Curt Riess on Joseph Goebbels

“After the first few issues [of Nationalsozialistische Briefe] appeared most of its readers were convinced that Joseph Goebbels was a communist in disguise. In Rheydt, people had thought so for years. There was indeed very little difference between the language of Goebbels and the language of the communists. The Party ‘big shots’ became apprehensive.”

“It is true that in the National Socialist Letters, Goebbels put the accent on Socialism rather than on Nationalism, to such an extent that he sponsored an alliance between a Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia; he also flirted with an ideological alliance with other rebellious ‘have not’ counties such as India and China.”

“In a number of contributions published in the Voelkischer Beobachter [Goebbels] celebrated Lenin as the national liberator of his country. ‘The Soviet system does not endure because it is Bolshevist or Marxist or international, but because it is national—because it is Russian,’ he wrote to a leftist friend. ‘No Czar has ever aroused the national passion of the Russian people as Lenin did.’”

“[Goebbels] specialized in articles on Bolshevism of a decidedly pro-Russian tone. He worked on a speech, "Lenin or Hitler?" (Oct. 15, 1925) In this comparative study he came to the conclusion that Hitler’s ideas were superior. Nevertheless, the comparison was not necessarily unflattering to the Russian.”

“Hitler and Goebbels also argued at length about Russia and the Fuehrer made it unequivocally clear that Goebbels was no longer to indulge in praising Lenin as a ‘national liberator’ nor to draw any parallels between the Bolshevists and the Nazis. On April 16 [1926], Goebbels noted: ‘His arguments are convincing, but I think he has not quite recognized the Russian problem. Still, I may have to reconsider some of its aspects.’”