Like others who were later prominent in the Third Reich, Goebbels came into contact with the Nazi Party in 1923, during the campaign of resistance to the French occupation of the Ruhr.

Until the Nazis came to power, Goebbels had been a relatively poor man, and his main income was the salary of 750 Reichsmarks a month he had gained by election to the Reichstag in 1928.

Ronald Howard was convinced the order to shoot down Howard's airliner came directly from Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany, who had been ridiculed in one of Howard's films and who believed Howard to be the most dangerous British propagandist.

By 1937, Goebbels came to detest Lippert for his behaviour.

Goebbels ' deception plan over the Redoubt was one of the great successes of German intelligence during World War II, albeit one that came too late to alter the outcome of the war.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the district was renamed Horst-Wessel-Stadt after the Nazi activist and writer of the Nazi hymn whose slow death, after being shot by communists, in Friedrichshain hospital in 1930 was turned into a propaganda event by Joseph Goebbels.

In the international protests that followed came one from Germany, from none other than Joseph Goebbels.

Hanke's seemingly unstoppable ascent on the coattails of Goebbels came to a sudden, albeit temporary, halt when he was drawn into the marital affairs of Joseph Goebbels and his wife, Magda.

Hitler, who had long believed Himmler was second only to Joseph Goebbels in loyalty — calling Himmler " der treue Heinrich " ( the loyal Heinrich )— flew into a rage about this apparent betrayal.

Where Hitler ’ s style was hoarse and passionate, Goebbels ’ was cool, sarcastic and often humorous: he was a master of biting invective and insinuation, although he could whip himself into a rhetorical frenzy if the occasion demanded.

But as Joachim Fest observes: " Goebbels in the increasingly unrestrained practice of anti-Semitism by the state new possibilities into which he threw himself with all the zeal of an ambitious man worried by a constant diminution of his power.

During 1942, Goebbels continued to press for the " final solution to the Jewish question " to be carried forward as quickly as possible now that Germany had occupied a huge swathe of Soviet territory into which all the Jews of German-controlled Europe could be deported.

As Joachim Fest notes, Goebbels seemed to take a grim pleasure in the destruction of Germany ’ s cities by the Allied bombing offensive: " It was, as one of his colleagues confirmed, almost a happy day for him when famous buildings were destroyed, because at such time he put into his speeches that ecstatic hatred which aroused the fanaticism of the tiring workers and spurred them to fresh efforts.

Another problem was that although Speer and Goebbels were allies, their agendas conflicted: Speer wanted absolute priority in the allocation of labour to be given to arms production, while Goebbels sought to press every able-bodied male into the army.

Unlike many other leading Nazis at this juncture, Goebbels proved to have strong convictions, moving himself and his family into the Vorbunker, that was connected to the lower Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery gardens in central Berlin.

Joseph Goebbels expressed a common view when he confided to his diary that " Von Ribbentrop bought his name, he married his money, and he swindled his way into office ".

However, he and Goebbels agreed that after the Endsieg ( Final Victory ) the Reich Church should be pressed into evolving into a German social evolutionist organisation proclaiming the cult of race, blood and battle, instead of Redemption and the Ten Commandments of Moses, which they deemed outdated and Jewish.

Jeffrey Herf maintains that Goebbels and the Nazis used the Big Lie to turn long-standing anti-semitism into mass murder.

On the other hand, Joseph Goebbels assembled some of the now jobless musicians from Germany and conquered countries into a big band called Charlie and His Orchestra to perform Nazified versions of popular swing hits to be played in propaganda broadcasts.

Goebbels said that " The Jew Morgenthau " wanted to make Germany into a giant potato patch.

Goebbels had initially attempted to get Greta Garbo for this film, but was unsuccessful, and he did not like the finished film, which became the first foreign film to be released in Norway with its soundtrack dubbed into Norwegian.

German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels used the leaked plan, with some success, to encourage the German people to persevere in their war efforts so that their country would not be turned into a " potato field.

Joseph Goebbels instructed German radio not to repeat their report of the raid as Adolf Hitler was surprised at the Irish reaction, which might influence Irish Americans to bring the United States into the war.

Also in the twentieth century, Bertholt Brecht wrote The Horatians and the Curiatians based on the story, followed by Heiner Müller's The Horatian, which was later transformed by Heiner Goebbels into a three-movement song that re-tells the myth ; in the third movement, the Horatian is crowned with the laurel for his merits and simultaneously executed for his guilt.

Meissner, on the contrary, makes no suggestion of this, claiming rather that Hitler ( though undoubtedly impressed by Magda ) was an exceptionally close friend of the couple in the earliest days, who would often arrive late at night and was as likely as Goebbels to sit with the baby Helga on his lap while they talked into the night.

In late April 1945, the Soviet Red Army entered Berlin, and the Goebbels family moved into the Vorbunker, that was connected to the lower Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery gardens.

She had more contact with the Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who referred to her in his diaries as " eine charmante Frau " (" a charming lady ").

* 1945 – Adolf Hitler's designated successor Hermann Göring sends him a telegram asking permission to take leadership of the Third Reich, which causes Hitler to replace him with Joseph Goebbels and Karl Dönitz.

Joseph Goebbels described the Nazis as being affiliated with authoritarian nationalism:

His reputation swelled further with the 1936 Summer Olympics, which were held in the same year in Berlin, and which proved another great propaganda success for the regime as orchestrated by master propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Goebbels rose to power in 1933 along with Hitler and the Nazi Party and he was appointed Propaganda Minister.

From the beginning of his tenure, Goebbels organized attacks on German Jews, commencing with the one-day boycott of Jewish businessmen, doctors, and lawyers on April 1, 1933.

During World War II, Goebbels increased his power and influence through shifting alliances with other Nazi leaders.

Goebbels remained with Hitler in Berlin to the end.

Goebbels along with his wife Magda killed their six young children and then committed suicide.

William L. Shirer, who worked in Berlin as a journalist in the 1930s and was acquainted with Goebbels, wrote in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich ( 1960 ) that the deformity was from a childhood attack of osteomyelitis and a failed operation to correct it.

Goebbels wore a metal brace and special shoe because of his shortened leg, but nevertheless walked with a limp.

" Goebbels found another form of compensation in the pursuit of women, a lifelong compulsion he indulged " with extraordinary vigor and a surprising degree of success.

" Goebbels asked rhetorically in a debate with Theodor Vahlen, Gauleiter ( regional party head ) of Pomerania, in the Rhineland party newspaper National-sozialistische Briefe ( National-Socialist Letters ), of which he was editor, in mid-1925.

" Goebbels, with his journalistic skills, thus soon became a key ally of Strasser in his struggle with the Bavarians over the party programme.

He summoned 60 gauleiters and party leaders, including Goebbels, to a meeting at Bamberg, in Streicher ’ s Gau of Franconia, where he gave a two-hour speech repudiating the political programme of the northern wing of the Party which saw themselves as having more in common with the Communists than the " bourgeoisie ".

The Social Democrat city government obliged in 1927 with an eight-month ban on the party, which Goebbels exploited to the limit.

But his outstanding talents, and the obvious fact that he stood high in Hitler ’ s regard, earned Goebbels the grudging respect of the anti-intellectual brawlers of the Nazi movement, who called him " our little doctor " with a mixture of affection and amusement.

Goebbels, although he continued to show " leftish " tendencies in some of his actions ( such as co-operating with the Communists in supporting the Berlin transport workers ' strike in November 1932 ), was totally loyal to Hitler in his struggle with the Strassers, which culminated in Otto ’ s expulsion from the party in July 1930.

When Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, Goebbels was initially given no office: the coalition cabinet Hitler headed contained only a minority of Nazis as part of the deal he had negotiated with President Paul von Hindenburg and the conservative parties.

On 13 March, Goebbels had his reward for his part in bringing the Nazis to power by being appointed Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda ( Volksaufklärung und Propaganda ), with a seat in the Cabinet.

Adolf Hitler with one of Goebbels ' daughters, 1933

Goebbels could bribe as well as threaten: he secured a large budget for his Ministry, with which he was able to offer generous salaries and subsidies to those in the arts who co-operated with him.