Horror and a Huge Break
Magda Goebbels, who was as much of a fanatical Nazi as her husband, was willing to accompany her husband and Hitler into death. To the Goebbels’ minds, dying with Hitler was not just an ultimate display of loyalty, but as a practical matter, would also spare them from humiliation and punishment at the hands of the victorious Allies. As to killing her children, Magda thought that their death was preferable to their growing up having to hear that their father was one of history’s greatest criminals. She also believed in reincarnation, and figured that by killing her children now, she would give them another chance at returning to life, perhaps in better circumstances.
Having convinced herself of the need, and even the desirability, of killing her kids, Magda Goebbels turned a deaf ear to all offers to smuggle her children to safety outside of Berlin. As to how she would go about killing her children, Magda decided upon knocking them out first with morphine, and then finishing them off by crushing cyanide capsules between their teeth. Accordingly, on May 1st, 1945, one day after Hitler’s suicide, Magda, with the help of an SS doctor, administered morphine to her kids, then killed them with cyanide. A few hours later, she and Joseph Goebbels committed suicide.
The most horrific of the Goebbels children’s death was that of Hitler’s favorite girl, Helga. It seems that the morphine she was given did not knock her out, or at least failed to keep her under for long. She became aware at some point that her siblings were being murdered by having cyanide capsules crushed between their teeth, and she resisted having the same done to her. Helga’s last moments were spent in a ferocious fight, as her mother and an SS member forced poison into her mouth. An autopsy conducted after the bunker was captured, and photographs taken of her face, showed heavy bruising. Her jaw also seems to have been broken during the struggle to force cyanide into her mouth.
However, not all of the Goebbels children died that day. Magda’s son from her previous marriage, who had been raised in the Goebbels household, was not in the bunker when his parents killed themselves and the rest of their children. Harald Quandt had come of age during the war, and joined the Luftwaffe. It would lead to the luckiest break of his life. While serving as a lieutenant in Italy, Harald was captured by the Allies in 1944, and he was thus safe and sound in a POW camp when his parents carried out their familial murder-suicide pact.
After his release in 1947, Harald went to work for his biological father. He helped rebuild Gunther Quandt’s businesses – a holding group of over 200 companies, including a 30% stake in BMW, and a 10% share of Daimler Benz. When his father passed away in 1954, Harald’s inheritance made him one of West Germany’s richest men. He proved himself a shrewd businessman, and when he died in a plane crash in 1967, he left his offspring a fortune of about 1.5 billion Deutsche Mark. Today, his children and heirs are worth an estimated U$ 6 billion.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading
History of Sorts – The Murder of the Goebbels Children
Jerusalem Post, August 27th, 2017 – Nazi Goebbels’ Descendants Are Hidden Billionaires
Ranker – The Tragic Story of the Goebbels Children, Adolf Hitler’s Favorite Kids
Spiegel, October 9th, 2009 – Murder in Hitler’s Bunker: Who Really Poisoned the Goebbels Children
Sydney Morning Herald, October 10th, 2009 – Papers Reveal How Goebbels Children Were Killed
Telegraph, The, October 8th, 2009 – Court Papers Shed Light on Killing of Goebbels Children