Magda Goebbels: First Lady of the Third Reich
Sweet Magda Johanna Maria Magdalena Goebbels, was born Ritschel, on 11 November, 1901 in Berlin. Her mother, Auguste Ritschel, was briefly wed to one Oskar Behrend, an obscure businessman, before divorcing him to marry rich Jewish financier, Richard Friedlander. Magda enthusiastically adopted her step-fathers name and was to use this name right up to her first meeting with Josef Goebbels, despite its obvious Jewish connections. Her early life was a conventional one for someone of her class. She attended convent school and was considered bright despite only performing modestly academically. But then she wasn't expected to pursue a career but merely to marry early and well. This she did on 14 January, 1921, when she wed wealthy industrialist, Gunther Quandt. The marriage wasn't a happy one but even so they had a son, Harald. He was to be the only one of her children to survive the war. Despite their disagreements and obvious incompatibility, Magda and Gunther remained on good terms following their divorce in 1929. Now single again, Magda was considered to be a good catch. She was rich and well-connected but with no need to work and with no responsibility she was bored. Despite having never previously shown any interest in politics she was persuaded by a friend to attend a Nazi Party Rally. Out of a growing sense of ennui, she agreed. To her surprise she found herself mesmerised by the main speaker. The short, club-footed, somewhat camp, Gauleiter of Berlin, Josef Goebbels. She joined the Nazi Party soon after in September, 1930. It wasn't long after being introduced to Goebbels that she started going out with him. The fact that she was at the time dating the Jewish political activist Haim Arlosoroff, seemed to bother neither party. Magda was no paragon of Aryan virtue. Arlosoroff, in a fit of jealous rage, later tried to shoot Magda. He missed. Josef Goebbels, however, was not to be the great love of her life. She had fallen hopelessly in love with Adolf Hitler. But the Fuhrer was unavailable. Unable to marry Hitler, Goebbels was the next best thing. He provided her with access to Hitler, she provided him with money and social standing. It was not a marriage made in heaven and both parties had affairs. Indeed Josef Goebbels was a notorious womaniser. However, his affair with the Czech actress Lida Barova was an affair too far. Magda confronted Hitler and demanded from him that Goebbels grant her a divorce. If he did not she would go public and create a scandal. Hitler himself had been best man at their wedding and their apparently happy and fruitful marriage was portrayed as the model for family life in Nazi Germany. Magda was already considered to be the First Lady of the Third Reich. A divorce was out of the question. After much bickering, Hitler forced a reconciliation. The affair almost wrecked Goebbels career, as it was, his stock had fallen and as a result he was to spend the rest of his life trying to win back Hitler's favour. During the war, Magda lived up to her reputation as the first lady. She trained as a Red Cross nurse, travelled to work on public transport, and like her husband remained highly visible throughout the war. Magda, was no fool, however. She had been heard to remark as early as 1942, that the war was lost. But she confined her criticisms to private conversations and
remained in public steadfastly loyal. She was a good Nazi. Once, when asked, given her background, about her husband's rabid anti-Semitism, she replied "The Fuhrer wants it so. Josef must obey". By late April, 1945, Magda, Josef, and their 6 children were living in the Fuhrerbunker beneath the bombed out Reich Chancellery. Hitler adored Magda's children and would often balance young Heidrun on his knee and tell him stories. Magda liked to look on. Even at a time of great stress and with the Russians but a few hundred yards away, to be so close to the Fuhrer was for Magda a joy. On hearing of Hitler's intention to take his own life she was distraught. She rushed to his room and banged relentlessly on the door until he opened it. She tearfully, some say hysterically, begged him not to do it. He listened but said nothing before slowly closing the door. She had to dragged away. Was it now that she decided to die also, and take her children with her? She was known to have discussed killing her children earlier. Indeed, Albert Speer, the Armaments Minister, and Hitler's pet architect, fearing for the life of the children, had earlier asked that he be allowed to take the children out of Berlin. Magda had told him, "My life belongs to Josef. The children belong to me". Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide on 30 April, 1945. Magda and Josef Goebbels now resolved to do the same. In his Last Will and Testament, Goebbels wrote that his wife had determined to die alongside him in the Bunker and that the children would do the same if they were old enough to decide for themselves. Magda could not bear the thought that the children would grow into adulthood in a world without Hitler. Writing to her son Harald, now a prisoner of war in North Africa, she said "Our glorious idea is ruined and with it everything marvellous I have known in my life. The world that comes after the Fuhrer and National Socialism is no longer worth living in and I therefore took the children with me, for they are too good for the life that would follow, and merciful God will understand me when I give them their salvation". No one knows for certain who administered the poison, small cyanide tablets broken in the mouth. It has been claimed that it was the SS Doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger, but he was reportedly drunk at the time. So it may well have been Magda herself. She had earlier drugged the children with morphine. The bruises found on the body of 12 year old Helga seems to refute the idea that they all died willingly. Later that same day Magda and Josef Goebbels walked out into the Bunkers bombed out garden. Magda was shaking uncontrollably. They then committed suicide, how exactly is uncertain. Their bodies were then dumped in a shallow grave and partially burned.