Joseph Goebbels was Nazi Germany's Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. Goebbels's task was to ensure that all media content in Germany was in line with Adolf Hitler's National Socialist (Nazi) policies; dissent was not tolerated. Hitler and Goebbels continually reminded Germans and later citizens of Nazi-occupied countries, that Europe's problems were the fault of the Jews and that German superiority would vanquish the Allied enemy. Hitler named Goebbels as his successor in his last will and testament, but the devoted minister escaped prosecution for war crimes by committing suicide on May 1, 1945.

Born in 1897 in Rheydt, Germany, Goebbels came from a Roman Catholic family of modest means. He harbored an early ambition to enter the priesthood, but attended university on scholarship instead. Exempted from military service during World War I because of his clubfoot, Goebbels earned a doctorate in literature in 1922. He then attempted to establish himself as a...