Goebbels on Hitler’s Takeover (1933)

Today I’m adding Goebbels’s article “The Miracle” published four days after Hitler’s takeover on 30 January 1933.

Goebbels on a Lost Election (1932)

After great success in the July 1932 Reichstag election, Nazi vote totals sank four months later during  the 6 November election.  The party’s momentum seemed at an end and there was considerable depression among the Nazis.

The day after the election Goebbels wrote an article titled “The Chancellor without a People.” He minimized Nazi losses while claiming (with some justice) that the election had been a disaster for Reich Chancellor von Papen.  With no hope of a parliamentary majority, he dissolved the Reichstag before it was able to do anything.

The Battle of Midway

Germany coverage of the war in the Pacific was never very good.  It depended on Japanese information — which was often unreasonably optimistic.

Today’s addition is an article on the Battle of Midway, which reports that the Japanese had lost one carrier and had a second damaged (the actual number was four), and that the Americans had also lost two (one in reality). The significant news in German eyes was that Japan had occupied several insignificant islands in the Aleutian chain.

My Research Files Available

I am making my research notes available on Zotero.  There is a wide range of material regarding both Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic. The notes are from both printed sources and archives I have visited.

Feel free to use my notes in your research. I would appreciate appropriate credit.

Comparative Living Costs: GDR vs. FRG

I tend to translate whatever is interesting to me at the moment, but a while back I asked for suggestions on things to add to the site.  I got a number of requests for more material from East Germany. It is true that I’ve rather neglected the GDR over recent years.  I’ll see what I can do over time.

Today I’m adding a piece from WAS und WIE, the GDR monthly for agitators.  In this 1978 article, agitators how told how to deal with the disparity in living standards between East and West Germany.  Agitators are told that although things like cars and televisions are less expensive in West Germany, costs for food, child care, and transit fares are much higher.

Nazi Analysis of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor came as a pleasant surprise to the Nazis, who had not been told in advance of Japan’s plans.  Today I’m adding the first reactions in the Nazi Party’s daily newspaper to the war’s extension.

The argument is that Roosevelt has gotten the war he wanted, but not when it wanted it.  As a tool of the Jews, he was planning to deal with Japan, but Japan acted first.

By the way, I got a number of requests to a recent post looking for suggestions of things to add, and I will get to some of them as time permits.

Völkischer Beobachter 1938-1945 On-line

 That amazingly valuable Austrian effort to digitize the nation’s newspapers has added the    Völkischer Beobachter for the years 1938-1945.