Goebbels, Joseph, << GEHR buhls, YOH zehf >> (1897-1945), was the official propagandist of Nazi Germany. As minister of popular enlightenment and propaganda, he tried to persuade both the Germans and the outside world to believe what the Nazis wanted them to believe. Goebbels controlled publications, radio programs, motion pictures, and the arts in Germany, and in German-dominated Europe. 
Paul Joseph Goebbels was born on Oct. 29, 1897, in Rheydt into a working-class family. Appointed propaganda leader of the Nazi Party in 1929, Goebbels helped Hitler bring the Nazis to power in 1933. During Nazi rule, Goebbels worked at persuading the German public to support the Hitler regime. Goebbels was a vicious anti-Semite (see Kristallnacht). Nazi Germany made anti-Semitism an official government policy. When Germany fell, Goebbels and his wife, Magda, poisoned their six children. Then, at Goebbels’s request, a Nazi attendant shot Goebbels and his wife to death on May 1, 1945.
See also World War II (Propaganda).
