This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Goebbels children article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||
|
Another possible reason for giving the children names beginning with H is that it makes purchasing monogrammed towels and monogrammed luggage much simpler. John Paul Parks ( talk) 16:10, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
I edited the pictures again. If anyone disagrees with the edits, keep in mind that image "Voss-called-to-identify.jpg" was overlapping text, and there was a lot of white space in the bottom section. Also, the childrens sections were confusing and a bit muddled together. Cheezerman 07:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
In the 1942 family portrait, and the yellow-tinted one, Hedde, Helga, Hilde and Holde seem to be wearing matching necklaces. Just a note.
Sherurcij (
talk) (
Terrorist Wikiproject) 20:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
http://www.germaniainternational.com/images/goebbelsspecialchest31.jpg they are wearing the necklaces as well
About the edits, while I largely agreed with your changes, the recent revert restored all the parts I didn't agree with ;) I think the beauty of Wikipedia is that we don't have to go into detail about what was going on in the Battle of Berlin, because we just say Battle of Berlin and people can click for a full comprehensive context. Again, same with Fuhrerbunker. Adding a link to Magda's page on the murders does a disservice, since I think the bulk of information on their murders should be on *this* page, not hers. Also, what date Hitler killed himself is inconsequential to the Goebbels children, and *definitely* shouldn't be mentioned as a random point in the opening. If you're up for it though, I'd love it if you could find more information on the individual children. :) Sherurcij ( talk) ( Terrorist Wikiproject) 02:51, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Since this article seems to have gained a few more mini-edit-disputes than usual, in its short life since I moved it from User:Sherurcij/children, I figured I'd just clear up that where things may not be definite fact coming out of the Soviet wartime propaganda, I appreciate that we carefully use words like "it was ruled to be", or "led to the conclusion", since sometimes if you trace back "Where were the autopsies done?" or "Who was called to identify them?" you'll discover there was a lot of guesswork done and history will never be certain.
On an unrelated note, I found an offhand reference saying When the bodies of Josef and Magda Goebbels were found, they were put on display and photographed from every angle, even on the autopsy table. here and Captioning one of the five, (they) observe: "Russian photograph of the autopsy of Dr. Joseph Goebbels (courtesy of 'The death of Adolf Hitler' by Lev Bezymenski, 1968). A large number of Russian doctors and medical personnel pose in the background. here ... so if anybody wants to have me forever indebted to you, finding those photographs would be great (especially if they presumably included the children). Sherurcij ( talk) ( Terrorist Wikiproject) 22:58, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Just a note on a sentence in the article: "As the final group including Junge and the pilot Hanna Reitsch prepared to leave the bunker, they carried letters to the outside world from those remaining". If you'll look at the bottom here, on the "Final occupants of the Führerbunker"-part, you'll see that Reitsch left the bunker on April 23rd, while we don't know when Junge left. While I realize that the sentence in question doesn't say that they left together, it suggests that they did, in my opinion. Someone might want to edit it so that it's more accurate, or dismiss my whole litte idea with a proper argument :p -- Ojan 17:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
"The Goebbels autopsies" were supposedly released in a book titled Der Tod von Adolf Hitler in 1982 by Lev Bezymenski...you know, if anybody wanted to get me a nice birthday gift ;) Sherurcij ( talk) ( Terrorist Wikiproject) 07:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I´ve just corrected the time of his birth again: He definitely was born in 1921, the same year when Magda married his father. To prove this, just look at his own article in Wikipedia. I´m a bit angry because I suppose to have corrected this date just some days ago, and now someone has deleted the correction again. Please let it stand this time. 139.6.1.17 16:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the relevance of noting that none of the children were baptised? Stack 03:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what Magda Goebbels's personal beliefs were, apart from Hitler-worship, but Nazi ideology was hostile to Christianity and it would have been very surprising for a senior Nazi like Goebbels to have his children baptised. Adam 05:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for posting a link to the video footage of the children. They were beautiful. It's sad to think that their fates, had they not been killed, would have been equally as tragic, full of pain and guilt at not knowing what their father had done. Marialadouce | parlami 17:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Had they not been killed they would have been captured by the Russians and never heard of again. Adam 22:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, Magda knew very well that it would be terrible for them to grow up knowing what their father, especially, and her participated in. She was disgusted by at least some of the things she saw Hitler do and say and knew her husband was also guilty of heinous things. I'm not saying killing her kids was a good thing, but it makes sense that they would have had a very hard time personally dealing with knowing who their father was and what he had done, even if they never got a "hard time" from anyone else in the world. Magda understood that very well. 2600:1700:BC01:9B0:544F:E012:2320:EFE4 ( talk) 23:39, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
NO WAY is does David Irving's biography of Goebbels meet the requirements of WP:RS. Having just tried to use it to cross reference minor details I personally believe that, as a source, it is so confabulated, even in the smallest, most basic ways, as to be useless. There are plenty of sources (I have Meissner's bio of Magda, and some obscure translations from German sources), let's remember these lovely children with some better ones?-- Zeraeph 19:52, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Should David Irving be cited as a sole source for any information in this article?-- Zeraeph 00:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
In my opinion, absolutely not as David Irving has persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence see:
He has also served a prison sentence in Austria from February to December 2006 for Holocaust denial, which is a criminal offense in that country see:
In addition there are plenty of neutral and reliable sources available for use instead that unambiguously accord with WP:RS and WP:V.-- Zeraeph 00:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Given that:
I would exclude him. If his point of view has value, it will be represented by more reliable and clearly neutral sources. Hgilbert 13:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Comment: No. No subject in history is more extensively researched and published by generally acknowledged and respected academic historians than Hitler's Germany. There is no justification for using Irving's works. Professor marginalia 15:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Even if David Irving's unsubtantiated account of the contents of Josef Goebbels' diaries could be considered an acceptable source I really do find the relevance of such trivia as whether Josef recorded feeling neglected in favor of the children questionable. Not least because ALL fathers feel that way at times, an even if David Irving made the whole thing up I GUARANTEE you Josef Goebbels made that exact statement more than once in his diaries.
There are other sources that go into details of the individual natures of the children and their parents' relationship with them. Meissner says a lot about it (perhaps because at least Harald was his near contemporary to the extent that he identified with quite a lot?) that I want to put in. For example Goebbels insisted on sending them to the ordinary local school, not any of the private schools he could well afford. The children were encouraged to speak and express themselves freely and ate with their parents whenever there were not guests. This was remarkably enlightened at a time when children were still, largely, expected to be "seen and not heard", particularly in the moneyed classes. By all accounts, though it may have been his only virtue, Josef was a good father, and quite often played "rough and tumble" games with them, and was accused by the young Governess "Frau K" of winding them up TOO much and trying to persuade them to be "less good". It seems possible that the children really DID have idyllic lives, not so much by the standards of the times, but by the standards of now, which is in enigmatic contrast to the Nazi Regime and their father's part in it, as well as their fearful deaths.
It seems far more important to try and present those aspects as clearly as possible than whatever vague snippets about their movements are claimed by David Irving, or anyone else. It is important to establish their material quality of life in terms of ponies and the use of a motorboat, but it is surely far more important to present the rest? -- Zeraeph 13:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
You had the format nearly right except for one vital thing, you must always close a citation with a forward slash / thus <ref name=whatever/> or the script will blank the appearance of all the text until it next encounters <ref/>.
To establish that the diaries exist is not a citation or a reference. Personally I have not the slightest doubt that they exist, their existance is fully substantiated, what you need to substantiate is what they actually say, in a manner that can be verified. Just establishing that they exist does not do that. If you can establish that the diaries exist, even in German, and that the text OF THE DIARIES says what you are attributing to it, and there is a passage in David Irving's book that says the same thing, I personally do not see why you should not also mention the passage from David Irving as an English language illustration to the German text. I do think that as the exact text of these diaries has been contested and misreprsented so often it really is necessary to cite with volumes and page numbers, or dates so that they can be verified, as you could not possibly accurately quote or cite from such works from memory, that should be easy enough to do.
It would also be nice to have text in the citations explaining what the souces actually are in the footnotes. -- Zeraeph 16:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I would really like to see a seperate section for the use made of the children in propaganda if you do not see a problem with that? After all the more an article is broken up the more appealling it is to readers, also, there HAS to be an actual copy of at least the "totalen Kreig" photograph, which would be, of course, a citation in itself...but I don't seem to be able to find one.
I KNOW "The approaching end" is a terrible headline but half my vocabulary seems to go on vacation whenever I work in another language, so if you can think of a better one you won't get any argument from me. Also, for the same reasons, if you can think of a better phrase than "fly on the wall" to indicate filming that the children were unaware of? -- Zeraeph 21:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Moved from Talk:Goebbels children/Comments (created in error needs deleting):
Hello, in this page there is very important mistake. I tried to correct it, but my endeavour was not successfull.
Fourth child of Goebbels was Holde (Holdine Kathrin), not Hedda (Hedwig Johanna)!!!. Also their photos are mistaken (photo of Hedda is in fact photo of Holde), the information about Holde are in fact information about Hedda. Hedda was born on May, OK, but not on 1st May, but on 5th May.
In the internet there are the same mistakes. But you can find the true in books about Joseph Goebbels (even in his diaries).
Please, correct these page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.101.93.239 ( talk • contribs)
-- Zeraeph 14:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Hello,
I prefer finding information in the books, not in the internet. The order of the children - Helga, Hilda, Helmuth, Holde, Hedda and Heide,I found for instance in books by Guido Knopp (book in original - Hitlers Helfer, in English it could be something like Hitler's helpers, or next book - I donť know its name in German, in English it could be something like Hitler's admirers and Marlene, it is about Magda Goebbels and about other known women in the third empire, like Leni Riefenstahl) or Anna Maria Sigmund (book in original Die Frauen der Nazis, in English it could be something like The women of Nazis). Guido Knopp and Anna Maria Sigmund are German historians. David Irvig is not veriable source for me, but in his book Joseph Goebbels, there I found the order Holde, Hedda, too. Order Holde, Hedda I found even in book by Norbert and Stephen Leberts - its only a couple of worlds in the prologue of book about Nazi children - its name in German is Denn du trägst meinen namen. I wrote about Goebbels diaries, but I meant his real diaries, not books by David Irwing - I have read one of these diaries - the diary of the year 1938. There, in this diary, he wrote about his "new" child, girl - she was born in 5th May (her name would be Herta, but in fact then her name was Hedda). Goebbels sometimes wrote about his sweet children, as he said, once - it was before the May 1938 he wrote something like, that somewhere there was even Holde with him and that she began to be a friend with him. (about 5th May as date of birth you can read also in some books above)
Once by chance I found this page, there is a lot of interesting information, but I found even the wrong order of Holde and Hedda and wrong date of birth of Hedda. Wrong for me because I read something else and not only once ... .—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
88.101.93.239 (
talk •
contribs)
From the newly youtubed "Goebbels Family Summer Special 1942" it is obvious that Helmut really WAS an accomplished little clown (he had me in stitches). Interesting to consider, privately, that he must have picked that up from SOMEWHERE, and the most likely "culprit" is a private father that has, thus far, not surfaced on any film I can discover (which is DEFINATELY not the same as never existing :o) ).
I would LOVE to get that aspect of Helmut into the article from a WP:RS if anybody has one? After all, this article IS about "Goebbels Children" and the more we can see about each of them AS THEY WERE the better.
Hedda (now confirmed as the seriously dishevelled imp who declaimed "Ladybird, ladybird" im Deutsche for the cameras) seems to have been QUITE a character yet we have next to nothing about her...it is a shame...-- Zeraeph 16:43, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
That section showed bodies (one of them a burnt one), and could cause distress. Can we please put a discretion tag on there, like the one I put in May that was eventually erased? Arbiteroftruth 22:12, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
I feel that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bscap007.jpg and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:5-dead-goebbels.jpg are ghoulish pictures that are unnecessary and add nothing to the article at all. There remain two photos, that seem to me in better taste, a long shot of the bodies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Voss-called-to-identify.jpg being identified by Voss and a close up of Voss (which serves to establish his own identity) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:VOss-Goebbels.jpg I can discern not valid reason for further "corpse photos" of these poor children. -- Zeraeph 10:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
These photos are historical and encyclopedic, after all this is an article about
Goebbels children. Or should we delete images such as
this as well? Of course not.
≈ jossi ≈
(talk) 19:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
All three pics should stay. IF all three were the very first thing that one saw in the article, then thay would be too much. As it is however, they are small and at the end where the death is discussed. The pictures aren't particualarly graphic as far as death photos go (we've got much more gruesome shots on other articles) and the reason these kids are famous at all is their death. Thus the photos are perfectlly acceptable and in fact have been in the article a long time. Just because some people are offended is not a good reason to remove them. In this context they have educational value, they show the reality of deaths much more clearly than words can and they are not excessive. pschemp | talk 02:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Delete Photos: Wikipedia is not censored, true, but are we going to put every graphic photos on Wikipedia and allow this place to become a slash pic paradise? No, we can't do that. There needs to be a limit on certain things, and showing brunt bodies is beyond the limit. Arbiteroftruth 18:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Keep the photos - It is not true, that the photos "add nothing to the article at all". They add a great deal; they convey emotion (and by emotion, I do not mean shock value). In fact, I believe Image:5-dead-goebbels.jpg is the most important image in the article. -- Petri Krohn 02:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
The burnt body is unnecessary at the very least. I mean, I can live with the other pictures (I am really compromising here), but that pic with the burnt body needs to go. It is way over the top, and purely meant for shock value. Arbiteroftruth 07:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
The photos are an exercise in pure voyeurism. Clearly, anyone supporting their retention has never had children, or fought in a war. A lesson to be learned from the Nazis is that self-restraint is the basis for a civilised world. What you don't do is just as important as what you do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phanto282 ( talk • contribs)
User:Zeraeph, please refrain from using dishonest edit summaries to try and "hide" your disputed edits to the page, such as removing two photographs you personally don't like because they are of "poor children", and labelling your edit as minor and "typo". Sherurcij ( Speaker for the Dead) 18:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with pschemp 100%. These photos (all of them) are encyclopedic and free and should stay. -- John 21:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
The non-free images used on the page need examination/fixing per WP:NONFREE or they may be deleted...problems include missing sources, copyright holders, and license tags, as well as rationales for use in specific articles per WP:NFCC#10c. Videmus Omnia Talk 15:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Should this article be called Goebbels' children? Kingturtle ( talk) 03:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be a fallacious belief that the act of murder is something that can only be established by a court of law. However, this conclusion disregards common sense. If someone is killed by someone else - as proven in this case by autopsy - then we know that a murder occurred. We do not, however, know who committed the murder. Thus the inclusion of the children in the murder categories is entirely appropriate as long as they do not make an assertion of who murdered them. -- Ave Caesar ( talk) 11:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Quote : a homicide is not a murder unless a court decides that it is.
Que ?? Sorry mate, but where on earth (Mr Toad) did you get the idea that killing cannot become Murder prior to judicial determination?
If person A kills a child with an axe, and then himself no court other than (perhaps) a Coroner's court will be called upon to adjudicate because he will never go to trial. This does not change the character of the act, his intention or the moral consequence of the crime. Neither does it prevent me forming a judgment of these facts and applying a (subjective) description. We have no hesitation in describing a girl who has been raped and strangled as a "murder victim" irrespective of whether the perpetrator is caught and tried. Similarly we speak of one's briefcase being "stolen" even if the thief is not prosecuted etc, etc. It is always open for someone to disagree with the characterization, but the existence or otherwise of a finding at law is not particularly probative. Murder is not just a legal definition, and even if using it in the technical sense there is no need for a Court finding to allow the judgment by third parties to be made. This judgment will always be determined by the moral perspective of the observer, which is perhaps the point you are trying to make.
However, even a Court is no more than a group's judgment, and as the Nuremberg controversy shows the point at which this opinion becomes law in an international context is a vague one if judging action outside the territorial sovereignty of the State's Court. The trappings of a Court, the processes and the form do not turn a subjective view into an objective one and very few lawyers would ever claim that it did so.
It is true that there is something of a legal distinction in many jurisdictions between unlawful homicides generally and the most serious subcategory of "Murder", and that in most systems the distinguishing factor is prior intent. Once again, a Court is not necessary to make this call and squabbling about the definition is in my view misguided.
I do not think that it is too controversial in the current context to describe the deliberate poisoning of a child as Murder. There may be some argument that this was the desperate act of a loving parent to shield the child from even worse trauma, (Eg, to throw a child from the window of a burning building) however my understanding is that the general consensus is that the "harm" they were being protected from was having to live in a world in which the Reich did not exist and that this act is therefore symptomatic of this regime's deranged value system. It annoys me slightly that people with very limited understanding of Law is critical of it based upon their misapprehension. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.173.161.79 ( talk) 05:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Who is that in the background in uniform? The image almost looks like it was cut and pasted into the original photo. In fact, the whole photo looks a little faked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.85.139.75 ( talk) 15:15, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
Isn't the caption for the family photo wrong, when it gives the order of daughters in the front row as Hedwig (2nd from left), Holdine (4th from left) and Heidrun (far right)? I assume the article text is correct with regard to the children's names and birth data. The girl who is 4th from left is certainly the youngest child, and should therefore be Heidrun. The correct order, then, for the complete front row should be: Helmut, Hedwig, Magda, Heidrun, Joseph, Holdine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.96.173.183 ( talk) 21:34, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps it´s interesting, that the children´s second names all can be originated from their father´s pedigree:
Susanne (Helga) was named after her grandaunt Anna, the eldest sister of Katharina Goebbels, Traudel (Hilde) after her great-grandmother Gertrud Goebbels (Traudel is an abbreviation of Gertrud/Gertraud), Christian (Helmut) got the name of his grandaunt Christina (second-eldest sister of Katharina Goebbels), Kathrin (Holdine) was named after her grandmother herself, Johanna (Hedda) after her great-grandfather Johann Odenhausen, (father of Katharina Goebbels) and Elisabeth (Heide) after Joseph Goebbels´ eldest sister, who had died at age fifteen in WW I.
Nice evening, Eva -- 91.17.103.12 ( talk) 17:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Can anyone explain to me what´s the matter with this article that it is marked as "must be rewritten to meet WP standard" since September 2009? I can´t make it out from the links given in the template box. Thx, Eva. -- 91.17.104.229 ( talk) 20:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
Do we know how old he was when the "parent-teacher-meeting in a small circle" (= the talk between his father and his teacher about Helmut´s bad notes) took place? (Supposedly, you wouldn´t scold a first-former as much as a third-former in case of being up to fail promotion - not that I know how strict his father was in that point.)
Have a nice evening, Eva 87.166.198.245 ( talk) 17:17, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
Apparently the image of Hitler with a girl was used as a postcard during the 3rd Reich; see here for a site selling the postcard. I rather doubt Hitler would have used personal images for such purposes, and I see no indication that the girl indeed is Helga Goebbels as claimed, particularly since the file page gives the immediate source as "Google". For those reasons I'll remove the image from the article. Huon ( talk) 22:39, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
It is widely believed it was Kunz who assisted, as Stumpfegger was too drunk to help. ( 86.176.67.65 ( talk) 17:14, 20 March 2019 (UTC))
According to especially the bunker military commander Wilhelm Mohnke what Joseph Goebbels feared was that his children would grow up to become good citizens of a red Germany and one day curse their parents!"Better that we take them with us" he told Mohnke who suggested bringing the children out of Berlin. Also the Bunker was taken by professional soviet elite soldiers. The great mass of conscripted soldiers often got drunk, raped, vandalized etc, but the professionals were diciplined and usually behaved correctly. The people at a field hospital connected to the Bunker has testified that the soviet soldiers in question did behave exemplary. The children probably indeed had gotten fairly well off. Even the hard-bitten marshall Sjukov talks in his memoirs about how appalling it was to see children murdered by their own parents.
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Goebbels children article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||
|
Another possible reason for giving the children names beginning with H is that it makes purchasing monogrammed towels and monogrammed luggage much simpler. John Paul Parks ( talk) 16:10, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
I edited the pictures again. If anyone disagrees with the edits, keep in mind that image "Voss-called-to-identify.jpg" was overlapping text, and there was a lot of white space in the bottom section. Also, the childrens sections were confusing and a bit muddled together. Cheezerman 07:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
In the 1942 family portrait, and the yellow-tinted one, Hedde, Helga, Hilde and Holde seem to be wearing matching necklaces. Just a note.
Sherurcij (
talk) (
Terrorist Wikiproject) 20:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
http://www.germaniainternational.com/images/goebbelsspecialchest31.jpg they are wearing the necklaces as well
About the edits, while I largely agreed with your changes, the recent revert restored all the parts I didn't agree with ;) I think the beauty of Wikipedia is that we don't have to go into detail about what was going on in the Battle of Berlin, because we just say Battle of Berlin and people can click for a full comprehensive context. Again, same with Fuhrerbunker. Adding a link to Magda's page on the murders does a disservice, since I think the bulk of information on their murders should be on *this* page, not hers. Also, what date Hitler killed himself is inconsequential to the Goebbels children, and *definitely* shouldn't be mentioned as a random point in the opening. If you're up for it though, I'd love it if you could find more information on the individual children. :) Sherurcij ( talk) ( Terrorist Wikiproject) 02:51, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Since this article seems to have gained a few more mini-edit-disputes than usual, in its short life since I moved it from User:Sherurcij/children, I figured I'd just clear up that where things may not be definite fact coming out of the Soviet wartime propaganda, I appreciate that we carefully use words like "it was ruled to be", or "led to the conclusion", since sometimes if you trace back "Where were the autopsies done?" or "Who was called to identify them?" you'll discover there was a lot of guesswork done and history will never be certain.
On an unrelated note, I found an offhand reference saying When the bodies of Josef and Magda Goebbels were found, they were put on display and photographed from every angle, even on the autopsy table. here and Captioning one of the five, (they) observe: "Russian photograph of the autopsy of Dr. Joseph Goebbels (courtesy of 'The death of Adolf Hitler' by Lev Bezymenski, 1968). A large number of Russian doctors and medical personnel pose in the background. here ... so if anybody wants to have me forever indebted to you, finding those photographs would be great (especially if they presumably included the children). Sherurcij ( talk) ( Terrorist Wikiproject) 22:58, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Just a note on a sentence in the article: "As the final group including Junge and the pilot Hanna Reitsch prepared to leave the bunker, they carried letters to the outside world from those remaining". If you'll look at the bottom here, on the "Final occupants of the Führerbunker"-part, you'll see that Reitsch left the bunker on April 23rd, while we don't know when Junge left. While I realize that the sentence in question doesn't say that they left together, it suggests that they did, in my opinion. Someone might want to edit it so that it's more accurate, or dismiss my whole litte idea with a proper argument :p -- Ojan 17:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
"The Goebbels autopsies" were supposedly released in a book titled Der Tod von Adolf Hitler in 1982 by Lev Bezymenski...you know, if anybody wanted to get me a nice birthday gift ;) Sherurcij ( talk) ( Terrorist Wikiproject) 07:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I´ve just corrected the time of his birth again: He definitely was born in 1921, the same year when Magda married his father. To prove this, just look at his own article in Wikipedia. I´m a bit angry because I suppose to have corrected this date just some days ago, and now someone has deleted the correction again. Please let it stand this time. 139.6.1.17 16:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the relevance of noting that none of the children were baptised? Stack 03:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what Magda Goebbels's personal beliefs were, apart from Hitler-worship, but Nazi ideology was hostile to Christianity and it would have been very surprising for a senior Nazi like Goebbels to have his children baptised. Adam 05:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for posting a link to the video footage of the children. They were beautiful. It's sad to think that their fates, had they not been killed, would have been equally as tragic, full of pain and guilt at not knowing what their father had done. Marialadouce | parlami 17:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Had they not been killed they would have been captured by the Russians and never heard of again. Adam 22:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, Magda knew very well that it would be terrible for them to grow up knowing what their father, especially, and her participated in. She was disgusted by at least some of the things she saw Hitler do and say and knew her husband was also guilty of heinous things. I'm not saying killing her kids was a good thing, but it makes sense that they would have had a very hard time personally dealing with knowing who their father was and what he had done, even if they never got a "hard time" from anyone else in the world. Magda understood that very well. 2600:1700:BC01:9B0:544F:E012:2320:EFE4 ( talk) 23:39, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
NO WAY is does David Irving's biography of Goebbels meet the requirements of WP:RS. Having just tried to use it to cross reference minor details I personally believe that, as a source, it is so confabulated, even in the smallest, most basic ways, as to be useless. There are plenty of sources (I have Meissner's bio of Magda, and some obscure translations from German sources), let's remember these lovely children with some better ones?-- Zeraeph 19:52, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Should David Irving be cited as a sole source for any information in this article?-- Zeraeph 00:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
In my opinion, absolutely not as David Irving has persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence see:
He has also served a prison sentence in Austria from February to December 2006 for Holocaust denial, which is a criminal offense in that country see:
In addition there are plenty of neutral and reliable sources available for use instead that unambiguously accord with WP:RS and WP:V.-- Zeraeph 00:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Given that:
I would exclude him. If his point of view has value, it will be represented by more reliable and clearly neutral sources. Hgilbert 13:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Comment: No. No subject in history is more extensively researched and published by generally acknowledged and respected academic historians than Hitler's Germany. There is no justification for using Irving's works. Professor marginalia 15:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Even if David Irving's unsubtantiated account of the contents of Josef Goebbels' diaries could be considered an acceptable source I really do find the relevance of such trivia as whether Josef recorded feeling neglected in favor of the children questionable. Not least because ALL fathers feel that way at times, an even if David Irving made the whole thing up I GUARANTEE you Josef Goebbels made that exact statement more than once in his diaries.
There are other sources that go into details of the individual natures of the children and their parents' relationship with them. Meissner says a lot about it (perhaps because at least Harald was his near contemporary to the extent that he identified with quite a lot?) that I want to put in. For example Goebbels insisted on sending them to the ordinary local school, not any of the private schools he could well afford. The children were encouraged to speak and express themselves freely and ate with their parents whenever there were not guests. This was remarkably enlightened at a time when children were still, largely, expected to be "seen and not heard", particularly in the moneyed classes. By all accounts, though it may have been his only virtue, Josef was a good father, and quite often played "rough and tumble" games with them, and was accused by the young Governess "Frau K" of winding them up TOO much and trying to persuade them to be "less good". It seems possible that the children really DID have idyllic lives, not so much by the standards of the times, but by the standards of now, which is in enigmatic contrast to the Nazi Regime and their father's part in it, as well as their fearful deaths.
It seems far more important to try and present those aspects as clearly as possible than whatever vague snippets about their movements are claimed by David Irving, or anyone else. It is important to establish their material quality of life in terms of ponies and the use of a motorboat, but it is surely far more important to present the rest? -- Zeraeph 13:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
You had the format nearly right except for one vital thing, you must always close a citation with a forward slash / thus <ref name=whatever/> or the script will blank the appearance of all the text until it next encounters <ref/>.
To establish that the diaries exist is not a citation or a reference. Personally I have not the slightest doubt that they exist, their existance is fully substantiated, what you need to substantiate is what they actually say, in a manner that can be verified. Just establishing that they exist does not do that. If you can establish that the diaries exist, even in German, and that the text OF THE DIARIES says what you are attributing to it, and there is a passage in David Irving's book that says the same thing, I personally do not see why you should not also mention the passage from David Irving as an English language illustration to the German text. I do think that as the exact text of these diaries has been contested and misreprsented so often it really is necessary to cite with volumes and page numbers, or dates so that they can be verified, as you could not possibly accurately quote or cite from such works from memory, that should be easy enough to do.
It would also be nice to have text in the citations explaining what the souces actually are in the footnotes. -- Zeraeph 16:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I would really like to see a seperate section for the use made of the children in propaganda if you do not see a problem with that? After all the more an article is broken up the more appealling it is to readers, also, there HAS to be an actual copy of at least the "totalen Kreig" photograph, which would be, of course, a citation in itself...but I don't seem to be able to find one.
I KNOW "The approaching end" is a terrible headline but half my vocabulary seems to go on vacation whenever I work in another language, so if you can think of a better one you won't get any argument from me. Also, for the same reasons, if you can think of a better phrase than "fly on the wall" to indicate filming that the children were unaware of? -- Zeraeph 21:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Moved from Talk:Goebbels children/Comments (created in error needs deleting):
Hello, in this page there is very important mistake. I tried to correct it, but my endeavour was not successfull.
Fourth child of Goebbels was Holde (Holdine Kathrin), not Hedda (Hedwig Johanna)!!!. Also their photos are mistaken (photo of Hedda is in fact photo of Holde), the information about Holde are in fact information about Hedda. Hedda was born on May, OK, but not on 1st May, but on 5th May.
In the internet there are the same mistakes. But you can find the true in books about Joseph Goebbels (even in his diaries).
Please, correct these page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.101.93.239 ( talk • contribs)
-- Zeraeph 14:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Hello,
I prefer finding information in the books, not in the internet. The order of the children - Helga, Hilda, Helmuth, Holde, Hedda and Heide,I found for instance in books by Guido Knopp (book in original - Hitlers Helfer, in English it could be something like Hitler's helpers, or next book - I donť know its name in German, in English it could be something like Hitler's admirers and Marlene, it is about Magda Goebbels and about other known women in the third empire, like Leni Riefenstahl) or Anna Maria Sigmund (book in original Die Frauen der Nazis, in English it could be something like The women of Nazis). Guido Knopp and Anna Maria Sigmund are German historians. David Irvig is not veriable source for me, but in his book Joseph Goebbels, there I found the order Holde, Hedda, too. Order Holde, Hedda I found even in book by Norbert and Stephen Leberts - its only a couple of worlds in the prologue of book about Nazi children - its name in German is Denn du trägst meinen namen. I wrote about Goebbels diaries, but I meant his real diaries, not books by David Irwing - I have read one of these diaries - the diary of the year 1938. There, in this diary, he wrote about his "new" child, girl - she was born in 5th May (her name would be Herta, but in fact then her name was Hedda). Goebbels sometimes wrote about his sweet children, as he said, once - it was before the May 1938 he wrote something like, that somewhere there was even Holde with him and that she began to be a friend with him. (about 5th May as date of birth you can read also in some books above)
Once by chance I found this page, there is a lot of interesting information, but I found even the wrong order of Holde and Hedda and wrong date of birth of Hedda. Wrong for me because I read something else and not only once ... .—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
88.101.93.239 (
talk •
contribs)
From the newly youtubed "Goebbels Family Summer Special 1942" it is obvious that Helmut really WAS an accomplished little clown (he had me in stitches). Interesting to consider, privately, that he must have picked that up from SOMEWHERE, and the most likely "culprit" is a private father that has, thus far, not surfaced on any film I can discover (which is DEFINATELY not the same as never existing :o) ).
I would LOVE to get that aspect of Helmut into the article from a WP:RS if anybody has one? After all, this article IS about "Goebbels Children" and the more we can see about each of them AS THEY WERE the better.
Hedda (now confirmed as the seriously dishevelled imp who declaimed "Ladybird, ladybird" im Deutsche for the cameras) seems to have been QUITE a character yet we have next to nothing about her...it is a shame...-- Zeraeph 16:43, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
That section showed bodies (one of them a burnt one), and could cause distress. Can we please put a discretion tag on there, like the one I put in May that was eventually erased? Arbiteroftruth 22:12, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
I feel that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bscap007.jpg and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:5-dead-goebbels.jpg are ghoulish pictures that are unnecessary and add nothing to the article at all. There remain two photos, that seem to me in better taste, a long shot of the bodies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Voss-called-to-identify.jpg being identified by Voss and a close up of Voss (which serves to establish his own identity) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:VOss-Goebbels.jpg I can discern not valid reason for further "corpse photos" of these poor children. -- Zeraeph 10:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
These photos are historical and encyclopedic, after all this is an article about
Goebbels children. Or should we delete images such as
this as well? Of course not.
≈ jossi ≈
(talk) 19:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
All three pics should stay. IF all three were the very first thing that one saw in the article, then thay would be too much. As it is however, they are small and at the end where the death is discussed. The pictures aren't particualarly graphic as far as death photos go (we've got much more gruesome shots on other articles) and the reason these kids are famous at all is their death. Thus the photos are perfectlly acceptable and in fact have been in the article a long time. Just because some people are offended is not a good reason to remove them. In this context they have educational value, they show the reality of deaths much more clearly than words can and they are not excessive. pschemp | talk 02:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Delete Photos: Wikipedia is not censored, true, but are we going to put every graphic photos on Wikipedia and allow this place to become a slash pic paradise? No, we can't do that. There needs to be a limit on certain things, and showing brunt bodies is beyond the limit. Arbiteroftruth 18:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Keep the photos - It is not true, that the photos "add nothing to the article at all". They add a great deal; they convey emotion (and by emotion, I do not mean shock value). In fact, I believe Image:5-dead-goebbels.jpg is the most important image in the article. -- Petri Krohn 02:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
The burnt body is unnecessary at the very least. I mean, I can live with the other pictures (I am really compromising here), but that pic with the burnt body needs to go. It is way over the top, and purely meant for shock value. Arbiteroftruth 07:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
The photos are an exercise in pure voyeurism. Clearly, anyone supporting their retention has never had children, or fought in a war. A lesson to be learned from the Nazis is that self-restraint is the basis for a civilised world. What you don't do is just as important as what you do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phanto282 ( talk • contribs)
User:Zeraeph, please refrain from using dishonest edit summaries to try and "hide" your disputed edits to the page, such as removing two photographs you personally don't like because they are of "poor children", and labelling your edit as minor and "typo". Sherurcij ( Speaker for the Dead) 18:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with pschemp 100%. These photos (all of them) are encyclopedic and free and should stay. -- John 21:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
The non-free images used on the page need examination/fixing per WP:NONFREE or they may be deleted...problems include missing sources, copyright holders, and license tags, as well as rationales for use in specific articles per WP:NFCC#10c. Videmus Omnia Talk 15:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Should this article be called Goebbels' children? Kingturtle ( talk) 03:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be a fallacious belief that the act of murder is something that can only be established by a court of law. However, this conclusion disregards common sense. If someone is killed by someone else - as proven in this case by autopsy - then we know that a murder occurred. We do not, however, know who committed the murder. Thus the inclusion of the children in the murder categories is entirely appropriate as long as they do not make an assertion of who murdered them. -- Ave Caesar ( talk) 11:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Quote : a homicide is not a murder unless a court decides that it is.
Que ?? Sorry mate, but where on earth (Mr Toad) did you get the idea that killing cannot become Murder prior to judicial determination?
If person A kills a child with an axe, and then himself no court other than (perhaps) a Coroner's court will be called upon to adjudicate because he will never go to trial. This does not change the character of the act, his intention or the moral consequence of the crime. Neither does it prevent me forming a judgment of these facts and applying a (subjective) description. We have no hesitation in describing a girl who has been raped and strangled as a "murder victim" irrespective of whether the perpetrator is caught and tried. Similarly we speak of one's briefcase being "stolen" even if the thief is not prosecuted etc, etc. It is always open for someone to disagree with the characterization, but the existence or otherwise of a finding at law is not particularly probative. Murder is not just a legal definition, and even if using it in the technical sense there is no need for a Court finding to allow the judgment by third parties to be made. This judgment will always be determined by the moral perspective of the observer, which is perhaps the point you are trying to make.
However, even a Court is no more than a group's judgment, and as the Nuremberg controversy shows the point at which this opinion becomes law in an international context is a vague one if judging action outside the territorial sovereignty of the State's Court. The trappings of a Court, the processes and the form do not turn a subjective view into an objective one and very few lawyers would ever claim that it did so.
It is true that there is something of a legal distinction in many jurisdictions between unlawful homicides generally and the most serious subcategory of "Murder", and that in most systems the distinguishing factor is prior intent. Once again, a Court is not necessary to make this call and squabbling about the definition is in my view misguided.
I do not think that it is too controversial in the current context to describe the deliberate poisoning of a child as Murder. There may be some argument that this was the desperate act of a loving parent to shield the child from even worse trauma, (Eg, to throw a child from the window of a burning building) however my understanding is that the general consensus is that the "harm" they were being protected from was having to live in a world in which the Reich did not exist and that this act is therefore symptomatic of this regime's deranged value system. It annoys me slightly that people with very limited understanding of Law is critical of it based upon their misapprehension. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.173.161.79 ( talk) 05:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Who is that in the background in uniform? The image almost looks like it was cut and pasted into the original photo. In fact, the whole photo looks a little faked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.85.139.75 ( talk) 15:15, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
Isn't the caption for the family photo wrong, when it gives the order of daughters in the front row as Hedwig (2nd from left), Holdine (4th from left) and Heidrun (far right)? I assume the article text is correct with regard to the children's names and birth data. The girl who is 4th from left is certainly the youngest child, and should therefore be Heidrun. The correct order, then, for the complete front row should be: Helmut, Hedwig, Magda, Heidrun, Joseph, Holdine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.96.173.183 ( talk) 21:34, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps it´s interesting, that the children´s second names all can be originated from their father´s pedigree:
Susanne (Helga) was named after her grandaunt Anna, the eldest sister of Katharina Goebbels, Traudel (Hilde) after her great-grandmother Gertrud Goebbels (Traudel is an abbreviation of Gertrud/Gertraud), Christian (Helmut) got the name of his grandaunt Christina (second-eldest sister of Katharina Goebbels), Kathrin (Holdine) was named after her grandmother herself, Johanna (Hedda) after her great-grandfather Johann Odenhausen, (father of Katharina Goebbels) and Elisabeth (Heide) after Joseph Goebbels´ eldest sister, who had died at age fifteen in WW I.
Nice evening, Eva -- 91.17.103.12 ( talk) 17:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Can anyone explain to me what´s the matter with this article that it is marked as "must be rewritten to meet WP standard" since September 2009? I can´t make it out from the links given in the template box. Thx, Eva. -- 91.17.104.229 ( talk) 20:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
Do we know how old he was when the "parent-teacher-meeting in a small circle" (= the talk between his father and his teacher about Helmut´s bad notes) took place? (Supposedly, you wouldn´t scold a first-former as much as a third-former in case of being up to fail promotion - not that I know how strict his father was in that point.)
Have a nice evening, Eva 87.166.198.245 ( talk) 17:17, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
Apparently the image of Hitler with a girl was used as a postcard during the 3rd Reich; see here for a site selling the postcard. I rather doubt Hitler would have used personal images for such purposes, and I see no indication that the girl indeed is Helga Goebbels as claimed, particularly since the file page gives the immediate source as "Google". For those reasons I'll remove the image from the article. Huon ( talk) 22:39, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
It is widely believed it was Kunz who assisted, as Stumpfegger was too drunk to help. ( 86.176.67.65 ( talk) 17:14, 20 March 2019 (UTC))
According to especially the bunker military commander Wilhelm Mohnke what Joseph Goebbels feared was that his children would grow up to become good citizens of a red Germany and one day curse their parents!"Better that we take them with us" he told Mohnke who suggested bringing the children out of Berlin. Also the Bunker was taken by professional soviet elite soldiers. The great mass of conscripted soldiers often got drunk, raped, vandalized etc, but the professionals were diciplined and usually behaved correctly. The people at a field hospital connected to the Bunker has testified that the soviet soldiers in question did behave exemplary. The children probably indeed had gotten fairly well off. Even the hard-bitten marshall Sjukov talks in his memoirs about how appalling it was to see children murdered by their own parents.