The End

122. For interesting speculation on Speer’s power ambitions at this juncture, see DRZW, 10/2 (Muller), pp. 74–84; and Muller’s remarks in the conclusion to the volume, p. 718.

123. Albert Speer, Erinnerungen, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1969, p. 442.

124. He had engineered Hitler’s approval to his new responsibilities on 14 February, exploiting the illness of the Transport Minister Julius Heinrich Dorpmuller.—DRZW, 10/2 (Muller), p. 82.

125. BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 18–23, Aktennotiz Speer, 7.3.45. That very day, Paul Pleiger, head of the Reich Association of Coal, pointed out to Speer how serious the coal situation was following the loss of Upper Silesia, the transport problems that had effectively ruled out Ruhr coal, and the big drop in production from the Saarland. Unless things improved, he pointed out, it would be impossible to provide coal for armaments or avoid the collapse of transport, electricity and gas.—IWM, F.3, M.I. 14/163, Pleiger to Speer, 7.3.45. On 14 March Hitler ordered that because of severely reduced transport capacity, priorities in areas to be evacuated had to be determined by their value for the prosecution of the war: the Wehrmacht, coal, then food materials. Refugees could be accommodated only where there was available space. In passing on the order next day to relevant authorities, Speer pointed out that it was on his suggestion.—BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 27–8.

126. TBJG, II/15, pp. 579 (23.3.45), 603 (27.3.45).

127. TBJG, II/15, pp. 500–501 (14.3.45), 511–12 (15.3.45).

128. BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 31–8, OKH, Chef Transportwesens/General der Pioniere und Festungen, draft, no precise date in March given; Speer to Gen.stab des Heeres-General der Pioniere und Festungen, 15.3.45; OKH, Chef Transportwesens/Gend di Pi u Fest, 14.3.45; Speer, p. 442; Guderian, pp. 422–3.

129. BAB, R3/1536, fos. 3–12; IMT, vol. 41, pp. 420–25. Drafts (fos. 28–30) were appended of orders limiting destruction and giving Speer the powers to decide on exceptions to immobilization; Speer, pp. 442–3.

130. See Heinrich Schwendemann, ‘ “Drastic Measures to Defend the Reich at the Oder and the Rhine…”: A Forgotten Memorandum of Albert Speer of 18 March 1945’, Journal of Contemporary History, 38 (2003), pp. 597–614; also Heinrich Schwendemann, ‘ “Verbrannte Erde”? Hitlers “Nero- Befehl” vom 19. Marz 1945’, in Kriegsende Deutschland, p. 163; and, for a different interpretation, DRZW, 10/2 (Muller), pp. 86–8. An extract from the memorandum was already published by Gregor Janssen, Das Ministerium Speer: Deutschlands Rustung im Krieg, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Vienna, 1968, p. 311, though without commentary, beyond pointing (p. 310) to its connection with Keitel’s order that morning to evacuate the population from the fighting zone west of the Rhine. Dietrich Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1939– 1945, vol. 3: 1943–1945, Berlin, 1996, p. 662 n. 212, confines himself to the comment that Speer had ‘doubtless tactical aims’ with the memorandum. Neither Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth, London, 1995, pp. 476–7, nor Joachim Fest, Speer: Eine Biographie, Berlin, 1999, pp. 336–8, mentions it.

131. BAB, R3/1537, fos. 3–6 (18.3.45).

132. Hitler spoke to Goebbels in highly negative terms in late March about Speer being ‘unreliable’ and ‘failing’ at a critical time and showing a ‘defeatist’ character, tendencies ‘incompatible with the National Socialist view of the war’.—TBJG, II/15, pp. 619–20 (28.3.45).

133. This is the gist of Muller’s interpretation in DRZW, 10/2, p. 87.

134. For Speer’s late conversion to the need to save the ‘means of existence of the … people in a lost war’, see Henke, pp. 431–2.

135. BAB, R3/1538, fo. 16, handwritten letter by Speer to Hitler, 29.3.45.

136. Schwendemann, ‘ “Drastic Measures”’, p. 605, suggests, perhaps going too far, that Speer was seeking ‘to show Hitler a way out, by offering the Fuhrer his services as a kind of saviour, thus securing his favour’.

137. Speer, pp. 444–5; BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 39–43, two Fernschreiben of Keitel, 18.3.45; implementation order of Bormann, 19.3.45.

138. BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 46–7, ‘Zerstorungsma?nahmen im Reichsgebiet’, Lt.-Gen. August Winter (Deputy Chief of the OKW Operations Staff) to Speer, 20.3.45, passing on Hitler’s order of the previous day (printed in IMT, vol. 41, pp. 430–31, and Hitlers Weisungen fur die Kriegfuhrung 1939– 1945: Dokumente des Oberkommandos dep Wehrmacht, ed. Walther Hubatsch, pb. edn., Munich, 1965, pp. 348–9).

139. BAB, R3/1538, fos. 14–15, Speer to Hitler, 29.3.45; IMT, vol. 41, pp. 425–9; Speer, pp. 445–6.

140. See Henke, pp. 432–5; DRZW, 10/2 (Muller), p. 93; and Eichholtz, pp. 663–9. In some factories, crucial component parts were taken out of machines and hidden so that they could later be reinstated.—Zimmermann, Pflicht, p. 60.

141. Speer, pp. 450–59; BAB, R3/1661, fos. 5–8, Reiseprogramm Speer, Schulze-Fielitz, Hupfauer, etc., 22– 5.3.45; fos. 20–22, Walter Rohland: Niederschrift uber die Ereignisse vom 15.3 bis 15.4.45; R3/1623a, fo. 50, Bormann to the Gauleiter, passing on Hitler’s evacuation orders with the stipulation that the evacuation was not a matter for debate, and that the accommodation of the evacuees within Germany simply ‘had to be mastered’ through improvisation; IMT, vol. 41, pp. 491–3 (Rohland’s testimony at Nuremberg).

142. Speer, pp. 448, 453–4, for Model’s stance. The Wehrmacht’s head of transport spoke of creating ‘a transport desert’ in abandoned areas.—BAB, R3/1623a, fo. 59, Chef des Transportwesens der Wehrmacht, Fernschreiben 29.3.45 (referred to in Speer, p. 459).

143. Speer, pp. 454–5; BAB, R3/1626, fo. 14, unknown eyewitness account, 13.9.45.

144. Speer, pp. 457–61 (quotation p. 460).

145. This is how Hitler saw it, in speaking of the matter to Goebbels soon afterwards.— TBJG, II/15, p. 643 (31.3.45). Speer’s own depiction of his defiance was almost certainly at least in part contrived. See DRZW, 10/2 (Muller), pp. 94–5.

146. Speer registered with a note in his files Hitler’s agreement that ‘scorched earth’ was pointless for a small area like Germany and could only have an effect in a huge country like Russia. He immediately transmitted Hitler’s amended order leaving implementation in Speer’s hands.—BAB, R3/1623a, fos. 75, 78–80, 85–6 (30.3.45). On 3 April (fos. 106, 108) he replied to the request from Gauleiter Ueberreither (Niederdonau) for clarification on destruction of waterworks and power stations in his region by stating: ‘According to the Fuhrer order of 30.3.45 there is no scorched earth’, and stipulating only temporary immobilization which ‘fulfils the stated aim of the Fuhrer’.

147. The OKW stipulated on 3 April that, despite the Fuhrer order for the destruction of all installations that might be useful to the enemy, it could prove expedient in some cases to limit this to a ‘lengthy breach’ (nachhaltige Unterbrechung) which could be repaired for German use if there was a probability of retaking the bridges. The Wehrmacht was keen to establish its sole responsibility for the destruction of military installations. A few days later, a revised directive emphasized the need to destroy operationally important bridges, as determined by the OKW, with the most severe punishment for failure to carry this out.— KTB/SKL, part A, vol. 68, pp. 46 (3.4.45), 75–7 (5.4.45), 128 (8.4.45).

148. Henke, p. 434. A far more positive interpretation of Speer’s motives is provided in the early assessment by Reimer Hansen, ‘Albert Speers Konflikt mit Hitler’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 17 (1966), pp. 596–621, based heavily upon the documents and evidence presented to the Nuremberg Trials. Later research—particularly since the publication of Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer: Das Ende eines Mythos, Berne and Munich, 1982—has tended to be far more critically disposed towards Speer. See, for example, Alfred C. Mierzejewski, ‘When Did Albert Speer Give up?’ Historical Journal, 31 (1988), pp. 391–7, and, more recently, the contribution by Rolf-Dieter Muller to DRZW, 10/2.

149. TBJG, II/15, p. 613 (28.3.45).

150. See also on this point, DRZW, 10/2 (Muller), p. 92.

CHAPTER 8. IMPLOSION