Joseph Goebbels Quotes (1897-1945)

“We and we alone [the Nazis] have the best social welfare measures. Everything is done for the nation. . . .The Jews are the incarnation of capitalism.”

“All effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands.”

“All effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands.”

“The life is worth living. It's not true, what the tired and reactionary say. We're not on this earth to suffer and die. We're here to fulfill a mission.”

“At night I sit in my chamber and read the Bible. Far in the distance roars the sea. Then I lie down and think for a long time about the calm and pale man from Nazareth.”

“The Fuhrer is deeply religious, though completely anti-Christian. He views Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race.””

“We have made a solemn vow to each other: When we have conquered the Reich, we will become man and wife. I am very happy.”

“Lenin was the greatest man, second only to Hitler, and that the difference between communism and the Hitler faith was very slight.”

“I have recently been reading Thomas Carlyle's book on Frederick the Great. This biography is extraordinarily instructive and uplifting. Carlyle is an ardent admirer of Frederick the Great and the picture he draws of his life is that of an heroic epic.”

“Unfortunately Lutze allowed his wife and the family's friendship with Brauchitsch to manoeuvre him into excessive opposition to the SS. Everywhere he criticizes and grumbles. Everywhere he feels that his SA has been put in the shade. He has got into the wrong hands.”

“I pointed out to the Führer at length that in 1934 we unfortunately failed to reform the Wehrmacht when we had an opportunity of doing so. What Roehm wanted was, of course, right in itself but in practice it could not be carried through by a homosexual and an anarchist. Had Roehm been an upright solid personality, in all probability some hundred generals rather than some hundred SA leaders would have been shot on June 30. The whole course of events was profoundly tragic and today we are feeling its effects. In that year the time was ripe to revolutionise the Reichswehr. As things were the Führer was unable to seize the opportunity. It is questionable whether today we can ever make good what we missed doing at that time. I am very doubtful of it. Nevertheless the attempt must be made.”

“The Japanese followed a very resolute tactic in unleashing this conflict. They simply pounced on the enemy that wanted to strangle them and attacked him. I trust that the Japanese still have a few things in reserve; for they generally pursue very cautious, traditionally conservative policies; they will not negligently risk their empire, and they surely have a whole series of military options, about which even we know nothing. They did not inform us in advance of their intention to attack suddenly, and this was also necessary to maintain the secrecy of their plans. All these events are still rather unclear for the time being. But the war is a fact. Tojo was more dependable after all than we had assumed at first. The Führer and the whole headquarters are overjoyed at this development. We are now at least temporarily secure from a serious threat. In the coming weeks and months Roosevelt will no longer be as insolent as he has been in the past. Now this war has become a world war in the true sense of the word.”

“The National Socialist-Labor Party, of which Adolf Hitler is patron and father, persists in believing Lenin and Hitler can be compared or contrasted in a party meeting. Two weeks ago an attempted discussion of this subject left to one death, sixty injuries and $5,000 damages to beer glasses, tables, chairs, windows and chandeliers in Chemnitz. Last night DR. Göebells tried the experiment in Berlin and only police intervention prevented a repetition of the Chemnitz affair. On the speaker's assertion that Lenin was the greatest man, second only to Hitler, and that the difference between communism and the Hitler faith was very slight, a faction war opened with whizzing beer glasses. When this sort of ammunition was exhausted a free fight in which fists and knives played important roles was indulged in. Later a gang marched to the offices of the Socialist paper Vorärts and smashed plate-glass windows. Police made nineteen arrests.”

“Hitler neither developed his ideas in a vacuum nor rose to power alone. A rather motley crew of people formed his inner circle. Its membership changed many times, as people fell in and out of favor. Three individuals who stuck with Hitler throughout his political career and gained international profiles were Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler. All of them would play key roles in the Nazi regime, each amassing enormous power even as they fought among themselves for Hitler's favor.”

“But perhaps we are wrong. Perhaps our memory deceives us. Dr. Goebbels and his Propaganda Machine have their own version of what happened twenty-five years ago. To hear them talk, you would suppose that it was Belgium that invaded Germany! There they were, these peaceful Prussians, gathering in their harvests, when this wicked, Belgium – set on by England and the Jews – fell upon them; and would no doubt have taken Berlin, if Corporal Adolf Hitler had not come to the rescue and turned the tables. Indeed, the tale goes further. After four years of war by land and sea, when Germany was about to win an overwhelming victory, the Jews got at them again, this time from the rear. Armed with President Wilson’s Fourteen Points they stabbed, we are told, the German armies in the back, and induced them to ask for an armistice, and even persuaded them, in an unguarded moment, to sign a paper saying that it was they and not the Belgians who had been the ones to begin the War. Such is history as it is taught in topsy-turvydom. And now it is holiday again, and where are we now? Or, as you sometimes ask in the United States – where do we go from here?”

“There remains the problem of Goebbels' reputation. He wore the title of Big Liar (bestowed by Anglo-Saxon propaganda) and yet he never stopped battling for propaganda to be as accurate as possible. He preferred being cynical and brutal to being caught in a lie. He used to say: "Everybody must know what the situation is." He was always the first to announce disastrous events or difficult situations, without hiding anything. The result was a general belief between 1939 and 1942 that German communiqués not only were more concise, clearer and less cluttered, but were more truthful than Allied communiqués (American and neutral opinion) -- and, furthermore, that the Germans published all the news two or three days before the Allies. All this is so true that pinning the title of Big Liar on Goebbels must be considered quite a propaganda success.”

“It helped, too, that the Nazis were able to recruit the widely respected former Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht, who had resigned his post in 1930 after effectively endorsing Hitler's campaign against the revised reparations schedule known as the Young Plan. Yet even with his imprimatur on them, it took real political skill to sell such unorthodox economic solutions to a relatively sophisticated and highly variegated electorate. The Nazis' success without doubt owed much to Joseph Goebbels, the evil genius of twentieth-century marketing, who sold Hitler to the German public as if he were the miraculous offspring of the Messiah and Marlene Dietrich. The Nazi election campaigns of 1930, 1932. and 1933 were unprecedented assaults on public opinion, involving standardized mass meetings and eye-catching posters, as well as rousing songs (like the Horst-Wessel Lied) and calculated physical intimidation of opponents. Though much of this owed its inspiration to Mussolini - not least the snazzy uniforms for supporters, and the Roman salutes - Goebbels understood the need for finesse as well as bombast. For one thing, he saw more clearly than the star himself the need to adjust Hitler's message according to which of the German electorate's many segments was being addressed.”

“Goebbels spoke with deep respect of the Russian utopia impulse, while Strasser even called for an alliance with Moscow ‘against the militarism of France, against the imperialism of England, against the capitalism of Wall Street.’ Even more socialistic was the group’s economic program: large landholdings were to be abolished, and all peasants were to be organized into agricultural cooperatives; small businesses were to be grouped into guilds; corporations with more than twenty employees were to be partially socialized. Where enterprises continued in private hands, the personnel were to be entitled to a share of 10 per cent of the profits…”

“Goebbels must have had a tremendous hatred for the Jews - but not more than Himmler. I have no doubt, at this date, that Goebbels knew of the murder of 5 million Jews, a fact which he kept hidden from me and others at that time.”

“Did I ever tell you about Goebbels? He incurred Hitler's disapproval after that incident with the movie actress for which he was beaten up. That clubfooted fanatic! He forced women to submit to him sexually because of his powerful position. He influenced Hitler to become anti-Semitic more than Hitler had been before. Hitler used to come to my house once in a while for a cup of coffee, and because I led a normal life, he would leave about nine o'clock. I was in the habit of retiring early. However, Hitler used to spend practically all of his nights, sometimes until four a.m., with Goebbels and his family. God knows what evil influence Goebbels had on him during those long visits.”

“Goebbels was the strongest representative of anti-Semitism. He saw his big chance to become powerful by using the press for anti-Semitic reasons. Personally, I think Goebbels was using anti-Semitism merely as a means of achieving personal power. Whether he had any deep-seated hatred against the Jews is questionable. I think he was too much of a thief and dishonest opportunist to have any deep-seated feelings for or against anything. But for years Goebbels had been trying in vain to become a big power. At last he saw his chance. He had whipped up anti-Semitic feelings to such a point by his vicious propaganda that he now thought he could do anything. He probably didn't think about the consequences himself. He was a fanatic of an abnormal caliber. Streicher was a tame man compared to Goebbels, because Streicher is half crazy and stupid, whereas Goebbels was just unscrupulous, clever and dangerous. You couldn't discuss anything with Goebbels. And for the same reason, you couldn't discuss anything with Himmler. Goebbels was so dishonest that it didn't pay to discuss anything with him.”

“One of the cleverest men in Hitler's close circle was Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Gauleiter of Berlin and also Minister for People's Enlightenment and Propaganda. He was a skilled orator and in the struggle against the Communists for Berlin's vote he had demonstrated great personal courage. But he was also a dangerous demagogue, quite unscrupulous in his agitations against parents and school teachers; and he was largely responsible for the notorious pogrom, the so-called 'Crystal night', of November 1938. He was certainly in a position to recognize the errors and weaknesses of the National-Socialist system, but he lacked the courage necessary to lay his knowledge before Hitler. In Hitler's presence he- like Goering and Himmler- was a little man. He both feared and idolised him. Hitler's powers of suggestions were seldom so apparent as in his relationship with Goebbels. The highly skilled demagogue fell silent in Hitler's presence. He did his best to unravel his master's wishes, and in his propaganda- at which he might almost be called a genius- he seldom, if ever, displeased the dictator.”

“On Sunday, 21st November [1937], Goebbels and his wife came to tea at the Embassy. I had expected to dislike him intensely, but am ashamed to say that I did not. We had a good deal of talk about the Press, concerning which he contrasted the admirably restrained behaviour of the German Press at the time of King Edward's abdication with the shameless fashion in which our Press was for ever attacking the Führer. To this I said that there was a great difference between a constitutional monarch and a very controversial Führer. He admitted this was a very fair answer, but "do not forget that your Crown has a thousand years behind it and is very strong—we are only three or four years old and are very sensitive." This confirmed what I had always been inclined to think about part of the Nazi attitude arising from an inferiority complex.”

“On 16 June 1941, as Hitler readied his forces for Operation Barbarossa, Josef Goebbels looked forward to the new order that the Nazis would impose on a conquered Russia. There would be no come-back, he wrote, for capitalists nor priests nor Tsars.”