Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)

Awful and fascinating. By the time these entries start, the war is lost. Massively destructive bombing raids on German cities are a nightly event, the Battle of the Bulge has failed, they're steadily losing territory in every direction, and Goebbels is engaged in denial, scapegoating, projection, and wishful thinking to an extraordinary degree. It's like a bad car crash you can't stop from looking at, but it's mildly nauseating.

It's too long and very repetitive, but then again it's a guy's diary so you kind of know what you're getting into from the outset. Overall it's a fascinating perspective on a very familiar history; WWII as seen by the Nazi's most brilliant tactician.

There are several interesting aspects to this collection of Goebbels' entries. Most impressive is the fact that for essentially the entire book (1942 onward), the Nazis are losing quite resoundingly yet maintaining an absurd degree of optimism show more and faith in their victorious destiny. (So much for Hegel's historicism I suppose.) Out-bombed by the UK, outmanned by the USSR, and later abandoned by Italy, their inability (esp. Goebbels and Hitler's) to see the writing on the wall is truly incredible. Literally throughout the entire book Goebbels is bemoaning how their cities are getting destroyed through British air raids without any real capacity for reprisal. Toward the last few months cities like Hamburg, Frankfurt and Berlin are being bombed almost daily, and Goebbels is eagerly anticipating the moment when they can finally retaliate, four months in the future!

Another revelation for me was seeing the animosity between the USSR and the UK/US. Granted, everything is tainted with Goebbels' cynicism, but there was certainly a degree of truth to the disagreements between the Soviets and the Capitalists. I had also never realized how much more of a burden the Soviets had born on the Eastern Front. And it makes you wonder what might have happened had Goebbels succeeded in pitting both sides against each other to eventually make a truce with one side over the other (e.g. Allying with UK to ensure that the Soviets are kept out of Europe). Ultimately I think he underestimated how monstrous the Nazi acts appeared to the world at large, probably overestimating the international community's antipathy toward the Jews.

Reading this makes me very curious to read the final entries in his diaries. At what point did he lose hope? show less

It's hard to give a "rating" to a book by an evil person, and about evil. It's in a piece with The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire
by Andrew O'Shaughnessy, about the much less evil, and eventual American allies, the British. But Goebbels is unapologetic to the end. He talks about Britain, the U.S. and the USSR are destroying everything worthwhile in Germany and for that matter the world. He takes no responsibility for Germany's show more stirring the pot in such a manner as to make destroying Germany as he and Hitler made it a necessity.

He describes an inverted world where evil is greatness, and good is evil. He demonizes those that tried to surrender so as to gain peace show less

When thinking about evil men, we assume they are consumed by evil thoughts. Goebbels was evil, but his diary shows him to be rather pedestrian. Petty and small, he does not display evil on every page. In a way, that makes him even more chilling.