80 years after Joseph Goebbels’ “Do you want total war” speech in the Berlin Sportpalast, the historian Peter Longerich analyzes the myth surrounding the alleged seductive powers of the Nazi propaganda minister.
Mr. Longerich, you wrote a book about Joseph Goebbels’ “Do you want total war” speech in the Berlin Sportpalast. Putting all moral questions aside, is the 1943 speech the rhetorical masterpiece it is widely believed to be?
No, not at all. Associated with this speech is the myth that with clever propaganda you can seduce an ordinary audience into anything and everything. And that’s wrong. The background is actually a relatively banal power struggle in the Nazi leadership. Then you have to see that it was a select audience that had known this place and the rituals for 15 years – it was almost practiced and reacted to the smallest nuances in Goebbels’ speech. There was no spontaneous enthusiasm.