Character Analysis
Goebbels was one of Hitler's most trusted right-hand men throughout the rise and fall of the Third Reich, and he went to his death as one of the fanatical Fuehrer's most devoted acolytes.
Shirer characterizes the young Goebbels as being a "swarthy, dwarfish young man, with a crippled foot, a nimble mind and a complicated and neurotic personality"—a man who "at twenty-eight was already an impassioned orator" and "a fanatical nationalist" (2.5.27).
Goebbels made his name as the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, and during the years of Hitler's dictatorial reign, he effectively controlled all of the press in Germany. He was, in Shirer's words, "the chief prophet and propagandist of the Nazi movement" (6.31.161). As Shirer writes repeatedly throughout his book, the effects of the Nazi propaganda should never be underestimated. The Nazis were able to delude the German populace for years, and keep a tight rein on the minds and perspectives of Germany's citizens. Lies and propaganda were powerful weapons of war, and Goebbels was a master.
On May 1, 1945, as Soviet and Allied forces were converging on Berlin, Goebbels took his cue from Hitler and committed suicide—but not before he and his wife had murdered their six young children (6.31.216-218). A true believer to the end, he had, as Shirer says, "no desire to live in a Germany from which his revered Fuehrer had departed" (6.31.161).
Wonder what the master propagandist said to his six kids before he killed them.