9.

The next day, Wednesday, February 4, 1931, the ex-spouses Günther and Magda Quandt each met Hitler for the first time and in the same place — but unbeknownst to each other. That morning, Günther and two Wintershall executives spoke with Hitler in his hotel suite. By the time they left, the amount pledged to arm the SA had reached thirteen million reichsmarks. (The fundraising ended the following afternoon, at twenty-five million reichsmarks, after Funk had summoned four more businessmen to the suite. But in the end, none of the tycoons had to pay up, as the leftist putsch never occurred.) Günther’s impression of Hitler, eight years his junior, was underwhelming: “I can’t say that Hitler made a significant or meaningless, a sympathetic or repulsive impression on me. He struck me as perfectly average,” the mogul later wrote.

Günther left the Kaiserhof by noon. At 4 p.m., one of Hitler’s bodyguards entered the suite and announced that a boy was waiting outside the door, wanting to speak to the Nazi leader. Hitler told the bodyguard to let him in. A slender, handsome, and confident-looking nine-year-old strode into the suite. He was wearing a blue uniform, with a dagger on one side and a forage cap over his blond hair. It was Harald Quandt, Günther’s younger son. Magda had sent Harald up from the lobby, unannounced. Harald gave the men the Nazi salute and introduced himself: “The youngest Hitler Youth in Germany is reporting to his Führer!”

An amused Hitler asked Harald for his name and age, and posed another question: “Who made you this beautiful uniform?”

“My mother,” Harald replied.

“And how does the uniform make you feel?”

“Twice as strong!”

Hitler told Harald to visit again soon and to send regards to his mother, this mysterious woman who was having tea in the lobby. Minutes after Harald left, Goebbels arrived. The romance between him and Magda was developing, but slowly. Goebbels first had to let another fling fizzle. But he was about to have some romantic competition for Magda, and from the man he revered like nobody else: Hitler himself.

Goebbels had reserved a corner table for Hitler’s group in the hotel lobby for high tea. Hitler, unaware of the budding romance between Magda and Goebbels, asked if he could invite mother and son to the table. Goebbels obliged and left the suite. Moments later Hermann Göring arrived. When Hitler told him they’d be meeting “a Frau Quandt” for tea soon, Göring exclaimed: “Oh Goebbels’ Madame Pompadour!” He was comparing Magda to the chief courtesan of the French king Louis XV.

Otto Wagener’s eyewitness report of the five-o’clock tea could have come straight out of a pulp romance: “Even at first glance, Frau Quandt made an excellent impression, which only increased in the course of our conversation . . . She was dressed well but not excessively, calm in her movements, assured, self-confident, with a winning smile — I am tempted to say: enchanting. I noticed the pleasure Hitler took in her innocent high spirits. I also noticed how her large eyes were hanging on Hitler’s gaze. And whenever the conversation ground to a self-conscious halt, young Harald always served as the catalyst to restore contact.” Wagener had to tear his boss away from Magda to get him ready for the opera. Nevertheless, the economic adviser had “no doubt that a closer tie of friendship and veneration between Hitler and Mrs. Quandt had begun to take shape.” Hitler was devastated when, later that night, he was told that Goebbels already had a key to Magda’s apartment. But the new lovers had yet to consummate their relationship.

That happened ten days later, on Valentine’s Day, 1931. “Magda Quandt comes in the evening. And stays very long. And blossoms into a ravishing blonde sweetness. How you are my queen! (1) . . . Today I walk almost as if in a dream,” Goebbels wrote in his diary. Throughout March he indicated in parentheses when the couple had sex: “Magda . . . goes home late. (2.3.)” Five days later: “Magda, the lovely . . . Some more learning about me and about her, and we’ll be a perfect match. (4.5.)” One week later, on March 22: “Magda . . . shoos all my worries away. I love her very much (6.7.)” The final (sex) diary parentheses coincided with the night of their first fight and makeup sex. The two clearly entered couplehood on March 26: “A lot of work done until the evening. Then came Magda, there was love, a fight, and again love (8.9.). She’s a fabulous child. But I mustn’t lose myself in her. The work is too big and momentous for that.”

Harald also began to appear in Goebbels’s diaries. “In the afternoon Magda came with her boy Harald. He is 9 years old and a lovely chap. All blond and a bit cheeky. But I like that,” the top Nazi wrote on March 12, 1931. Goebbels was immediately taken with Harald, an Aryan poster child indeed: tall for his age, with big blue eyes and long, light-blond hair. He was handsome, with almost girlishly delicate features. In countless diary entries Goebbels gushed at how “sweet” Harald was. He soon began bringing Harald to school, writing that he would make “a useful boy out of him.”

And Goebbels wasn’t Harald’s only fan. Hitler loved Harald “idolatrously.” That fall, shortly before Harald’s tenth birthday, the two top Nazis began using the boy as a prop in their propaganda campaigns. In mid-October 1931, Hitler and Goebbels took Harald to a two-day SA march in Braunschweig, in central Germany. Impressed by Harald’s dress performance at the Hotel Kaiserhof, Hitler had ordered members of the entire Nazi organization to wear their uniforms in public at all times. More than 100,000 people, including tens of thousands of SA and SS men, took part in the rally, the largest paramilitary march ever held in the Weimar Republic. In his diary Goebbels described Harald at the event: “Harald looks so sweet in his new SA uniform. His long yellow boots. He’s all man now. We leave together with boss . . . Torchlight procession! Harald’s in the car with boss. He’s all man. Ovation of thousands. A rush of enthusiasm. Boss is completely overjoyed. He picks up Harald’s arm. The sweet boy has stood brave beside me all day.”

Magda, meanwhile, was like a mad groupie, following Goebbels around on his work travels across Germany. The rich divorcée would surprise Goebbels by waiting for him in his hotel room or by showing up in whichever city he was giving a speech or attending a Nazi Party function. Magda spoiled Goebbels, who had little money, showering him with flowers and taking him to the Berlin zoo. Unlike Günther, the top Nazi let Magda be a part of his life. Goebbels was grateful for her support. “She stood by me during the hard days: I won’t forget that,” he wrote in April 1931. Goebbels also could be possessive and jealous. “Small quarrel with Magda, who at 8 in the evening receives her ex-husband at home. That’s so careless and only fuels gossip. She has now cut off all ties there and belongs only to me,” he wrote in late June 1931.

A young Harald Quandt, with his mother, Magda, and Joseph Goebbels, 1931.

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But Günther’s largesse toward his ex-wife was a key element in strengthening the relationship between Magda and Goebbels. In the divorce agreement, Günther had granted her the right to use his Severin estate without restrictions. From the start, Magda had no problems with bringing her new lover to her ex-husband’s country estate. It became the couple’s favorite getaway, a mere three hours’ drive north from Berlin; they spent an entire week there over Pentecost in 1931. Hitler also started spending weekends on Günther’s estate with his entourage. Rural Severin and its surroundings were an NSDAP stronghold. Walter Granzow, the estate’s caretaker, welcomed them all. An ambitious Nazi, he had set his sights on public office.

At Severin over Pentecost, the couple decided on their future together. “Now we are clear on everything. We have made a solemn promise: when we conquer the Reich, we will become man and wife,” Goebbels wrote in his diary on May 31, 1931. They didn’t wait for that to happen, however, and announced their engagement later that summer. Magda broke the news to Günther and Hitler on the same day. The men didn’t take it well. “Magda . . . had a talk with G. Quandt on Saturday. Told him we are getting married. He was devastated. Magda took revenge for all the harm he did to her. Then with boss. Told him the same thing. He was also devastated. He loves her. But he’s loyal to me. And Magda too . . . Hitler is gloomy. He’s very lonely. Has no luck with women. Because he is too soft with them. Women don’t like that. They have to feel the master over them . . . Poor Hitler! I’m almost ashamed to be so happy. I hope this doesn’t cloud our friendship,” Goebbels wrote in his diary on September 14, 1931. To his massive dissatisfaction, Hitler and Magda kept on flirting whenever they met, often when Goebbels wasn’t around. There was nothing the jealousy-stricken Goebbels could do about that. This was Hitler, after all.

Hitler envisioned an important role for Magda. He told Otto Wagener that “she could represent the feminine counterpart to my single-mindedly male instincts.” Wagener came up with a peculiar proposition, which became known as “the arrangement.” Hitler had renounced marriage: his “bride” was the German people. (He was, at the time, just getting to know Eva Braun.) Wagener therefore suggested a triangular relationship that would be platonic where Hitler was concerned. Through her marriage to Goebbels, Magda would serve as the unofficial First Lady of the Third Reich. Hitler was practically already a family member. He and his entourage spent many a night at Magda’s apartment on Reichskanzlerplatz, dining on special meals that her cook prepared for the vegetarian Nazi leader and talking until the early hours of the morning. Magda and Goebbels accepted this pact with the man they worshipped, and they decided to move their wedding up to December.

By sheer coincidence, Günther and Hitler met for a second time, two days before Magda broke the news of the engagement. “Nausea: Mr. Günther Quandt has been to the boss,” Goebbels wrote in his diary on September 12, 1931. “Of course he posed and tried to make an impression. Boss fell for it. Loved him. When I tell Magda, she turns white with anger and rage. I can understand that. But maybe that’s what it takes for her to be cured for good.” As it turned out, there was no reason for the engaged couple to be suspicious about what transpired between Günther and Hitler. The two had simply talked about dry economic policy.

According to Günther’s postwar description of the encounter, he had been invited to this second meeting at Hitler’s Kaiserhof suite by his own business partners, the two Pauls. Hitler wanted to hear the three moguls’ ideas on how Germany’s economic crisis could be remedied. Günther advised the Nazi leader that workdays should be reduced from eight to six hours, to deal with the high unemployment. Furthermore, he suggested cutting wages by 25 percent, prohibiting consumer credit payments, and eliminating unemployment benefits. The money saved could then be spent on state infrastructure, while the construction industry was stimulated by tax breaks. It was conventional wisdom, Günther explained to Hitler, that the economy improves when the construction industry flourishes.

In turn, Hitler thanked the three businessmen and told them that he wanted to fight unemployment with large state contracts. Above all, he aimed to boost the economy through rearmament of the military. This was very welcome news for the trio of weapons producers. The conversation between Hitler and the men, scheduled to last for fifteen minutes, had taken three times as long, as Günther later proudly noted. But though he was under the impression that Hitler considered his proposals “impressive,” and had even asked Otto Wagener to write down his name so the two could speak again, Günther never again heard directly from the Nazi leader. Years later, on the stand in a courtroom, he remembered his meetings with Hitler a little differently: “Our views were so different that we never understood each other. Hitler didn’t let me speak at all in the two conversations I had with him.”