Editing Joseph Goebbels (section)

===Defeat and death===
In the last months of the war, Goebbels' speeches and articles took on an increasingly apocalyptic tone.{{sfn|Thacker|2010|p=292}} By the beginning of 1945, with the Soviets on the [[Oder]] River and the Western Allies preparing to cross the [[Rhine]] River, he could no longer disguise the inevitability of German defeat.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=892, 893, 897}} Berlin had little in the way of fortifications or artillery, and even ''[[Volkssturm]]'' units were in short supply, as almost everything and everyone had been sent to the front.{{sfn|Thacker|2010|p=290}} Goebbels noted in his diary on 21 January that millions of Germans were fleeing westward.{{sfn|Thacker|2010|p=288}} He tentatively discussed with Hitler the issue of making peace overtures to the Western Allies, but Hitler again refused. Privately, Goebbels was conflicted at pushing the case with Hitler since he did not want to lose Hitler's confidence.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=897, 898}}

When other Nazi leaders urged Hitler to leave Berlin and establish a new centre of resistance in the [[Alpine Fortress|National Redoubt]] in Bavaria, Goebbels opposed this, arguing for a heroic last stand in Berlin.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=924, 925, 929, 930}} His family (except for Magda's son Harald, who had served in the Luftwaffe and been captured by the Allies) moved into their house in Berlin to await the end.{{sfn|Thacker|2010|p=290}} He and Magda may have discussed suicide and the fate of their young children in a long meeting on the night of 27 January.{{sfn|Thacker|2010|p=289}} He knew how the outside world would view the criminal acts committed by the regime and had no desire to subject himself to the "debacle" of a trial.{{sfn|Thacker|2010|p=291}} He burned his private papers on the night of 18 April.{{sfn|Thacker|2010|p=295}}

Goebbels knew how to play on Hitler's fantasies, encouraging him to see the hand of providence in the death of United States President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] on 12 April.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=918}} Whether Hitler really saw this event as a turning point as Goebbels proclaimed is not known.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=918, 919}} By this time, Goebbels had gained the position he had wanted so long—at Hitler's side. Göring was utterly discredited, although he was not stripped of his offices until 23 April.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=913, 933}} Himmler, whose appointment as commander of [[Army Group Vistula]] had led to disaster on the Oder, was also in disgrace with Hitler.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=891, 913–914}} Most of Hitler's inner circle, including Göring, Himmler, Ribbentrop, and Speer, prepared to leave Berlin immediately after Hitler's birthday celebration on 20 April.{{sfn|Thacker|2010|p=296}} Even Bormann was "not anxious" to meet his end at Hitler's side.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=932}} On 22 April, Hitler announced that he would stay in Berlin until the end and then shoot himself.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=929}} Goebbels moved with his family into the ''[[Vorbunker]]'', connected to the lower ''[[Führerbunker]]'' under the Reich Chancellery garden in central Berlin, that same day.{{sfn|Thacker|2010|p=298}} He told Vice-Admiral [[Hans-Erich Voss]] that he would not entertain the idea of either surrender or escape.{{sfn|Vinogradov|2005|p=154}} On 23 April, Goebbels made the following proclamation to the people of Berlin:

{{blockquote|I call on you to fight for your city. Fight with everything you have got, for the sake of your wives and your children, your mothers and your parents. Your arms are defending everything we have ever held dear, and all the generations that will come after us. Be proud and courageous! Be inventive and cunning! Your ''Gauleiter'' is amongst you. He and his colleagues will remain in your midst. His wife and children are here as well. He, who once captured the city with 200 men, will now use every means to galvanize the defence of the capital. The battle for Berlin must become the signal for the whole nation to rise up in battle.{{sfn|Dollinger|1967|p=231}} }}

After midnight on 29 April, with the Soviets advancing ever closer to the bunker complex, Hitler married [[Eva Braun]] in a small civil ceremony in the ''Führerbunker''.{{sfn|Beevor|2002|pp=342, 343}}{{efn|name=will and marriage}} Afterward, he hosted a modest wedding breakfast.{{sfn|Beevor|2002|p=343}} Hitler then took secretary [[Traudl Junge]] to another room and dictated his [[last will and testament of Adolf Hitler|last will and testament]].{{sfn|Beevor|2002|pp=343, 344}}{{efn|name=will and marriage}} Goebbels and Bormann were two of the witnesses.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=950}}

In his last will and testament, Hitler named no successor as Führer or leader of the Nazi Party. Instead, he appointed Goebbels as Reich Chancellor; Grand Admiral [[Karl Dönitz]], who was at [[Flensburg]] near the Danish border, as Reich President; and Bormann as Party Minister.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=949, 950}} Goebbels wrote a postscript to the will stating that he would "categorically refuse" to obey Hitler's order to leave Berlin—as he put it, "the first time in my life" that he had not complied with Hitler's orders.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=1128}} He felt compelled to remain with Hitler "for reasons of humanity and personal loyalty".{{sfn|Longerich|2015|p=686}} His wife and children would stay as well. They would end their lives "side by side with the Führer".{{sfn|Longerich|2015|p=686}}

In the mid-afternoon of 30 April, [[Death of Adolf Hitler|Hitler shot himself]].{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=955}} Goebbels was depressed, and said he would walk around the Chancellery garden until he was killed by the Russian shelling.{{sfn|Misch|2014|p=173}} Voss later recounted Goebbels as saying: "It is a great pity that such a man [Hitler] is not with us any longer. But there is nothing to be done. For us, everything is lost now and the only way out left for us is the one Hitler chose. I shall follow his example."{{sfn|Vinogradov|2005|p=157}}

On 1 May, Goebbels carried out his sole official act as Chancellor: he dictated a letter to General [[Vasily Chuikov]] and ordered German General [[Hans Krebs (Wehrmacht general)|Hans Krebs]] to deliver it under a [[white flag]]. Chuikov, as commander of the [[Soviet 8th Guards Army]], commanded the Soviet forces in central Berlin. Goebbels' letter informed Chuikov of Hitler's death and requested a ceasefire. After this was rejected, Goebbels decided that further efforts were futile.{{sfn|Vinogradov|2005|p=324}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1978-086-03, Joseph Goebbels mit Familie.jpg|thumb|The Goebbels family, including Goebbels' stepson, [[Harald Quandt]]]]

Later on 1 May, Voss saw Goebbels for the last time: "While saying goodbye I asked Goebbels to join us. But he replied: 'The captain must not leave his sinking ship. I have thought about it all and decided to stay here. I have nowhere to go because with little children I will not be able to make it, especially with a leg like mine'."{{sfn|Vinogradov|2005|p=156}} On the evening of 1 May, Goebbels arranged for an SS dentist, [[Helmut Kunz]], to inject [[Goebbels children|his six children]] with [[morphine]] so that when they were unconscious, an ampule of [[cyanide|a cyanide compound]] could be then crushed in each of their mouths.{{sfn|Beevor|2002|pp=380, 381}} According to Kunz's later testimony, he gave the children morphine injections but Magda Goebbels and SS-''[[Obersturmbannführer]]'' [[Ludwig Stumpfegger]], Hitler's personal doctor, administered the cyanide.{{sfn|Beevor|2002|pp=380, 381}}

At around 20:30, Goebbels and Magda left the bunker and walked up to the garden of the Chancellery, where they killed themselves.{{sfn|Joachimsthaler|1999|p=52}} There are several different accounts of this event. One is that they each bit on a cyanide ampule near where Hitler had been buried and were given a [[coup de grâce]] immediately afterward.{{sfn|Beevor|2002|p=381}} Goebbels' SS adjutant [[Günther Schwägermann]] testified in 1948 that they walked ahead of him up the stairs and out into the Chancellery garden. He waited in the stairwell and heard shots. Schwägermann then walked up the remaining stairs and, once outside, saw their lifeless bodies. Following Goebbels' prior order, Schwägermann had an SS soldier fire several shots into Goebbels' body, which did not move.{{sfn|Joachimsthaler|1999|p=52}} In a contradictory account, {{Nowrap|SS-{{lang|de|[[Oberscharführer]]}}}} [[Rochus Misch]] claimed that mechanic [[Johannes Hentschel]] told him that early on 2 May, Goebbels killed himself in his room in the ''Führerbunker'', while Magda did so in the ''Vorbunker''.{{sfn|Misch|2014|pp=182, 183}}

The corpses were then doused with petrol, but they were only partially burned and not buried.{{sfn|Beevor|2002|p=381}} A few days later, the Soviets brought Voss back to the bunker to identify the Goebbels' partly burned bodies. The remains of the Goebbels family, Krebs, and [[Blondi#Death of Blondi and other dogs|Hitler's dogs]] were repeatedly buried and exhumed.{{sfn|Fest|2004|pp=163–164}}{{sfn|Vinogradov|2005|pp=111, 333}} The last burial was at the [[SMERSH]] facility in [[Magdeburg]] on 21 February 1946. In 1970, KGB director [[Yuri Andropov]] authorised an operation to destroy the remains.{{sfn|Vinogradov|2005|p=333}} On 4 April 1970, a Soviet [[KGB]] team used detailed burial charts to exhume five wooden boxes at the Magdeburg SMERSH facility. They were burned, crushed, and scattered into the Biederitz river, a tributary of the nearby [[Elbe]].{{sfn|Vinogradov|2005|pp=335, 336}}