This Nazi Mocked God—God Got the Last Laugh
Making Wisdom Popular
Goebbels with Hitler at the Nazi leader’s private home (1943)
Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) was the Minister of Propaganda for Nazi Germany. In other words, he was the man responsible for not only convincing the German people they should hate Jews and other “sub-humans,” but every other Nazi tenet, including the idea of “total war” and victory over the Allies even after it had become impossible. He was one of Hitler’s most faithful henchman, and closest “friends.”
Fortunately for us, he left behind a very revealing diary which he wrote during the war years. They include stunning admissions about the details of the Holocaust, and the German conduct of the war.
For example, in his diary entry for March 13, 1945, barely two months before the end of the war in Europe, he was quite frank about what he thought should be done, and indeed already had been done to the Jews:
The Jews are re-emerging. Their spokesman is the well-known notorious Leopold Schwarzschild [former German-Jew who had emigrated to America]; he is now arguing in the American press that under no circumstances should Germany be given lenient treatment. Anyone in a position to do so should kill these Jews off like rats. In Germany, thank God, we have already done a fairly complete job. I trust that the world will take its cue from this. [Emphasis added][1]
The next day, with Germany on its last legs on every front, Goebbels continued to predict that the Jews would be the war’s ultimate losers:
An almost grotesque impression is created by the news that the Jews of Palestine have called a one-day strike to be spent in prayer and that this strike is an expression of sympathy for the Jews of Europe. The Jews are playing a wicked and thoughtless game. NO one can say with certainty which nations will be on the losing side and which on the winning at the end of the war; but there can be no doubt that the Jews will be the losers. [Emphasis added][2]
None of this was new. A diary entry from December 18, 1942, when German soldiers were on the brink of one of their worst defeats (at Stalingrad), and the Holocaust was in full swing, Goebbels spoke pompously against the Jews:
One must know these Jews to be able to handle them right. They are now trying to stir up the entire world merely to incite public opinion against the National Socialist [Nazi] Reich and its anti-Semitic convictions. There’s only one answer to this, viz., to continue as at present, rigorously and without compromise. You’re sunk if you give the slightest indication of weakness.[3]
In the same diary entry, Goebbels mocked the idea that the Old Testament curses of Yahweh against the enemies of the Jewish people were of any concern:
The Jews of Jerusalem have held noisy demonstrations of protest against us. They had a day of fasting. At the Wailing Wall they invoked the Old Testament Jewish curse against the Fuehrer, Goering, Himmler, and me. Until now I haven’t noticed any effect on me. [Emphasis added][4]
He was likely referring to God’s words to Abraham in Genesis 12: “I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.”
But not even six years later, the “Thousand Year Reich” was in the ash heap of history, and the State of Israel was reborn as the national home of the Jewish people after their nearly 2,000 years of exile from the Land of Israel.
Apparently, Yahweh got the last laugh.
SOURCES
[1]Joseph Goebbels, Diary (March 13, 1945); Joseph Goebbels, Richard Barry, trans., Hugh Trevor-Roper, ed., The Goebbels Diaries: The Last Days (London: Pan Books, 1979), 121.
[3]Joseph Goebbels, Diary (December 18, 1942); Joseph Goebbels, Louis P. Lochner, trans., The Goebbels Diaries (New York: Eagle Books, 1948), 289.
[4]Id. 288-89.