Lusty Ram of the Third Reich - Joseph Goebbels

Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), among the most important tasks that he performed for the Fuhrer, was constantly chasing after women. He wrote everything about it in his diary.

Sex scandals, which are surrounding Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, are probably the thing that will be most remembered in the mandate of this politician. This is also the evidence that there was always more interest in the sexual details of some politician’s life than what he did for his country when he was holding his position. This tradition is dating back to ancient Rome and it is still present today.

In many biographies of the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, it is written that he was obsessed with sex, even more then he was with planetary conquest. He even had his own team that was in charge of bringing him every day at least on beauty. However, sexual affinities and love affairs of German Nazi chiefs were never quite clear. Hitler preferred to conquer territories instead of women, and that was even confirmed by Mussolini, who, in several occasions, tried to introduce many beauties to Fuhrer. But Fuhrer was not that interested in them so Mussolini eventually gave up on such treats for him. Fuhrer's sexual power was brought into question several times and sometimes Mussolini even suspected that Hitler had affinities for perversions.

Like him, all the other Nazi heads were more described as monsters with ordinary family life then seducers with many love affairs.

However, the book “Joseph Goebbels: Biography” that was published recently uncovered unknown details regarding love life of Hitler’s closest associate. "Evil genius" who developed propaganda to perfection and dark manipulator who organized the burning of books, brutal deaths during Kristallnacht attack, and finally, deportation of millions of Jews to concentration camps and death, was described as lusty person. He even had a nickname The Ram, and, in his diary, he wrote: “Eros awoke. Sentimental period. Bombastic letters, poems. Besides which, love for mature women”.

When he was seven years old, Goebbels had an attack of osteomyelitis which resulted in having his right leg a few centimeters shorter that his left leg. This handicap isolated him from his peers. As he himself admitted, he became a bit eccentric and weird after that. 

At the same time, he was very attached to his mother, whom he described with the following words: “To her I owe everything I accomplished in life.” His mother was a role model through whom Goebbels chose friends, and even the future boss - Adolph Hitler. His attachment to his mother had influence even on his earliest love affinities.  

In accordance with the psychological profile of a person very attached to his mother, Goebbels’ earliest love life was associated with older women. The first love of Hitler's propaganda chief was a stepmother of his school friend. Her name was Theresa and Goebbels described her as a handsome woman, always wearing a freshly washed skirt. His affinity towards older women was continued with falling in love with Mrs. Lennartz, wife of the owner of the factory where his father worked. And when he became completely infatuated with the girlfriend of his older brother Hans, his father became furious.

However, those were all fantasies of platonic genre. He had his first true relationship with Lena who, after a year of a relationship, allowed him to kiss her breasts. Hitler's hellish assistant described the event in his diary: ”The first kiss on Garden Street! At night in the Kaiser Park - I kissed her breast. She experienced for the first time what it was like to be a loving woman.”

Goebbels’ love life continued during his student days in Bonn, where he became deeply in love with Anka Stalherm who was studying economy. She wasn’t physically attracted to Goebbels but he won her with his intellect and persistence – a very strong card he had when it comes to winning a heart of a woman. The young student didn’t spare ink, and he sent regularly to Anka long letters, as well as epics and dramas he wrote. He neither spared his fingers when he played organs in the cathedral for his sympathy. How deeply in love the future Hitler's propaganda chief was, shows and his trip to Munich, just to be with his love. In the center of Bavaria financial difficulties caught on him, and he was forced to pawn his suit and watch at some “cocky Jew”. He was soon faced with end of their relationship because wealthy industrialist's daughter did not like the fact that Joseph was beginning to turn to the left and writing plays about the struggle of workers. He often said about himself: "I am a German communist," and in his diary he wrote: “Anka walked out on me. And my entire relationship to women has suffered ever since.” However, he didn’t forgot her and he sent her letters even ten years after they stop seeing each other. He stopped when Anka’s husband began to threaten him. Joseph’s great love outlived him. She died of cancer in 1955.

Soon came new loves but also and growing anti-Semitism. When his teacher Else Janke revealed to him that her mother is Jewish, Goebbels lost interest in her. He wrote in his diary: “She told me her roots. Since then her charms were destroyed for me.” At the same time, his left-wing beliefs were starting to lose battle against dreams of dictatorship: "Ninety percent of people are worthless and only 10 percent are worthy. That is why those 10 percent should rule over the rest. "

When he met Hitler in 1925, he was completely mesmerized. He described the future dictator as "a man who has everything it takes to be a king." Later, Hitler awarded him with high political position.  His fascination with women continued.  From many young female members of national socialist party, he picked the most beautiful ones and took them to nightclubs and movie theaters. He also despised Hollywood movies, which he described as "Jewish kitsch."

Then, a blonde named Magda walked into Goebbels life. When she joined the national socialist party she was captivated with Hitler, but Hitler matched her with Joseph. Goebbels wrote in his diary: "Hitler loved Magda, but he left her to me. With tears in his eyes, he told me to be happy and to remain a good friend. "

Although he was infatuated with his wife, Goebbels couldn’t resist chasing other women. When he fell in love with Czech actress  Lida Baarova, because of which he wanted to divorce from his wife,  Magda asked of Hitler to help, and he resolved their  marital crisis.

Joseph and Magda had six children whose names all began with the H, because of Hitler of course. The couple Goebbels killed their children and committed suicide just after Hitler and Eva Braun did it. Later, Red Army found their bodies, burned them and thrown the ashes in to the river Elbe.

Horrified with the stories that he was gay

In spite of so many girls around him, rumors were circulating from time to time that the wicked Nazi propaganda chief was gay, and that was the reason he didn’t had a permanent partner. These rumors have horrified him. “It’s all so dirty. It must be expunged, radically and ruthlessly!” – he wrote about homosexuality when he discovered that several Nazi chiefs preferred men.

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Coca-Cola's brief political history

This year marks 125 years since John Pemberton invented carbonated soft drink – Coca-Cola – “cure for nerve trouble, dyspepsia, mental and physical exhaustion, gastric irritability, wasting diseases, constipation, headache, neurasthenia and impotence”. But Coca-Cola was not only a cure, it was also the source of headache and hysteria in the political waters.

The only Coca-Cola that was colorless was created after World War II - for political reasons. It was produced in limited quantities, by special order, for a Russian Marshal Georgi Zhukov, who tried Coca-Cola during his negotiations about dividing Germany with the commander of allied forces in Europe, U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower. This Coca-Cola was packed in cylindrical bottles that had a red star as a label instead of Coca-Cola’s recognizable logo.

Zhukov really liked this drink, but since the relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union began to tighten, it was inconvenient for him to be seen with an American drink in his hands. That is why, on Zhukov’s request, and with the approval of U.S. President Harry Truman, Coca-Cola Company manufactured colorless Coke and packed it so that it looked like vodka. 

Last year, Coca-Cola Company celebrated its 100 birthday, and this year they will celebrate 125 years since John Pemberton invented Coca-Cola. 

In the beginning, Coca-Cola was advertised as “Delicious. Refreshing. Exhilarating. Invigorating” drink and also as a cure for nerve trouble, dyspepsia, mental and physical exhaustion, gastric irritability, wasting diseases, constipation, headache, neurasthenia and impotence. By often following U.S. foreign policy, rarely acting in conflict with American interests, and eventually becoming the symbol of globalization, in the past decades Coca-Cola was also and a source of headaches and hysteria in the (international) political waters.

During World War II, a special group of Coca-Cola employees called “Technical Observers” was among U.S. army soldiers. These Technical Observers supervised the shipment and operation of 64 complete bottling plants that distributed nearly 10 billion bottles of Coca-Cola to servicemen and women.

Military personnel who worked in Coca-Cola military plants became just as important as mechanics who worked on the maintenance of aircraft and tanks. And thanks to its popularity, along with lobbying in the army with the statement that this drink was a key product in the war, in 1942 Coca-Cola Company managed to get an exemption from sugar rationing.

A company that at all times sought to show how much symbolic power its drinks has on U.S. troops, also functioned and on the opposing side, in Germany, where before the war this drink was very popular. One of the Nazi statements was that “America never contributed anything to world civilization but chewing gum and Coca-Cola”.

Some publicists have stated that Coca-Cola Company had controversial relations with Germany, before and during World War II: during the war, Coca-Cola branches didn’t stopped working in Germany, but they weren’t able to import the necessary raw materials in the country. Publicist Mark Pendergrast wrote that several top executives from Coca-Cola branch in Germany were in fact members of the Nazi Party, and there are also records that this company sold millions of bottles to Hitler's Germany.

This obscure and not completely explored part of Coca-Cola history was not an obstacle for this product name to become linked not only to America but to key values of Western countries, such as "every kind of freedom, democracy and free market capitalist”, during the Cold War period. Parallel to that, Coca-Cola was expanding in the world, and the American political influence was strengthening. 

In the early fifties, those who were opposed to American influence marked Coca-Cola as an American cultural weapon.  In relation to this, in France was created a term “coca-colonization” - It was used by leftists who fought against opening of factories for bottling Coca-Cola drink. They even tried to prove that Coca-Cola is poisonous. The former president of the Coca-Cola Company, Robert Woodruff, stated that leftist’s hostility towards Coca-Cola comes from the fact that Coca-Cola is the very “essence of capitalism”.

Despite the logic of capitalism, and in the name of protecting the interests of U.S. foreign policy, until the nineties Coca-Cola was practically not present in the Eastern European market. The first opportunity for Coca Cola to install facilities in Russia, in mid-sixties, was not used because the only possible partner was a communist government (there were no private firms in Russia during that regime). For Coca-Cola, that probably wasn’t a problem, but it was for the U.S. government. In that period, U.S. Army was in war with Vietnam, and if Coca-Cola started working in Russia, they would have financed the communist side, American public enemy number one. 

To this day, connection between Coca-Cola and American values brings damage to the Coca-Cola Company in the Middle East.  There, in mid-sixties, Coca-Cola was accused of anti-Semitism and in the following decades it has become a symbol of "American occupying" and "anti-Muslim” policy. Some internet sites claim that Coca Cola, read from right to left, in Arabic language means "No Muhammad, no Mecca". Boycott of Coca-Cola is also elaborated with claims that by buying a bottle of Coca-Cola tenth of its price goes to the largest Arabian enemy, Israel.

In 1966, Coca Cola was accused of avoiding working in Israel, in order to protect sales of its products in the Arabian world. Things started to get complicated when, because of these accusations, Jewish organizations in America begun to boycott Coca-Cola. The company eventually allowed the construction of a bottling plant in Israel, in 1968, but that again caused boycott similar to that of Arabian League, which ended in the early eighties.

With that, Coca Cola found itself again on the course of U.S. foreign policy.  Respond to this was creation of authentic Arabian Colas such as Mecca Cola. Recently, the Iranian Minister of Industries, Ali Akbar Mehrabian, renewed the idea of boycotting Coca-Cola, because it is a "Zionist product”.

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