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Josef Goebbels, who nearly single-handedly transformed propaganda into an art form, served briefly as the leader of World War II Germany. Born in the German Rhineland to strict Catholic parents, Goebbels was short at 5'5", thin, with a sharp, prominent nose and a pale, oily complexion. He was rejected by the German army in World War I due to a club foot caused by osteomyelitis, which required him to wear a brace. After Germany's defeat, Goebbels joined the National Socialist Workers Party, better known as the Nazi Party, which opposed the democratic Weimar Republic. His exceptional oratory skills and ability to manipulate arguments made him an ideal Nazi leader. He met Hitler in 1925, initially opposing him for his capitalist tendencies despite their shared hatred of Jews. However, Goebbels changed his stance as Hitler rose to power, rewarding him with the role of Nazi district leader in Berlin, where he ran continuous political campaigns that nearly drained the party's funds. Around this time, he married Magda Quandt, a divorcée.
Although Nazi membership increased, they failed to gain significant political power, especially in Berlin, due to the recovering German economy and public distrust of the Nazi paramilitary group, the Sturm Abteilung (SA). The 1929 US stock market crash triggered a global depression that severely impacted Germany, creating fertile ground for Hitler's rise. Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 and Führer in 1934. Goebbels was appointed Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, controlling all media output including books, films, radio, and newspapers. Recognizing the influence of film, he sought a director to lead Germany's top studio, UFA. He offered the position to Fritz Lang, who declined due to his Jewish heritage; Goebbels famously retorted, "We will decide who is Jewish!" Lang fled Germany, and Goebbels chose Leni Riefenstahl as the official Nazi filmmaker. She directed documentaries of the 1932 and 1933 Nuremberg rallies. The first, which featured SA leader Ernst Röhm, was disowned by Riefenstahl and never publicly shown, as Röhm and many SA leaders were soon purged by the Nazi leadership. The second, Triumph of the Will (1935), heavily supported by Goebbels, became one of the most renowned propaganda films, though it was not initially popular in Germany. Riefenstahl was also commissioned to film the 1936 Berlin Olympics, anticipated to showcase German athletic dominance. While Germany won the most medals, African-American sprinter Jesse Owens defied Nazi racial ideology by winning four gold medals and was celebrated by German spectators.
During World War II, Goebbels produced an extensive body of propaganda, much of which survives today. He exploited various media, including using posters from French and German films starring Jewish actors as examples of the "typical Jew." Even as Germany faced defeat and the Allies demanded unconditional surrender, Goebbels used this as a rallying call for Germans to fight to the death rather than submit.
As Allied forces closed in on Germany, Hitler, increasingly paranoid and unstable, executed or imprisoned many aides but appointed Goebbels as "Defender of Berlin." Following Hitler's suicide on April 30, 1945, Goebbels became the highest-ranking official in the shrinking Nazi government, which controlled only part of Berlin. Surrounded by Soviet, American, and British forces, Goebbels knew capture meant certain death. On May 1, 1945, he agreed to his wife Magda's plan to euthanize their six children by administering morphine followed by cyanide. Later that day, after requesting privacy from SS guards, he shot Magda in the head as planned, then committed suicide himself. Soviet troops, whom Goebbels had boasted would never reach Berlin, found the couple's partially burned and unburied bodies outside the Führerbunker. Goebbels was survived only by a stepson from Magda's previous marriage.
