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The Earl Scruggs Center is set to open in a few months, and a grand opening celebration date has been announced.
SHELBY � Jan. 11, 2014 will be a historic day in Cleveland County.
That�s the day the opening of the Earl Scruggs Center, a state-of-the-art interactive history museum named for the famed native musician, will be celebrated, organizing group Destination Cleveland County announced Thursday.
The celebration will be the culmination of nearly a decade of work by DCC, the organization also responsible for launching the Don Gibson Theatre.
The center itself � which will be located inside the old courthouse on the uptown Shelby square � is expected to open to visitors in late November or early December, said JT Scruggs, a DCC representative and nephew of the late Earl.
�We�ve taken our local history and are making it live,� said Brownie Plaster, DCC chairwoman, referencing the center�s focus on both Cleveland County and Southern American history. �That�s what this is all about. Our goal is the economic impact and vitality of the community. You only get one chance to do a project like this right, and we�re oh so close.�
Mix of new, old
On Thursday, The Star received a sneak peek into the center, where project donors received the first glimpse just hours before.
The center building itself is now a mixture of the past and the present.
An old jail cell door still stands on a second-floor wall. Old light fixtures still illuminate the areas that will house exhibits. Historic banisters lead to the upstairs cavities, where old windows offer a glimpse to the surrounding court square.
Visitors will enter the center first through the adjacent former well house building, which DCC representatives said will honor members of the Weathers family, a longtime prominent Shelby family that included former Star publisher Lee B. Weathers.
The pattern on the floor simulates a five-string banjo, and the small room will include a ticket office, as well as promotional information for happenings in the county.
DCC officials said $2.5 million has been put into the renovation of the buildings for the center, including the nearly 10,000-square-foot former courthouse. Officials said the county and other agencies have helped with funding, but that nearly 50 percent of the support has come from private local donors.
The rotunda in the center of the courthouse�s first floor will house Scruggs family instruments. The room is surrounded by four exhibit rooms that will tell the stories of Cleveland County�s early history, how music has impacted the Southern way of life and how Earl ascended to be synonymous with the banjo and bluegrass music here and worldwide.
Technology will be part of every visitor�s experience � from a life-size iPad that will allow people to touch and play different instruments to video screens with knobs to control instruction on how a banjo is played to electronic shades that block sunlight.
�This is one of the things that�s going to put us on the map,� Plaster said in reference to the iPad. �When you get your ticket for the center, you�ll be able to plug into exhibits with an earbud.�
History in the making
Seven years ago this month, a group from Cleveland County visited with state cultural resources officials, early work toward making the Scruggs Center a reality, Plaster said.
�We were told 93 percent of museums are in the red, and only 7 percent are in the black,� she said. �And we were told it would take us seven to nine years to open.�
DCC leaders have since launched a capital campaign that to date has raised more than $8.2 million, worked to secure grants to help fund the center, researched other museums for successful practices, and obtained more than 16,000 artifacts for the project.
Physical work on the center itself continues.
Fabricators and exhibitors are expected to enter soon to install materials and train museum operators. That work is expected to take 54 days to complete, JT Scruggs said, with the opening soon to follow.
Earl, who died in March 2012, would have been 90 on Jan. 6, 2014.
�The family of Earl Scruggs is excited about the news that the grand opening for the Earl Scruggs Center is scheduled for Jan. 11, 2014,� Gary Scruggs, Earl�s son, said in a statement released by DCC. �My father fully endorsed DCC�s determination and efforts to establish a world-class facility in Shelby�s venerable �old courthouse,� and items of historical significance in his life and career will be on display. The Earl Scruggs Center will be a fun and educational experience for people of all ages.�
A big draw near, far
Visitors walk up to the center�s locked doors constantly.
Those visitors can expect to be able to enter the building in about three months � and soon after the grand opening will celebrate the history museum. DCC plans to announce in the coming weeks the musical guests who will perform at the opening festivities.
�For people we�re bringing in, we think we can sell 1,200 to 1,300 tickets easy, based on who they are,� JT Scruggs said, noting events will include a performance at Malcolm Brown Auditorium.
Once the center is open, county residents will get in free on Wednesdays each week, Plaster said.
But DCC leaders say they have also communicated with people near and far about attending the historic center.
�It has been amazing to see the collaboration of the citizens, the city and the county to pull together to create this unique destination which is poised to become a national and international destination,� Emily Epley, executive director of the Earl Scruggs Center, said in a prepared statement. �We have folks coming from Japan and South Africa in the coming months and can�t wait to welcome the world to the community where Earl was born.�
The center is also set to be on the schedules of several major tour groups in 2014, according to DCC organizers. An official with the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., visited during the American Legion World Series in interest of the possibility of a traveling exhibit visiting the Scruggs Center.
�Hopefully, as with all our visitors, they�ll come back the following year when we�re open,� Scruggs said, referring to the early visitors. �We know we�re going to draw people on Earl�s name. They�re going to leave knowing about this area.�
Reach Matthew Tessnear at 704-669-3331, at email@example.com or on Twitter @MatthewTessnear.
What�s planned?
* Scruggs Center opening in late November or early December of this year
* Grand opening events Jan. 11, 2014 � including a dedication and ribbon-cutting, open house, children�s activities on the square and an evening event, �Remembering Earl: Music & Stories,� at Shelby High School�s Malcolm Brown Auditorium, where Earl Scruggs performed in 2007 and 2009. The evening event will feature soon-to-be-announced nationally recognized artists.
* Once open, the center will welcome county residents with free admission on Wednesdays
Who could be coming?
DCC officials have said they expect big interest in the grand opening event Jan. 11, 2014, due to the names who will be coming to perform.
Those acts haven't been announced, but Earl Scruggs performed with dozens of world-renowned artists over the years.
Among them are Steve Martin, Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, Elton John, Sting, Travis Tritt, Billy Bob Thornton and more.
How did we get here?
Here are some of the key dates in the development of the Scruggs Center:
2006 � Destination Cleveland County begins as a citizen task force to work on two economic development projects, the Don Gibson Theatre (which opened in November 2009) and the soon-to-open Earl Scruggs Center
2008 � Local capital campaign launched, which has to date raised more than $8.2 million; master plan completed for Earl Scruggs Center
2009 � Earl Scruggs, family members and friends filmed for use in Scruggs Center
2010 � Exhibit designs for center completed
2011 � Bidding and renovations began on Scruggs Center
2012 � Exhibit fabrication for Scruggs Center underway
2013 � Reviews of films, scripts, text panels and other exhibits; final fabrication of exhibit cases and interactive media components


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Nick Watney's recipe for success at the AT&T National included some amazing feats. One was in the third round setting a course record of 62, having two bogeys and beating the record by two shots. Another was having a bogey free round of 66 on the final day. Many facets of the game have to be mastered to land in the elite company of a PGA Tour Champion. But, finding a great putting routine can save many strokes. Nick's address routine for putting is the week's A Lesson Learned.
As seen over every putt this week, Nick has a very precise and very repetitive putting routine. When Nick begins taking his practice stroke, you will find his eyes burning a mental picture of the hole on his brain. Most of the time, this picture is taken twice with two separate glances. When his eyes return to his putter, he makes two continuous strokes as if the putter is not allowed to stop moving. During this time, he's creating a swinging motion that would create enough power to get the ball to its destination. In keeping the practice swing continuous, the ball will never become a destination. A great way to create a yippy putting stroke is to focus on hitting the ball, instead of creating a stroke where the ball simply gets in the way.
When Nick completes the practice strokes and is ready to go, he steps to the ball, takes a final glance, and does his best to make a stroke that repeats the practice stroke. An important part of this process is the length of time that his eyes spend on the ball when they return to it. I've seen amateurs napping over putts more times than I can count. When the final glance at the hole is made, there is a limited amount of time that the brain will store a clear picture and remember the distance to the target. The picture of the target will fade if the eyes linger over the ball prior to making the stroke.
A great practice routine for putting is to require the stroke to begin immediately, when the eyes return to the ball. It's a way to make the body react to the target. Nothing good can come from falling asleep over a putt. It gives you too long to figure out ways that you can miss it.

subset: commoncrawl


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"The moment, now, had arrived for a Daiquiri: seated near the cool drip of the fountain, where a slight stir of air seemed to ruffle the fringed mantone of a bronze dancing Andalusian girl, I lingered over the frigid mixture of Ron Bacardi, sugar, and a fresh vivid green lime.
"It was a delicate compound, not so good as I was to discover later at the Telegrafo, but still a revelation, and I was devoutly thankful to be sitting, at that hour in the Inglaterra, with such a drink. It elevated my contentment to an even higher pitch ; and, with a detached amusement, I recalled the fact that farther north prohibition was formally in effect. Unquestionably the cocktail on my table was a dangerous agent, for it held, in its shallow glass bowl slightly encrusted with undissolved sugar, the power of a contemptuous indiffernce to fate ; it set the mind free of responsibility; obliterating both memory and tomorrow, it gave the heart an adventitious feeling of superiority and momentarily vanquished all the celebrated, the eternal, fears.
"Yes, that was the danger of skilfully prepared, intoxicating drinks. . . . The word intoxicating adequately expressed their power, their menace to orderly monotonous resignation. A word, I thought further, debased by moralists from its primary ecstatic content. Intoxication with Ron Bacardi, with May, with passion, was a state threatening to privilege, abhorrent to authority. And, since the dull were so fatally in the majority, they had succeeded in attaching a heavy penalty to whatever lay outside their lymphatic understanding. They had, as well, made the term gay an accusation before their Lord, confounding it with loose, so that now a gay girl certainly the only girl worth a ribbon or the last devotion was one bearing upon her graceful figure, for she was apt to be reprehensibly graceful, the censure of a society open to any charge other than that of gaiety in either of its meanings. A ridiculous, a tragic, conclusion, I told myself indifferently: but then, with a fresh Daiquiri and a sprig of orange blossoms in my buttonhole, it meant less than nothing."
A short extract from Joseph Hergesheimer's 1920 book, "San Cristobal de la Habana."
For me, it is tough to improve on that, other than just giving a recipe for a Daiquiri.
The traditional Daiquiri recipe is as follows:
The Juice of 1/2 lime
1 Teaspoonful of castor or superfine sugar
2 oz Bacardi Rum (Ideally Havana Club Añejo Blanco. However, given the current US embargo of Cuban products, another Cuban-Style Rum like Flor de Cana Extra Dry, Appleton White, or Matusalem Platino, will likely have to do.)
Juice lime into mixing glass. Drop spent lime shell into mixing glass. Measure sugar and rum. Add ice, cap your shaker and shake until the outside of the shaker frosts. Strain into cocktail glass.
According to Wayne Curtis, in his informative and entertaining book, "And A Bottle of Rum," Ernest Hemingway visited "El Floridita" in Cuba. When he saw Constantino Ribalaigua Vert making Daiquris he asked to taste one. He then said, "That's good, but I prefer it without sugar and double rum." This version became known as the "Papa Double." Later in life, it is said Hemingway became fond of another version with a splash of grapefruit juice and a dash of Maraschino Liqueur. This is sometimes called the "Hemingway Special."
We'll try that.
Hemingway Special
2 oz Flor de Cana Extra Dry Rum
Juice 1/2 Lime
1/2 oz Grapefruit Juice
1/4 oz Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.
A portion of a track from David Torn's excellent new ECM recording "Prezens" accompanies the cocktail making today.
This ended up a tad on the tart side for me. However, I think it has plenty of Maraschino, so perhaps, if you don't like tart cocktails, add a half teaspoon of simple syrup or Caster Sugar.
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.


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This is a week of celebration, for the lives of so many incredible authors, who strangely, were born and died on this day.
It was Shakespeare's 450th anniversary this week. This week it's also exactly 450 years since he died. It's the day when Spain's most famous author Cervantes died. Iceland's Nobel Winning author Laxness and French writer Druon were born. And it's the day when William Wordsworth died.
The best ever day for a book
So if you haven't picked up a book for a while, today would be the perfect day. Another excellent reason is that reading a book in the language you're learning in has been proven to boost your learning speed and vocabulary.
What would Shakespeare think about reading today?
We think he might be pleased that global literacy is at its highest, 84% (2010, UNESCO). And very surprised at HOW we're reading.
With eBooks and eReaders, reading anywhere and everywhere is second nature to us now. So why has the simple act of reading the written word on a page endured all this technology? Well, all the writers who were born or died today would be able to tell you.
It's emotional
Reading a complete novel is about how you feel about the characters, about wanting to find out what happens, about finding something out about yourself or learning something new.
busuu's top five tips for reading to learn language
So to keep you reading and learning faster, with a richer vocabulary, here are some quick tips.
1. Choose a book that's not too hard, but not for children
You won't identify with the stories or characters if the book is for young children, you'll need to want to read it. We love Harry Potter! You don't need to understand all the words, you'll pick them up when you see them in context.
2. Make reading social
Start a book club, share good reads. If you know someone will love a particular character or story, tell them (it will make you look clever too!).
3. Find your favourite writers on social media
We loved reading 'The Shock of the Fall.' Then we found it's author Nathan Filer on Twitter.
4. Read with sound effects and classical scores
Sherlock Holmes, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling are just a few amazing enhanced eBook experiences to keep you learning.
5. Make digital notes
You can make notes without ruining your books on eReaders. Pick phrases or thoughts that capture your attention. Language idioms or ideas that you want to remember.
Get learning with busuu and share your favourite books with our community!


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Do Not Multiply Your Suffering
This was my devotional this morning and it blessed me so much, I want to share it with you. I'm not sure, but I think the person who sends it to me gets it from "Little Talks With Jesus". I added the bold and underline to the part that really hit me:
COME TO ME, AND REST IN MY LOVING PRESENCE. You know that this day will bring difficulties, and you are trying to think your way through those trials. As you anticipate what is ahead of you, you forget that I am with you—now and always. Rehearsing your troubles results in experiencing them many times, whereas you are meant to go through them only when they actually occur. Do not multiply your suffering in this way! Instead, come to Me, and relax in My Peace. I will strengthen you and prepare you for this day, transforming your fear into confident trust.
Matthew 11:28-30
New Living Translation (NLT)
28 Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light."
Joshua 1:5
New Living Translation (NLT)
5 No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you.
Joshua 1:9
New Living Translation (NLT)
9 This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."
Please support this blog by shopping my PayPal store. God bless you! Digifree CraftCrave CraftCrave


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Doctor Paul Joseph Goebbels (German pronunciation: IPA: [ˈɡœbəls]; English generally IPA: /ˈɡɝbəlz/) was born on 29 October, 1897 in Rheydt, an industrial town south of Mönchengladbach (of which it is now part) on the edge of the Ruhr district and died on 1 May, 1945.
Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. Joseph Goebbels was one of German dictator Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers. Joseph Goebbels was known for his zealous, energetic oratory, and venomous anti-Semitism; he is held responsible for Kristallnacht by many historians.
Joseph Goebbels earned a Ph.D. in Heidelberg University in 1921, writing his doctoral thesis on 18th century romantic drama; he then went on to work as a journalist and later a bank clerk and caller on the stock exchange. Joseph Goebbels also wrote novels and plays, but they were refused by publishers. Joseph Goebbels came into contact with the Nazi Party in 1923 during the French occupation of the Ruhr and became a member in 1924. Joseph Goebbels was appointed Gauleiter (regional party leader)of Berlin. In this position, he put his propaganda skills to full use, combatting the local socialist and communist parties with the help of Nazi papers and the paramilitary SA. By 1928 he had risen in the party ranks to become one of its most prominent members.
After the Nazis rose to power in 1933, he was appointed propaganda minister. One of his 1st acts was to order the burning of books by Jewish or anti-Nazi authors at Bebelplatz and he proceeded to gain full control of every outlet of information in Germany. Following his appointment, his attacks on German Jews became ever fiercer and culminated in the Kristallnacht in 1938, the 1st open and unrestrained pogrom unleashed by the Nazis.
An early and avid supporter of war, Joseph Goebbels did everything in his power to prepare the German people for a large scale military conflict. During World War II, he increased his power and influence through shifting alliances with other Nazi leaders. By late 1943, the tide of the war was turning against the Axis powers, but this only spurred Joseph Goebbels to intensify the propaganda by urging the Germans to accept the idea of total war and mobilization. Joseph Goebbels remained with Hitler in Berlin to the very end, and following the Führer's suicide he was the 2nd person to serve as the 3rd Reich's Chancellor — albeit for one day. In his final hours, it is suggested Joseph Goebbels allowed his wife, Magda, to kill their 6 young children. Shortly after, Joseph Goebbels and his wife both committed suicide.
Joseph Goebbels's family were Catholics of modest means, his father a factory clerk, his mother originally a farmhand. Joseph Goebbels had 4 siblings: Konrad (1895–1949), Hans (1893–1947), Elisabeth (1901–1915) and Maria (born 1910, later married to the German filmmaker Max W. Kimmich). Joseph Goebbels was educated at a Gymnasium, or secondary school, where he completed his Abitur (university entrance examination) in 1916. Beginning in childhood, he had a deformed right leg, the result either of club foot or osteomyelitis. Joseph Goebbels wore a metal brace and special shoe to compensate for his shortened leg, but nevertheless walked with a limp all his life. As a result of these conditions, he was rejected for military service in World War I, which he bitterly resented. Joseph Goebbels later frequently misrepresented himself as a war veteran and misrepresented his disability as a war wound. The nearest he came to military service was as an "office soldier" from June 1917 to October 1917 in Rheydt's "Patriotic Help Unit".
Joseph Goebbels compensated for his physical frailty with intellectual accomplishments. Joseph Goebbels' originally intended to train as a priest, but after growing distant from his Catholic faith he studied literature and philosophy at universities in Bonn, Würzburg, Freiburg im Breisgau and Heidelberg, where he wrote his doctoral thesis on the 18th century romantic novelist Wilhelm von Schütz. Joseph Goebbels's most influential teachers, Friedrich Gundolf and his doctoral supervisor at Heidelberg, Max Freiherr von Waldberg, were Jews. Joseph Goebbels' intelligence and political astuteness were generally acknowledged even by his enemies.
After completing his doctorate in 1921, Joseph Goebbels worked as a journalist and tried for several years to become a published author. Joseph Goebbels wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Michael, 2 verse plays, and quantities of romantic poetry. In these works, he revealed the psychological damage his physical limitations had caused. "The very name of the hero, Michael, to whom he gave many autobiographical features, suggests the way his self-identification was pointing: a figure of light, radiant, tall, unconquerable," and above all "'To be a soldier! To stand sentinel! One ought always to be a soldier,' wrote Michael-Goebbels." Joseph Goebbels found another form of compensation in the pursuit of women, a lifelong compulsion which he indulged "with extraordinary vigour and a surprising degree of success." Joseph Goebbels' diaries reveal a long succession of affairs, before and after his marriage in 1931 to Magda Quandt, with whom he had 6 children.
Joseph Goebbels was embittered by the frustration of his literary career; his novel did not find a publisher until 1929 and his plays were never staged. Joseph Goebbels found an outlet for his desire to write in his diaries, which he began in 1923 and continued for the rest of his life. Joseph Goebbels later worked as a bank clerk and a caller on the stock exchange. During this period, he read avidly and formed his political views. Major influences were Friedrich Nietzsche, Oswald Spengler and, most importantly, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the British-born German writer who was one of the founders of "scientific" anti-Semitism, and whose book The Foundations of the 19th Century (1899) was one of the standard works of the extreme right in Germany. Joseph Goebbels spent the winter of 1919–20 in Munich, where he witnessed and admired the violent nationalist reaction against the attempted communist revolution in Bavaria. Joseph Goebbels's 1st political hero was Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley, the man who assassinated the Munich socialist leader Kurt Eisner. Hitler was in Munich at the same time and entered politics as a result of similar experiences.
The culture of the German extreme right was violent and anti-intellectual, which posed a challenge to the physically frail University graduate. Joachim Fest writes:
This was the source of his hatred of the intellect, which was a form of self-hatred, his longing to degrade himself, to submerge himself in the ranks of the masses, which ran curiously parallel with his ambition and his tormenting need to distinguish himself. Joseph Goebbels was incessantly tortured by the fear of being regarded as a 'bourgeois intellectual'… It always seemed as if he were offering blind devotion (to Nazism) to make up for his lack of all those characteristics of the racial elite which nature had denied him.
Like others who were later prominent in the 3rd Reich, Joseph Goebbels came into contact with the Nazi Party in 1923, during the campaign of resistance to the French occupation of the Ruhr. Hitler's imprisonment following the failed November 1923″Beer Hall Putsch" left the party temporarily leaderless, and when the 27-year-old Joseph Goebbels joined the party in late 1924 the most important influence on his political development was Gregor Strasser, who became Nazi organiser in northern Germany in March 1924. Strasser ("the most able of the leading Nazis" of this period)took the "socialist" component of National Socialism far more seriously than did Hitler and other members of the Bavarian leadership of the party.
"National and socialist! What goes first, and what comes afterwards?" Joseph Goebbels asked rhetorically in a debate with Theodore Vahlen, Gauleiter (regional party head) of Pomerania, in the Rhineland party newspaper National-sozialistische Briefe (National-Socialist Letters), of which he was editor, in mid 1925. "With us in the west, there can be no doubt. First socialist redemption, then comes national liberation like a whirlwind… Hitler stands between both opinions, but he is on his way to coming over to us completely." Joseph Goebbels, with his journalistic skills, thus soon became a key ally of Strasser in his struggle with the Bavarians over the party programme. The conflict was not, so they thought, with Hitler, but with his lieutenants, Rudolf Hess, Julius Streicher and Hermann Esser, who, they said, were mismanaging the party in Hitler's absence. In 1925, Joseph Goebbels published an open letter to "my friends of the left," urging unity between socialists and Nazis against the capitalists. "You and I," he wrote, "we are fighting one another although we are not really enemies."
In February 1926, Hitler, having finished working on Mein Kampf, made a sudden return to party affairs and soon disabused the northerners of any illusions about where he stood. Joseph Goebbels summoned about 60 gauleiters and other activists, including Joseph Goebbels, to a meeting at Bamberg, in Streicher's Gau of Franconia, where he gave a 2 hour speech repudiating the political programme of the "socialist" wing of the party. For Hitler, the real enemy of the German people was always the Jews, not the capitalists. Joseph Goebbels was bitterly disillusioned. "I feel devastated," he wrote. "What sort of Hitler? A reactionary?" Joseph Goebbels was horrified by Hitler's characterisation of socialism as "a Jewish creation," his declaration that the Soviet Union must be destroyed, and his assertion that private property would not be expropriated by a Nazi government. "I no longer fully believe in Hitler. That's the terrible thing: my inner support has been taken away."
Hitler, however, recognised Joseph Goebbels's talents, and he was a shrewd judge of character; he knew that Joseph Goebbels craved recognition above all else. In April, he brought Joseph Goebbels to Munich, sending his own car to meet him at the railway station, and gave him a long private audience. Hitler berated Joseph Goebbels over his support for the "socialist" line, but offered to "wipe the slate clean" if Joseph Goebbels would now accept his leadership. Joseph Goebbels capitulated completely, offering Hitler his total loyalty — a pledge which was clearly sincere, and which he adhered to until the end of his life. "I love him… He has thought through everything," Joseph Goebbels wrote. "Such a sparkling mind can be my leader. I bow to the greater one, the political genius. Later he wrote: "Adolf Hitler, I love you because you are both great and simple at the same time. What one calls a genius." Fest writes:
"From this point on he submitted himself, his whole existence, to his attachment to the person of the Führer, consciously eliminating all inhibitions springing from intellect, free will and self-respect. Since this submission was an act less of faith than of insight, it stood firm through all vicissitudes to the end. 'He who forsakes the Führer withers away," he would later write.
In October 1926, Hitler rewarded Joseph Goebbels for his new loyalty by making him the party "Gauleiter" for the Berlin section of the National Socialists. Joseph Goebbels was then able to use the new position to indulge his literary aspirations in the German capital, which he perceived to be a stronghold of the socialists and communists. Here, Joseph Goebbels discovered his talent as a propagandist, writing such tracts as 1926's The 2nd Revolution and Lenin or Hitler.
Here, he was also able to indulge his heretofore latent taste for violence, if only vicariously through the actions of the street fighters under his command. History, he said, "is made in the street," and he was determined to challenge the dominant parties of the left — the Social Democrats and Communists — in the streets of Berlin. Working with the local S.A. (stormtrooper) leaders, he deliberately provoked beer-hall battles and street brawls, frequently involving firearms. "Beware, you dogs," he wrote to his former "friends of the left": "When the Devil is loose in me you will not curb him again." When the inevitable deaths occurred, he exploited them for the maximum effect, turning the street fighter Horst Wessel, who was killed at his home by enemy political activists, into a martyr and hero.
In Berlin, Joseph Goebbels was able to give full expression to his genius for propaganda, as editor of the Berlin Nazi newspaper Der Angriff (The Attack) and as the author of a steady stream of Nazi posters and handbills. "He rose within a few months to be the city's most feared agitator." Joseph Goebbels's propaganda techniques were totally cynical: "That propaganda is good which leads to success, and that is bad which fails to achieve the desired result," he wrote. "It is not propaganda's task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success."
Among his favourite targets were socialist leaders such as Hermann Müller and Carl Severing, and the Jewish Berlin Police President, Bernhard Weiss, whom he subjected to a relentless campaign of Jew-baiting in the hope of provoking a crackdown which he could then exploit. The Social Democrat city government obliged in 1927 with an 8 month ban on the party, which Joseph Goebbels exploited to the hilt. When a friend criticised him for denigrating Weiss, a man with an exemplary military record, "he explained cynically that he wasn't in the least interested in Weiss, only in the propaganda effect."
Joseph Goebbels also discovered a talent for oratory, and was soon second in the Nazi movement only to Hitler as a public speaker. Where Hitler's style was hoarse and passionate, Joseph Goebbels's was cool, sarcastic and often humorous: he was a master of biting invective and insinuation, although he could whip himself into a rhetorical frenzy if the occasion demanded. Unlike Hitler, however, he retained a cynical detachment from his own rhetoric. Joseph Goebbels openly acknowledged that he was exploiting the lowest instincts of the German people — racism, xenophobia, class envy and insecurity. Joseph Goebbels could, he said, play the popular will like a piano, leading the masses wherever he wanted them to go. "He drove his listeners into ecstasy, making them stand up, sing songs, raise their arms, repeat oaths — and he did it, not through the passionate inspiration of the moment, but as the result of sober psychological calculation."
Joseph Goebbels's words and actions made little impact on the political loyalties of Berlin. At the 1928 Reichstag elections, the Nazis polled less than 2 percent of the vote in Berlin compared with 33 percent for the Social Democrats and 25 percent for the Communists. At this election Joseph Goebbels was 1 of the 10 Nazis elected to the Reichstag, which brought him a salary of 750 Reichsmarks a month and immunity from prosecution. Even when the impact of the Great Depression led to an enormous surge in support for the Nazis across Germany, Berlin resisted the party's appeal more than any other part of Germany: at its peak in 1932, the Nazi Party polled 28 percent in Berlin to the combined left's 55 percent. But his outstanding talents, and the obvious fact that he stood high in Hitler's regard, earned Joseph Goebbels' the grudging respect of the anti-intellectual brawlers of the Nazi movement, who called him "our little doctor" with a mixture of affection and amusement. By 1928, still aged only 31, he was acknowledged to be one of the inner circle of Nazi leaders. "The S.A. would have let itself be hacked to bits for him," wrote Horst Wessel in 1929.
The Great Depression led to a new resurgence of "left" sentiment in some sections of the Nazi Party, led by Gregor Strasser's brother Otto, who argued that the party ought to be competing with the Communists for the loyalties of the unemployed and the industrial workers by promising to expropriate the capitalists. Hitler, whose dislike of working-class militancy reflected his social origins in the small-town lower-middle class, was thoroughly opposed to this line. Otto recognised that the growth in Nazi support at the 1930 elections had mainly come from the middle class and from farmers, and he was now busy building bridges to the upper middle classes and to German business. In April 1930, he fired Gregor Strasser as head of the Nazi Party national propaganda apparatus and appointed Joseph Goebbels to replace him, giving him control of the party's national newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter (People's Observer), as well as other Nazi papers across the country. Joseph Goebbels, although he continued to show "leftish" tendencies in some of his actions (such as co-operating with the Communists in supporting the Berlin transport workers' strike in November 1932), was totally loyal to Hitler in his struggle with the Strassers, which culminated in Otto's expulsion from the party in July 1930.
Despite his revolutionary rhetoric, Joseph Goebbels's most important contribution to the Nazi cause between 1930 and 1933 was as the organiser of successive election campaigns: The Reichstag elections of September 1930, July and November 1932 and March 1933, and Hitler's presidential campaign of March–April 1932. Joseph Goebbels proved to be an organiser of genius, choreographing Hitler's dramatic aeroplane tours of Germany and pioneering the use of radio and cinema for electoral campaigning. The Nazi Party's use of torchlight parades, brass bands, massed choirs and similar techniques caught the imagination of many voters, particularly young people. "His propaganda headquarters in Munich sent out a constant stream of directives to local and regional party sections, often providing fresh slogans and fresh material for the campaign." Although the spectacular rise in the Nazi vote in 1930 and July 1932 was caused mainly by the effects of the Depression, Joseph Goebbels as party campaign manager was naturally given much of the credit.
When Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, Joseph Goebbels was initially given no office: the coalition cabinet which Hitler headed contained only a minority of Nazis as part of the deal he had negotiated with President Paul von Hindenburg and the conservative parties. But as the propaganda head of the ruling party, a party which had no great respect for the law, he immediately began to behave as though he were in power. Joseph Goebbels commandeered the state radio to produce a live broadcast of the torchlight parade which celebrated Hitler's assumption of office. On 13 March, Joseph Goebbels had his reward for his part in bringing the Nazis to power by being appointed Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Volksaufklärung und Propaganda), with a seat in the Cabinet.
The role of the new ministry, which took over palatial accommodation in the 18th century Leopold Palace on Wilhelmstrasse, just across from Hitler's offices in the Reich Chancellery, was to centralise Nazi control of all aspects of German cultural and intellectual life, particularly the press, radio and the visual and performing arts. On 1 May, Joseph Goebbels organised the massive demonstrations and parades to mark the "Day of National Labour" which preceded the Nazi takeover and destruction of the German trade union movement. By 3 May, he was able to boast in his diary: "We are the masters of Germany." On 10 May, he supervised an even more symbolic event in the establishment of Nazi cultural power: the burning of up to 20,000 books by Jewish or anti-Nazi authors in the Opernplatz next to the university.
The hegemonic ambitions of the Propaganda Ministry were shown by the divisions which Joseph Goebbels soon established: press, radio, film, theatre, music, literature and publishing. In each of these, a Reich Chamber (Reichskammer) was established, co-opting leading figures from the field (usually not known Nazis) to head each Chamber, and requiring them to supervise the purge of Jews, socialists and liberals, as well as practitioners of "degenerate" art forms such as abstract art and atonal music. The respected composer Richard Strauss, for example, became head of the Reich Music Chamber. Joseph Goebbels' orders were backed by the threat of force. The many prominent Jews in the arts and the mass media emigrated in large numbers rather than risk the fists of the S.A. and the gates of the concentration camp, as did many socialists and liberals. Some non-Jewish anti-Nazis with good connections or international reputations survived until the mid 1930s, but most were forced out sooner or later.
Control of the arts and media was not just a matter of personnel. Soon the content of every newspaper, book, novel, play, film, broadcast and concert, from the level of nationally-known publishers and orchestras to local newspapers and village choirs, was subject to supervision by the Propaganda Ministry, although a process of self-censorship was soon effectively operating in all these fields, leaving the Ministry in Berlin free to concentrate on the most politically sensitive areas such as major newspapers and the state radio. No author could publish, no painter could exhibit, no singer could broadcast, no critic could criticise, unless they were a member of the appropriate Reich Chamber, and membership was conditional on good behaviour. Goebbels could bribe as well as threaten: he secured a large budget for his Ministry, with which he was able to offer generous salaries and subsidies to those in the arts who co-operated with him. These were inducements which most artists, theatres and orchestras, after their struggles to survive during the Depression, found hard to refuse.
As the most highly educated member of the Nazi leadership, and the one with the most authentic pretensions to high culture, Joseph Goebbels was sensitive to charges that he was dragging German culture down to the level of mere propaganda. Joseph Goebbels responded by saying that the purpose of both art and propaganda was to bring about a spiritual mobilisation of the German people. Joseph Goebbels was, in fact, far from the most militant member of the Nazi leadership on cultural questions. The more philistine Nazis wanted nothing in German books but Nazi slogans, nothing on German stages and cinema screens but Nazi heroics, and nothing in German concert halls but German folk songs.
Joseph Goebbels insisted that German high culture must be allowed to carry on, both for reasons of international prestige and to win the loyalty of the upper middle classes, who valued art forms such as opera and the symphony. Joseph Goebbels thus became to some extent the protector of the arts as well as their regulator. In this, he had the support of Hitler, a passionate devotee of Richard Wagner. But Joseph Goebbels always had to bow to Hitler's views. Hitler loathed modernism of all kinds, and Joseph Goebbels (whose own tastes were sympathetic to modernism) was forced to acquiesce in imposing very traditionalist forms on the artistic and musical worlds. The music of Paul Hindemith, for example, was banned simply because Hitler did not like it.
Joseph Goebbels also resisted the complete Nazification of the arts because he knew that the masses must be allowed some respite from slogans and propaganda. Joseph Goebbels ensured that film studios such as UFA at Babelsberg near Berlin continued to produce a stream of comedies and light romances, which drew mass audiences to the cinema where they would also watch propaganda newsreels and Nazi epics. Joseph Goebbels' abuse of his position as Propaganda Minister and the reputation that built up around his use of the "casting couch" was well known. Many actresses wrote later of how Joseph Goebbels had tried to lure them to his home. Joseph Goebbels acquired the nickname "Bock von Babelsberg" lit: "Babelsberg Stud". Joseph Goebbels resisted considerable pressure to ban all foreign films — helped by the fact that Hitler was a big fan of Mickey Mouse. For the same reason, Joseph Goebbels worked to bring culture to the masses — promoting the sale of cheap radios, organising free concerts in factories, staging art exhibitions in small towns and establishing mobile cinemas to bring the movies to every village. All of this served short-term propaganda ends, but also served to reconcile the German people, particularly the working class, to the regime.
Despite the enormous power of the Propaganda Ministry over German cultural life, Joseph Goebbels' status began to decline once the Nazi regime was firmly established in power. This was because the real business of the Nazi regime was preparation for war, and although propaganda was a part of this, it was not the main game. By the mid 1930s, Hitler's most powerful subordinates were Hermann Göring, as head of the 4 Year Plan for crash rearmament, and Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and police apparatus. Once the internal enemies of the Nazi Party were destroyed, as they effectively were by 1935, Joseph Goebbels's propaganda efforts began to lose their point, and without an enemy to fight, his rhetoric began to sound hollow and unconvincing.
As a man of education and culture, Joseph Goebbels had once mocked the "primitive" anti-Semitism of Nazis such as Julius Streicher. But as Joachim Fest observes: "Goebbels [found] in the increasingly unrestrained practice of anti-Semitism by the state new possibilities into which he threw himself with all the zeal of an ambitious man worried by a constant diminution of his power." Fest also suggests a psychological motive: "A man who conformed so little to the National Socialist image of the elite… may have had his reason, in the struggles for power at Hitler's court, for offering keen anti-Semitism as a counterweight to his failure to conform to a type." Whatever his motives, Joseph Goebbels took every opportunity to attack the Jews. From 1933 onwards, he was bracketed with Streicher among the regime's most virulent anti-Semites. "Some people think," he told a Berlin rally in June 1935, "that we haven't noticed how the Jews are trying once again to spread themselves over all our streets. The Jews ought to please observe the laws of hospitality and not behave as if they were the same as us."
The sarcastic "humour" of Joseph Goebbels' speeches did not conceal the reality of his threat to the Jews. In his capacity as Gauleiter of Berlin, and thus as de facto ruler of the capital (although there was still officially an Oberbürgermeister and city council), Joseph Goebbels maintained constant pressure on the city's large Jewish community, forcing them out of business and professional life and placing obstacles in the way of their being able to live normal lives, such as banning them from public transport and city facilities. There was some respite during 1936, while Berlin hosted the Olympic Games, but from 1937 the intensity of his anti-Semitic words and actions began to increase again. "The Jews must get out of Germany, indeed out of Europe altogether," he wrote in his diary in November 1937. "That will take some time, but it must and will happen." By mid 1938 Joseph Goebbels was investigating the possibility of requiring all Jews to wear an identifying mark and of confining them to a ghetto, but these were ideas whose time had not yet come. "Aim—drive the Jews out of Berlin," he wrote in his diary in June 1938, "and without any sentimentality."
In November 1938, Joseph Goebbels got the chance to take decisive action against the Jews for which he had been waiting when a Jewish youth, Herschel Grynszpan, shot a German diplomat in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, in revenge for the deportation of his family to Poland and the persecution of German Jews generally. On 9 November, the evening vom Rath died of his wounds, Joseph Goebbels was at the Bürgerbräu Keller in Munich with Hitler, celebrating the anniversary of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch with a large crowd of veteran Nazis. Joseph Goebbels told Hitler that "spontaneous" anti-Jewish violence had already broken out in German cities, although in fact this was not true: this was a clear case of Joseph Goebbels manipulating Hitler for his own ends. When Hitler said he approved of what was happening, Joseph Goebbels took this as authorisation to organise a massive, nationwide pogrom against the Jews. Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary:
[Hitler] decides: demonstrations should be allowed to continue. The police should be withdrawn. For once the Jews should get the feel of popular anger… I immediately gave the necessary instructions to the police and the Party. Then I briefly speak in that vein to the Party leadership. Stormy applause. All are instantly at the phones. Now people will act.
To say that Joseph Goebbels manipulated Hitler into approving the pogrom of Kristallnacht is not to suggest that Hitler's anti-Semitism was any less virulent than Joseph Goebbels's. But it is clear that the idea of a state-sponsored pogrom originated with Joseph Goebbels, and that he gained Hitler's approval for it by falsely telling Hitler that it had already begun.
The result of Joseph Goebbels' incitement was Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," during which the S.A. and Nazi Party went on a rampage of anti-Jewish violence and destruction, killing at least 90 and maybe as many as 200 people (not counting several hundred suicides), destroying over a thousand synagogues and hundreds of Jewish businesses and homes, and dragging some 30,000 Jews off to concentration camps, where at least another 1,000,000 died before the remainder were released after several months of brutal treatment. The longer-term effect was to drive 80,000 Jews to emigrate, most leaving behind all their property in their desperation to escape. Foreign opinion reacted with horror, bringing to a sudden end the climate of appeasement of Nazi Germany in the western democracies. Joseph Goebbels's pogrom thus moved Germany significantly closer to war, at a time when rearmament was still far from complete. Göring and some other Nazi leaders were furious at Joseph Goebbels' actions, about which they had not been consulted. Joseph Goebbels, however, was delighted. "As was to be expected, the entire nation is in uproar," he wrote. "This is one dead man who is costing the Jews dear. Our darling Jews will think twice in future before gunning down German diplomats." In 1942 Joseph Goebbels was involved in deportation of Berlin's Jews.
These events were well-timed from the point of view of Joseph Goebbels's relations with Hitler. In 1937, he had begun an intense affair with the Czech actress Lída Baarová, causing the break-up of her marriage. When Magda Goebbels learned of this affair in October 1938, she complained to Hitler, a conservative in sexual matters who was fond of Magda and the Joseph Goebbels' young children. Hitler ordered Joseph Goebbels to break off his affair, whereupon Joseph Goebbels offered his resignation, which Hitler refused. On 15 October, Joseph Goebbels attempted suicide. A furious Hitler then ordered Himmler to remove Baarová from Germany, and she was deported to Czechoslovakia, from where she later left for Italy. These events damaged Joseph Goebbels' standing with Hitler, and his zeal in furthering Hitler's anti-Semitic agenda was in part an effort to restore his reputation. The Baarová affair, however, did nothing to dampen Joseph Goebbels' enthusiasm for womanising. As late as 1943, the Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann was ingratiating himself with Joseph Goebbels by procuring young women for him.
Joseph Goebbels, like all the Nazi leaders, could not afford to defy Hitler's will in matters of this kind. By 1938, they had all become wealthy men, but their wealth was dependent on Hitler's continuing goodwill and willingness to turn a blind eye to their corruption. Until the Nazis came to power, Joseph Goebbels had been a relatively poor man, and his main income was the salary of 750 Reichsmarks a month he had gained by election to the Reichstag in 1928. By 1936, although he was not nearly as corrupt as some other senior Nazis, such as Göring and Robert Ley, Joseph Goebbels was earning 300,000 Reichsmarks a year in "fees" for writing in his own newspaper, Der Angriff, as well as his ministerial salary and many other sources of income. These payments were in effect bribes from the papers' publisher Max Amann. Joseph Goebbels owned a villa by the lake at Wannsee and another on Lake Constance in the south, which he spent 2.2,000,000 Reichsmarks refurbishing. The tax office, as it did for all the Nazi leaders, gave him generous exemptions. Hitler apparently connived at the corruption of his lieutenants because of the power it gave him over them.
Whatever the loss of real power suffered by Joseph Goebbels during the middle years of the Nazi regime, he remained one of Hitler's intimates. Since his offices were close to the Chancellery, he was a frequent guest for lunch, during which he became adept at listening to Hitler's monologues and agreeing with his opinions. In the months leading up to the war, his influence began to increase again. Joseph Goebbels ranked along with Joachim von Ribbentrop, Göring, Himmler and Martin Bormann as the senior Nazi with the most access to Hitler, which in an autocratic regime meant access to power. The fact that Hitler was fond of Magda Goebbels and the children also gave Joseph Goebbels entrée to Hitler's inner circle. The Goebbelses were regular visitors to Hitler's Bavarian mountain retreat, the Berghof. But he was not kept directly informed of military and diplomatic developments, relying on second-hand accounts to hear what Hitler was doing.
In the years 1936 to 1939, Hitler, while professing his desire for peace, led Germany firmly and deliberately towards a confrontation. Joseph Goebbels was one of the most enthusiastic proponents of aggressively pursuing Germany's territorial claims sooner rather than later, along with Himmler and Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop. Joseph Goebbels saw it as his job to make the German people accept this and if possible welcome it. At the time of the Sudetenland crisis in 1938, Joseph Goebbels was well aware that the great majority of Germans did not want a war, and used every propaganda resource at his disposal to overcome what he called this "war psychosis," by whipping up sympathy for the Sudeten Germans and hatred of the Czechs. After the western powers conceded to Hitler's demands concerning Czechoslovakia in 1938, Joseph Goebbels soon redirected his propaganda machine against Poland. From May onwards, he orchestrated a "hate campaign" against Poland, fabricating stories about atrocities against ethnic Germans in Danzig and other cities. Even so, he was unable to persuade the majority of Germans to welcome the prospect of war.
Once war began in September 1939, Joseph Goebbels began a steady process of extending his influence over domestic policy. After 1940, Hitler made few public appearances, and even his broadcasts became less frequent, so Joseph Goebbels increasingly became the face and the voice of the Nazi regime for the German people. With Hitler preoccupied with the war, Himmler focussing on the "final solution to the Jewish question" in eastern Europe, and with Hermann Göring's position declining with the failure of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe), Joseph Goebbels sensed a power vacuum in domestic policy and moved to fill it. Since civilian morale was his responsibility, he increasingly concerned himself with matters such as wages, rationing and housing, which affected morale and therefore productivity. Joseph Goebbels came to see the lethargic and demoralised Göring, still Germany's economic supremo as head of the Four Year Plan Ministry, as his main enemy. To undermine Göring, he forged an alliance with Himmler, although the SS chief remained wary of him. A more useful ally was Albert Speer, a Hitler favourite who was appointed Armaments Minister in February 1942. Joseph Goebbels and Speer worked through 1942 to persuade Hitler to dismiss Göring and allow the domestic economy to be run by a revived Cabinet headed by themselves.
However, in February 1943, the crushing German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad produced a crisis in the regime. Joseph Goebbels was forced to ally himself with Göring to thwart a bid for power by Bormann, head of the Nazi Party Chancellery and Secretary to the Führer. Bormann who exploited the disaster at Stalingrad and his daily access to Hitler to persuade him to create a 3 man junta representing the State, the Army, and the Party. represented respectively by Hans Lammers, head of the Reich Chancellery, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the OKW (armed forces high command), and Bormann, who controlled the Party and access to the Führer. This Committee of Three would exercise dictatorial powers over the home front. Joseph Goebbels, Speer, Göring and Himmler all saw this proposal as a power grab by Bormann and a threat to their power, and combined to block it.
However, their alliance was shaky at best. This was mainly due to the fact that during this period Himmler was still cooperating with Bormann to gain more power at the expense of Göring and most of the traditional Reich administration; Göring's loss of power had resulted in an overindulgence in the trappings of power and his strained relations with Joseph Goebbels made it difficult for a unified coalition to be formed, despite the attempts of Speer and Göring's Luftwaffe deputy Field Marshal Erhard Milch, to reconcile the 2 Party comrades.
Joseph Goebbels instead tried to persuade Hitler to appoint Göring as head of the government. Joseph Goebbels' proposal had a certain logic, as Göring — despite the failures of the Luftwaffe and his own corruption — was still very popular among the German people, whose morale was waning since Hitler barely appeared in public since the defeat at Stalingrad. However, this proposal was increasingly unworkable given Göring's increasing incapacity and, more importantly, Hitler's increasing contempt for him due to his blaming of Göring for Germany's defeats. This was a measure by Hitler designed to deflect criticism from himself.
The result was that nothing was done—the Committee of 3 declined into irrelevance due to the loss of power by Keitel and Lammers and the ascension of Bormann and the situation continued to drift, with administrative chaos increasingly undermining the war effort. The ultimate responsibility for this lay with Hitler, as Joseph Goebbels well knew, referring in his diary to a "crisis of leadership," but Joseph Goebbels was too much under Hitler's spell ever to challenge his power.
Joseph Goebbels launched a new offensive to place himself at the center of policy-making. On 18 February, he delivered a passionate "Total War Speech" at the Sports Palace in Berlin. Joseph Goebbels demanded from his audience a commitment to "total war," the complete mobilisation of the German economy and German society for the war effort. To motivate the German people to continue the struggle, he cited 3 of theses as the basis of this argument:
If the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) were not in a position to break the danger from the Eastern front, then Nazi Germany would fall to Bolshevism, and all of Europe would fall shortly afterwards;
The German Armed Forces, the German people, and the Axis Powers alone had the strength to save Europe from this threat;
Danger was a motivating force. Germany had to act quickly and decisively, or it would be too late.
Joseph Goebbels concluded that "Two thousand years of Western history are in danger," and he blamed Germany's failures on the Jews.
Joaeph Goebbels hoped in this way to persuade Hitler to give him and his ally Speer control of domestic policy for a programme of total commitment to arms production and full labour conscription, including women. But Hitler, supported by Göring, resisted these demands, which he feared would weaken civilian morale and lead to a repeat of the debacle of 1918, when the German army had been undermined (in Hitler's view) by a collapse of the home front. Nor was Hitler willing to allow Joseph Goebbels or anyone else to usurp his own power as the ultimate source of all decisions. Joseph Goebbels privately lamented "a complete lack of direction in German domestic policy," but of course he could not directly criticise Hitler or go against his wishes.
Heinrich Himmler, one of the architects of the Holocaust, preferred that the matter not be discussed in public. Despite this, in an editorial in his newspaper Das Reich in November 1941 he quoted Hitler's 1939 "prophecy" that the Jews would be the loser in the coming world war. Now, he said, Hitler's prophecy was coming true: "Jewry," he said, "is now suffering the gradual process of annihilation which it intended for us… It now perishes according to its own precept of 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'!"
In 1939, in a speech to the Reichstag, Hitler had said:
"If international finance Jewry in and outside Europe should succeed in thrusting the nations once again into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevisation of the earth and with it the victory of Jewry, but the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe."
The view of most historians is that the decision to proceed with the extermination of the Jews was taken at some point in late 1941, and Joseph Goebbels' comments make it clear that he knew in general terms, if not in detail, what was planned.
The decision in principle to deport the German and Austrian Jews to unspecified destinations "in the east" was made in September. Joseph Goebbels immediately pressed for the Berlin Jews to be deported first. Joseph Goebbels travelled to Hitler's headquarters on the eastern front, meeting both Hitler and Reinhard Heydrich to lobby for his demands. Joseph Goebbels got the assurances he wanted: "The Führer is of the opinion," he wrote, "that the Jews eventually have to be removed from the whole of Germany. The first cities to be made Jew-free are Berlin, Vienna and Prague. Berlin is first in the queue, and I have the hope that we'll succeed in the course of this year."
Deportations of Berlin Jews to the Łódź ghetto began in October, but transport and other difficulties made the process much slower than Joseph Goebbels desired. Joseph Goebbels' November article in Das Reich was part of his campaign to have the pace of deportation accelerated.
In December, he was present when Hitler addressed a meeting of Gauleiters and other senior Nazis, discussing among other things the "Jewish question." Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary afterwards:
"With regard to the Jewish Question, the Führer is determined to make a clean sweep of it. He prophesied that, if they brought about another world war, they would experience their annihilation. That was no empty talk. The world war is here [this was the week Germany declared war on the United States]. The annihilation of Jewry must be the necessary consequence. The question is to be viewed without any sentimentality. We're not there to have sympathy with the Jews, but only sympathy with our own German people. If the German people has again now sacrificed around 160,000 dead in the eastern campaign, the originators of this bloody conflict will have to pay for it with their lives."
During 1942, Joseph Goebbels continued to press for the "final solution to the Jewish question" to be carried forward as quickly as possible now that Germany had occupied a huge swathe of Soviet territory into which all the Jews of German-controlled Europe could be deported. There they could be worked into extinction in accordance with the plan agreed on at the Wannsee Conference convened by Heydrich in January. It was a constant annoyance to Joseph Goebbels that, at a time when Germany was fighting for its life on the eastern front, there were still 40,000 Jews in Berlin. They should be "carted off to Russia," he wrote in his diary. "It would be best to kill them altogether." Once again, there is no doubt that Joseph Goebbels knew what would happen to the Jews who were to be "carted off." Although the Propaganda Ministry was not invited to the Wannsee Conference,Joseph Goebbels knew by March what had been decided there. Joseph Goebbels wrote:
"The Jews are now being deported to the east. A fairly barbaric procedure, not to be described in any greater detail, is being used here, and not much more remains of the Jews themselves. In general, it can probably be established that 60 percent of them must be liquidated, while only 40 percent can be put to work a judgement is being carried out on the Jews which is barbaric, but fully deserved."
For Joseph Goebbels, 1943 and 1944 were years of struggle to rally the German people behind a regime which was increasingly obviously facing military defeat. The German people's faith in Hitler was shaken by the disaster at Stalingrad, and never fully recovered. During 1943, as the Soviet armies advanced towards the borders of the Reich, the western Allies developed the ability to launch devastating air raids on most German cities, including Berlin. At the same time, there were increasingly critical shortages of food, raw materials, fuel and housing. Joseph Goebbels and Speer were among the few Nazi leaders who were under no illusions about Germany's dire situation. Their solution was to seize control of the home front from the indecisive Hitler and the incompetent Göring. This was the agenda of Joseph Goebbels's "total war" speech of February 1943. But they were thwarted by their inability to challenge Hitler, who could neither make decisions himself nor trust anyone else to do so.
After Stalingrad, Hitler increasingly withdrew from public view, almost never appearing in public and rarely even broadcasting. By July, Joseph Goebbels was lamenting that Hitler had cut himself off from the people — it was noted, for example, that he never visited the bomb-ravaged cities of the Ruhr. "One can't neglect the people too long," he wrote. "They are the heart of our war effort."
Joseph Goebbels himself became the public voice of the Nazi regime, both in his regular broadcasts and his weekly editorials in Das Reich. As Joachim Fest notes, Joseph Goebbels seemed to take a grim pleasure in the destruction of Germany's cities by the Allied bombing offensive: "It was, as one of his colleagues confirmed, almost a happy day for him when famous buildings were destroyed, because at such time he put into his speeches that ecstatic hatred which aroused the fanaticism of the tiring workers and spurred them to fresh efforts."
In public, Joseph Goebbels remained confident of German victory: "We live at the most critical period in the history of the Occident," he wrote in Das Reich in February 1943. "Any weakening of the spiritual and military defensive strength of our continent in its struggle with eastern Bolshevism brings with it the danger of a rapidly nearing decline in its will to resist… Our soldiers in the East will do their part. They will stop the storm from the steppes, and ultimately break it. They fight under unimaginable conditions. But they are fighting a good fight. They are fighting not only for our own security, but also for Europe's future."
In private, he was discouraged by the failure of his and Speer's campaign to gain control of the home front.
Joseph Goebbels remained preoccupied with the annihilation of the Jews, which was now reaching its climax in the extermination camps of eastern Poland. As in 1942, he was more outspoken about what was happening than Himmler would have liked: "Our state's security requires that we take whatever measures seem necessary to protect the German community from [the Jewish] threat," he wrote in May. "That leads to some difficult decisions, but they are unavoidable if we are to deal with the threat… None of the Führer's prophetic words has come so inevitably true as his prediction that if Jewry succeeded in provoking a 2nd world war, the result would be not the destruction of the Aryan race, but rather the wiping out of the Jewish race. This process is of vast importance."
Following the Allied invasion of Italy and the fall of Benito Mussolini in September, he and Joachim von Ribbentrop raised with Hitler the possibility of secretly approaching Joseph Stalin and negotiating a separate peace behind the backs of the western Allies. Hitler, surprisingly, did not reject the idea of a separate peace with either side, but he told Joseph Goebbels that he should not negotiate from a position of weakness. A great German victory must occur before any negotiations should be undertaken, he reasoned. The German defeat at Kursk in July had, however, ended any possibility of this. Joseph Goebbels knew by this stage that the war was lost, but was unable to break the spell that Hitler had held over him since 1926.
As Germany's military and economic situation grew steadily worse during 1944, Joseph Goebbels renewed his push, in alliance with Speer, to wrest control of the home front away from Göring. In July, following the Allied landings in France and the huge Soviet advances in Byelorussia, Hitler finally agreed to grant both of them increased powers. Speer took control of all economic and production matters away from Göring, and Joseph Goebbels took the title Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War (Reichsbevollmächtigter für den totalen Kriegseinsatz an der Heimatfront). At the same time, Himmler took over the Interior Ministry.
This trio — Joseph Goebbels, Himmler and Speer — became the real center of German government in the last year of the war, although Bormann used his privileged access to Hitler to thwart them when he could. In this Bormann was very successful, as the Party Gauleiter gained more and more powers, becoming Reich Defence Commissars (Reichsverteidigungskommissare) in their respective districts and overseeing all civilian administration. The fact that Himmler was Interior Minister only increased the power of Bormann, as the Gauleiters feared that Himmler, who was General Plenipontentiary for the Administration of the Reich, would curb their power and set up his higher SS and police leaders as their replacement.
Joseph Goebbels saw Himmler as a potential ally against Bormann and in 1944 is supposed to have voiced the opinion that if the Reichsführer SS was granted control over the Wehrmacht and he, Joseph Goebbels, granted control over the domestic politics, the war would soon be ended in a victorious manner. However, the inability of Himmler to persuade Hitler to cease his support of Bormann, the defection of SS generals such as Obergruppenführer Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the Chief of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and his powerful subordinate Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller, the head of the Gestapo, to Bormann, soon persuaded Joseph Goebbels to align himself with the Secretary to the Führer at the end of 1944, thus accepting his subordinate position.
When elements of the army leadership tried to assassinate Hitler in the July 20 plot shortly thereafter, it was this trio that rallied the resistance to the plotters. It was Joseph Goebbels, besieged in his Berlin apartment with Speer and secretary Wilfred von Oven beside him but with his phone lines intact, who brought Otto Ernst Remer, the wavering commander of the Berlin garrison, to the phone to speak to Hitler in East Prussia, thus demonstrating that the Führer was alive and that the garrison should oppose the attempted coup.
Joseph Goebbels promised Hitler that he could raise a million new soldiers by means of a reorganisation of the Army, transferring personnel from the Navy and Luftwaffe, and purging the bloated Reich Ministries which satraps like Göring had hitherto protected. As it turned out, the inertia of the state bureaucracy was too great even for the energetic Joseph Goebbels to overcome. Bormann and his puppet Lammers, keen to retain their control over the Party and State administrations respectively, placed endless obstacles in Joseph Goebbels's way. Another problem was that although Speer and Joseph Goebbels were allies, their agendas in fact conflicted: Speer wanted absolute priority in the allocation of labour to be given to arms production, while Joseph Goebbels sought to press every able-bodied male into the army. Speer, allied with Fritz Sauckel, the General Plenipotentiary for the Employment of Labour from 1942, generally won these battles.
By July 1944, it was in any case too late for Joseph Goebbels and Speer's internal coup to make any real difference to the outcome of the war. The combined economic and military power of the western Allies and the Soviet Union, now fully mobilised, was simply too great for Germany to overcome. A crucial economic indicator, the ratio of steel output, was running at 4.5 to one against Germany. The final blow was the loss of the Romanian oil fields as the Soviet Army advanced through the Balkans in September. This, combined with the U.S. air campaign against Germany's synthetic oil production, finally broke the back of the German economy and thus its capacity for further resistance. By this time, the best Joseph Goebbels could do to reassure the German people that victory was still possible was to make vague promises that "miracle weapons" such as the Me 262 jet airplane, the Type XXI U-boat, and the V-2 rocket could somehow retrieve the military situation.
In the last months of the war, Joseph Goebbels's speeches and articles took on an increasingly apocalyptic tone:
"Rarely in history has a brave people struggling for its life faced such terrible tests as the German people have in this war," he wrote towards the end. "The misery that results for us all, the never ending chain of sorrows, fears, and spiritual torture does not need to be described in detail… We are bearing a heavy fate because we are fighting for a good cause, and are called to bravely endure the battle to achieve greatness."
By the beginning of 1945, with the Soviets on the Oder and the western Allies crossing the Rhine, Joseph Goebbels could no longer disguise the fact that defeat was inevitable. Joseph Goebbels knew what that would mean for himself: "For us," he had written in 1943, "we have burnt our bridges. We cannot go back, but neither do we want to go back. We are forced to extremes and therefore resolved to proceed to extremes."
When other Nazi leaders urged Hitler to leave Berlin and establish a new center of resistance in the National Redoubt in Bavaria, Joseph Goebbels opposed this, arguing for a last stand in the ruins of the Reich capital.
By this time, Joseph Goebbels had gained the position he had wanted so long—at the side of Hitler, albeit only because of his subservience to Bormann, who was the Führer's de facto deputy. Göring was utterly discredited, though Hitler refused to dismiss him until 25 April. Himmler, whose appointment as commander of Army Group Vistula had led to disaster on the Oder, was also in disgrace, and Hitler rightly suspected that he was secretly trying to negotiate with the western Allies. Only Joseph Goebbels and Bormann remained totally loyal to Hitler.
Joseph Goebbels knew how to play on Hitler's fantasies, encouraging him to see in the death of American President Roosevelt on 12 April the hand of providence. On 22 April, largely as a result of Joseph Goebbels' influence, Hitler announced that he would not leave Berlin, but would stay and fight, and if necessary die, in defence of the capital.
On 23 April, Joseph Goebbels made the following proclamation to the people of Berlin:
"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 defense of the capital. The battle for Berlin must become the signal for the whole nation to rise up in battle…"
Unlike many other leading Nazis at this juncture, Joseph Goebbels at least proved to have the courage of his convictions, moving himself and his family into the Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery building in central Berlin. Joseph Goebbels told Vice-Admiral Hans-Erich Voss that he would not entertain the idea of either surrender or escape: "I was the Reich Minister of Propaganda and led the fiercest activity against the Soviet Union, for which they would never pardon me," Voss quoted him as saying. " Joseph Goebbels couldn't escape also because he was Berlin's Defence Commissioner and he considered it would be disgraceful for him to abandon his post," Voss added.
On 30 April, with the Soviets advancing to within a few 100 metres of the bunker, Hitler dictated his last will and testament. Joseph Goebbels was 1 of 4 witnesses. Not long after completing it, Hitler shot himself. Of Hitler's death, Joseph Goebbels commented: "The heart of Germany has ceased to beat. The Führer is dead."
In his last will and testament, Hitler named no successor as Führer or leader of the Nazi Party. Instead, Hitler appointed Goebbels Reich Chancellor; Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, who was at Flensburg near the Danish border, Reich President; and Martin Bormann, Hitler's long-time chief of staff, Party Minister. Goebbels knew that this was an empty title. Even if he was willing and able to escape Berlin and reach the north, it was unlikely that Dönitz, whose only concern was to negotiate a settlement with the western Allies that would save Germany from Soviet occupation, would want such a notorious figure as Joseph Goebbels heading his government.
As it was, Joseph Goebbels had no intention of trying to escape. Voss later recounted: "When Joseph Goebbels learned that Hitler had committed suicide, he was very depressed and said: 'It is a great pity that such a man is not with us any longer. But there is nothing to be done. For us, everything is lost now and the only way left for us is the one which Hitler chose. I shall follow his example'."
On 1 May, within hours of Hitler's suicide on 30 April, Joseph Goebbels completed his sole official act as Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler). Joseph Goebbels dictated a letter and ordered German General Hans Krebs, under a white flag, to meet with General Vasily Chuikov and to deliver his letter. Chuikov, as commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, commanded the Soviet forces in central Berlin. Joseph Goebbels' letter informed Chuikov of Hitler's death and requested a ceasefire, hinting that the establishment of a National Socialist government hostile to Western plutocracy would be beneficial to the Soviet Union, as the betrayal of Himmler and Göring indicated that otherwise anti-Soviet National Socialist elements might align themselves with the West. When this was rejected, Joseph Goebbels decided that further efforts were futile. Shortly afterwards he dictated a postscript to Hitler's testament:
"The Führer has given orders for me, in case of a breakdown of defense of the Capital of the Reich, to leave Berlin and to participate as a leading member in a government appointed by him. For the first time in my life, I must categorically refuse to obey a command of the Führer. My wife and my children agree with this refusal. In any other case, I would feel myself… a dishonorable renegade and vile scoundrel for my entire further life, who would lose the esteem of himself along with the esteem of his people, both of which would have to form the requirement for further duty of my person in designing the future of the German Nation and the German Reich."
Later on 1 May, Vice-Admiral Hans-Erich Voss saw Joseph Goebbels for the last time: "Before the breakout [from the bunker] began, about 10 generals and officers, including myself, went down individually to Joseph Goebbels's shelter to say goodbye. While saying goodbye I asked Joseph 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'."
At 8 p.m. on the evening of 1 May, Joseph Goebbels arranged for an SS doctor, Helmut Kunz, to kill his 6 children by injecting them with morphine and then, when they were unconscious, crushing an ampoule of cyanide in each of their mouths. According to Kunz's testimony, he gave the children morphine injections but it was Magda Goebbels and Stumpfegger, Hitler's personal doctor, who then administered the cyanide. Shortly afterwards, Joseph Goebbels and his wife went up to the garden of the Chancellery, where they killed themselves. The details of their suicides are uncertain. After the war, Rear-Admiral Michael Musmanno, a U.S. naval officer and judge, published an account apparently based on eye-witness testimony: "At about 8.15 p.m., Joseph Goebbels arose from the table, put on his hat, coat and gloves and, taking his wife's arm, went upstairs to the garden." They were followed by Joseph Goebbels's adjutant, SS-Hauptsturmführer Günther Schwägermann. "While Gunther Schwägermann was preparing the petrol, he heard a shot. Joseph Goebbels had shot himself and his wife took poison.
Gunther Schwägermann ordered one of the soldiers to shoot Joseph Goebbels again because he was unable to do it himself." One SS officer later said they each took cyanide and were shot by an SS trooper. An early report said they were machine-gunned to death at their own request. According to another account, Joseph shot Magda and then himself. This idea is presented in the movie Downfall.
The bodies of Joseph Goebbels and his wife were then burned in a shell crater, but owing to the lack of petrol the burning was only partly effective, and their bodies were easily identifiable. A few days later, Voss was brought back to the bunker by the Soviets to identify the partly burned bodies of Joseph and Magda Goebbels and the bodies of their children. "Vice-Admiral Voss, being asked how he identified the people as Joseph Goebbels, his wife and children, explained that he recognised the burnt body of the man as former Reichsminister Goebbels by the following signs: the shape of the head, the line of the mouth, the metal brace that Joseph Goebbels had on his right leg, his gold NSDAP badge and the burnt remains of his party uniform." The remains of the Joseph Goebbels family were secretly buried, along with those of Hitler, near Rathenow in Brandenburg. In 1970, they were disinterred and cremated, and the ashes thrown in the Elbe.
Joachim Fest writes: "What he seemed to fear more than anything else was a death devoid of dramatic effects. To the end he was what he had always been: the propagandist for himself. Whatever he thought or did was always based on this one agonising wish for self-exaltation, and this same object was served by the murder of his children… They were the last victims of an egomania extending beyond the grave. However, this deed, too, failed to make him the figure of tragic destiny he had hoped to become; it merely gave his end a touch of repulsive irony."
Keep visiting: www.lifechums.com more celebrities featuring shortly …………….


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Are you looking for a quick, low-effort way to shed your extra pounds? Do you want to improve your health while enjoying delicious home prepared meals?
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These foods are guaranteed to improve your health, boost your immune system, flush your liver and kidneys of toxins and support your nerves and cardiovascular system to operate optimally.
As well as finding out all the benefits of our favorite super foods you will also learn about:
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- Eating habits are the problem
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- The Obesity Epidemic
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Don't wait until it's too late, improve your health today! Reverse the damage done by processed foods and build your body back to health. Live longer and have loads of energy to accomplish all you want to, with Super Foods!


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Interactive Lab
Subatomic particles and forces:
Discovering Neutrino Oscillation
Note: Units 1 through 3 make use of this interactive lab to demonstrate concepts relevant to physics on a subatomic scale.
Neutrinos are three of the twelve fundamental fermions of the Standard Model. These three particles are usually referred to by their flavor, electron, muon, and tau. These particles were originally thought to be massless, but now we know that neutrinos do in fact have very small masses. Exactly what the masses are is still an active area of research, but scientists realize that the neutrinos' ability to morph from one flavor to another is related to the mass differences between the three particles. The physics governing neutrinos is a fascinating particle physics mystery and also of practical interest. Neutrinos are produced in nuclear reactions and can travel through solid Earth with little attenuation. Therefore, one application of neutrino detectors might be to monitor nuclear reactors as part of a nonproliferation effort.


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The following report is provided by the Franklin County Sheriff's Office. Arrests listed were made by officers from the Apalachicola Police Department, Carrabelle Police Department, Florida Highway Patrol, Florida Department of Corrections and the Franklin County Sheriff�s Office. All defendants are to be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
May 6
Nathan J. Cooper, 22, Apalachicola, forging bank bills (FCSO)
Charles A. Creamer, 32, Apalachicola, violation of probation (FCSO)
Darin W. Cruson II, 26, Carrabelle, violation of probation, burglary of a structure, grand retail theft and resisting officer without violence (FCSO)
Robert D. Joyner, 57, Eastpoint, DUI with property damage (FHP)
Luke T. Gruver, 34, Apalachicola, domestic battery (FCSO)
May 7
Luke T. Gruver, 34, Apalachicola, violation of probation (FCSO)
Darin W. Cruson II, 26, Carrabelle, possession of cannabis, possession of paraphernalia and violation of probation (FCSO)
Aaron S. Massey, 22, Carrabelle, burglary of a structure and grand theft (FCSO)
May 8
Lenanya Q. Morris, 22, Port St. Joe, failure to appear and violation of probation (FCSO)
May 9
Willie C. Lake, 36, Apalachicola, two counts possession of a controlled substance, possession of paraphernalia and possession of cannabis (FCSO)
Lacey C. Maples, 23, Panama City Beach, domestic battery (APD)
Vickie H. Maples, 49, Apalachicola, domestic battery (APD)
Brandon L. Hill, 22, Apalachicola, domestic battery (APD)
Robert C. Maples, 19, Apalachicola, domestic battery (APD)
Amber M. Branch, 34, Eastpoint, withholding child support (APD)
May 10
Steven W. Beebe, 42, Carrabelle, DUI (CPD)
Melissa D. Powers, 19, Jacksonville, introduction of contraband into a state prison (DOC)
May 11
Bobby J. Bullock, Jr., 46, Eastpoint, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon (FCSO)


text: 8 Ways to Do Holiday Brunch\\nThrowing a boozy brunch is a fun, easy and cheap way to celebrate the season. Prep almost all of these delish dishes the day before so, come party time, you can actually hang out. Cocktail?\\nThe best greeting is one made with cocktails in hand. Float a cranberry or two on top to snaz them up.\\n\\n[See the recipe.](/fooddiet/recipes/2012/12/pear-cranberry-sparklers)\\nPancakes say lazy-day lounging with friends. Sour-cherry syrup, which you can make a week ahead, adds a twist on taste.\\n\\n[See the recipe.](/fooddiet/recipes/2012/12/almond-pancakes-with-sour-cherry-syrup)\\nYour friends might not bake from scratch, but they'll be psyched that you did! Be sure to use fresh baking powder or the bread won't rise.\\n\\n[See the recipe.](/fooddiet/recipes/2012/12/biscuits)\\n\\n \\n__Maple Sausage__\\n\\nStuff those biscuits with maple sausage, and they're almost too good. Almost. Prep the patties the day before, then cook them quickly just prior to serving.\\n\\n[See the recipe.](/fooddiet/recipes/2012/12/maple-sausage)\\nA fancy-pants fruit salad with a tropical flair really sweetens things up. Chop fruit in advance; assemble day of. Done!\\n\\n[See the recipe.](/fooddiet/recipes/2012/12/tropical-fruit-salad)\\nBrunch sans egss isn't brunch! Stick this strata in the oven as guests arrive.\\n\\n[See the recipe.](/fooddiet/recipes/2012/12/bell-pepper-and-goat-cheese-strata)\\nBalance the meal with a savory salad. Dress kale a day ahead; toss at the table.\\n\\n[See the recipe.](/fooddiet/recipes/2012/12/kale-salad-with-dates-parmesan-and-almonds)\\nCider is the ideal way to warm up the room—especially if it's spiked.\\n\\n[See the recipe.](/fooddiet/recipes/2012/12/clementine-mulled-cider)\\n\\n \\n__[7 Easy One-Pot Meals](/fooddiet/2012/11/seven-easy-one-pot-meals-slideshow)__\\n\\n__[Guilt-Free Pasta Recipes](/fooddiet/2012/03/pasta-lovers-diet-slideshow)__\\n\\n__[Healthy Comfort Foods](/fooddiet/2009/11/healthy-comfort-foods-slideshow)__


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Cuts Roll In as Time Runs Out
No Last-Minute Deal; Spending Reductions Won't Touch Deficit's Biggest Drivers
The federal government enters a controversial new phase of deficit cutting Friday, as an automatic trigger begins slicing budgets in some areas while leaving programs such as Medicare and Medicaid—among the largest drivers of future debt—largely untouched.
The $85 billion in so-called sequester cuts push Washington, and the nation's economy, into uncertain waters. The debate over the across-the-board reductions has added to the already-high level of acrimony between Democrats and Republicans on fiscal matters, lowered even further the public's estimation of the capital's leaders and raised consumer fears about the economy, according to polls.
In the eyes of many budget experts, though, it is doing something worse: By focusing on a proportionally small level of spending, the sequester fight is distracting attention from longer-term deficit issues that need to be addressed.
Even cuts that have some bipartisan support, such as limiting the growth of future Social Security benefits or ending farm subsidies, have been shelved amid the brinkmanship.
"If they could get this fixed, the economy is poised to take off," Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said in an interview.
President Barack Obama is meeting Friday with congressional leaders to discuss the sequester. If, as expected, they find no way to avoid it, Mr. Obama will sign an order directing government agencies to begin implementing the cuts.
On Thursday, Congress continued its sink into partisan mud. The Senate failed to pass a pair of largely symbolic bills to block or ease the effects of the sequester, leaving members of both parties to concede that the cuts are likely to take effect, at least for a while.
House Republicans are preparing to enshrine the lower spending levels in a bill to finance the government from March 27 through Sept. 30. Senate Democrats haven't said how they will respond, but there are strong indications they will fight over priorities and details within the bill, but not contest its overall spending level.
The White House has been forced to defend some of its warnings about the impact of the cuts, which some critics believe are overblown.
"This is going to be a growing storm, it will hurt more and more as more time goes on," said Gene Sperling, director of the White House's National Economic Council. "But I think there's a certain amount of pain that's already being felt in the economy." White House officials have pointed to cuts in military spending last year that reduced economic growth.
Many Republicans scoff at the notion that a 2.4% cut from a $3.55 trillion federal budget can't be absorbed easily. They point to a rising stock market as a sign that Americans are shrugging off the sequester's effects, and accuse the White House of preparing to manipulate the cuts to gain political leverage.
"The president is ready to make it bite as hard as possible—all to send a simple message to the public: 'You want to control Washington spending, America? Fine, let me show you how much I can make it hurt,' " Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said.
Against that backdrop, White House officials and some Republicans are arguing that the best way out of the impasse is to resume the search for a comprehensive deficit-cutting deal that gets to the core of the long-term problem through a rewrite of tax policy and a revamp of entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
In recent days, administration officials have recirculated the president's ideas for a $1.8 trillion deficit-reduction deal including $680 billion in additional taxes—but also $1.1 trillion in spending cuts, including slowing the growth of Medicare and a reduction in inflation-adjusted increases in Social Security benefits.
Many Republicans agree that a better long-term fix is needed and say the relatively small $85 billion in spending authority cuts could prove disproportionately disruptive and distracting.
For all the political drama they are generating, the cuts fall entirely on the smaller and already-shrinking part of the budget devoted to domestic and military programs that have to be renewed yearly by Congress.
"Why not do something that gets us out of debt and doesn't destroy the Defense Department?" said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.). "Call me crazy.''
It is unclear whether the sequester would make it easier or harder to pivot back toward a more effective way of dealing with the broader trends in the nation's debt problems.
The deficit (the annual gap between federal spending and revenue) and the U.S. debt (the cumulative total of outstanding government borrowing) remained relatively modest as a share of the economy until five years ago. Then the financial crisis, plummeting tax revenue and skyrocketing spending pushed borrowing to historic levels.
The deficit now is falling sharply. It is projected to shrink to $845 billion this year from $1.4 trillion in 2009. The Congressional Budget Office predicts it will fall even more in the next few years because of spending cuts and an improving economy that generates more tax revenue and restrains government safety-net spending.
Yet that progress only masks the long-term budget problems. Economists forecast that after 10 years, the country's fiscal problems will snowball, driven largely by the baby boom generation drawing Social Security and Medicare benefits in rising numbers, as well as by climbing interest rates. Roughly 46 million Americans received Social Security retirement benefits in 2012, a figure forecast to grow 40% by 2023, with a similar increase for Medicare.
The government spent $1.793 trillion on Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and interest on federal debt in 2012, 50.7% of the federal budget. These are all shielded from the sequester, aside from a 2% cut in the payments Medicare makes to hospitals and doctors. Military spending, and funding for education, law enforcement, research and housing programs will be among the sectors facing the cuts.
The entitlement programs face their own fiscal problems. The Social Security disability trust fund is projected to exhaust its reserves by 2016. The Medicare fund that pays hospital bills will burn through its reserves by 2024.
Changes to entitlement programs are politically difficult, but some lawmakers said they would try this year as a way to end the stalemate. "I had a lot of senators call me today,'' said Mr. Graham, one of the few Republicans who has recently expressed willingness to include revenue increases. "They said, 'Let's rethink the big deal.' "
"I think we are derelict in our responsibilities to ignore the realities of entitlements," said Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.). "It is impossible to say we are defenders of Medicare and ignore the looming deadline of 11 or 12 years when it is going to be insolvent. We're not defenders. We're basically standing by and watching its demise.''
What's Next
• March 1 The White House is expected to alert agencies their budgets have been cut. Agencies will begin notifying employees, contractors, and states that spending will contract over the next seven months.
• Early to mid March Furlough notices will begin being sent by agencies to many of their employees, warning that unpaid leave could begin in 30 more days.
• March 27 Unrelated to the sequester, funding for some federal programs and agencies expires. If an agreement isn't reached, a partial government shutdown could ensue.
• Early to mid April If a shutdown is averted, many agencies will begin unpaid leave for employees, typically one day per week or one day every other week. The cuts' impact may become more visible, possibly affecting places like airports.
• Sept. 30 The federal budget year ends, meaning the cuts have to be accounted for by this time.
• Oct. 1 The next federal budget year begins, triggering a second year of sequester cuts.
—David Wessel contributed to this article.
Write to Damian Paletta at email@example.com and Janet Hook at email@example.com
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The Problem With Phone Orders
[answering phone] "Cakey Cake Bakery, Jill speaking! How can I help you?"
"Hi, I need to order a cake for my boss. We have a photo of him playing golf that we'd like to put on it, though - can you do that?"
"Of course! Just bring the photo in on a USB drive and we'll print it out here."
"Great, I'll bring it by this afternoon."
"Hey, Jill, what am I putting on this cake?"
"Oh, check the counter; I left the jump drive out for you there."
[calling from the back room] "Really? This is what they want on the cake?"
"Yeah, the customer just brought it in."
"Okey dokey!"
Believe it or not, this is a TRUE story: Elisabeth R. worked at the office in question. Besides, how could I ever make up something this good?


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Many children in our community today are having a merry Christmas because of the incredible generosity of you.
The $130,000-plus that was raised by the Empty Stocking Fund is more than last year. We are overwhelmed by your willingness to share with others. We knew this year would a tough environment in which to raise funds because the economic downturn has not let up.
The Record helped families who never needed help before.
For example, a commissioned salesperson, who saw his business fall off, had to quit his job because he could not afford the gas to commute to work. He continues to look for work. His wife asked the fund to help their children have Christmas.
Many single parents asked for help for their childrens' Christmas and for food. A young mother who just completed her GED asked if we would help her two-year-old daughter because she wanted her to have toys to play with. The mother couldn't afford any last year.
An 81-year-old woman, who lost a lot of weight after a heart attack, said she needed clothes that would fit. She had bought some on her limited income but could not afford any more.
Every year it is apparent to us that many in our community are just trying to make ends meet and the gap widens as expenses exceed income. That leaves little room in the budget for a holiday celebration.
But, not everyone who applies is helped because some applications just don't add up. We rely on a network of social service agencies to ensure our applications get a thorough review in addition to our in-house scrutiny. We provide vouchers to our recipients for Publix Supermarkets and Kmart where those businesses also scrutinize the carts to ensure only food, clothing and children's toys are purchased. That's our assurance to you that only those who truly need the help get it.
"We are very fortunate to live in a community of generous people who help those in need," said Publisher Ron Davidson. "We appreciate all who contributed, including those who contributed via volunteer efforts, as well. Publix Supermarkets and Kmart have been great partners. This effort would not be possible without their support and the help of their staffs. The Empty Stocking Fund is something we're very proud to be a part of."
As we reflect on all the households helped that will have a happy holiday season, there is no question that ours is a giving community.