Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death [Paperback]

Roger Manvell (Author), Heinrich Fraenkel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 27, 2006

Joseph Goebbels was possibly the most dangerous and intelligent member of the Nazi hierarchy, not excluding Hitler himself. Without Goebbels’ flair for propaganda and spectacular organization the Fuehrer might never have come to power. If Hitler was the Nazi genius of destructive evil, Goebbels was its constructive genius, for it was through his practical and intuitive understanding of the instruments of ‘public enlightenment’ that the dictatorship was built and maintained. As the founder of the Reich Chamber of Culture, the Gauleiter of Berlin and the architect of the complex machinery of modern totalitarian propaganda, Goebbels can be considered one of the most significantly evil and portentous figures of the twentieth century. A remarkable picture emerges of Goebbels’ mind as a schoolboy, student, lover, unsuccessful author and apprentice in political agitation. Interviews with his friends and family shed light on his character as a young man. This book charts the full trajectory of Goebbels’ career, showing him at the apex of his power, a master of oratory, a brilliant and cynical showman and a ruthless administrator. Doctor Goebbels also portrays the man at the end, in the Berlin Bunker, the most devoted of the Fuehrer’s henchmen, committing the last gesture of propaganda of which he was capable: the sacrifice of his life and that of his wife and six children.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Manvell and Fraenkel have produced...biographies of Goebbels, Goering, Himmler, and the men who tried to kill Hitler in 1944....To the best of my knowledge there are no better biographies in existence. (The New York Review of Books ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel were both critically acclaimed authors who received access to new papers of eyewitness accounts of Joseph Goebbels.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Greenhill Books (November 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853677159
• ISBN-13: 978-1853677151
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,327,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thorough But Not Exciting, July 28, 2007

By 

ian mark quinn (Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death (Paperback)

When you have finished this book you will surely know almost everything about the life and character of Doctor Goebbels. It is intensively researched and thorough. But somehow it fails to transmit to the reader the continuous excitement and drama that characterized the hateful, roiling Third Reich. Perhaps that is attributable to the authors' commendable effort to present this despicable man in a balanced, non-biased form. But all in all a good history book worth the read.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dr. Joseph Goebbles was the infamous Chief of Propaganda in Hitler's Third Reich, February 15, 2011

By 

C. M Mills "Michael Mills" (Knoxville Tennessee) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Doctor Goebbels: His Life and Death (Paperback)

Lies and deception, cruelty and hatred were the unsavoury ingredients which were brewed in the brain of Joseph Goebbles (1897-45). He was born in Rheydt in the Rhineland to good middle class parents; graduated with a Ph.D from Heidelberg and wrote "Michael" an early novel. Goebbels was an early member of the Nazi Party. The little doctor was a truculent worshipper of Adolf Hitler his beloved "Fuhrer." Goebbels was a rabid anti-semitic Nazi who drove the Communist Party out of Berlin in his role as Gauleiter of the German capital.
Goebbles was a meticulous well organized workaholic demanding perfection from himself and others. It is rumoured that he wore a different suit for each day of the year. He wed Magda Goebbles a lovely divorcee and rabid Nazi. The couple had six children. The Goebbels commited suicide in the Berlin bunker shortly following the suicide of Hitler. The infamous couple poisoned all of their children even though they could have grown up with relatives. Goebbels was unfaithful to Magda conducting affairs with showgirls and movie stars including Lida Baarova the fetching Czech screen idol of Germany. Magda was also, probably, unfaithful to Goebbels. The couple were forced to reconcile on orders from Hitler.
Goebbels was a master of mass propaganda controlling German media from radio to cinema to theatre and opera. His word was law and there was no freedom of expression in the arts during his reign over German culture.
This relatively brief but comprehensive biography of Goebbles will enable the reader to get inside the mind and world view of this cruel genius of oratory and hatred. The joint authors are deceased writing this book in the 1960s. Despite new research on Goebbles this biography is still worth reading.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Loyalty of a madman!, November 12, 2011

By 

R. H. Swenson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Doctor Goebbels: His Life and Death (Paperback)

Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel present a very well documented account of Joseph Goebbels which in itself reveals an individual who was driven and blinded by absolute loyalty and a quest for Nazi power. The authors worked from existing remnants of Goebbels diary's and accounts from people who knew and worked with the Goebbels family and Joseph Goebbels himself. The truths behind the historical facts is a stunning, even shocking, account of a very intelligent narcissistic individual who became the driving force of the Nazi Party. It was Goebbels who designed and shaped the great party rallies and was the written and radio voice of a propaganda machine that has been studied and followed by others, but never matched or duplicated. This book then should be read with care and understanding of an individual whose blind loyalty to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi cause made Germany the most powerful country in Europe and yet destroyed Germany completely in the end.

This monograph is a must read for any student of Nazi history to help better understand the inner circle of the Nazi Party and how it eventually destroyed itself.