Prologue -- 1897-1933 : to advance at any price. "Ring a song eternally from youth's happy hours" : Joseph Goebbels on his childhood and youth ; "Spare the rod and spoil the child" : Goebbels's path to National Socialism ; "Working with the mind is the greatest sacrifice" : positioning himself in the early NSDAP ; "Faith moves mountains" : political beginnings in Berlin ; "Struggle is the father of all things" : the Gauleiter and the capital of the Reich ; "A life full of work and struggle" : politics between Berlin and Munich ; "Dare to live dangerously!" : Goebbels's radicalism and Hitler's policy of "legality" ; "Now we must gain power... one way or another!" : a share of government? ; "I have a blind faith in victory" : on the way to power -- 1933-1939 : controlling the public sphere under dictatorship. "We're here to stay!" : taking power ; "Only those who deserve victory will keep it!" : consolidating the regime ; "Whatever the Führer does, he does completely" : the establishment of the Führer State ; "Taking firm control of the inner discipline of a people" : propaganda and manipulation of the public sphere ; "Never tire!" : foreign policy successes and anti-Jewish policies ; "The tougher the better!" : the Olympic year, 1936 ; "The most important factors in our modern cultural life" : consolidating Nazi cultural policies ; "Don't look around, keep marching on!" : the firebrand as peace-maker ; "Maturity is only achieved through suffering!" : preparations for war--from the Munich Agreement to the attack on Poland -- 1939-1945 : war--total war--total defeat. "War is the father of all things" : the first months of the war ; "There is only one sin : cowardice!" : the expansion of the war ; "Our banners lead us on to victory!" : between the War in the West and the War in the East ; "A great, a wonderful time, in which a new Reich will be born" : the attack on the Soviet Union ; "Getting the nation to accept tough policies" : the Winter Crisis of 1941-42 ; "We can see in our mind's eye a happy people" : offensives and setbacks ; "Do you want total war?" : the Second Winter Crisis ; "The masses have become somewhat skeptical or ... one could even say are in the grip of a permanent state of hopelessness" : crisis as a permanent state ; "I have no idea what the Führer's going to do in the end" : the search for a way out ; "Virtually a wartime dictatorship on the home front" : between an apocalyptic mood and total war ; But when will there be some action?" : downfall.