On September 1st 1932, Magda Goebbels went into labor with her second child. That same day, Joseph wrote: “Today Magda has gone into labor. She is really brave. We have gone straight to hospital. I beg everything goes well and the baby to be a boy. I am a bit frightened, but Destiny will have mercy of us”.
Hours after this diary entry, a girl was born. “Unfortunately, it has been a girl” the disappointed father wrote into his diary. “But my heart is full of happiness. We may name her Helga. Everything has turned out well. At 14:20 she was here. Magda and the baby are fine (…) As I wished so much the baby to be a boy, it has been a disappointment.”
Magda had also hoped for a boy to call Helmut, to fill the hole left in her heart by her stepson’s tragic death in Paris years before. But it was a girl, finally named Helga Sussane.
In spite of the relative happiness the baby-girl brought to their lives, the new parents’ family life wasn’t easy at all. In fact, the infant’s nocturnal wails kept the household awake. According to Joseph’s diary entry from 19 September, 1932, he, a novice in the art of parenthood, complained unfeelingly and left Magda in tears. On the other hand, when Helga was few months old and Joseph returned home from Vienna, he reported to have had an argument with Magda, in which she had reproached him justifiably his impatience with their daughter.
Nevertheless, Joseph was proud of his child. Although it was invariably late at night when he returned from the office, he would always go straight to the nursery, take his little daughter out of her cot and balance her carefully on his knee, while surrounded by his guests. Helga was reported to be a lovely baby; she never cried, was never impatient, but just sat listening uncomprehendingly to the Nazi officials with her “blue eyes sparkling”. It was not unusual for Hitler, who was especially fond of this child, to take her on his own lap while he talked late into the night. Meanwhile, Magda would sit happily by, but anxious at the same time for a break in the conversation which would enable her to seize the baby and take her back to bed.
When Helga was 9 months old, Magda betook her to fashionable Heiligendamm for the summer, leaving Joseph in Berlin for a while.
In spite of Joseph’s first disappointment, Helga fast became the apple of his eye and a “daddy’s girl”.
In June, 1935, Helga went on holidays along with her parents to the spa of Heiligendamm. Those holidays gave Joseph the opportunity to take up more actively little Helga’s education. According to one of Joseph’s biographies, against the sporadic acts of rebelliousness of his daughter, he used to apply a method that, in his own words, was infallible: physical punishment. In July of that same year, Joseph noted that after having given her some slaps, Helga was “a model of charm and friendliness”; and in August he wrote “Sweet hours with Helga. Obedience trained”. However, on Hans-Otto Meissner’s biography on Magda Goebbels, he assured that neither Joseph nor Magda believed in corporal punishment and never hit the children.
Helga was photographed with Hilde presenting Hitler with flowers on his birthday on April 20, 1936. She spent that year’s holiday with her grandmother in Peenemünde. According to one of Joseph’s diary entry from June, Helga fast became the apple of Hitler’s eye too. In February 1937, Hitler was indescribably glad with the photos that showed Helga in Obersalzberg: “He says that if little Helga were twenty years older, and he twenty years younger, she would have made the ideal wife for him”. On the other hand, in September 1940, while Joseph was in Cracovia, Magda phoned him explaining that Hitler had visited her and the children in Schwanenwerder, due to Helga’s birthday and he had lavished the girl profusely.
Joseph’s diary entries make very clear that at least during the first years, Helga was his favourite child. In January, 1937, while being in Berlin far from his family, he wrote: “I miss both: Magda and Helga”, without mentioning his two other children. And in October, 1938, he recognised in his diary that “of all the children, she is my dearest”.
Despite being overall very proud and happy with his eldest daughter, in August 1937, Goebbels recorded on his diary having put little Helga across his knee when she began to fib. On the other hand, he liked watching movies with his children, so no matter how late he arrived when visiting his family in Schwanenwerder, he wrapped his toddlers in blankets and showed them the latest movie. “He acts so well that you can’t even tell he is acting” said Helga once about film star Otto Gebühr. She also praised for Mussolini when he paid a state visit to Berlin during the last months of 1937: “The other Führer is quite nice too!”.
On a diary entry written during the first months of 1939, Joseph described her as “so sweet and clever” and months later, he wrote she was “astonishingly calm and graceful”. That same year, Helga had an operation on her throat.
In April 1940, Joseph wrote her eldest daughter had become a quite mature girl for her age, with whom he liked to “talk wisely” during walks.
Magda once described the temperaments of five of her children to her sister-in-law Eleanore (Ello) Quandt by describing how each would react to learning they had been deceived by their spouse: “Helga would seize a revolver and shoot the unfaithful husband out of hand, or at least try to”. In 1942, Helga once emphasized that “I want just two children when I marry. Otherwise I won’t have a moment to call my own!”.
Although on most of his diary entries Joseph praised his eldest child, in November 1944 he admitted having conversed “seriously with our Helga”, as she was “lazy at school and was being carried along”. However, one must wonder up to what point was Helga affected by the growing schizophrenia atmosphere that had settled in Lanke. Despite no one would tell her what was going on, according to many testimonies, Magda was more and more depressed as she realized, along with Joseph, that there wasn’t any hope for future.
Rochus Misch, who lived together with Helga and her siblings during their last days, described her as the “tallest, oldest and brightest (…) a definitely Daddy’s girl, with no great fondness for her mother”.
Helga played the piano taught by a young woman and loved reading. Although Traudl Junge described her as a girl with “big brown eyes”, her autopsy reveals her eyes were blue, with long lashes. Her hair, as well as her eyebrows, was dark blond. She was 1,58 meters tall. Helga was 12 years old when she died.
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