A chance encounter this weekend with a video clip from Untergang (Downfall), Oliver Hirschbiegel’s superb evocation of the last days in Hitler’s bunker, reminded me of the story of Maga Goebbel’s children.
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Magda Goebbels was the wife of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s master of propaganda. Both were fanatic Nazis. Joseph Goebbels had in fact been a party member since 1923.
They had married in 1931. The marriage had been tumultuous, to say the least. Goebbels himself was physically small, suffered from a club foot, and was unprepossessing, with a ratlike face and beady, piercing eyes. He took advantage of his position of power to pursue young women, indulging in a parade of mistresses and one-night stands. This obviously infuriated Magda, and several times the marriage was on the verge of dissolution, being saved only by the intervention of Hitler himself.
All the same, the two produced six children, five girls and a boy. They were favorites of Hitler, who had a weakness for young children. There exist extremely creepy photos showing Hitler, in his chancellor’s uniform, playing with small children, some of them only toddlers.
As the Third Reich was reaching its end in the spring of 1945, Joseph Goebbels remained at Hitler’s side in the Führerbunker beneath the Berlin Chancellery. A normal human being would have ensured his family’s safety somewhere far outside the city. Instead, Goebbels brought his entire family, wife and six kids, to the musty and damp bunker, shortly to come under Russian attack. It may well have been Magda who insisted on this.
Following Hitler’s suicide on April 30, Goebbels was left as acting Reich chancellor, the effective ruler of Nazi Germany. He knew he would see no mercy from the Soviets, only blocks away at the time. Consulting with his wife, he decided on death for the entire family. Suicide for himself and Magda, and what can only be called murder for the children.
On May 1, Magda Goebbels, along with SS dentist Helmut Kunz and SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger, entered the children’s room. Kunz gave each of the children a morphine shot, after which Stumpfegger administered cyanide. The oldest of the children, twelve-year-old Helga, evidently fought back – bruises were discovered on her face and neck by Russian doctors days later. Did Magda simply watch as the girl was killed, or did she actually assist the SS goons? I guess we’ll never know.
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Magda Goebbels died a short time later, shot by her husband Joseph, who then shot himself. (Stumpfegger committed suicide at the same time. Kunz lived to a reasonably ripe old age, dying at 65 in 1976.)
So my question is this: what, exactly, is the difference between Magda Goebbels and Lindsay Clancy?
I’m not asking you, mein playmates. I know how you’ll answer. I’m asking all the pinkshirts out there, the ones loudly assuring us that Clancy did nothing wrong. Because if Clancy did nothing wrong, it’s hard to see what crime we can accuse Magda Goebbels of committing.
There doesn’t seem to be a difference. Not in any substantial sense. Both committed a crime held to be universally vile. Both put in considerable planning and effort. Both were in the coils of an inhuman and murderous ideology. Neither showed anything resembling remorse.
And that presents the pinkshirts with an impasse. Because if Lindsay Clancy is innocent, then what, exactly is Magda Goebbels guilty of? You can’t have it both ways. If one is innocent, the other is, too. And if that’s the case, then you have no choice but to take the next step, and admit that your suburban, bachelor’s degree dream of absolute female liberation is simply another expression of the dark side of modernism, the murderous, antihuman black hole that exists at the center of the modern political impulse. Leftism has Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Islamism has Osama bin laden and Khomeini. Feminism has Magda Goebbels… and Lindsay Clancy.
As far as I can see, the only real difference is that Magda Goebbels succeeded in killing herself through suicide by husband. So that’s one for the Nazis.
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Image: Bundesarchiv