In late 1924, Goebbels offered his services to Karl Kaufmann, who was Gauleiter (Nazi Party district leader) for the Rhine-Ruhr District. Kaufmann put him in touch with Gregor Strasser, a leading Nazi organiser in northern Germany, who hired him to work on their weekly newspaper and undertake secretarial work for the regional party offices.[41] He was also put to work as party speaker and representative for Rhineland-Westphalia.[42] Strasser founded the National Socialist Working Association on 10 September 1925, a short-lived group of about a dozen northern and western German Gauleiter; Goebbels became its business manager and the editor of its biweekly journal, NS-Briefe.[43] Members of Strasser’s northern branch of the Nazi Party, including Goebbels, had a more socialist outlook than the rival Hitler group in Munich.[44] Strasser disagreed with Hitler on many parts of the party platform, and in November 1926 began working on a revision.[45]

Hitler viewed Strasser’s actions as a threat to his authority, and summoned 60 Gauleiters and party leaders, including Goebbels, to a special conference in Bamberg, in Streicher’s Gau of Franconia, where he gave a two-hour speech repudiating Strasser’s new political programme.[46] Hitler was opposed to the socialist leanings of the northern wing, stating it would mean “political bolshevization of Germany.” Further, there would be “no princes, only Germans,” and a legal system with no “Jewish system of exploitation … for plundering of our people.” The future would be secured by acquiring land, not through expropriation of the estates of the former nobility, but through colonising territories to the east.[45] Goebbels was horrified by Hitler’s characterisation of socialism as “a Jewish creation” and his assertion that a Nazi government would not expropriate private property. He wrote in his diary: “I no longer fully believe in Hitler. That’s the terrible thing: my inner support has been taken away.”[47]

Joseph Goebbels | Wikipedia