The Goebbels children, born to Joseph Goebbels 
29-10-1897, Rheydt 
and Johanna Maria Magdalena (Magda), born Ritschel, 
11-11-1901 in Berlin, 
to an unwed couple, Auguste Behrend 
and building contractor and engineer Oskar Ritschel. 
Joseph was the son of Fritz Goebbels and Maria Catharina, born Odenhausen, 
a blacksmith’s daughter from the Dutch Waubach (Limburg). 
Hitler’s favorite child, Helga Susanne, 
born on 01-09-1932, Hildegard Traudel, 
13-04-1934, Helmut Christian, 
02-10-1935, Holdine Kathrin, 
19-02-1937, Hedwig Johanna, 
05-05-1938, and Heidrun Elisabeth, 
29-10-1940. Magda Goebbels had an elder son, Harald Quandt,
from a previous marriage to Günther Quandt.
Harald Quandt survived an aviation accident at Zurich Airport on 12-12-1965, but he was killed, age 45, two years later in another air crash in Cuneo, Italy, on 22-09-1967. Harald is buried next to his father.
Helga was a “daddy’s girl” who preferred her father to her mother. Hildegard was commonly called “Hilde”. In a 1941 diary entry, Joseph referred to her as “a little mouse”. Helmut was considered sensitive and something of a dreamer. In his diary, Goebbels called him a “clown”. Holdine was commonly called “Holde”. It is claimed that she got her name when the doctor who delivered her, Walter Stoeckel, a German Gynecologist and birth attendant, 
bent over her and exclaimed “Das ist eine Holde!” (“that’s a pretty one!”). Hedwig was commonly called “Hedda”. She insisted, in 1944, that when she grew up she was going to marry SS Adjutant Günther Schwägermann, 
having been captivated by the fact he had a fake eye. She was six years old, four days shy of her seventh birthday, at the time of her murder.
Heidrun was commonly called “Heide”. Heidrun shared a birthday with her father. She was called “the reconciliation child” because she was conceived after her parents reconciled. Rochus Misch, the Bunker radio operator
described her as a “little flirt” and said she frequently joked with him in the bunker. Heide was four years old at the time of her murder. SS-Oberscharführer Misch, part of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler, 
was the last living witness of Adolf Hitler’s suicide in the Führerbunker in Berlin in 1945.
Some historian writers have contended that the children’s names all begin with “H” as a tribute to Adolf Hitler, who was fond of all the children, but there is no evidence to support this; rather, it supports that Magda’s “H” naming was the idea of her first husband, Günther Quandt, who chose names beginning with “H” for his other two children by his first wife. This claim is supported by Magda’s mother, Auguste Behrend, who stated that the family made an innocent hobby of searching for new baby names beginning with “H” for each successive child.
In 1934, in search for privacy for himself and his family, Goebbels bought an imposing house in its own grounds on Schwanenwerder, an island in the River Havel. 
He also bought a motor yacht, Baldur, 
for use on the river. Harald had his own nursery on the first floor while Helga and Hilde shared another. The children not only had ponies, but also a little carriage in which to ride around the gardens. Two years later he purchased a neighboring property and extended the park, and included a private “citadel” as his own personal retreat.
Joseph Goebbels with his daughters, Hilde (center) and Helga (right), at a Christmas celebration in the Saalbau (Hall) Friedrichshain, Berlin, 1937, during the singing of the national anthems.
As the Red Army moved closer at the end of January 1945, Goebbels ordered that his family be moved from the Lanke estate to the relative safety of Schwanenwerder. From there, the children would soon hear the rumble of artillery in the east, and wonder why rain never followed the “thunder”.
By 22-04-1945, the day before the Red Army entered the outskirts of Berlin, 
the Goebbels moved their children into the Vorbunker, connected to the lower Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery garden in central Berlin. 
Hitler, Eva Braun 
and a few personnel were staying in the Führerbunker to direct the final defence of Berlin. German Red Cross leader SS-Gruppenführer Karl Gebhardt 
wanted to take the children out of the city with him, but was dismissed.
General Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven 
later described the children as “sad”, but nurse Erna Flegel, 
with whom they had much contact in the bunker, characterised them as “charming” and “absolutely delightful”. They are reported to have played with Hitler’s dog Blondi.
This shepherd dog is a striking metaphor for Der Führer’s sick worldview. Blondi is Hitler’s great favorite, but is nevertheless poisoned with cyanide by his master on 29-04-1945. Her puppies are shot in the outdoor courtyard next to the Führerbunker.
During their time in the bunker complex, where the children slept in a single room. While many reports suggest there were three separate bunk beds, secretary Traudl Junge
insisted there were only two. The children are said to have sung in unison while in the bunker, performing for both Hitler and the injured Robert Ritter von Greim, 
as well as having been conducted in play-song by pilot Hanna Reitsch. 
Junge said she was with the children on the afternoon of 30 April, when Hitler and Eva Braun killed themselves.
As the advancing Soviet troops reached Berlin there was much discussion in theFührerbunkerabout suicide as a means to escape punishment and humiliation by the Soviets.
Magda Goebbels refused several offers from others, such as
Albert Speer, 
to take the children out of Berlin and appears to have contemplated and talked about killing her children at least a month in advance. After the war, Günther Quandt’s sister-in-law Eleanore 
recalled Magda saying she did not want her children to grow up hearing that their father had been one of the century’s foremost criminals and that reincarnation might grant her children a better future life.
Death and burial ground of the Goebbels children.
The children seemed unaware of the impending danger, but the eldest child, Helga, seemed to sense what was about to occur. Misch was among the last to see the children alive. They were seated around a table in his work area as their mother combed their hair and kissed them, all wearing nightgowns as it was close to their bedtime. Heide, the youngest, had scrambled up onto the table. Helga, whom Misch called the brightest of the children, was “sobbing softly”. Misch felt Helga had little fondness for her mother. Magda had to push Helga towards the stairs that led up to the Vorbunker. Four-year-old Heide, who had tonsilitis and wore a scarf around her neck, turned back to look at Misch, giggling, and teasingly said, “Misch, Misch, du bist ein Fisch”, or “Misch, Misch, you are a fish”, just before her mother led her and her siblings upstairs. Misch recalled later that he suspected what was about to happen and would always regret not intervening.
The children were drugged with cyanide pills by the physician Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger 
and then killed by their mother, Magda Goebbels. After killing her children, she came downstairs crying, according to Misch. “She sat down at the table and started playing a game of patience.”
The Hitler Eva Braun couple’s bodies were then doused with petrol and left to burn. The bodies of the children remained in the Führerbunker and were found by the Russian soldiers in their bedroom, dressed in their nightclothes, with ribbons tied in the girls’ hair…
On 04-04-1970, a Soviet KGB team used detailed burial charts to exhume five wooden boxes with the children bodies at the Magdeburg SMERSH facility. The remains from the boxes were burned, crushed, and scattered into the Biederitz River, a tributary of the nearby Elbe.
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