READER COMMENTS

In your review of the Magda Goebbel book you state that: [Removed from the review thanks to reader's observation. Strike through is mine.]While Magda was dating Goebbels, she was romantically involved with a young Jew, Victor Chaim Arlosoroff. Soon, Arlosoroff found out that Magda was involved with another man. To his dismay, the other man was the Nazi party district leader of Berlin and one of Germany's more vociferous anti-Semites. Magda and Arlosoroff quarreled and Magda permanently ended the relationship.

This is NOT part of the biography: by 1920, Magda had broken off all contact with Victor Arlosoroff (except for one phone call in 1933), and Arlosoroff had married and was living in Palestine by 1924. Mr. Arlosoroff was head of foreign affairs in the Jewish Agency and a leading figure in the formation of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine in 1930 and was in no way linked with Fri. Goebbels (then Fr. Quandt). She was involved with a young student, Erich, before and after her divorce from Herr Quandt, and it was this young man with whom she quarreled and who shot at her after hearing that she was in love with Joseph Goebbels. It is of more interest that she was proposed marriage in 1930 by Herbert Hoover, nephew of the then President of the US, whom she refused. [SEE ANOTHER COMMENT BELOW]Immediately following her refusal, he drove with her and overturned his car, seriously injuring Magda. Please correct your book review. I am sure that Herr Meissner would be displeased to have been misquoted.

Jeanne Moses Roland

COMMENT REGARDING MR. HOOVER

Dear Frank Smitha

Under http://www.fsmitha.com/reader/magda.html You have inserted a correction, which should be corrected again: contact between a certain Mr. Hoover and Magda Goebbels is very doubtful, especially if he should be a "nephew of the president". Please refer to the below inserted email which I received from the "Hoover Library". Also, according to a recently published new biography on Magda Goebbels written by Anja Klabunde (who had contacts to the family of the Arlosoroffs in Israel), there seem to have happened punctual contacts between Magda Goebbels and Chaim Arlosoroff also in the early 1920s, and furthermore in the months before his death. The hypothesis evolved that he perhaps was killed because of his contacts with Magda Goebbels (to hide such contacts!!). Is the signer "Jeanne Moses Roland" Your reader who made the corrections? If yes and if she has primary sources for her statements I would like to come into contact with her, because to me the Hoover accident seems to be a "rumor" or a "legend" until it is proved by local newspapers (which has not been done till today). From where does Jeanne Moses Roland have the year "1930" for the meeting between Hoover and Magda Quandt/Goebbels? According to my knowlegde the year is not given in the book of Meissner.

I have very great respect and admiration for your work. Thanks and kind regards.

Gerhart Lukert.

[From the Hoover Library]

Thank you for your inquiry regarding Magda Quandt. President Hoover did not have a nephew named Herbert Hoover. He had only one nephew, his sister's son Van Ness Hoover Leavitt. Leavitt worked in the radio industry and married Dorothy Berry in 1928. They lived in Santa Monica, California. Leavitt did not have a close relationship with his uncle; it seems unlikely that he would have had the opportunity to meet Madga Quandt in 1927. We do not have any information that would confirm or deny that he traveled to Germany in 1930.

President Hoover had a son named Herbert Charles Hoover. Even though his father's name was Herbert Clark Hoover, the son was usually known as Herbert Hoover, Jr. The son married Margaret Watson in 1925. In 1927, Hoover, Jr. was studying at Harvard's business school. From 1929 through 1934, Hoover was a technical consultant for Western Air Express. In April, 1930, Hoover Jr. and Margaret's third child was born. Also in early 1930, Hoover Jr. was involved with the creation of Aeronautical Radio, Inc., which was a corporation established by a number of people in the aeronautics industry to develop a system of coordinating radio facilities throughout the country in order to make possible pilot-to-ground and pilot-to-pilot communication. In the late summer of 1930, Hoover Jr. was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent the next several months in a sanitarium. We do not have any information that would confirm or deny that Hoover Jr. traveled to Germany in early 1930, though his business and family activities would seem to have precluded it.

I would suggest that you consult newspapers for the cities or regions you believe "Hoover's nephew" visited in 1930. Since Hoover was President at that time, it would have been big news if a son or nephew had visited. If you can find no evidence of such a visit, then it is unlikely that Magda Quandt's suitor could have been related to President Hoover. Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Sincerely, Spencer Howard Archives Technician Herbert Hoover Presidential Library

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