Joseph Goebbels

German Nazi propagandist in charge of all public communication media. He helped Hitler bring the Nazis to power in 1933 and remains in history as one of the monsters of the Third Reich. Shirer in "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" describes him as a "...swarthy, dwarfish young man, with a crippled foot, a nimble mind and a complicated and neurotic personality....who fell under Hitler's spell the very first time he heard him speak..." In 1926 Goebbels was made National Socialist (Nazi) Party leader for the region of Berlin. He was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1928 and a year later was chosen as propaganda leader of the Nazi Party. Goebbels was appointed Reich minister for propaganda and national enlightenment in 1933. From then until his death, Goebbels used the media to further Nazi propagandistic aims. He gave numerous speeches via radio and at rallies during his period of power. He gave the state of the nation speech every New Year's eve and on the eve of Hitler's birthday. Goebbels wife, Magda, was a fanatical supporter of Hitler along with her husband. During the last days of the Third Reich the family retreated to the Berlin bunker where Goebbels read to and played with his six children. The children are believed to have been poisoned during their last meal. Goebbels committed suicide with his wife - she took poison; he ordered an officer to shoot him - on 1 May 1945, two days after his Fuhrer, as Soviet troops were entering Berlin. His four volumes of diaries, running to 2,841 pages, were published in September 1987. The journals, dated from 1924 to early July of 1941, record Goebbels' development from a deeply religious and literary-minded Catholic youth to a zealous political organizer whose sole faith was in Adolf Hitler. They soon reveal his fanaticism and virulent anti-Semiticism. Six further volumes, covering the time up to Goebbels' death along with his family, were published in the following three years. Link to Wikipedia biography