The Corona Virus pandemic may well be the worst disaster since World War 2. So it is useful to look back 75 years to the closing stages of the war in Europe.
28/04/1945: Mussolini, his mistress and other Fascist leaders killed by Italian partisans.
Hitler marries Eva Braun.
29/04: Hitler writes his will, designating Admiral Karl Donitz as his successor.
30/04: Hitler and Eva commit suicide.
01/05: Goebbels and his wife commit suicide. They also murder their 6 children.
02/05: The Battle of Berlin ends in a decisive Soviet victory.
04/05: The bulk of German armies surrender at Luneberg Heath in the Netherlands.
As students of Whatsapp University and Quora know, many people in India feel that the Nazi way of doing things is a good idea, starting with concentration camps.
Much of the success of the Nazi party was due to the well organized propaganda largely run by Joseph Goebbels. Thus, if you are going to celebrate Hitler Jayanti on April 20, you should also celebrate Goebbels Jayanti on October 29.
Some points of interest: He was indeed Hitler’s chosen successor, as he became Chancellor after Hitler’s death on April 30, 1945. This was only for about 24 hours as he committed suicide the next day.
More precisely, he and his wife Magda committed suicide after they had killed all their six children. Only one son of Magda by her previous husband survived, as he was in a POW camp at that time.
He was one of the better-educated Nazi leaders, with a PhD from the then famous University of Heidelberg.
The first few minutes of this video are interesting viewing:
Here he listens to a long question (in English) from an American journalist and immediately gives a long answer in German. Apparently he understood English quite well, like some of his colleagues (but not Hitler who knew only a little French apart from German).
Some of his “achievements” involved motivating film-makers like Leni Riefenstahl to produce films like “Triumph of the Will” and the documentaries about the 1936 Olympics, still recognized as trend-setters in propaganda and sports documentaries. They can be seen on Youtube.
Unlike her mentors, she led a long life and died in 2003 at the age of 101.
abn397 