Magda Goebbels; The First Lady of the Third Reich

288 pages. Author's Note. Translator's Foreword. Illustrations (16 pages of photographs). Biographical Notes. Bibliography. Index. DJ has some wear, soiling, small tears/chips, and sticker residue on the front. Chronicles the life of Joseph Goebbel's wife, who rose to the pinnacle of the Nazi hierarchy alongside her husband and who, when the Reich collapsed, committed suicide with him in the Berlin bunker. Hans-Otto Meissner (4 June 1909 - 8 September 1992) was a German lawyer and Nazi diplomat, posted in London, Tokyo, Moscow, and Milan, among other cities. He is best known as a writer and novelist publishing a series of books, which proved successful. In December 1933, Meissner passed the entrance examination for the Foreign Service. On 12 December 1933 he was admitted to the SS (membership number 241,955) in the so-called Motor-SS (after 1 May 1940 in the rank of Hauptsturmführer). From September 1939 to March 1940 , he was employed in the Information Department of the Foreign Office in Berlin in Unit II (Military Intelligence and Propaganda Service) and from March to July 1940 to the German embassy in Moscow. After his release from Allied detention in October 1947, Meissner worked as a journalist and writer. Until 1991, he published numerous travelogues, novels and biographies of great explorers, as well as his own autobiographical writings and works on recent contemporary history. In spite of criticism of his past as a Nazi diplomat, Meissner received numerous honors. In 1986 he was awarded Grand Cross of Merit, at the suggestion of Franz Josef Strauß. Johanna Maria Magdalena "Magda" 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 before committing suicide in the Reich Chancellery gardens. Her eldest son, Harald Quandt, from a previous marriage, survived her. 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 did some volunteer work, although she has not been characterized as politically active. Magda was among the last to see both Hitler and Eva Braun before they committed suicide on the afternoon of 30 April.[52] On the following day, 1 May, Magda and Joseph arranged for SS dentist Helmut Kunz to inject their six children with morphine so that when they were unconscious, an ampule of cyanide could be then crushed in each of their mouths. Kunz later stated he gave the children morphine injections, but it was Magda and SS-Obersturmbannführer Ludwig Stumpfegger (Hitler's personal doctor) who administered the cyanide. Author James P. O'Donnell concluded that although Stumpfegger was probably involved in drugging the children, Magda killed them herself.…