SOURCE: "The End of the Road," in Commentary, Vol. 66, No. 1, July, 1978, pp. 78-80.

In the following review, Jacobson considers the historical value of Final Entries 1945: The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels.

Not even the publishers of Final Entries 1945 claim that the diaries which Joseph Goebbels kept during the last two months of his life, and which have belatedly been made available by the East German government, contain new historical facts of any importance. How could they? By the time these entries begin, the Nazis were in effect defeated; nothing that Adolf Hitler's Minister of Propaganda could say—and little enough that his master could do—would make much difference to what was happening outside the German capital, or even inside it. The Russian and Anglo-American armies would continue to advance; German troops would continue to retreat or to surrender in large numbers; the entire edifice of the Third Reich...