The unearthed document was the Berlin residency card of Jewish businessman Richard Friedlander, stating that Magda was his biological daughter.
Magda Goebbels’ mother Auguste Behrend married German engineer Oskar Ritshel after Magda’s birth in 1901. She divorced Ritshel in 1904 and married Friedlander in 1908, divorcing him also in 1914.
Friedlander was deported to Buchenwald after the Nazi rise to power and died in the camp in 1939. Magda did not intervene to help him.
Nevertheless, it seems imprudent to establish Magda’s paternity based on a residency card. Was her mother acquainted with Friedlander before her marriage to Ritshel? A residency card is obviously not conclusive and could have been doctored to obtain some benefit.
Joseph Goebbel wrote an entry in his diary in 1934 stating that his wife had discovered something shocking about her past. This is presumed to be a reference to Magda’s discovery that her mother had connections with Friedlander before she met Ritshel, arousing questions of her paternity. However, in light of Goebbel’s stormy relationship with his wife as well as his virulent anti-Semitism, it doesn’t seem likely that Goebbel would have remained with Magda if he knew she had Jewish parentage.
Joseph Goebbels admired and idolized Hitler as the saviour of Germany from Jews, profiteers and Marxists. He was Hitler's Propaganda Minister, glorified him as a heroic and infallible leader and aggressively supported Germany's murderous policies.
Joseph and Magda Goebbels committed suicide in Hitler’s “Fuehrerbunker” on April 30, 1945, after first poisoning their six children with cyanide.
