Dr Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Reich Minister of Propaganda, in his role as Gauleiter (area leader) of Berlin, is briefed on bomb damage during Bomber Command's main offensive against the city in 1943–1944. According to Rudolf Semmler, a journalist who worked for Goebbels, the Nazi leader showed 'exemplary courage' during the air raids and felt responsible for raising morale among the population in a situation where none of the other high raking Nazis, Hitler included, showed themselves. In this context Semmler described a visit to Cologne with Goebbels: I saw a heavily bombed city for the first time. Goebbels was very shaken and wants Hitler to visit the city as soon as possible. It is surprising that Goebbels is everywhere cordially greeted in the streets. He talked to people in the Rhineland dialect. One sees even in Cologne that, at the moment, he is the most popular of the nation's leaders. These suffering men and women feel that at least one of them is interested in their fate. [Semmler, quoted in Robert Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, Doctor Goebbels, Nel Mentor, London, 1974, p. 213; AWM 128251]
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