Killing of Goebbels Children

[fireofice]

One controversial aspect of what happened near the end of the war was when Joseph and Magda Goebbels killed their children. The main point here will not be to either say it was completely justified nor to completely condemn, but to understand what happened and their thought process and to assess some possible ways on how to morally judge what happened.

Firstly, whatever one thinks of what happened, Hitler didn't have any involvement. In fact, the available evidence indicates that Hitler wanted Goebbels and his family to leave and gave them an order to that effect. Here is what Goebbels wrote down:

goebbels children.jpg (360.81 KiB) Viewed 93 times

The main argument of those who want to defend what the Goebbels parents did is that they were surrounded by the Soviets and that the Goebbels parents wanted to save them from being butchered, tortured, and raped. There certainly is some merit to this argument. The Soviets were doing many horrific things throughout Germany. This is countered by those who want to condemn the Goebbels parents by saying that the children of other Nazi leaders like Bormann, Goring, Himmler, and others survived and grew up. However, there is a big difference between being able to escape to the Western allies and being surrounded by the Soviets in the Fuhrerbunker.

Now one may ask, why were they in the Fuhrerbunker and not escaping west like everyone else? Because Hitler wanted them there. From Traudl Jung's memoir for April 22, 1945:

The hours crept by. I felt completely empty, hollowed out and numb. I really thought I ought to sleep for a couple of hours, but restlessness kept me in the Führer bunker. Perhaps some decisive news would come within the next hour? It must be late afternoon by now. Had Hitler eaten any lunch? There probably hadn’t been time. Now he was sitting in his room talking to Goebbels. How would the great Propaganda Minister take Hitler’s decision to die in Berlin? What would he tell the German people? The door opened and Goebbels went to the telephone. When he came back he looked enquiringly around. There was no one there except for the orderlies and me. The Minister came over to me. ‘My wife will soon be arriving with the children. At the Führer’s wish they will be staying in his bunker from now on. Please be kind enough to receive my family when they arrive.’ My God, I thought, where are we going to put so many people? Six small children in all this turmoil! I went a few steps up to the upper part of the bunker and looked for Günsche. He cleared a room that was full of cases, crates, furniture and provisions, and put beds in.

April 28, 1945:

Suddenly Goebbels bursts in. I look at his agitated face, which is white as chalk. Tears are running down his cheeks. He speaks to me because there’s no one else around to whom he can pour out his heart. His usually clear voice is stifled by tears and shaking. ‘The Führer wants me to leave Berlin, Frau Junge! I am to take up a leading post in the new government. But I can’t leave Berlin, I cannot leave the Führer’s side! I am Gauleiter of Berlin, and my place is here. If the Führer is dead my life is pointless. And he says to me, “Goebbels, I didn’t expect you to disobey my last order too …” The Führer has made so many decisions too late – why make this last one too early?’ he asks despairingly.

Berlin was completely surrounded on April 25. So in between when Hitler asked the children to stay in the bunker and when he ordered Goebbels to leave is when they were surrounded. This would make Hitler's order rather difficult, although not impossible to carry out. It is reasonable to think that they didn't think it was worth the risk.

For a comparison for someone who did escape Berlin, lets look at Hanna Reitsch's memoir:

In a lull in the firing, we requisitioned an armoured car and began an eerie journey through the ruined street. We had to take a chance on whether we encountered the Russians en route and we breathed a sigh of relief when we had safely passed the corner of the Vossstrasse and the Hermann Goringstrasse. We drove through the Tiergarten to the Victory Column, which was still in German hands. The air craft was standing in a blast-bay. To have landed here, with the East-West Axis under continual fire, was an amazing feat. It turned out to be the same pilot who had flown us to Gatow.

Dispatch-riders reported that the Axis was clear of shell- craters for four hundred yards, but that the situation might alter at any moment.

Though enemy searchlights were groping continually up and down the Axis, we managed to take off without being spotted and headed towards the Brandenburg Gate. Flying past, I caught a glimpse of it silhouetted in the glare of searchlights. We flew on, undisturbed by spasmodic tracer fire, and in about a mile reached the welcoming protection of a cloud-bank. When we emerged, the sky was moon-lit and clear. Heading in the direction of Rechlin, we passed over the province of Brandenburg, the blackness threaded with silver-gleaming lakes and punctuated with the red dots of the burning villages that everywhere marked the route of war and destruction.

So as can be seen, even though she made it out, it was not guaranteed by any means. The way she describes it, it is very possible she may have been killed or captured trying to escape. Compare that to Martin Bormann, who did get killed on his attempted escape from Berlin.

Another argument given by those who condemn the Goebbels is that nowhere in any of the documents, either the one posted above or their final letters do they give fear of what the Soviet might do as a reason for killing their kids. Here are their final letters:

https://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports/lastletter.htm

This is true enough. However, I don't think this is a particularly strong argument. Just because they were focusing on the more positive side of things, doesn't mean they weren't thinking of what the Soviets might do. In fact, I find it hard to believe they weren't.

Analyzing some of the passages from Magda's final letter:

By now we have been in the Führerbunker for six days already — daddy, your six little siblings and I, for the sake of giving our national socialistic lives the only possible honorable end.

So yes, she was focusing on honor here. Not entirely surprising.

You shall know that I stayed here against daddy's will, and that even on last Sunday the Führer wanted to help me to get out. You know your mother — we have the same blood, for me there was no wavering.

This once again confirms Hitler's desire for them to leave. This also indicates that Magda was the main instigator of this. It appears Goebbels initially didn't want to go through with this, but Magda insisted.

Our glorious idea is ruined and with it everything beautiful and marvelous that I have known in my life. The world that comes after the Führer and national socialism is not any longer worth living in and therefore I took the children with me, for they are too good for the life that would follow, and a merciful God will understand me when I will give them salvation (death).

This seems to indicate a motive for that if they did survive, the world would be too bad for them. This lines up with a speech Goebbels gave:

Humanity would sink into eternal darkness, it would fall into a dull and primitive state, were the Jews to win this war.

https://research.calvin.edu/german-prop ... goeb64.htm

Of course, just because they were thinking about a bad hypothetical future if they survived, does not mean other concerns weren't thought about.

I must finish, Hanna Reitsch is taking this letter, she is leaving again, I embrace you with my most sweet, deep and maternal love.

Aha! How would they be expecting the letter to leave but they couldn't? Doesn't this prove escaping was easy? Well no, the consequences of a letter not making it out are much lesser than their children being captured.

Now this isn't meant to prove decisively that they did the right thing. Plenty of parents would want to try and get their children to survive. However, in their circumstances, it appears they didn't want to risk that. And if they did succeed, they would inherent a shitty life anyway. Not worth the risk. All this is to say, even if you want to say that they did the wrong thing, the situation they were in provides mitigating circumstances. Mitigating circumstances doesn't mean a crime didn't happen, but that the situation makes what they did more understandable and thus a certain amount of leniency is called for.

Acting under duress or coercion, which applies when a person commits a crime because they were under significant pressure or threat from another.

https://legalclarity.org/what-are-mitig ... inal-case/

I would say that certainly applies here.

[Archie]

There is a long history of leaders committing suicide when faced with defeat and conquest. Mark Antony is a famous example. The Japanese had a tradition of this. It's an old school warrior mentality.

Here is what Hitler said in his last will and testament about his own suicide.

I do not wish to fall into the hands of an enemy who requires a new spectacle organized by the Jews for the amusement of their hysterical masses.

I have decided therefore to remain in Berlin and there of my own free will to choose death at the moment when I believe the position of the Führer and Chancellor itself can no longer be held.

I understand this sentiment completely. And his comment about a "spectacle organized by the Jews" is a pretty accurate prediction.

If Hitler and Goebbels had lived that would have been quite interesting to see how that would have played out at Nuremberg. Although Himmler made some attempt to cooperate with the Allies and he met with a suspicious death. That is another possibility (if the Allies were too nervous about what they might say). David Irving has made some very interesting critiques of the official story about Himmler having a cyanide capsule (probably worth a separate thread one of these days). He thinks the British beat him to death and lied about what happened. Would the Allies have allowed Hitler and Goebbels to speak openly in court like Goering? Hard to say. No doubt Goebbels would have put on a show if permitted to speak. Most likely they would have been sentenced to death in 1946 after a show trial like Goering. Possibly they would have met the same end as Himmler.

Frau Goebbels was an adult. She can make her own decision in that extreme situation. Killing the children seems extreme and unnecessary to me, but from their perspective they probably thought the idea of them having to grow up in a defeated Germany conquered by Jews, knowing how their family would be portrayed and possibly persecuted, was too horrible to contemplate. That was probably the mindset. I suspect that what they imagined was more severe than what likely would have happened as others like Frau Goering lived for years after the war. She was prosecuted for war crimes (which is frankly ridiculous) but the sentence was short. Goering and Himmler both had children who survived the war. I don't think retaliation against them was all that severe, though Goebbels would have had no way to know that in 1945.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edda_G%C3%B6ring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gudrun_Burwitz

Goering was captured by the Americans and Himmler was captured by the British. The Goebbels family would have been in Soviet custody and I do agree this is an important difference given Soviet barbarism.