Joseph Goebbels

He married Magda Ritschel on December 19, 1931. They had six children.

On May 1, 1945, he asked dentist Helmut Kunz to inject morphine to his children and thereafter committed suicide along with his wife, Magda.

Born in a Catholic family of Rheydt, Germany, Joseph Goebbels was the son of Fritz, a factory clerk and Katharina Maria. Due to the deformity in his right leg, he could not serve in the German Army during World War I.

He attended Christian Gymnasium from where he completed his university entrance examination in 1916. In the next year, he took admission at the German Franciscan brother’s boarding school in Bleijerheide, Netherlands.

From June to October 1917, he worked as an office soldier in Rheydt’s Patriotic Help Unit. In the meantime, he lost faith in Catholic religion and studied German literature and philosophy at the University of Bonn. After attending Wurzburg University, he took admission at Freiburg University.

He completed his Ph.D. on Wilhelm von Schutz, a romantic dramatist, from Heidelburg University in 1921. After completing his studies, he tried to pursue a career in journalism. He also dreamt of becoming a novelist and playwright.

During this time, he penned “Michael”, a semi-autobiographical novel. But he changed his decision when several newspapers and publishing houses rejected his writings. Later, he worked as a bank clerk. After that, he also worked as a caller on the stock exchange for a brief period.

In the later part of 1924, he joined the Nazi Party. At that time, the Nazi party was promoting German pride and anti-Semitism. Adolf Hitler was impressed by his works on German economy.

In 1926, he served as Nazi Party’s district leader in Berlin. In the next year, he founded “The Attack”, a weekly newspaper through which he used to represent the Party’s philosophy.

In 1928, he was elected to the German Parliament. Hitler made him the propaganda director of the Nazi Party. In 1933, he served as Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda when Hitler was the Chancellor.

He utilized his authoritative power to supervise the content of the country’s newspapers, magazines, books, music, plays, films, radio and fine arts in order to promote Hitler’s philosophy and to create hatred for Jewish people.

In April 1933, with Hitler’s initiative, he took measures to boycott Jewish businesses. As part of his job, he organized a public ceremony at the Opera House of Berlin to destroy “un-German” books. As a result of this destructive activity, a number of valuable books written by personalities like Albert Einstein, Helen Keller and H.G. Wells were damaged.