Analyzing Joseph Goebbels's total war speech in Nazi Germany
Joseph Goebbels calling for total war before a crowd in Berlin, 1943.
Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Minister, speaker, activist.
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Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, Washington, D.C.Wreck of the battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor, Cuba.
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Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1972-025-10 (CC BY-SA 3.0)Learn about the July Plot of 1944, in which Claus, Count Schenk von Stauffenberg, and others tried to assassinate Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Still with the hope of not directly engaging in the war, the United States provided defense materials and other support systems for the Allied forces at the dawn of the 1940s.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.On D-Day, June 6, 1944, an Allied force led by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower launched the greatest amphibious invasion of all time against German defenses on the coast of Normandy, France. From The Second World War: Allied Victory (1963), a documentary by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.U.S. soldiers, having defeated the German military, come face-to-face with the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. From “The Second World War: Allied Victory” (1963), a documentary by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Learn more about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, by the United States during World War II.
News •
Real demand Tebas resign over Goebbels comparison
• Oct. 16, 2026, 11:43 AM ET (BBC)
Transcript
NARRATOR: 1943 - defeat at Stalingrad, bombing raids on the Reich, burning cities. The Nazi regime is under pressure. Propaganda Minister Goebbels wants to win public support. In Berlin he commits the nation to total war.
PROPAGANDA MINISTER GOEBBELS: "The English claim that the German people are against the government's total war strategy. The English say the people don't want total war, that they want surrender."
SABINE BOEBE: "The audience was stirred up about innocent women and children and violating the public and carpeting our German homeland with bombs. And, of course, this fed the anger in the crowd. And when the questions came and the shouting started, all control was lost."
GOEBBELS: "Do you want total war?"
NARRATOR: Goebbels' deceitful presentation fulfils its purpose.
BRUNHILDE POMSEL: "We were absolutely aghast that it was possible to move this overcrowded stadium into a frenzied delirium, just asking such a question: Do you want total war? Yes! Yes! All this screaming. It was a grim experience. We stood there, paralyzed. One of the people standing with us said 'Clap! You must clap!'"
GOEBBELS: "If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?"
BOEBE: "I couldn't imagine anything being more total. Were we to not sleep at all now, have nothing at all to eat, see all the men killed, the civilian population too? I just couldn't imagine an escalation. It was horrible enough!"
GOEBBELS: "Now, people, rise up and let the storm break loose!"
NARRATOR: Just how close the consensus was outside of this hall remains unclear. The total war, however, led to defeat.
PROPAGANDA MINISTER GOEBBELS: "The English claim that the German people are against the government's total war strategy. The English say the people don't want total war, that they want surrender."
SABINE BOEBE: "The audience was stirred up about innocent women and children and violating the public and carpeting our German homeland with bombs. And, of course, this fed the anger in the crowd. And when the questions came and the shouting started, all control was lost."
GOEBBELS: "Do you want total war?"
NARRATOR: Goebbels' deceitful presentation fulfils its purpose.
BRUNHILDE POMSEL: "We were absolutely aghast that it was possible to move this overcrowded stadium into a frenzied delirium, just asking such a question: Do you want total war? Yes! Yes! All this screaming. It was a grim experience. We stood there, paralyzed. One of the people standing with us said 'Clap! You must clap!'"
GOEBBELS: "If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?"
BOEBE: "I couldn't imagine anything being more total. Were we to not sleep at all now, have nothing at all to eat, see all the men killed, the civilian population too? I just couldn't imagine an escalation. It was horrible enough!"
GOEBBELS: "Now, people, rise up and let the storm break loose!"
NARRATOR: Just how close the consensus was outside of this hall remains unclear. The total war, however, led to defeat.
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