333. The Führer and Dr Goebbels with his little daughter Helga.

This photograph was taken by the entrance to the Goebbels family home on the island of Schwanenwerder. Dr Joseph Goebbels bought number 8/10 Inselstraße on Schwanenwerder from banker Oscar Schlitter in 1936 as a summer residence. Schwanenwerder lies off the eastern shore of the Wannsee west of Berlin. This exclusive island is accessed via a small bridge. No trace of Goebbels’ former summer residence remains. Helga, whom Goebbels is holding was a particular favourite of the children with Hitler.

Constantly striving to ensure that the public were continuously subjected to an endless diet of propaganda, in 1933 the Nazis introduced the ‘Volksempfänger’ (Peoples Radio). The Rundfunkgerät model VE 301 W, was an affordable radio that was produced in large numbers with the idea that no-one should be beyond the reach of the Führer’s spoken word, or the Party’s message. Again, the Party introduced the latest technological advances, including television. Television sets were placed in community centres in the knowledge that this latest media innovation would attract mass public attention. Indeed, the Nazis introduced the world’s first public service broadcasts.

Goebbels was not in favour of war, but when war came, he did everything in his power to inspire the people. He was one of but a few of the Nazi leaders who continually visited areas devastated by Allied bombing as the Second World War progressed to its inevitable conclusion. In the final days, Joseph Goebbels, his wife Magda and their six children took refuge in the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Following the suicide of Adolf and Eva Hitler on 30 April 1945, Goebbels quickly determined that he had no wish to continue living in a Germany without his Führer. Magda fully agreed with her husband in that regard. On considering what might happen to their children if they fell into Russian hands, Joseph and Magda Goebbels arrived at the terrible decision that their children should share their own fate; all six Goebbel’s children died by their mother’s hand.

This gruesome, terrible act accomplished, Magda and her husband exited the bunker. Joseph and Magda Goebbels ended their lives in the Reich Chancellery garden close to the bunker entrance, not far from where the remains of Adolf and Eva Hitler lay. Magda took cyanide while Joseph Goebbels shot himself. Their bodies were then set alight with the remaining fuel that had been collected for the purposes of burning the bodies of Hitler and his wife the previous day. The Russians discovered the remains on taking the Reich Chancellery soon after.

Versions of how Magda and Joseph Gobbels’ lives ended differ considerably. I recently discussed the matter with SS-Oberscharführer (Technical Sergeant) Rochus Misch who was in the Berlin bunker. Misch was in the 5th Company, 1st SS Panzer Division – Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler. He served on the Führer’s staff as bodyguard, courier, and telephone operator from May 1940 until April 1945. According to Sergeant Misch, both Joseph and Magda Goebbels committed suicide inside the bunker using cyanide capsules. He continued by telling me that attempts were then made to burn the bodies inside the bunker, but this proved unsuccessful owing to a lack of oxygen. Misch said that the partly burned remains of Joseph and Magda Goebbels were carried up out of the bunker and burned in the garden. The Russians took the Reich Chancellery approximately two hours later.