Goebbels Sportpalast Speech - 18 February 1943

After the disaster of Stalingrad in late 1942/early 1943, the retreat in Africa and the loss of Kursk (8 February), Rostov-on-Don (14 February), and Kharkiv (16 February), the German public was shocked and was beginning to see that the war was turning against Germany. Joseph Goebbels held, as a reaction to these losses, two speeches in the Sportpalast (Sport palace), a large indoor hall in Berlin. The first one was on January 30th, the anniversary of the Seizing of power, and the second one, the one thats shown in this video, was held of February 18th, 1943. In it, Goebbels proposed three thesis to his audience: 1. If the Wehrmacht would not be able to stop the Red Army, Bolshevism would overrun Germany and then Europe. 2. Only the German Wehrmacht and its allies have the necessary strenght to stop the Red Army. 3. Danger is imminent. Action must be taken quickly and thoroughly, otherwise it will be too late. He then described the “total war“ measures that had been taken and have to be taken, including longer work hours, freeing soldiers for the front and using more women in the war industry. He closed his speech with his famous 10 question he asked his audience, including his famous line “Do you want total war?“ This speech would turn out to be Goebbels’ most famous one, perhaps the most famous speech from Nazi Germany, as it shows both the radicalism with which Germany would wage the rest of the war, and also because it is generally regarded as a showcase of how Nazi propaganda works. Unlike other speeches, which were usually written by his staff and then only edited by him, Goebbels wrote this speech completly alone. The audience was handpicked, and their every move was rehearsed- no applause, cheering or even interruptions by single members of the audience were coincidental. The speech was printed in newspapers, but there are some differences in the printed and broadcasted version of this speech, see the pinned comment for explanations. Goebbels later said that this was the best audience one could find in Germany. - Subtitles made by me.