Goebbels, Joseph (1897–1945)

Paul Joseph Goebbels is credited by contemporary historians with being the single most influential person in propaganda history and the most important leader of the Third Reich next to Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring. For more than 12 years he served as Hitler's minister for Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment and controlled virtually every aspect of Germany's cultural life.

Goebbels was born on October 29, 1897, in Rheydt, a small town in the Rhineland. Due to an infection he caught when he was 7 years old, he was left with a club foot that prevented him from military service in World War I. In 1921, Goebbels graduated from the University of Heidelberg with a PhD in literature and philosophy and worked in various temporary jobs.

In 1924, he ...