Background
Magda was born in 1901 in Berlin, Germany to Auguste Behrend and engineer/Berlin developer Oskar Ritschel.
wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister
Magda was born in 1901 in Berlin, Germany to Auguste Behrend and engineer/Berlin developer Oskar Ritschel.
When she was five, her mother sent her to stay with Ritschel in Cologne. Ritschel took her to Brussels, Belgium, where she was enrolled at the Ursuline Convent in Vilvoorde. At the convent, she was remembered as "an active and intelligent little girl".
From 1908 until the outbreak of World War I, the family remained in Brussels. At that time, all Germans were forced to leave Belgium as refugees, to avoid repercussions from the Belgians after the German invasion. They moved to Berlin where she attended the high school Kolmorgen Lycée. Behrend divorced Friedländer in 1914, and in 1919, Magda was enrolled in the prestigious Holzhausen Ladies' College near Goslar.
Magda began attending meetings of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). After hearing Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels make speeches, she became a member on 1st September 1930. Later that year she went to work for Goebbels. According to Ralf Georg Reuth, the author of The Life of Joseph Goebbels (1993): "Magda Quandt fascinated him. Elegant in appearance and calmly assertive in bearing, she embodied a world that had hitherto remained in Goebbels's inner circle... She had grown up in very comfortable circumstances and had graduated from a convent school." However, Magda's parents both disliked him intensely and she came under "horrendous pressure" to break off the relationship.
Magda married Goebbels on 19th December 1931, in Mecklenburg, with Hitler as a witness. Goebbels spoke about her "entrancing beauty" and her "clever, realistic sense of life". Goebbels claimed that together they spent "completely contented" evenings, after which he was "almost in a dream... so full of fulfilled happiness". Over the next few years they had six children: Helga, Hildegard, Helmut, Holdine, Hedwig and Heidrun.
During the Second World War Magna trained as a Red Cross nurse, however her health was never good enough to use her skills with the armed forces. Toby Thacker, the author of Joseph Goebbels: Life and Death (2009), has argued: "Magda continued to play the public role demanded of her, to the extent of doing some factory work as a contribution to the total war effort. Magda was a dedicated Nazi, and shared Goebbels's public faith in final victory; privately she must, like him, have worried about the direction of events, and the consequences this would have for the whole family." During this period Magda began suffering from severe depression.
On 16th January 1945, following the defeat in the Battle of the Bulge, a small group, including Magna, Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, Rochus Misch, Julius Schaub, Christa Schroeder and Johanna Wolf, moved into the Führerbunker in Berlin. It was Misch who had the responsibility of directing all of the direct communication from the bunker. The situation became so desperate that on 22nd April, Hitler sent his two secretaries, Schroeder and Wolf, away. Schroeder later recalled: "He received us in his room looking tired, pale and listless. "Over the last four days the situation has changed to such an extent that I find myself forced to disperse my staff. As you are the longest serving, you will go first. In an hour a car leaves for Munich."
Rochus Misch recalled how on 30th April, 1945, Hitler locked himself in his room with Eva Braun: “Everyone was waiting for the shot. We were expecting it.... Then came the shot. Heinz Linge took me to one side and we went in. I saw Hitler slumped by the table. I didn’t see any blood on his head. And I saw Eva with her knees drawn up lying next to him on the sofa – wearing a white and blue blouse, with a little collar: just a little thing.”
Magna and Joseph decided to commit suicide. Magna wrote a letter to Harald Quandt: "My beloved son! By now we have been in the Führerbunker for six days already - daddy, your six little siblings and I, for the sake of giving our national socialistic lives the only possible honorable end... You shall know that I stayed here against daddy's will, and that even on last Sunday the Führer wanted to help me to get out. You know your mother - we have the same blood, for me there was no wavering. Our glorious idea is ruined and with it everything beautiful and marvelous that I have known in my life. The world that comes after the Führer and national socialism is not any longer worth living in and therefore I took the children with me, for they are too good for the life that would follow, and a merciful God will understand me when I will give them the salvation... The children are wonderful... there never is a word of complaint nor crying. The impacts are shaking the bunker. The elder kids cover the younger ones, their presence is a blessing and they are making the Führer smile once in a while. May God help that I have the strength to perform the last and hardest. We only have one goal left: loyalty to the Führer even in death. Harald, my dear son - I want to give you what I learned in life: be loyal! Loyal to yourself, loyal to the people and loyal to your country ... Be proud of us and try to keep us in dear memory."
Physical Characteristics:
Magda suffered from poor health and on 23rd January, 1933 she was hospitalized. He wrote in his diary: "God keep this woman for me. I can not live without her." Later he added: "To the clinic. Magda much better. The fever has abated. She is so happy that I am there. We talk much of our love, and how good we will be to one another, when she is healthy again. I have grown so with Magda, that I really can not exist without her."
Quotes from others about the person
Hugh Trevor-Roper, the author of The Last Days of Hitler (1947) has argued: "First, the six children were poisoned with capsules long prepared for the purpose. Then, in the evening, Goebbels called his adjutant, Guenther Schwaegermann. 'Schwaegermann,' he said, 'this is the worst treachery of all. The generals have betrayed the Fuehrer. Everything is lost. I shall die, together with my wife and family. You will burn my body. Can you do that?' Schwaegermann promised to do so, and Goebbels took leave of him, only pressing upon him a silver-framed photograph of the Fuehrer from his writing-desk. Frau Goebbels' also said goodbye. Then Schwaegermann sent Goebbels' driver and SS orderly to fetch petrol for the burning."
She married Quandt on 4th January, 1921, and her first child, Harald, was born later that year on 1st November. The marriage was not happy and she became involved with her 18-year-old stepson Helmut Quandt. However, he died of complications from appendicitis in 1927. The couple were divorced in 1929. Seven-year-old Harald would stay with his mother until he was fourteen, he would return to his father's custody. Quandt provided for Magna so generously that she could look forward to a future without financial cares.