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Women of Peace and Those Sided the Wrong of World War II

Khalid Elhassan November 20, 2020 32 min

World War II - Italian resistance movement — Women of the resistance in Italy. Wall Street Journal

10. The Goebbels’ Took Their Family to be With Hitler at the Collapse of the Nazi Regime

Magda Goebbels and her children. Spiegel

During the war, the Goebbels kids were featured in dozens of newsreels as examples of ideal Germanic children, and film and photos of them with the Fuhrer were frequently displayed in the media. However, as Germany’s doom drew nearer, so did that of the Goebbels’ and their offspring. In April, 1945, with the Red Army massing outside Berlin, Joseph Goebbels moved his wife and children into Hitler’s bunker compound beneath the Reich Chancellery.

The Fuhrer was determined to go out in an operatic manner worthy of Richard Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods. Goebbels was equally determined to follow his master into the great beyond – and to take his family with him. Magda Goebbels, who was as much of a fanatical Nazi as Joseph, was willing to accompany her husband and Hitler into death.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.