Topics for party propaganda included antisemitism, attacks on Christian churches, and (after the start of the Second World War) attempts to shape morale.

Hitler finally appointed him as Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War on 23 July 1944, whereby Goebbels undertook largely unsuccessful measures to increase the number of people available for armaments manufacture and the Wehrmacht.

[33] He also began to study the social question and read the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, August Bebel and Gustav Noske.

[63] His new ideas for poster design included using large type, red ink, and cryptic headers that encouraged the reader to examine the fine print to determine the meaning.

Goebbels usually meticulously planned his speeches ahead of time, using pre-planned and choreographed inflection and gestures, but he was also able to improvise and adapt his presentation to make a good connection with his audience.

[77] This gave him immunity from prosecution for a long list of outstanding charges, including a three-week jail sentence he received in April for insulting the deputy police chief Weiß.

[78] The Reichstag changed the immunity regulations in February 1931, and Goebbels was forced to pay fines for libellous material he had placed in Der Angriff over the course of the previous year.

[67] That year the violence between the Nazis and communists led to local SA troop leader Horst Wessel being shot by two members of the KPD.

[89] In late April 1930, Hitler publicly and firmly announced his opposition to Gregor Strasser and appointed Goebbels to replace him as Reich leader of Nazi Party propaganda.

[98] For two further elections held in 1932, Goebbels organised massive campaigns that included rallies, parades, speeches, and Hitler travelling around the country by aeroplane with the slogan "the Führer over Germany".

[103][104] Many of Goebbels' campaign posters used violent imagery such as a giant half-clad male destroying political opponents or other perceived enemies such as "International High Finance".

The spectacle was covered by a live state radio broadcast, with commentary by longtime party member and future Minister of Aviation Hermann Göring.

[109] Like other Nazi Party officials, Goebbels had to deal with Hitler's leadership style of giving contradictory orders to his subordinates, while placing them into positions where their duties and responsibilities overlapped.

In place of the usual ad hoc labour celebrations, he organised a huge party rally held at Tempelhof Field in Berlin.

The following day, all trade union offices in the country were forcibly disbanded by the SA and SS, and the Nazi-run German Labour Front was created to take their place.

[129] Modelled to some extent on the system in Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy, the law defined a Schriftleiter as anyone who wrote, edited, or selected texts and/or illustrated material for serial publication.

[146] Sometimes under protest from individual states (particularly Prussia, headed by Göring), Goebbels gained control of radio stations nationwide, and placed them under the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (German National Broadcasting Corporation) in July 1934.

[157] In 1933, Hitler signed the Reichskonkordat (Reich Concordat), a treaty with the Vatican that required the regime to honour the independence of Catholic institutions and prohibited clergy from involvement in politics.

[163] In response to the persecution, Pope Pius XI had the "Mit brennender Sorge" ("With Burning Concern") Encyclical smuggled into Germany for Passion Sunday 1937 and read from every pulpit.

[175] Discriminatory measures he instituted in Berlin in the early years of the regime included bans against their using public transport and requiring that Jewish shops be marked as such.

[191] Still, Goebbels was well aware there was a growing "war panic" in Germany and so by July had the press conduct propaganda efforts at a lower level of intensity.

To his chagrin, his rival Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, continually challenged Goebbels' jurisdiction over the dissemination of international propaganda.

[200] Hitler made fewer public appearances and broadcasts as the war progressed, so Goebbels increasingly became the voice of the Nazi regime for the German people.

[223] As Germany's military and economic situation grew steadily worse, on 25 August 1943 Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler took over the post of interior minister, replacing Wilhelm Frick.

[232] The 20 July plot, where Hitler was almost killed by a bomb at his field headquarters in East Prussia, played into the hands of those who had been pushing for change: Bormann, Goebbels, Himmler, and Speer.

[236] Hitler ordered a nationwide militia of men previously considered unsuitable for military service — the Volkssturm (People's Storm) — to be formed on 25 September 1944; it was launched on 18 October.

Historian Michael Balfour states that from 1942 onward, Goebbels, "lost control over Nazi policy toward the press and over the handling of news in general.

Goebbels was an astute observer of the war, and historians have exhaustively mined his diary for insights on how the Nazi leadership tried to maintain public morale.

[276] 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.

[277] In a contradictory account, SS-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.