So I am watching one of the Hitler marathon on whichever mock documentary channel is currently on, and some guy with a Liverpool accent is saying something about whichever one of the henchmen and spouse who poisoned their kids [can’t remember and can’t be arsed into looking up the information] and the act of poisoning their kids to be absolutely heinous … am I not wrong in thinking that I would have rather been killed by my parents instead of whatever the Soviet soldiers would have done to me when they captured us? Not to mention what would have probably happened once the soldiers were done and sent us back to the Soviet government …
I was going to say that things didnt work out so well for the Czars kids but then I remembered succession. The Goebbels kids would have likely been used for propaganda purposes before being worked to death in a gulag. I agree that a quick suicide is preferable.
Goebbels did the only sane thing.
I do not know that the children would have suffered in the camps — it would entirely depend on which unit captured them and to whom they reported, soviet power was an entirely capricious thing — but they would as sure as hell been raped a lot.
If Stalin was apprised he would eventually have released them into the DDR, where they would have been brought up to curse their parents’ name and lick the boots of the conquerors. There are other top nazis children about and they weren’t killed or slaved, and led entirely normal non-neo-nazi lives. but they might not have survived Berlin. The options for Goebbels and Magda would have been considerably less pleasant.
Like the Ludovisi Gaul Killing Himself and His Wife, old Joe did the only honourable thing.
This is hard to say, too many variables.
On balance I’d have left the kids alive, people recover from trauma, but not death.
Gang rape of kids under puberty doesn’t tend to be particularly survivable, and sometimes the same goes for full adult women. A broken pelvis can be terminal for a young enough kid … and I doubt they would have been given particularly scrupulous medical care.
Was that a common practice by Soviet troops? I was not aware.
1 out of 3 of ALL German women in the Soviet zone were raped according to research.
I had no idea. wow. Including children. These kids, or at least some of them, were quite young.
They also raped their Eastern European allies women on the way there and back.
They were equal opportunity rapists. Industrial grade.
No, women not children. I haevn’t seen any stats about kids. And I also don’t know if femailes would be a more accurate term than women.
I think the fact that Joseph Goebbels had placed his family in a situation where killing them was the best option reflects all the insane decisions he had been making along the way to that point.
Note that a lot of top Nazi folk sent their families (and themselves) west during the late stages of the war. There they’d be rounded up by the Western Allies and treated far better.
Göring, Himmler, etc. all made sure that they were out of Berlin and closer to the western front than the eastern front in the final days.
Goebbels keeping his family in Berlin was a horrible thing to do, resulting in what happened. But it was in keeping with their stated reason: They didn’t want their children growing up in a world without National Socialism. So the plan was to kill them all along. These people were bastards even to their own families.
Goebbels was a bastard coated bastard with a bastard filling. That scene in the Downfall where Magda Goebbels kills her children is heartbreaking.
As was said, none of the other kids of leading Nazis were punished because of who their parents were, and for that matter, Goebbels’ stepson (who was 23 and a prisoner of war) wasn’t punished because of who his parents were. It’s likely that had they not been murdered, the Goebbels kids wouldn’t have been either.
But it’s not exactly like anyone in the bunker could know what was going to happen after the Russians took the city. The idea that the Russians might torture or murder the children of prominent Nazi leaders wasn’t terribly far fetched, even if it didn’t come to pass.
Except the Goebbels had a bunch of opportunities to get their kids out of the bunker. If they were afraid the Russians would treat her kids badly, they had plenty of opportunity to get them west, out of Russian hands.
Like the old saying goes, death before dishonor.
Not really. There were standing orders to execute anyone fleeing Berlin.
Hitler gave express permission to Goebbels to take his family out of Berlin.
Ignorance fought 