Magda Goebbels

Magda Goebbels (November 11th 1901 - May 1st 1945) was the woman of Joseph Goebbels, person in charge of the Propagande Nazi. She is especially known as a First lady of the III {{E}} Reich and to have killed six of her children, a few hours after the Suicide of Hitler.

Biography

Childhood and adolescence

Magda Goebbels born in 1901. Its true first name is Maria Magdaléna. She is the girl of Oskar Ritschel, an engineer, and of an employee of named house of this last Behrend. Magda bears this name initially. She saw a few years in Belgium - his/her biological father who does not recognize it pays him his studies in a catholic boarding school of Brussels where she is joined by her mother and the husband of this one a Jewish tradesman named Richard Friedländer - but in August 1914, the First World War bursts and Friedländer are suddenly obliged to set out again for Berlin. She keeps the contact with her father, Ritschel, which introduces it with the Bouddhisme. To Berlin, Magda goes in a Lycée for the girls of the good company and becomes a good friend of LISA Arlosoroff, girl of emigrated S Russian. It also become acquainted there with the big brother of LISA, Victor Arlosoroff, a young person Zionist who becomes its first great love. This last becomes later in Palestine one of the great figures of the Zionism before being assassinated in 1933 in a murder remained unsolved and of which some (without real evidence) advance that Goebbels is the instigator.

Magda also takes part with enthusiasm (according to the notebooks of LISA the sister of Victor) in the debates of group “Tikwath Zion” on the future of Palestine, learns the Hebrew and carries even the star of David. But their ways separate and, after having made a success of its baccalaureat, Magda wants to attend a crested Pensionnat in Goslar which teaches the domestic formation for the young ladies of the good company.

In 1920, in the train which goes from Berlin to Goslar, the 18 year old young girl becomes acquainted with the industrialist Günther Quandt, 38 years old, one of the richest men of Europe, member of famous the Famille Quandt. It if is impressed by the skill and the charm of Magda which it decides to marry. The prospect for living in upper middle class without material concern masks the difference in age and Magda accepts the marriage in 1921. However it must give up in the name of Friedländer, connoted " too much juif" and thus not very suitable with the eyes of the family, Protestant woman, of her husband-to-be. His/her biological father then agrees to recognize his daughter. Moreover, his/her mother divorces shortly after Friedländer which disappears from its life.

Household with Günther Quandt

As Magda Quandt, it deals with the roles of mother and housewife, while dealing with two wire of the first marriage of Quandt. But she lives in a gilded cage and its dream of a happy life beside a millionaire is not carried out. Ten months after the marriage, it puts at the world a son that it calls Harald and, in 1925, the family adopts in more the three children of a partner of business who suddenly became orphan. Magda then devotes its time to the education of the six children, which includes/understands the Piano and the social obligations.

Family peace is suddenly broken when Hellmuth, the oldest son of Quandt, dies following a medical error. Its death destroys the last bond between the grooms and the differences become too marked. Magda does not support any more the situation and is plunged in a love affair with his/her former friend, Victor Arlosoroff. Her husband throws it abruptly outside. However, Magda threatens to publish “scandalous” letters on its connections out-marriage and thus makes sure of an apartment, of a pension of 4000 mark S per month and of the custody charge for their Harald son.

Entry in the Nazi medium and marriage with Joseph Goebbels

The divorced woman is bored in this life without material concern. She adheres to the neighborhoods 1929 with the club Nordische Ring which gathers the members of the Berliner good company favorable to the ideas Nazis.

She takes part in an electoral service of NSDAP to the Sport hall to Berlin the September 10th 1930. Magda is fascinated by the speech of Joseph Goebbels. The following day, it fits in the cell of the NSDAP of its district, then Magda is presented in the general headquarter of the NSDAP in Berlin. Thanks to his excellent formation and his knowledge of languages, one gives him a station with the files of the direction opposite the Gauleiter Goebbels.

Generally, it is undoubtedly not the ideology main road-Socialist which attracts Magda towards the policy but much more probably the ambition, the taste of the capacity and a real fascination for Goebbels and Hitler. All testimonys describe a woman intelligent, beautiful, cultivated but also terribly narcissistic, egoistic and vain.

Goebbels, known for its stories of women, notices the elegant and gracious lady immediately, and immediately gives the responsability it to deal with its private archives. It evokes this meeting at the date of the November 7th 1930 in its newspaper: a superb woman of the name of Quandt organizes my new personal records . They quickly become lovers and Goebbels written the February 15th 1931: This evening, Magda Quandt came. And remained very late. She opens out in an attractive fair sugar refinery. How did you become, you, my queen? It is the beginning of an intense and difficult relation, because both are jealous of their respective freedom.

The elegant apartment of Magda becomes the point of rallying of the company Nazi where Hitler and it meet for the first time. It is allured by the environment of the apartment and particularly by the hostess who incarnates the stereotype of the Germanic woman perfectly. She is one of the rare people of her entourage which radiates with charm, which is accurately devoted for him and which is also able to support with him a true conversation. It seems obvious that Magda exerts a powerful attraction on Hitler and she tests also feelings for the Führer. But as the dictator promised itself with the Germany, it uses its great influence on both to accelerate the marriage between Magda and the propagandist. The marriage takes place the December 19th 1931 with Hitler like witness.

September 1st 1932, Magda puts at the world Helga, their first daughter.

Function and life under IIIe Reich

When Hitler is named chancellor the January 30th 1933, it very quickly creates a new ministry for Goebbels: “the ministry for Reich for the construction of the people and propaganda”. For Goebbels it is unthinkable to give to his wife a political role and in Magda fact does not exert any more a function in the party. But it incarnates the perfect Aryenne and fact part of the circle of the close friends of Fürher. Magda benefits from its new prestige, because Hitler refuses to have a woman in order to devote all her creative forces to his single “wife”, the German nation. The wife of the Goebbels minister becomes to some extent the “First lady of the III {{E}} Reich”.

She represents the mode at the time of the visits of State and the official exits. It falls on to him to be posed in model of the German mother at the time of the Fête of the mothers. Magda feels at ease in the political circles and the couple often disputes because of their divergent opinions as for the role and to the statute of the woman in the company.

It ends up being subjected and achieving the most important task of a woman Nazi, that to be mother. In 1940, it is mother of six children (Helga, Hilde, Helmuth, Holde, Hedda and Heide), whose name starts with H. has those is added his/her oldest son, Harald, which lives with the couple since 1934. She becomes the first woman to receive the “Cross of the mother” of the hands of Hitler.

All its family serves propaganda Nazi and gives the perfect image of the model family of the mode, with Hitler like good uncle. Magda, always perfectly capped, manucurée and made up among his/her six children, lives in the luxury. But the appearance of the happy family that Magda preserves with discipline is misleading. The father spends his nights with actresses and the situation worsens when, in 1938, Goebbels confess to Magda that it is in love with the Czech actress Lida Baarova which is 22 years old.

However, Hitler, begged by Magda to intervene, refuses the scandal of a divorce because of this Czech mistress, because it is necessary to maintain the image of the family models at all costs. Consequently, it prohibits in Goebbels any contact with the young actress and this one is banished of Reich. Magda triumphs and finds the face. Goebbels, reporting this episode in its newspaper, writes the August 18th 1938: I have with Hitler long and serious discussion which touches me with deepest. I come out from it deafened. Führer is for me like a father….In this difficult hour, that is to me of a great help. I make difficult decisions. But final….Then I will yield. Of all my being and without balking. It is a new life which starts now. An hard life and cruel, entirely dedicated to the duty. It is now finished by it my youth.

The Second world war

Surprisingly, Magda is not interested in the destiny of his/her father-in-law Juif. It blindly accepts the dogma of the mode to which it is devoted. In answer to a question in connection with the Anti-semitism of her husband, she answers: “Führer wants it thus and Joseph must obey. ”.

When Hitler starts the war in 1939, the couple is reformed. The propagandist is entirely in his element by announcing victories real or supposed and Magda finds its official function by accommodating the wives of the Head of foreign States, by placing soldiers and by comforting the widows of war.

It has even a son who fights on the face and the “First lady” endeavors to give the indication of the patriotic mother: a training of nurse of the Red Cross and a work with Telefunken, German company of telephone.

In 1943, the family settles in the idyllic area of Bodensee and Magda suffers from severe nervous breakdowns which reflect its psychological state .

The murder of the six children and the suicide

The assessment

Knowing manners of the middle-class, Magda Goebbels wanted to reach the top of the company, and it is this will of social rise which will characterize its life as of its childhood. However, behind this frontage was a émancipée woman who did not correspond to the principal virtues of the housewife and the faithful mother.

She felt higher than the rules followed by the women of the people, because she smoked, drank alcohol, got dressed with luxurious clothing and was the only woman with whom Führer discussed Politique.

She carried out a life which was as totalitarian as the mode to which she had devoted herself. The mode and the ideology Nazi served perfectly her need to believe and of exalter for something.

Such an amount of and so that it was easily let fascinate by extreme ideologies or religions to which it will sacrifice its life. Initially the Catholicism of childhood, the Judaism of his/her father-in-law, the Zionism of its first love, the Buddhism of the father and finally the ideology main road-Socialist for which it goes until the Suicide. The Fanaticism and the Absolutisme make of it a loophole of his/her own children and the continuation of its family names testifies to an extreme life: it is born like Behrend, is adopted like Friedländer, is legitimated by the name Ritschel to be able to become Quandt and to end up being the wife of the Goebbels propagandist.

Sources

Guido Knopp, Hitlers Frauen
Anna Maria Sigmund, Die Frauen DER Nazis
Anja Klabunde, Magda Goebbels , Taillandier Editions, Paris, 2006,
Pierre Ayçoberry, the German Company under IIIe Reich , Threshold, coll “Points History”, 1998,433 p.
the Fall (Der Untergang, German film carried out by Oliver Hirschbiegel (2004))

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