseph Goebbels was generally renowned for his profound hatred of Jews that he regularly and loudly expressed in public places. Joseph goebbels was a sturdy advocate for discrimination, such as the elimination of the Jews with the Holocaust.

He was born into a rather stringent Catholic and working class household in Rheydt, Germany, in 1897. As a child Joseph Goebbels evidently got polio which contributed to him to get rejected for army service during WWI. Instead of the war, he gained a PhD in history and literature and then he worked as a reporter, registering to the Nazi party in 1924. Joseph Goebbels elevated rapidly in the ranks and he was a key player in gathering Nazi support within Berlin simply by creating a regular newspaper, advertising posters along with staging parades. When the Nazi Party got to government in 1933, the Propaganda Ministry was able to fairly quickly achieve control of the news media, the arts, and information flow in Germany. The themes which Goebbels promoted for Nazi propaganda involved antisemitism, criticisms on the Christian congregations, as well as trying to shape spirits after World War 2 began. Joseph Goebbels created a breeding ground of anxiety and hatred, touting and engaging in violence. Throughout the war, Joseph Goebbels tried to help keep morale high, primarily when the war begun to go against the country. Goebbels manufactured a steady flow of escapist movies without having political messaging in order to amuse the masses and offer a brief means for them to escape from the large needs placed upon them for giving up with the war effort and hard work. He had regular conversations with Adolf Hitler in regards to the circumstances of the Jewish people, discussing that almost when they met. Joseph Goebbels was indeed absolutely informed that the Jews were being killed and was one of the few top Nazi authorities to openly disclose this.

Goebbels got a physical defect with his foot that did cause a lot of stress in the family when he was younger. Joseph Goebbels did his very best to disguise the problem. At different times he attributed the problem to the polio he may have had or to an injury. There is some information that it was clubfoot which may clarify the reason why he tried so desperately to cover up or clarify it as Hitler forced through The Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring, that a clubfoot is a inherited condition and this may possibly put him at odds with this. His adversaries did love to bring a parallel relating to the foot disability and the cloven hoof as well as limp that the Devil has been supposed to have.

As the war began to appear lost with Nazi Germany dealing with defeat, his wife and kids joined him in Berlin where the family joined Hitler within his undercover bunker complex. After Adolf Hitler committed suicide, in accordance with Hitler’s will, he succeeded him as Chancellor of Germany. Goebbels only had the position for one day as Goebbels and his wife took their own lives on May 1, 1945, after poisoning their 6 kids with cyanide.

Alisa Saucedo

E-mail : webmaster@thevarsityla.com