Friday, July 07, 2006

Goebbels Trivia

When we played a game of trivia the other week, one of the answer to one of the questions (Who was the Nazi Propaganda Minister) was "Goebbels". Within a couple of days, I saw the name again, in an article talking about the carpark that had been built over the site of the bunker in which Hitler had killed himself. The article, on a Herr Misch, one of Hitler's aides, also mentioned that the Goebbels children had been prepared for their death in the bunker. Misch had faced "fierce criticism in calling for a plaque to commemorate the children - Helga, Hilde, Helmut, Hedda, Holde and Heide"*. It's a tragic story, of an advancing army and nowhere left to run, and parents wanting to save a family from … it's not clear what else they feared, but it was enough for the children (once Poster children for the Third Reich) to be poisoned, allegedly by their parents, to avoid capture.
* A Wikipedia article on the Goebbels children records their names as: Helga, Hildegard, Helmut, Hedwig, Holdine and Heidrun. Their mother also had another son from a previous marriage, Harald.

2 comments:

Purple Sea Urchin said...

Was it in support of Hitler that they named all their children starting with the "H" alphabet?

Karen said...

That would be a big "yes".