Johanna Maria Magdalena Goebbels (née Ritschel; 11 November 1901 – 1 May 1945) was the wife of Nazi Germany's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. A prominent member of the Nazi Party, she was a close ally, companion, and political supporter of Adolf Hitler. Some historians refer to her as the unofficial "first lady" of Nazi Germany, while others give that title to Emmy Göring.
With defeat imminent during the Battle of Berlin at the end of World War II in Europe, she and her husband murdered their six children with a cyanide compound before committing suicide in the Reich Chancellery gardens. Her eldest son, Harald Quandt, from her previous marriage to Günther Quandt, survived her.
Magda was born in 1901 in Berlin, Germany, to an unwed couple, Auguste Behrend and engineer Oskar Ritschel. The couple were married later that year and divorced in either 1904 or 1905. Some sources claim their marriage took place before Magda's birth, although there is no evidence to support it. Ritschel did not acknowledge his paternity until 1920, prior to Magda's marriage to Günther Quandt.
When Magda was five, her mother sent her to Cologne to stay with Ritschel. In 1908, her mother married Richard Friedländer, a wealthy Jewish merchant who lived in Brussels. He adopted Magda and gave her his surname. In 2016, writer and historian Oliver Hilmes traced in the Berlin archives, Friedländer's residency card, which stated that he was Magda's biological father.
In Brussels, Magda was enrolled at the Ursuline Convent in Vilvoorde where she was remembered as "an active and intelligent little girl". The family remained in Brussels from 1908 until the outbreak of World War I, at which point many Germans left Belgium. The family moved to Berlin, where Magda attended the high school Kolmorgensche Gymnasium. Behrend divorced Friedländer in 1914. While in Berlin, Magda befriended Lisa Arlosoroff and later became intimate with her brother Haim, an ardent Zionist. During her relationship with Haim, she briefly wore a Star of David he had given her and accompanied him to Jewish youth club meetings. The relationship did not last but the two remained in contact during the 1920s until Haim's migration to Mandatory Palestine, where he later headed the Jewish Agency department. Haim was assassinated in Tel Aviv in June 1933 in an unsolved murder case, possibly related to his public position in the Jewish Labor Party.
Marriage and son with Günther Quandt
In 1920, while returning to school on a train, she met Günther Quandt, a rich German industrialist twice her age. Thereafter, he courted her with courtesy and grand gestures. He demanded that she change her surname back to Ritschel (after having for many years borne the surname of Friedländer), when converting from Catholicism to Quandt's Protestantism. They were married on 4 January 1921, and their first child, Harald, was born on 1 November 1921.
Magda soon grew frustrated in her marriage; Quandt spent little time with her, as his main interest was the expansion of his business empire. The couple raised six children – Harald, Quandt's two sons from a prior marriage, and three children of a deceased friend.
In October 1927, the couple went on a two-month visit to the United States, to conduct business with the Lloyd Electric Storage Battery Co. of Philadelphia. In 1929, Quandt discovered that Magda was having an affair, so they separated and divorced later in the year. The terms of the divorce were quite generous to Magda, as she had discovered some of Quandt's old love letters and he did not wish them made public.
Marriage and family with Joseph Goebbels
In 1930, Magda attended a meeting of the Nazi Party, where she was impressed by one of the speakers, Joseph Goebbels, then the Gauleiter of Berlin. She joined the party on 1 September 1930, and became the leader of a local Nazi women's group. From the local branch, Magda moved to the party headquarters in Berlin and for a brief period became secretary to Hans Meinshausen, Goebbels' deputy, before being invited to take charge of Goebbels' own private papers. She and Goebbels became romantically involved while on a short trip with friends to Weimar in February 1931. A relationship began and by April they began making plans for their future together. Goebbels wrote in his diary, "We have made a solemn vow to each other: When we have conquered the Reich, we will become man and wife. I am very happy." Her flat on Theodor-Heuss-Platz (then named the Reichskanzlerplatz) soon became a favourite meeting place for Adolf Hitler and other Nazi officials.
By September, the Goebbels relationship was experiencing problems. Goebbels was often jealous, and had some concern over Hitler's fondness for Magda. Magda decided to advance their wedding date, and the couple were married on 19 December 1931, with Hitler as a witness. Otto Wagener claims that Magda's marriage to Goebbels was somewhat arranged; since Hitler intended to remain unmarried, it was suggested that as the wife of a leading and highly visible Nazi official she might eventually act as "first lady of the Third Reich". Magda was an ambitious woman with social connections and upper class bearing that may have influenced Goebbels' own enthusiasm. Goebbels biographer Peter Longerich concurred with this "plausible" conclusion. Meissner contends that Hitler (though undoubtedly impressed by Magda) was an exceptionally close friend of the couple in the early days. Hitler grew very fond of the Goebbels' six children and enjoyed staying at their Berlin apartment, where he could relax and would often arrive there late at night, sitting and talking with Goebbels, with their baby Helga (born 1932) on his lap.
Magda had thus a close relationship with Hitler, and became a member of his small coterie of female friends. She acted as an unofficial representative of the regime, receiving letters from all over Germany from women with questions about domestic matters or child custody issues. After 1933, the Goebbels family became accustomed to the luxurious lifestyle which went with their high social position. Their Berlin home on Göringstrasse was remodeled by Albert Speer and they spent the spring and summers in Kladow. In 1936, they bought a villa on Schwanenwerder island and later another at Bogensee near Wandlitz in Brandenburg.
Joseph and Magda Goebbels had six children: Helga (1932), Hilde (1934), Helmut (1935), Holde (1937), Hedda (1938), and Heide (1940). Joseph Goebbels had many affairs during the marriage. In 1936, Goebbels met the Czech actress Lída Baarová and by the winter of 1937 began an intense affair with her. Magda had a long conversation with Hitler about the situation on 15 August 1938. Unwilling to put up with a scandal involving one of his top ministers, Hitler demanded that Goebbels break off the relationship. Thereafter, Goebbels and Magda seemed to reach a truce until the end of September. The couple had another falling out at that point, and once again Hitler became involved, insisting the couple stay together. Hitler arranged for publicity photos to be taken of himself with the reconciled couple in October 1938. Magda also had affairs, including relationships with Kurt Ludecke in 1933 and Karl Hanke in 1938.
At the outbreak of war, Magda's son by her first marriage, Harald Quandt, became a Luftwaffe pilot and fought at the front, while, at home, she lived up to the image of a patriotic mother by training as a Red Cross nurse and working with the electronics company Telefunken, and travelled to work on a bus, like her colleagues. She was also involved with entertaining the wives of foreign heads of state, supporting the troops and comforting war widows.
Both Goebbels and Magda derived personal benefits and social status from their close association with Hitler, and the couple remained loyal to Hitler and publicly supported him. Privately, however, Magda expressed doubts, especially after the war began to go badly on the Eastern Front. On 9 November 1942, during a gathering with friends listening to a speech by Hitler, she switched off the radio exclaiming, "My God, what a lot of rubbish." In 1944, she reportedly said of Hitler, "He no longer listens to voices of reason. Those who tell him what he wants to hear are the only ones he believes." There is no evidence that Magda attempted to intervene to save her Jewish stepfather from the Holocaust; he was deported to Buchenwald in 1938 and died soon after. Asked about her husband's antisemitism, she answered: "The Führer wants it thus, and Joseph must obey."