Young Goebbels Begins To Hate

In the winter of 1920 Goebbels was neither Gauleiter of Berlin nor Reich propaganda minister, but a poor student at Heidelberg, inclined on the basis of experience to view all human beings as canaille, beasts. Goebbels tried to master his despair by “drowning his sorrows in drink” as he later confessed, or by burying himself in his books. In this state of mind, he came upon Spengler’s Decline of the West, which dispelled any vision of “a just world” to which he might have clung. In the face of the eternal law of the rise and fall of civilizations, only the strong could prevail. He recorded his impressions as follows; “Pessimism. Despair. I no longer believe in anything.”

His father’s well-meant encouragement did not save Joseph Goebbels from fits of deep depression. The contrast between his vision of a “just, good world” where he would find a suitable position and the dreary reality of his actual existence seemed almost too painful to bear. As so often before, writing provided relief. Probably under the influence of his friend Richard Flisges, who was still in Freiburg and wrote to him regularly Goebbels used the Christmas holidays to compose a “fragment of a drama” in a school notebook; “Battle of the Working Class” or, as he later called it “Memories,” “Work.” The play takes place in a factory milieu and denounces social inequities, at times escalating into an outpouring of hatred. Goebbels heroe asks:

Why don’t you hate all those who destroyed your youth, who are at it again, destroying the youth of the present generation, and are already greedily reaching out for their children…; For they have robbed you of the freedom to hate, to hate with all of the ardor of a strong heart, to hate everything that is evil and bad. For they have robbed you of your understanding, have made you an animal that can neither hate nor love…I, however want to be able to hate…and I hate all those who would rob me of what is rightfully mine because God gave it to me…Oh, I can hate and I don’t want to forget how. Oh, how wonderful it is to be able to hate.

Goebbels’s protagonist derives strength from his hatred, which he hopes others will acquire. Goebbels concludes, in the nature metaphors typical of his time; “I know it, I feel it. A tempest will sweep over you, smashing all that is rotten and crumbing.”

-excerpted from “Goebbels” by Ralph Georg Reuth