»Wollt Ihr Den Totalen Krieg?«

Up to the present Goebbels' speech at the Sportpalast has been regarded as a supreme example of manipulation, not least because it has frequently been reduced to the one question cited in the title of this study. As 'total war' has also been misinterpreted, the investigation goes beyond a purely linguistic analysis to examine the speech in pragmatic terms as a semiotic totality. In this endeavour it addresses not only linguistic and rhetorical features, but also religious, semiotic, psychological, historical, and sociological phenomena, drawing additionally on text, sound, and film documents for the purpose. The result is a reevaluation of the speech itself, of Goebbels, and of the manipulation theory.