WI: Goebbels murdered by his wife in 1938

Pretty much what it says in the title.

Bear with me there. We know that Magda Goebbels had no qualms about murdering her children IOTL, and hoo boy did she have a motive. Turns out hubby had an affair with a Czech actress, and apparently he, showing all the emotional maturity of Nazi higher-ups, tried to get his wife to acquiesce to a ménage à trois. To say she wasn't happy about this would be an understatement.

Now what Magda did IOTL is to escalate things to Hitler, who told Joseph in no uncertain things that this whole idea doesn't quite mesh with the Goebbelses' propagandistic role as the Aryan model family and ordered him to drop his lover, which he did.

However I'm wondering what would have happened if Magda had taken a, shall we say, more detective-fiction way of dealing with this situation? What would the effects on the Nazi leadership, Nazi propaganda, and all the rest be?
 
Very little, I suspect. Goebbels was quite good at his job but his deputy Karl Hanke was no slouch either. There would be some subtle changes to German cinegraphic history and no Goebbels Diaries (beyond 1938) but Goebbels for all his talent is a spin doctor not a shaker and mover. He is useful rather than essential.
Unless one of his daughters (who presumably aren't also killed by their mother, I don't think the son Peter was born yet in 1938) does something important in later life the broader sweep of German history and that of the Third Reich is pretty much unchanged.
 
Very little, I suspect. Goebbels was quite good at his job but his deputy Karl Hanke was no slouch either. There would be some subtle changes to German cinegraphic history and no Goebbels Diaries (beyond 1938) but Goebbels for all his talent is a spin doctor not a shaker and mover. He is useful rather than essential.
Unless one of his daughters (who presumably aren't also killed by their mother, I don't think the son Peter was born yet in 1938) does something important in later life the broader sweep of German history and that of the Third Reich is pretty much unchanged.
What about Goebbels' role not as a propaganda maker, but as a propaganda object? Because if the truth about the murder came out I'd imagine it would be a major blow to the Nazis' public veneration of motherhood.
 

Driftless

Donor
Under the circumstances of the OP, Frau Goebbel's has an unfortunate accident, even though Hitler was fond of her. Public information is that the Goebbel's died in a tragic fire, or some such nonsense.
 
We know that Magda Goebbels had no qualms about murdering her children IOTL

Although it puts me in the strange position of defending her, can I just pick up on the idea that she had "no qualms" about murdering her children? From what sources we have of those last weeks inside the Fuhrer bunker, it seems like the parents convinced themselves that their children would always be persecuted and hounded because of who their parents were. Combine that with the paranoia about Russian rape in 1945 and a general spate of mass suicides as Nazi Germany fell (7000 in Berlin alone in the first months of 1945), it seems she took a decision to, as she saw it in her mind, to spare them a life not worth living.

I'm not sure this is the same as deciding to murder her husband in a fit of jealousy - I'm not sure you can read into her as having a particularly "murderous" personality.

Not criticizing - its an interesting overall question. Just saying the two things aren't the same...
 
Although it puts me in the strange position of defending her, can I just pick up on the idea that she had "no qualms" about murdering her children? From what sources we have of those last weeks inside the Fuhrer bunker, it seems like the parents convinced themselves that their children would always be persecuted and hounded because of who their parents were....

Joseph Goebbels was prepared to sacrifice the kids to spare them from having to live in a postwar world antithetical to nazi values. To him, life without Adolf had no meaning or value for him or his family. If Adolf died they went with him. Magda Goebbels was not as fanatical and was almost desperate that her kids avoid this fate. Just before Adolf's suicide she saw him and tried to persuade him to leave Berlin, so her family would've had to "go" with him.
 

Deleted member 94680

By ‘38 the Nazis are in power already. I doubt this will have an awfully large affect on the course of history.

Now if it happened in ‘32 or ‘33...
 
Joseph Goebbels was prepared to sacrifice the kids to spare them from having to live in a postwar world antithetical to nazi values. To him, life without Adolf had no meaning or value for him or his family. If Adolf died they went with him. Magda Goebbels was not as fanatical and was almost desperate that her kids avoid this fate. Just before Adolf's suicide she saw him and tried to persuade him to leave Berlin, so her family would've had to "go" with him.

I mean, I'm not an expert, but not according to this source from her sister-in-law (from previous marriage) quoted on wikipedia:

We will take the children with us, they are too good, too lovely for the world which lies ahead. In the days to come Joseph will be regarded as one of the greatest criminals that Germany has ever produced. His children would hear that said daily, people would torment them, despise and humiliate them. They would have to bear the burden of his sins and vengeance would be wreaked on them...

Either way it sort of proves my point.

But, I'm not trying to derail the thread and her motives weren't the OPs actual question.
 
Unless Heydrich offers to help her. Now THERE'S a power couple. He could make it look like Goebbels and Himmler killed each other at a sex party. Definitely a Tarantino film.:)
 
I’m sure Hitler can find another orator/media expert for his deadly backstabbing nest of vipers... pardon me, the Nazi inner circle.
 
Very little, I suspect. Goebbels was quite good at his job but his deputy Karl Hanke was no slouch either. . .

I’m sure Hitler can find another orator/media expert for his deadly backstabbing nest of vipers... pardon me, the Nazi inner circle.

This is where I disagree.

When something is high trajectory, whether it's a music career, a sports team, or in this case a wretched political movement, any change and it's likely to be lower trajectory.
 
When something is high trajectory, whether it's a music career, a sports team, or in this case a wretched political movement, any change and it's likely to be lower trajectory.
On the other hand the Nazis coped quite successfully with the Hess flight in 1941, Fritz Todt (who was much more important to the German war effort than little Joey) dying in an air crash in 1942 and Walter Kerrle's death in 1943. A band or a sports team (and some political movements and government administrations too it must be said) are a dynamic coalition of different individuals with differing talents, interests and objectives. Take out a lynchpin and they start to fall apart. But Joseph G wasn't the lynchpin in Nazi Germany. Hitler was.
Hitler assassinated 1938, yes history would be incredibly different. Himmler murdered in 1938 (Himmler was an efficient police and secret police chief for all his woo woo new age ideas) and Heydrich, Daleuge, Gottlob Berger, Ohlendorff or Karl Wolff becoming Reichfuhrer SS the subsequent history of Germany would have gone somewhat differently as the SS was pervasive in many areas of the Third Reich. Goering murdered 1938 (as Luftwaffe head he was the only senior Nazi directly involved in prosecuting the war effort) and WW2 would have gone definitely differently for Germany (not necessarily better but differently). But Goebbels wasn't central enough
 
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