(1897-1945) Nazi Minister of Propaganda with Hitler from the earliest days, a master of manipulation of the masses who took his life and those of his family members in the last days of the war. Fine content typed D.S. "Dr. Goebbels" with several holograph additions, 1p. large 4to., [Berlin, ca. July 29, 1943], the typed text of a telegram to be sent to the "Duce of Fascist Italy, Benito Mussolini" on the occasion of the Italian dictator's sixtieth birthday. In part: "...For your sixtieth birthday, I ask you, Il Duce, to accept my most admirable wishes and allow me to express my admiration for your fighting way of life whose goal is the well-being of the great Italian nation and the preservation of the highest human cultural values. I am sure that this war which Fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany are fighting shoulder to shoulder will end with the great victory of the Axis powers and will bring your life's achievement a crowning from the entire civilized world...". File holes at left, staple holes at top, else very good. Goebbels very likely did not know where to send this telegram as Mussolini was already under arrest by the time of his birthday. On July 24 he had received what amounted to a vote of no confidence, was arrested, and had begun to be shuffled about the country in an effort to keep him out of the hands of any potential Nazi liberators.