World War 2 Question No. 6. Why Did Magda Goebbels Kill Her 6 Children in the Bunker?
Answer: The Events Regarding Magda Goebbels as World War 2 came to an end is something that could have been in a Shakespeare tragedy. The only modern fiction equal to Magda's real-life story might be Sophie's Choice (book & movie) in which the unfortunate Sophie is forced by a sadistic Nazi concentration camp official to make the awful decision as to which one of her two beloved children will live.
Magda, the wife of Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, was a beautiful, somewhat promiscuous woman that often served as a sort of "first lady" to bachelor Adolf Hitler. Hitler was very fond of the Goebbels family who produced six children for Hitler's third reich. In turn, Magda thought so much of Hitler that she began the names of each of the six children with an "H."
Although the Goebbels' marriage was a somewhat stormy one with both Magda and, especially Joseph, taking other lovers, they stayed together and when Hitler retreated to the bunker, Magda, Joseph, and the 6 children followed their hero. Joseph made a decision that they would all die with Hitler. The children were to die because Goebbels felt the children would be used as propaganda against him and the Nazi regime.
Magda was decimated by this decision but apparently did nothing to stop it. Both Hitler and Albert Speer (close friend of Magda as he was to many Nazi big-wig wives - they apparently enjoyed talking to the intelligent and sensitive Speer) tried to convince her to save the children. Speer even offered her refuge. She needed refuge from her husband who was becoming very abnormal as the end of the war approached.
But Magda appeared to have made up her mind that the children were to die.
On Speer's last trip to the bunker, he met with Magda who was in bed totally devastated by the coming death of her children. However, Joseph Goebbels did not leave the pair along and Speer was unable to talk freely with her. Speer bitterly complained about this in "Inside the Third Reich." However, it probably would not have mattered. Magda Goebbels' had made a decision that would leave her name in infamy.
The day after Hitler died, she allegedly fed the children cyanide poison-laced hot chocolate although one report is that they died via injection at Joseph Goebbels' orders. Then Joseph and Magda had themselves shot and their corpes burned by soldiers.
One of the many horror stories of World War 2. Almost certainly, Magda could have saved the children with the all-powerful Hitler and highly-placed Speer on her side - even in the insane environment that existed in the bunker. Magda was just not strong enough to stand up to the fanatical and very abnormal Joseph Goebbels.
However, when the lives of 6 children are at stake, a mother has to develop the strength!
How could she have done it?
