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Joseph Goebbels Quotes
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145 Quotes on Nationalism and Socialism

Paul Joseph Goebbels was a key figure in the Nazi Party, serving as the Gauleiter of Berlin and later as the Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. Known for his strong speaking skills and extreme anti-Semitism, he played a significant role in promoting discriminatory policies towards Jews, ultimately advocating for their extermination during the Holocaust. His interest in propaganda began during his time as Gauleiter of Berlin, where he utilized various media platforms such as radio and film to shape public opinion and promote Nazi ideologies. As the war neared its end, Goebbels took on the role of Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War, implementing unsuccessful measures to increase wartime production.

In April 1945, as Hitler's regime faced impending defeat, Goebbels joined Hitler and his family in Berlin. Following Hitler's suicide at the end of April, it was in accordance with Hitler's will that Goebbels assumed the position of Chancellor of Germany for one day. Tragically, the following day, Goebbels and his wife committed suicide together after poisoning their six children with a cyanide compound.

✵ 29. October 1897 – 1. May 1945   •   Other names Paul Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels photo
Joseph Goebbels: 145   quotes 139   likes

Joseph Goebbels Quotes

“To be a socialist means to let the ego serve the neighbour, to sacrifice the self for the whole. In its deepest sense socialism equals service. The individual refrains and the commonwealth demands.
Frederick the Great was a socialist on a king's throne.
"I'm the first servant of the state." A kingly socialist saying.
Property is theft – so says the mob. Each to his own – so says the personality.”

Joseph Goebbels

Sozialist sein: das heißt, das Ich dem Du unterordnen, die Persönlichkeit der Gesamtheit zum Opfer bringen. Sozialismus ist im tiefsten Sinne Dienst. Verzicht für den Einzelnen und Forderung für das Ganze.
Friedrich der Große war ein Sozialist auf dem Königsthron.
"Ich bin der erste Diener am Staat." Ein königliches Sozialistenwort!
Eigentum ist Diebstahl: das sagt der Pöbel. Jedem das Seine: das sagt der Charakter.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Sense , Personality

“1920. Both of us were about to capitulate facing spiritual breakdown. Then we helped each other to stand tall and did not falter.
My answer was: Resistance!”

Joseph Goebbels

1920. Wir standen beide im Begriff, vor seelischem Zusammenbruch zu kapitulieren. Da richteten wir uns aneinander auf und strauchelten kaum.
Meine Antwort war: Trotz!
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Help

“Man should be trained for war and woman for the recreation of the warrior.”

Joseph Goebbels

As reported by Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will, Men Women and Rape, (1975) note 3, at 48. the original statement was attributed to Nietzsche; as quoted in War Crimes Against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes Tribunals https://books.google.com/books?id=ThfzGvSvQ2UC&pg=PA7&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false, Kelly Dawn Askin, (1997), p.49.
Attributed

Training , War

“We did not complain in the past because Germany was not rearmed. We complain now because we are strong enough to do so.”

Joseph Goebbels

Answer to Lord Halifax, who had asked Goebbels why he had waited until now to complain about the treatment of Germany in the British press (November 1937), quoted in Ivone Kirkpatrick, The Inner Circle (1959), p. 101
1930s

Past , Strong

“We are a workers’ party because we see in the coming battle between finance and labor the beginning and the end of the structure of the twentieth century. We are on the side of labor and against finance.”

Joseph Goebbels

. . The value of labor under socialism will be determined by its value to the state, to the whole community. Labor means creating value, not haggling over things.
“Those Damn Nazis: Why Are We a Workers’ Party?” https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken, Nazi propaganda pamphlet (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932)
1930s

“Maintaining a rotten economic system has nothing to do with nationalism, which is an affirmation of the Fatherland. I can love Germany and hate capitalism. Not only can I, I must. Only the annihilation of a system of exploitation carries with it the core of the rebirth of our people.”

Joseph Goebbels

“Those Damn Nazis: Why Are We Nationalists?” https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken, Nazi propaganda pamphlet (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932)
1930s

Love , Hate , People , Making love

“Communism. Jewry. I am a German Communist.”

Joseph Goebbels

Peter Longerich, Goebbels: A Biography, New York, NY, Random House (2015) p. 26, “Erinnerungsblätter,” 27, (diary entry: 1924)
1920s

Communication

“What we are witnessing below, these thousands upon thousands and ten thousands upon ten thousands of people, who, in a frenzied delirium of exultation and enthusiasm, are acclaiming the new leadership of the state -- this is truly the fulfillment of our dearest wish, the crowning achievement of our work. We are fully justified in saying Germany is awakening!”

Joseph Goebbels

Wolfgang Benz, A Concise History of the Third Reich, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press (2006) p. 20. Quote from January 30, 1933
1930s

People

“On this day the whole nation at all levels, in all its professions, occupations, and estates, acknowledges the dignity and blessedness of labour. On a day when in former times we heard the rattles of machine-guns and the hate-inspired songs of the class struggle and the Internationale, in this first year of Hitler’s government and the German people is assembled in unanimous, unswerving loyalty to the state, the race (Volk), and the German nation to which we all belong. Every difference is wiped away. The barriers of class hatred and the arrogance of social status that for over 50 years divided the nation from itself have been torn down. Germans of all classes, tribes (Stämme), professions, and denominations have joined hands across the barriers that separated them and have vowed henceforth to live as a community, to work and fight for the fatherland that unites us all. … The class struggle is at an end. The idea of the national community rises above the ruins of the bankrupt liberal-capitalist state. … Thus the German people marches into the future.”

Joseph Goebbels

Speech at the first Labor Day celebration held under Nazi auspices (1 May 1933) Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancient Regime to the Present Day, New York, Oxford University Press, (2019) p. 254
1930s

Hate , Time , Future , People

“Production that is essentially completed, which no longer requires strength, ability, inventiveness, entrepreneurship and brilliance (e.g., the transportation system, trusts, conglomerates) will be brought back to state ownership.”

Joseph Goebbels

Der Nazi-Sozi https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/nazi-sozi.htm, Elberfeld: Verlag der Nationalsozialistischen Briefe (1927)
1920s

“Socialism is possible only in a state that is united domestically and free internationally. The bourgeoisie and Marxism are responsible for failing to reach both goals, domestic unity and international freedom. No matter how national and social these two forces present themselves, they are the sworn enemies of a socialist national state.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Freedom

“The bourgeoisie does not want to recognize the strength of the working class. Marxism has forced it into a straitjacket that will ruin it. While the working class gradually disintegrates in the Marxist front, bleeding itself dry, the bourgeoisie and Marxism have agreed on the general lines of capitalism.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

“The sin of liberal thinking was to overlook socialism’s nation-building strengths, thereby allowing its energies to go in anti-national directions. The sin of Marxism was to degrade socialism into a question of wages and the stomach, putting it in conflict with the state and its national existence.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Thinking , Question

“If a Communist shouts “Down with nationalism!”, he means the hypocritical bourgeois patriotism that sees the economy only as a system of slavery. If we make clear to the man of the left that nationalism and capitalism, that is the affirmation of the Fatherland and the misuse of its resources, have nothing to do with each other, indeed that they go together like fire and water, then even as a socialist he will come to affirm the nation, which he will want to conquer.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Water , Making love

“The sin of bourgeois patriotism was to confound a certain economic form with the national. It connected two things that are entirely different. Forms of the economy, however firm they may seem, are changeable. The national is eternal. If I mix the eternal and the temporal, the eternal will necessarily collapse when the temporal collapses. This was the real cause for the collapse of liberal society. It was rooted not in the eternal, but in the temporal, and when the temporal declined it took the eternal down with it. Today it is only an excuse for a system that brings growing economic misery. That is the only reason why international Jewry organizes the battle of the proletarian forces against both powers, the economy and the nation, and defeat them.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

“Nationalism is more wide-reaching than internationalism.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

“Consistent with his spiritual attitude, the National Socialist makes uncompromising demands in politics.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Making love

“What we demand is new, decisive, and radical, revolutionary in the truest sense of the word.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Sense , Decision

“We are for the first German national state of a socialist nature!”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Nature

“The faith in the nation is a matter for everyone, never a group, a class or an economic clique. The eternal must be distinguished from the temporal. Maintaining a rotten economic system has nothing to do with nationalism, which is an affirmation of the Fatherland. I can love Germany and hate capitalism. Not only can I, I must. Only the annihilation of a system of exploitation carries with it the core of the rebirth of our people.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Faith , Hate , People , Love

“The nation is the organic union of a people to protect its life.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Life , People

“Want work and bread for every productive national and blood comrade. Pay should be according to accomplishment. That means more pay for German workers!”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

“In place of a slave colony, we want a restored German national state. The state is not an end in itself for us, but rather a means to an end. The true end is the race, the sum of all the living, creative forces of the people. The structure that today calls itself the German republic is not a way to maintain our racial inheritance. It has become an end in itself with no real connection to the people and their needs.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Way , People

“We call ourselves a workers’ party because we want to free labor from the chains of capitalism and Marxism. In battling for Germany’s future, we freely admit to it, and accept the odium from the liberal bourgeoisie that results. We know that we will succeed in bringing new blessings out of their curses.”

Joseph Goebbels

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Future

“According to the idea of the NSDAP [Nazi party], we are the German left. Nothing is more hateful to us than the right-wing national ownership block„.”

Joseph Goebbels

Der Angriff (The Attack), (6 December 1931), quoted in Wolfgang Venohr’s book: Documents of German existence: 500 years of German national history 1445-1945, Athenäum Verlag, 1980, p. 291, In German: „Der Idee der NSDAP entsprechend sind wir die deutsche Linke. Nichts ist uns verhaßter als der rechtsstehende nationale Besitzbürgerblock https://historyuncensored.wixsite.com/history-uncensored/historical-quotes
1930s

Idea , Hate

“German sport has only one task: to strengthen the character of the German people, imbuing it with the fighting spirit and steadfast camaraderie necessary in the struggle for its existence.”

Joseph Goebbels

Source: April 23, 1933. https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-kits/traveling-exhibitions/nazi-olympics/historical-quotes

Sport , Fight , People

“Communism is nothing but a grotesque distortion of true Socialist thought. We and we alone could become the genuine Socialists in Germany, or for that matter, in Europe.”

Joseph Goebbels

Source: Letter to Count E. Von Reventlow (mid 1920s), quoted in Joseph Goebbels: A Biography https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.185382/2015.185382.Joseph-Goebbels_djvu.txt, Curt Riess, Hollis and Carter, London (1949) p. 37

Communication

“Speech in the evening. Almost exclusively port workers. One proper communist. I am almost at one with him.”

Joseph Goebbels

14 November 1925, The Early Goebbels Diaries 1925-1926, Helmut Heiber, edit. Oliver Watson, trans. Frederick A. Praeger, New York, (1963)
Diary excerpts

“You and I, we are fighting each other but we are not really enemies. By doing so we are dividing our strength, and we shall never reach our goal. Maybe the final extremity will bring us together. Maybe.”

Joseph Goebbels

1920s
Source: Nationalsozialismus oder Bolschewismus? (National Socialism or Bolshevism), open letter to “My Friends on the Left,” Nationalsozialistische Briefe (National Socialist Letters), (Oct. 15, 1925); Joseph Gobbles, Quoted in The Devil’s Disciples, Anthony Read, W. W. Norton & Company, 2005, p. 142

Fight

“Because we are socialists we have felt the deepest blessings of the nation, and because we are nationalists we want to promote socialist justice in a new Germany.”

Joseph Goebbels

Source: 1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Justice