Goebbels Book

Chapter 15 notes
1 Hans Hinkel stated in Jun 1969 he had 'got to know' her before JG (IfZ, ZS.1878).

2 Bismarck, a counsellor at the German embassy in Rome, was quoted in Count Ciano's diary, Oct 17, 1941-The bitchy Bella Fromm included similar canards about 'Magda Goebbels, divorced Quandt, née Nothing at All' in her diary, mid Dec 1932: Magda, wrote this Jewish Berlin gossip columnist, had been brought up after WWI by the Nachmann's, a family of Berlin Jews, and had met Quandt at the Ullstein publishing house. 'So she struck real lucky with the Jews.' (Boston Univ. Libr., Special MS Division, Fromm papers, box 1).

3 She was born Oct 31, 1879; Alexander Hubert Theodor Wilhelm Oskar Ritschel died in Duisburg, Apr 4, 1941.

4 Birth certificate No.101/1901, No.4 Registry Office Kreuzberg, Berlin (IfZ: F82, Heiber papers).

5 Diary, Jan 26, 1933.

6 Auguste Behrend, 'My daughter Magda Goebbels,' in Schwäbische Illustrierte, Stuttgart (cit. hereafter as Behrend), No.13, Mar 29, 1952.

7 Heiber is also dubious about Auguste Behrend's marriage, though inclined to accept it. In the Jul 1931 amendment of Magda's birth certificate, later referred to, there is mention of Ritschel only as her father, and not as Behrend's divorced husband.

8 Ritschel, supplementary testament, Apr 3, 1941 (ZStA Potsdam, Rep 90 Go 2, Magda Goebbels, letters); it benefited Ritschel's two brothers Gustav and Wilhelm, paying off the latter's debts.

9 Diary, Jul 24, 1931.

10 I have found no source which furnishes Friedländer with a first name. See e.g. the series by 'Jürgen Peters and Hans Roos' (Dr Erich Ebermayer and Dr Hans-Otto Meissner), 'Magda Goebbels,' in Revue, Munich, Feb 22, 1952. Since Behrend does not specify any dates of marriage to or divorce from Friedländer, this may have been an equally loose arrangement.

11 Ebermayer & Meissner state he acquired a small cigar store.

12 Behrend, Mar 8, 1952.

13 Quandt was born at Pritzwalk (Prignitz) on Jul 28, 1881; he had a brother Werner. Before his first wife Antoine, neé Ewald, died in 1918 she bore him two sons -- Hellmut, and Herbert, born Jun 22, 1918 at Pritzwalk. For more on Günther Quandt see NA, RG.226, OSS reports, No.106,145, Dec 1, 1944.

14 See Quandt's own version of all this in his privately published memoirs, edited by Herbert and Harald Quandt (Mensch & Arbeit Verlag, Munich, Jul 1961).

15 Magda's Jewish background was frequently bowdlerized, e.g. by Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes of the British embassy in a telegram to Anthony Eden on Jan 6, 1938: 'He [JG] is married to the former (divorced) rather pretty wife of a rich Jew...' (PRO: FO.371/21671).

16 Amendment to birth register approved by minister of justice on Jul 15, 1920; Magda was 'declared legitimate ... at her father's request.' (IfZ, F.82, Heiber papers.)

17 Behrend, Mar 8, 1952.

18 Harald Quandt was born in Charlottenburg on Nov 1, 1921. Under interrogation by K. Frank Korf on Apr 4, 1948 he stated he last saw his grandmother 'Auguste Friedländer, divorced Ritschel' in Berlin in Jan 1944 (Hoover Libr: Korf papers).

19 Quandt memoirs.

20 Hans-Otto Meissner, Magda Goebbels, ein Lebensbild (Munich, 1978); based largely on the testimony of the late Ello Quandt.

21 Her interest in Buddhism, which became profound, came from Ritschel. Revue, Feb 22, 1952.

22 According to Curt Riess (Das war mein Leben. Erinnerungen, Munich, 1986, 326) this was Viktor Arlosoroff; Viktor Chajim Arlosoroff, born in the Ukraine in 1899, emigrated to Palestine, became a fanatical leader of the Labour-Zionist movement and was assassinated in Tel Aviv in 1933 by Revisionist-Zionists of the Jabotinsky movement.

23 Eleonore Quandt, born at Eisenberg on Sep 28, 1899, had married Günther's brother Werner. Lying about her age she told Magda they were the same age; Ello was two years older. Like millions of others she joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1932 (BDC file).

24 Quandt memoirs.

25 BDC file, Magda Quandt.

26 Hinkel.

27 Behrend, Mar 29, 1952