We know their names, and it is no coincidence that they all began with ‘H’: Helga Susanne, Hildegard Traudel, Helmut Christian, Holdine Kathrin, Hedwig Johanna and Heidrun Elisabeth. On May 1, 1945, in the guts of the Chancellery bunker, Magda Goebbels handed doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger a syringe filled with morphine. “Children, don’t be afraid, the doctor is going to give you an injection,” he warned them. Once the task was completed, he placed a cyanide pill in each child’s mouth. Then came the culmination of the absurdity: she met with her husband, Joseph, the Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich, and both followed in the wake of the ‘Führer’ by shooting themselves in the head. Historians have repeated to us – we will not say which ones, it is ugly accusation – that Joseph preferred to kiss the Grim Reaper rather than plunge into a new, virgin world of National Socialism. Sad song to his commitment to the Third Reich. But German director Joachim Lang disagrees: the historian is also in favor of that nightmare being the ‘last dance’ of a devious propaganda wizard. «It was not enough for him to commit suicide, a common practice by Nazi officers in 1945, he wanted to go further and murdered his children. In this way he convinced the world of his fanaticism and his close relationship with Adolf Hitler. It is a lie that we still believe,” he explains to ABC. Standard Related News If you have been fooled: the First World War happened in the Roman era! Manuel P. Villatoro The historian Giusto Traina maintains that the assassination of Julius Caesar caused a storm that dragged the allied and enemy regions of the Eternal City into a colossal conflict. The fallacy permeated; It was his posthumous victory. And Lang is not willing to grant it. For this reason, and for the legacy that this abject character has left in current political communication, the German director presents these days ‘The Minister of Propaganda’; a film that, with the help of actors like Robert Stadlober and Fritz Carl, shows us a more conscientious vision of the politician. «The reality is that it could have served any regime. It is true that he was a radical and an anti-Semite, but he was also a cynic. An example is that he said that he admired his mother, who was very Catholic, because she really believed in what she said,” he says. He lies, that something remains. Lang gives us the vision of an advantageous Goebbels who yearned for power, although he also reluctant to the war until mid-1938. He also does so through a script that he has prepared himself – who better, as the historian that he is? – and on a basis that is usually ignored in the sources: the many writings that the Propaganda Minister himself left blank. «I have been interested in the subject since I was 13, when I read my first book about World War II. When you soak up the diaries you see another Goebbels. For me, he was the greatest opportunist of all time,” says the director. By drawing on Goebbels’ diaries and speeches, the portrait is also that of a ghost proud of his gifts for mass communication. Lang does not deny the maxim: “He presents himself as the greatest propagandist in history, and in part he was.” There would be no paragraphs in this article to narrate the extensive list of victories from the point of view of communication. A resume that started even before the Nazis ascended to the chair. From convincing society at the beginning of the 1930s that violence in the streets was necessary, to falsifying his speech to attract the vote of all social strata. “He understood that propaganda was not about transmitting information, but emotions, it was a spectacle,” says historian Thomas Childers in the essay ‘The Third Reich’. Lang shows, in short, the most impudent Goebbels on a political level. That propagandist who, with the connivance of the press, directed public opinion towards the wishes of the ideological beacon that the ‘Führer’ represented. An unscrupulous guy who went from calling the Soviets subhuman to justifying the ‘Non-aggression Pact’ that Hitler signed with Joseph Stalin in 1939. But also a goldsmith of the performing arts who used cinema to surreptitiously spread the anti-Semitic maxims. With the aim of giving more strength to its story, ‘The Minister of Propaganda’ intersperses parts of them in the footage. Sexual obsessionBut not everything is propaganda and political fallacies in this film. Lang also delves into another of Goebbels’ most unknown facets: his fondness for women, to use a polite euphemism. «As a historian, for me it was not something new. I have studied that topic a lot. “Some actresses told me that they were victims of his sexual debauchery,” the filmmaker reveals to ABC. The examples are counted in dozens. On one occasion, for example, he put his hand under film director Leni Riefenstahl’s dress. And that’s just for starters. The most awkward moment on record occurred when, according to historian Samuel W. Mitcham, he arrived home with the young actress Lida Baarova and introduced her to his wife, Magda. The three had a pleasant chat over dinner until the minister was honest with his wife: “I have a very serious topic to discuss with you. ‘Frau’ Baarova and I are in love ». After a pause, he added: “I love you, you are the mother of my children, but, after so much time, you must understand that I want to have a ‘friend’.” The scene has been represented in the film, as has Hitler’s strange relationship with Magda herself. «They formed a kind of trio. They did not separate because theirs had been sold as a prototype of an ideal family,” says Lang. Guilty? However, the director insists that his work is not a typical ‘biopic’. «This is a film about the perpetrators. I wonder how it is possible that the people followed these characters and I maintain that the population that supported them is responsible for their own actions,” he says. In part, he understands the process. «At the end of the 1930s there was a crisis in Germany, and many people were willing to allow themselves to be radicalized. Added to this feeling was the presence of a leader, a channeler. When these two factors coincided, everything exploded,” he adds. It is his bet, and it seems revolutionary. «In ‘The Sinking’ only the last twelve days of the Reich are shown. “I show the importance it has for the present,” he adds. Lang, he maintains, aims to warn about the danger of populism today; of their tools and tricks. But it also seeks to break myths entrenched by the propaganda of recent years. «An example? It is clear that Himmler, leader of the SS, informed the commanders about the Holocaust. Everyone knew it. He did it because he thought that, if all the bridges were burned, no one would be able to hide behind ignorance,” he concludes.
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