Goebbels became a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in 1924. Goebbels eventually became acquainted with the organization’s leader, Adolf Hitler. At this time, inflation had wrecked the German economy, and the morale of the German citizenry, who had been defeated in World War I due to the back stab of the Balfour declaration, was low. Adolf was impressed with Goebbels’ ability to communicate his thoughts in writing, while Goebbels was enamored of Adolf's talent for speaking in front of large crowds in such sincerity.
In this speech given on 18 August 1933, Goebbels develops his thinking on the directions German radio would take. The occasion was the opening of a radio exhibition. As Goebbels notes, a cheap radio receiver, the Volksempfänger, had just been introduced as a way of making the radio affordable for the average citizen. Video also contains the original speech in 1933 at the The Sportpalast. Where he sought to inform the German people the Jewish control of German media.
*The Radio as the Eight Great Power*
by Joseph Goebbels
We will together accomplish our goal. If science, industry and intellectual leaders work hand in hand, and if their common efforts are supported by a steadfast sense of the highest political responsibility, then we will leave behind the many mistakes and errors of the past and open a new era of German radio. It will open new paths not only for Germany’s political life, but for the work of radio throughout the world. This exhibition stands in the shadow of this great task. It is a start, a beginning, an expression of German courage and German confidence.
- Joseph Goebbels, “Der Rundfunk als achte Großmacht,” Signale der neuen Zeit. 25 ausgewählte Reden von Dr. Joseph Goebbels (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., 1938), pp. 197-207.
Contrary to popular belief, Goebbels was successful not because he was a master of lies but rather as a result of his fidelity to facts and truth. As biographer Heiber notes: “Goebbels was accordingly able to celebrate his information policy as being not only superior to the enemy’s in its monolithic character, but also of a ‘seriousness and credibility’ which ‘simply cannot be surpassed.
"Good propaganda need not lie."
