Journalof ContemporaryHistoryCopyright?

2003 SAGEPublications,London,Thousand Oaks, CA and

New Delhi,Vol 38(4), 597-614.
[0022-0094(200310)38:4;597-614;036342]

HeinrichSchwendemann
'Drastic Measures to Defend the Reich at the
Oder and the Rhine .. .': A Forgotten
Memorandum of Albert Speer of 18 March
1945

Ever since he gave evidence at the Nuremberg Military Tribunal in 1946,1 or

rather since the publication of his Erinnerungen,2controversy has surrounded
the personality of Albert Speer, who held a unique position in the nazi system
of rule as star architect, arms minister and for many years Hitler's close confi-
dant.3 If, on the one hand, a consensus developed that Speer's claim to have
known nothing about the extermination of the Jews was a life-long lie,4 on the
other hand there is widely-held general agreement that Speer sabotaged
Hitler's command to make a 'desert' out of Germany in the spring of 1945.5
What had already been verified at Nuremberg in documentary evidence pro-
duced by Speer's defence counsel, Flachsner, and appears to have been con-
firmed by Speer's staff6was why there were judged to have been mitigating cir-
cumstances which saved his life: he had been the one to tell Hitler that the war
was lost. It was he alone, therefore, who had prevented the unnecessary
destruction of the means of production in the occupied territories and in
Germany.7
It is Speer's personal motivation which is contested here, not his actions in
the spring of 1945. Was he an opportunist who shortly before the end of the
war tried to save his own skin, or - as Speer himself claimed - had he been
distancing himself further and further from his patron since the spring of 1944

See also H. Schwendemann, 'Lebenslaufer iiber verbrannter Erde. Vom Riistungsminister zum
Widerstandler: Wie Albert Speer die eigene Biographie riickwirkend besch6nigte' in Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 97, 26 April 2000, 52.
1 Der Prozefl gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militdrgerichtshof.
Niirnberg 14 November 1945-1 Oktober 1947, vol. 16 (Nuremberg 1948), 475-647 (hereafter
IMT).
2 A. Speer, Erinnerungen (Frankfurt 1969).
3 A. Reif (ed.), Albert Speer. Kontroversen urnm ein deutsches Phdnomen (Munich 1978); M.
Schmidt, Albert Speer: Das Ende eines Mythos. Speers wabre Rolle im Dritten Reich (Bern 1982).
4 C. Dipper, 'Der Speer-Legende zweiter Teil' in Neue Politische Literatur, 41 (1996), 193-5.
5 See, for example, U. Schlie, 'Albert Speer und das Dritte Reich' in idem (ed.), Albert Speer.
'Alles was ich weif'. Aus unbekannten Geheimdienstprotokollen vom Sommer 1945 (Munich
1999), 243-84, esp. 278-84.
6 IMT, vol. 16, 530-3; IMT, vol. 41, 417-42, 490-4, 497-507.
7 Printed in Reif, op. cit., 218-22, see esp. 221.
598 Journalof ContemporaryHistoryVol 38 No 4

on moral grounds, because his diabolical traits were becoming ever clearer to
Speer, in order to rescue what could still be rescued? Both points of view are
put forward in the most recent Speer biographies by journalists who knew him
personally. Van der Vat depicts Hitler's only friend in the last phase of the war
as an opportunist who tried to flee from his responsibility,8 while Gitta Sereny9
and Joachim Fest'?almost seem to describe Speer as a secret resistance fighter.
Both Sereny and Fest were able to develop a relationship with Speer based on
trust and subscribed to Speer's own interpretation of his role in the spring of
1945 - as described in his Erinnerungen and in personal conversations with
him.11In the media publicity for Sereny's and, particularly, Fest's book,12the
view prevailed that Speer had been the only person during the end phase of the
war to have shown any responsibility within the nazi leadership.
There is, however, a memorandum from Speer to Hitler, dated 18 March
1945, in the files of the ministry of armaments kept in the Federal Archive in
Berlin, which shows Speer's superficial and highly responsibility-conscious
actions in a different light.13 Because this document was not mentioned at
Nuremberg, Speer was able to manipulate the pre-history of the infamous
'Nero order' according to his own interests.14When the Federal Archive, at
that time still in Koblenz, allowed Speer, after his release from Spandau
prison, access to the files of the ministry of armaments to help him write his
memoirs,15 he was given the opportunity, which he well knew how to use,
either not to mention those events which might compromise him or to reinter-
pret them for his exoneration. Speer's manipulative skills, of which historians
have already provided evidence in other areas, such as his responsibility for
putting forced labourers and concentration camp prisoners to work,'6 are also

8 D. van der Vat, Der gute Nazi. Albert Speers Leben und Liigen (Berlin 1997), 289-356.
9 G. Sereny, Das Ringen mit der Wahrheit. Albert Speer und das deutsche Trauma (Munich
1995), 529-627.
10 J.C. Fest, Speer. Eine Biographie (Berlin 1999), 299-381.
11 The parallels between Fest's biography of Speer and Speer's Erinnerungen, which was Fest's
most important source, are evident for this period. Fest, who spent two years helping Speer write
his Erinnerungen (Speer, op. cit., 527; van der Vat, op. cit., 493-7; Fest, op. cit., 441) can in no
way substantiate his claim to have been a 'distanced chronicler' (Fest, 364). A political biography
of Speer which considers the position of historical research at that time and thereby satisfies
scientific standards has still to be written.
12 For contemporary press reviews of Fest's biography of Speer, see J. Fest, 'Speer-Hitlers
unglickliche Liebe', interview in Rheinischer Merkur, no. 42 (October 1999), 8. Positive reviews:
R. Rietzler, 'Seele verkauft', Der Spiegel, 20 September 1999, 264f; A. Pfeiffer, 'Des Teufels
Lieblingsarchitekt', Stuttgarter Zeitung, 29 October 1999. Negative reviews: N. Frei, 'Nach-
gelernt Schuld', Neue Ziircher Zeitung, 12 October 1999; V. Ullrich, 'Die Speer-Legende', Die
Zeit, 23 September 1999, 51f; N. Berg, 'Die Zukunft der Vergangenheit', Badische Zeitung, 30
October 1999.
13 BA (Federal Archive of Germany), R 3/1537, Memorandum of 18 March 1945, 2-6.
14 IMT, vol. 16, 531-52, esp. 545ff.
15 Speer, op. cit., 527.
16 U. Herbert, Fremdarbeiter. Politik und Praxis des 'Ausldnder-Einsatzes' in der Kriegswirt-
schaft des Dritten Reiches (Bonn 1999); K. Orth, Das System der nationalsozialistischen
Konzentrationslager. Eine politische Organisationsgeschichte (Hamburg 1999), 48, 80, 168-72,
Schwendemann:
A Forgotten
Memorandum
of AlbertSpeer 599

evident in his account of events which led to his coming into conflict with
Hitler in March 1945.
The dramatic high point in Speer's Erinnerungen is his initiatives to prevail
upon Hitler to renounce his 'scorched earth' policy on the territory of the
Reich in March 1945. Nobody knew better than Speer what consequences the
planned destruction of Germany's own infrastructure would have, as he and
his ministry had taken part in the 'scorched earth' warfare in the retreat from
the east. When Anglo-American troops first occupied the border areas in west-
ern Germany in September 1944, Hitler had already issued a basic order to the
Wehrmacht and party which commited them to fight according to the princi-
ples of ideological warfare on the territory of the Reich and which anticipated
the 'Nero order': 'Every bunker, every housing block in German towns and
every German village must become a fortification where the enemy either
bleeds to death or the occupying forces bury man upon man in its ruins. There
are two choices: to hold one's ground or be destroyed.'17By arguing that the
production of important components would be the prerequisite for getting
production back on track after reconquest, Speer had no difficulty in persuad-
ing Hitler that factories should be closed temporarily by removing those com-
ponents in the event of retreat.18Because Hitler planned to win back the lost
territories through a large-scale offensive in the west - a plan which corre-
sponded with Speer's ideas - both were completely in agreement with a
policy of paralysis of production rather than one of destruction.
The collapse of the Eastern Front and the occupation of Upper Silesia by the
Red Army in the second half of January 1945 caused Speer to realize - rather
late - that the war could no longer be won through the production of arma-
ments. He sent Hitler a memorandum on 30 January 1945 along these lines.19
It was only in March 1945, however, as Anglo-American troops launched
their decisive final offensive on the Rhine, as the advance into the Ruhr was
about to take place and in the east the Red Army was preparing itself on the
Oder for the conquest of Berlin, that Speer seemed to have become aware of
the self-destructive consequences of the 'all or nothing' ideological warfare
which the leaders of the Wehrmacht, acting on Hitler's orders, were rigorous-
ly waging at the fronts.
On 7 March 1945, Speer told the industrialists of the Ruhr that the strategy
of paralysis then in place was to continue to be pursued so that the economic

243-8; M. Zimmermann, 'Arbeit in den Konzentrationslagern. Kommentierende Bemerkungen' in

U. Herbert, K. Orth and C. Dieckmann (eds), Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager.
Entwicklung und Struktur, vol. II (Gottingen 1998), 730-51.
17 Hitler's order of 16 September 1944 quoted in H. Schwendemann, 'Strategie der Selbst-
vernichtung: die Wehrmachtfiihrung im "Endkampf" um das Dritte Reich' in R.-D. Miiller and
H.-E. Volkmann (eds), Die Wehrmacht. Mythos und Realitat (Munich 1999), 224-44, esp. 228f.
18 IMT, vol. 16, telex from Speer to Bormann, 15 September 1944, 417-20; BA R 3/1623,
letter from Speer to the Gauleiters in the west, 16 September 1944, delivered by Bormann 'on
behalf of the Fuhrer', 53/R.
19 BA, R 3/1535, Memorandum of 30 January 1945, 'Zur Ristungslage Februar-Marz 1945'.
600 Journalof ContemporaryHistoryVol 38 No 4

potential of the Ruhr remained intact, 'in the event of the enemy advancing
further'. For this reason he intended to contact the commanders-in-chief of the
army units in the west, to obtain a corresponding directive from Hitler.20It
thereby became apparent that Speer was reckoning on a speedy end to the war
as a result of the Allied advance into the territory in front of the Ruhr, and for
him the preservation of the economic potential of the Ruhr area had become
acute. However, he left the Ruhr industrialists in no doubt as to his desire to
ensure the continued conduct of the war. Speer arranged for arms production
to concentrate on munitions because of the supply problems at the front. Also
his directive, that supplies to the Ruhr population be given precedence, justi-
fied Speer in claiming the need to maintain the people's 'powers of resistance'
and thereby the production of arms.21
Speer's description in his memoirs of how, while on his way to the Western
Front, he had the impression that Hitler's orders would have resulted in the
Reich territory becoming 'scorched earth'22is confirmed in Goebbels' diary
entries. Speer voiced his criticism to Goebbels of the preparations to blow up
bridges in the event of a further retreat from Reich territory, and of Hitler's
decision to evacuate the population forcefully from the last remaining areas
west of the Rhine - the Saarland, the Palatinate and parts of Hesse-Nassau.
In addition, he gave Goebbels to understand that 'economically, the war is so
to speak lost'.23Speer, who found support in Goebbels, tried to persuade his
Fuihrerto withdraw his order to carry out a policy of 'scorched earth' on the
territory of the Reich, but - and this should be stressed - Speer did not call
on Hitler to end the war.
Speer's very attempt to ask Hitler to change his plans with regard to the
forced evacuation of the territories on the left bank of the Rhine resulted in
disaster. In his Erinnerungen, Speer reports almost in outrage that during the
night of 18/19 March, Hitler decided to have these territories cleared against
the will of the war-weary population on the march.24However, he withholds
the fact that on 15 March he had sent a decree from Hitler to all those in the
highest party, military and government positions, including the directors of the
German national railway (Reichsbahn), indicating that, following Speer's 'sug-
gestion', the Fuihrerhad stipulated that 'the order of priority regarding trans-
port' due to the 'greatly reduced availability of transport' . . . was to be deter-
mined 'only by its immediate value for the conduct of war'. 'The following
order is to be followed in evacuations: Wehrmacht for operational purposes,
coal, food for the evacuation. Even refugee transportation can only be given
permission to leave after complete fulfilment of this requirement, when there is

20 BA, R 3/1623a, memo of Speer of 7 March 1945, 18-23, esp. 18-19.

21 Ibid., 19-20.
22 Speer, op. cit., 242.
23 E. Frohlich (ed.), Die Tagebiicher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil 2 Diktate 1941-1945, vol. 15:
Januar-April 1945 (Munich 1995), entries of 14 March 1945, 500f and of 15 March 1945, 511.
24 Speer, op. cit., 444f.
 A Forgotten
Schwendemann: Memorandum
of AlbertSpeer 601

really no unused empty space available.'25Yet Speer's aim to prevent a forced

evacuation in the west by this order26failed because in his order of 19 March
to evacuate the territories to the west of the Rhine, Hitler referred explicitly to
the above-mentioned allocation of transport and ordered that the population
be marched back if necessary.27
But Speer's transport order of 14/15 March was to have catastrophic reper-
cussions in the east, where the real refugee drama was taking place. As
opposed to the west where the majority of the population was not greatly
afraid of an Anglo-American occupation, millions in the east fled from the vio-
lence of the Red Army. A large part of the misery of the refugees in the east
stems from the fact that the Wehrmacht demanded that absolute priority be
given to military transport on land and water. There was, therefore, not
enough transport capacity available for the civilian population who had to put
up with chaotic conditions on their journey westwards. Millions of East
Germans were run down by the front and hundreds of thousands died because
they were unable to reach safety quickly enough.28
Speer had already made it clear in the second half of January 1945 that he
placed military needs above the interests of the East German population. Ten
days after the start of the Soviet winter offensive on 22 January 1945, when
three to four million people were fleeing from the Red Army29and news was
spreading everywhere of the large-scale violence of the Red Army soldiers,
Speer once again instructed the Gauleiter in the east that 'the armaments
industry, including water and energy supplies, should carry on working until
the enemy makes it impossible for them to continue'. The paralysis of factories
should occur only 'at the last possible moment'.30Speer, who was at that time
staying at the headquarters of Army Group (Heeresgruppe) A in Upper Silesia
where he was able to witness at first hand the plight of the refugees,31was only
concerned that the production of arms, particularly in the Upper Silesian
industrial district, be maintained for as long as possible - and certainly until
the Red Army had seized parts of Upper Silesia. Speer's economic strategy of
holding out to the end contributed significantly to the Gauleiter's giving

25 BA, R 3/1623a, 28/R, Circular by Speer, 15 March 1945, re order of transport for evacua-
tions, 28/R in M. Moll (ed.), 'Fiihrer-Erlasse' 1939-1945 (Stuttgart 1997), Doc. 392, 485.
26 BA, R 3/1623a, memo from Speer, 7 March 1945, 22.
27 BA, R 3/1623a, Circular by Bormann, 19 March 1945, re evacuation in the west, 42f.
28 Schwendemann, op. cit., 236-41.
29 BA, NS 19/2606, note of 22 January 1945, 46.
30 BA, R 3/1623a, Communication from the Reich Ministry of the Interior (Jacobi) to Speer, 24
January 1945, 8, containing a copy of a circular from the Reich Ministry of the Interior (Stuck-
hardt) of 22 January1945 to the Reich Defence Commissars of East Prussia, Danzig-West Prussia,
the Wartheland, Lower Silesia, Upper Silesia, Pommerania, Mark Brandenburg, Sudetenland.
Speer had already issued a similar edict in July 1944: BA, R 3/1623, Speer's edict of 26 July 1944
re retransfer from the east, 3f.
31 Speer claims in his memoirs to have taken photos of the refugees and shown them to Hitler
in the hope that he 'might arouse his sympathy'. Hitler, however, had 'vigorously pushed [the
photos] away. Speer, op. cit., 430.
602 Journalof ContemporaryHistoryVol 38 No 4

evacuation orders so late in the day in Upper Silesia and the other eastern dis-
tricts.32
Speer's transport order, which Hitler enforced in the middle of March 1945,
resulted in 'practically no more refugee trains'. In this way, by means of the
Ftihrer order which was valid until the end of the war, Speer secured the trans-
port interests of the army at the expense of the civilian population.33 Speer,
who boasts in his memoirs that he always represented the needs of the refugees
to Hitler,34did not mention this transport order, since it would infer that by
this time he had already written off the East German population.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that in his memoirs Speer also tried to con-
ceal the fact that he had reached the pinnacle of his power on 18 February -
when Hitler made him a kind of transport dictator, whose job it was to allo-
cate the ever-decreasing transport capacity in the face of a transport crisis,
continuously worsened by the Allied bombings.35This increase in power is
only worth a brief mention in a footnote by Speer,36but he also emphasizes the
fact that in his first decree of 19 February37he had been entitled to give
absolute priority to the 'unconditional' implementation of troop transport and
not the feeding of the population, as he later tried to suggest.
Besides Speer's attempt to prevent the forced evacuation of the seemingly
unreliable Germans west of the Rhine, the focal point of his activities was to
prevent systematic 'scorched earth' warfare on his own territory. To this end
he adopted a two-pronged approach, turning to the army command as well as
to Hitler. He was able to win over Guderian, who up to then had put into
practice Hitler's order to halt at the Eastern Front, and who, now that the war
could last only a few more weeks according to Speer's economic forecast, tried
to distance himself from Hitler. Following a discussion with Speer, on 15
March Guderian drew up an order to limit the blowing-up of bridges to what
was militarily necessary and to prevent the destruction of factories by paraly-
sis measures.38However, this order remained a draft because Hitler, together
with Keitel and Jodl, the Army High Command leaders who were in charge of
the war in the west, rejected it.39
32 BA, R 22/3372, Report from the Provincial High Court President and the Public Prosecutor
in Kattowitz, Neisse, to Reich Minister of Justice Thierack, 1 February 1945, 302R.
33 The list of priorities for rail transport had been drawn up at the beginning of March; the
'Fuhrer order' had yet to be issued: P.E. Schramm (ed.), Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der
Wehrmacht 1940-1945, vol. IV/2, entry for 6 March 1945, 1150.
34 Speer, op. cit., 430, 441.
35 Hitler edict on the formation of a transport headquarters of 18 February 1945 in 'Fiihrer-
Erlasse', Doc. 388, 481f.
36 Speer, op. cit., note 5, 581f.
37 Printed in Ursachen und Folgen. Vom deutschen Zusammenbruch 1918 und 1945 bis zur
staatlichen Neuordnung Deutschlands in der Gegenwart. Eine Urkunden- und Dokumenten-
sammlung zur Zeitgeschichte, vol. 22 (Berlin 1975), 528-31, esp. 530.
38 BA, R 2/1623a, draft of an order of 15 March 1945 re measures for destruction in one's own
country, 31-3.
39 H. Guderian, Erinnerungen eines Soldaten (Stuttgart 1995), 384; IMT, vol. 41, Guderian's
statement at Nuremberg, 10 May.1945, 510-14; Speer, op. cit., 442.
 A Forgotten
Schwendemann: Memorandum
of AlbertSpeer 603

Speer's now famous memorandum to Hitler of 15 March 1945, in which he

draws together the arguments to which Guderian and Goebbels had already
agreed, played a key role in the way he dealt with Hitler.40In the memoran-
dum, Speer forecast that the war could only last another four to eight weeks
from an economic point of view, and he therefore demanded that Hitler not
destroy industrial areas, mines, electricity works, transport sites, etc. 'in the
event of the battle being drawn further into the territory of the Reich'(!) but
rather to put them temporarily out of action. Speer 'understandably' had no
objection to bridges being blown up across the 'big streams' in order to keep
the enemy at bay, but he did object to the detonating of every bridge in the
country, particularly Berlin, because that would make it impossible to get sup-
plies to the population. In view of the approaching end of the war, he also
demanded that priority be given to feeding and clothing the population.
However, Speer did not demand that Hitler bring the war to a speedy con-
clusion, and thereby end the misery of the population and deaths at the fronts.
A remark made by Speer shows how cold-bloodedly he accepted the popula-
tion loss, when, in the language of nazi ideology, he spoke of, 'a tough selec-
tion' which 'would contain a good kernel of this unique people for the distant
future'. He used an almost schizophrenic argument to try to blame the enemy
for any further destruction: 'If the enemy wants to destroy the people and the
very basis of their life, then it must carry out this work itself.' Elsewhere he
wrote: 'and so the historical shame should fall on them'. On the other hand:
'We must do everything to enable the people to preserve the basis of their life
to the very end, even in the most primitive of forms.'41Speer was already look-
ing to save his image - and at this point in time also that of his Fuhrer -
from history.
Speer's later comment that he dented all of Hitler's 'self-made taboos'42with
this memorandum, which exposed the relentless propaganda of final victory as
a chimera, is definitely true. But Speer, because of his special standing with
Hitler, was also the only person who could allow himself to take such a step.43
To prepare Hitler for their next private discussion, Speer took steps in advance
to offset the effect of his memorandum of 15 March.44At Nuremberg, Speer
and his secretary, Annemarie Kempf, testified that Hitler knew of the contents
of the memorandum before Speer handed it over in person on the night of
18/19 March.45In his Erinnerungen, Speer claimed that he had sent Hitler the
memorandum via von Below, his liaison officer, which von Below confirms in
his own memoirs.46In addition, Speer asked Hitler's adjutant, Schaub, for a
40 IMT, vol. 16, Speer's memorandum to Hitler, 15 March 1945, on the economic situation in
March-April 1945 and the consequences, 420-5.
41 Ibid., 422, 425.
42 Speer, op. cit., 442.
43 According to Hitler's Lufwaffe adjutant, von Below, in his memoirs: N. von Below, Als
Hitlers Adjutant 1937-45 (Mainz 1980), 405.
44 Speer, op. cit., 443.
45 Testimony by Speer, IMT, vol. 16, 547; testimony by Annemarie Kempf, ibid., 503.
46 von Below, op. cit., 404f.
604 Journalof ContemporaryHistoryVol 38 No 4

photo of Hitler, personally inscribed, for his (Speer's) fortieth birthday on 19

March.47In this way, Speer cleverly included a memento of their personal rela-
tionship.
But there has now come to light in the files of the ministry of armaments a
three-page memorandum drawn up and personally signed by Speer on 18
March, which is unambiguously aimed at Hitler in form and content48 and
which represents the missing act in Speer's production of his planned meeting
with Hitler on the evening of 18 March. Gregor Janssen quoted five sentences
from this memorandum - which was not presented at Nuremberg - in his
thesis on the ministry of armaments, without, however, recognizing the explo-
sive nature of its contents. Janssen only commented that Speer had handed
over this memorandum to Hitler on 18 March.49His study was published in
1968 by Ullstein Verlag, which also published Speer's Erinnerungen a year
later, and on the initiative of his doctoral supervisor, Walter Hubatsch, the
first edition of the study already existed in the form of a dissertation for Speer
to refer to during his time in Spandau.50The prisoner would surely have read
the chapter about his role in the spring of 1945 thoroughly. Since Speer makes
no mention in his memoirs of the memorandum, which he had surely seen
again in the files of the federal archive, its contents must have been dynamite
to him.51There is no doubt that it would have called into question the justifi-
cation strategy he adopted at Nuremberg. Moreover, the fact that Speer did
not correct Janssen is proof enough that he had indeed handed over this mem-
orandum to Hitler on 18/19 March. Speer's silence, therefore, resulted in this
document's disappearance from the scene. His vivid presentation of the events
of the middle of March 1945, together with Speer's other memoranda already
published in the Nuremberg documents, obviously made an impression on his
biographers. Schmidt is the only one to have also cited the passages which
Janssen published,52but the more recent portrayals by Sereny, van der Vat and
Fest overlook the fact that Speer drew up a second memorandum to Hitler on
18 March 1945. One indication is to be found in Dietrich Eichholtz's third
volume of the 'History of the German War Economy 1939-1945'. In a foot-
note, Eichholtz notes the 'curiously strong' language of the memo without giv-
ing it a full reference.53

47 Speer, op. cit., 443-5.

48 BA R 3/1537. Handwritten on the cover - presumably by Speer's secretary - 'Memo-
randum of 18 March 1945'. The memo's heading, 'Albert Speer Berlin W 8 18 March 1945' is
almost exactly the same as that of the memorandum of 15 March 1945: 'Albert Speer Berlin, 15
March 1945'.
49 G. Janssen, Das Ministerium Speer. Deutschlands Riistung im Krieg (Berlin 1968), 310f.
50 Schmidt, op. cit., 20; van der Vat, op. cit., 478f, 574.
51 Speer attempted to play down Janssen's study in Spandau (letter from Speer to Wolters, 28
October 1964 in Schmidt, op. cit., 20) and 'concealed' it in a footnote in his memoirs. Speer, op.
cit., 542, note 6.
52 Schmidt had not seen the memorandum himself, but used Janssen as his source: Schmidt, op.
cit., 152, note 71.
53 Eichholtz printed the memorandum of 15 March 1945 in its entirety, but only mentioned the
Schwendemann:AForgotten of AlbertSpeer
Memorandum 605

Speer was able to hide the existence of the second memorandum at

Nuremberg because there were only two copies of it: the original, which was
given to Hitler, and the carbon copy, which he kept. There were in any case no
witnesses to his discussion with Hitler in the early hours of 19 March 1945.
The fact that he mentioned his 'note' which 'I handed over to you on 18
March' in his later letter to Hitler also came to his aid.54Speer was actually
referring to the memorandum of 15 March, for it was this one that gave rise to
his conflict with Hitler.
Speer's secretary, Annemarie Kempf, told Gitta Sereny decades later that on
the evening of 18 March Speer had taken two copies of the 15 March memo-
randum to the Fiihrer's headquarters for von Below to hand to Hitler, with the
comment that it was 'better to be safe than sorry'.55But this is not conclusive:
according to all the other witnesses, Hitler had already received the memoran-
dum. It is incomprehensible that Speer took two copies of the same memoran-
dum to Hitler one evening in order to hand these over to his adjutant. What is
conclusive, however, is the statement made by Speer's secretary that Speer did
take two memoranda to Hitler, namely those of 15 and 18 March, which were
similar in content and together formed a whole. If Speer had forecast in the
first memorandum that the war could only last another four to eight weeks, in
the second he sought to show Hitler a way out, by offering the Fuhrer his ser-
vices as a kind of saviour, thus securing his favour. The text is as follows:

Albert Speer Berlin W 8, 18 March 1945

As economic breakdown can hardly be avoided and every kilometre of
territory which is now lost accelerates the breakdown immeasurably, drastic
measures to defend the Reich at the Oder and the Rhine are to be taken.
Successful warfare on the other side of both rivers is no longer imaginable.
Our armaments situation and fuel supply will then render us powerless in the
face of all enemy warfare when the enemy has crossed the rivers heavily armed
and is able to resume mobile warfare.
For the battle in the next eight weeks it is therefore necessary that all the sol-
diers in the barracks are led to the front regardless of the new postings who
can be deployed at a later time.
It is necessary that the Army Groups from east and west are given ruthless
right of access to the soldiers found within a boundary between both fronts. (1)
If this does not happen, the soldiers will remain too long in their home area
and the breakthrough formations of the enemy will meet our soldiers exercis-
ing on their military training area, as happened to our troops on the advance
into France.
one of 18 March in a footnote. D. Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft
1939-1945, vol. 3: 1943-1945 (Berlin 1996), 662, note 212.
54 Speer's letter to Hitler of 29 March, printed in IMT, vol. 41, 425, here 427; Speer's testimony
at Nuremberg: IMT, vol. 16, 546f; Speer, op. cit., 442-5.
55 Sereny, op. cit., 561. Fest also refers to this version of events. Fest, op. cit., 338.
606 Journalof ContemporaryHistoryVol 38 No 4

It is further necessary to send to the present front all territorial army

(Volkssturm) special formations which the Gauleiters have stationed and
armed in their home districts. All regions of the Reich from now on will only
be defended at these two rivers.
XXX
The supreme commanders of the army groups must be granted absolute
authority over the Wehrmacht in their area, and thereby be able, in spite of all
difficulties, to deploy all parts of the Wehrmacht for their own purposes.(2)
It is impossible for the anti-aircraft units stationed at the front to be under a
different commander from the army units. Thereby impossibly long lines of
command become necessary and difficulties arise when quick decisions are
required.
XXX
The economic exploitation of North and Central Norway and of Upper Italy is
exceptionally restricted because of the transport situation.
For this reason the war economy can be ignored in these areas, thereby free-
ing up a larger number of divisions which are equally urgently needed at both
rivers.
XXX
Only when these measures have been carried out can the situation at the front
be secured.
Every step back will greatly accelerate defeat. By holding out tenaciously (3)
on the present front for a few weeks we can win the enemy's respect and per-
haps bring about a favourable end to the war. Signed Speer (his own signature)

Speer was suggesting that the final battle at the Rhine and Oder, where the
western and eastern fronts ran, be waged as long as possible, a strategy intend-
ed to prevent the remaining territory of the Reich ending up as a battlefield
which in turn would result in the further destruction of Germany's economic
potential. All available forces, therefore, were to be concentrated at both
rivers. Speer's suggestions of withdrawing the troops in Norway and Upper
Italy and of handing over to the army authority over the territorial army
(Volkssturm) and the anti-aircraft units of the Luftwaffe corresponded to the
demands of the supreme commanders of the army groups and the General
Chief of Staff of the Army High Command (OKH), Guderian,56with whom
Speer was in contact. But Speer, like Hitler, in no way wished to capitulate
something he never demanded of Hitler - rather, he wanted 'to win the
enemy's respect' by way of a kind of final duel and in this way achieve a

56 Guderian, op. cit., 374.

Schwendemann: Memorandum
A Forgotten of AlbertSpeer 607

'favourable' conclusion - an absurd idea to want to turn the almost total

defeat of nazi Germany into a competition.
Speer thus shows himself to be a high-risk player who - just like his Fuihrer
- wanted to stake everything with one throw of the dice in the vain hope of
forcing the turn of events. If Hitler was thus consciously calculating the down-
fall of the German people, Speer was risking a giant bloodbath, the concen-
trated destruction of the Wehrmacht and territorial army (Volkssturm) at the
Rhine and Oder. Just like Hitler and the army command,57Speer showed no
scruples in using young recruits or badly-trained and poorly-armed territorial
army troops as 'cannon fodder' for the sake of an illusionary dream.
In any case, Speer left open the question of what should actually happen to
the civilian population in the battle zone. Because he wanted to prevent further
evacuations, it can be concluded that the population would not be brought to
safety. On top of this, Speer had to take into account that with each day that
the war was prolonged the carpet bombing by the Allies continued, creating
huge numbers of victims amongst the German population and wreaking
dreadful destruction of infrastructure and industrial plants. From his point of
view, however, the Allies were 'historically to blame'.58It goes without saying
that Speer and Hitler did not come into conflict over the memorandum in
which Speer set himself up as military strategist, who was, however, really
only able to offer exhortations to hold out, because Hitler had ordered the
unconditional holding of the front at the Rhine and Oder and had decided to
continue the war as long as possible. Nor had Speer suggested anything else.
The conflict was inflamed by his memorandum of 15 March, not so much
because of the 'defeatist' prognosis that the end of the war was in sight, but
more because Speer, as Hitler told Goebbels, 'displayed tendencies which
could not be brought into line with the national socialist view of war'.59The
views Hitler expressed on the night of 18/19 March 1945, that 'if the war is
lost, so too is the Volk', or, that he would prefer to destroy 'the basics which
the Volk needs for its most primitive survival', because the Volk [would have]
shown itself to be weaker',60must have made it clear [to Speer] how resolute
Hitler was in conducting his politics and the war along social Darwinistic
lines, according to which the weak too would be responsible for the downfall
of the German people.
With the so-called 'Nero order' of 19 March 1945,61 which Speer had indi-
rectly provoked, Hitler reversed the demands of the 15 March memorandum
and committed the Wehrmacht and the NSDAP to further withdrawals on the
principle of the self-destruction of industrial, transport, news and supply
installations. The Fiihrer showed how his destruction mania was intent on

57 Schwendemann, op. cit., 232-6.

58 Speer repeated this in his letter to Hitler of 29 March 1945, in IMT, vol. 41, 428.
59 Goebbels-Tagebiicher, vol. 15, entries for 28 March 1945, 619f and 31 March 1945, 643.
60 The authenticity of this quote is verified in Speer's letter to Hitler of 29 March 1945. IMT,
vol. 41, 428.
61 Fiihrer-Erlasse, Doc. 394, 486f.
608 Journalof ContemporaryHistoryVol 38 No 4

making a 'desert' out of Germany. He did, however, adopt one of the sugges-
tions in Speer's second memorandum and on 21 March ordered all army train-
ing units to be stationed behind the western and eastern fronts so that 'enemy
breakthroughs in depth at the fronts can be caught and blocked off'.62
The 19th of March 1945 must have signified a break in Speer's relationship
with Hitler: to all appearances Speer expected Hitler to accept his demands to
'preserve our power as a Volk' and his suggestions to continue the war. In this
way, Speer's later statement in his letter to Hitler that 'my belief in a
favourable change in our fate remained unbroken until 18 March' is not to be
considered as a tactical manoeuvre, but rather as a reflection of his expecta-
tions at the time.63It was only later that it became clear to him that Hitler real-
ly did intend to 'drive the Germans to a heroic defeat'.64This realization and
the beginning of the Anglo-American offensive on 22 March with its speedy
operational breakthrough on the right bank of the Rhine led Speer to consider
it advisable to distance himself from Hitler and to attempt to hinder the imple-
mentation of the order to destroy.65In addition, Speer seems to have come to
an understanding with the Reich Minister of Finance, Schwerin-Krosigk, an
exponent of the conservative leadership elite, also to leave open all political
options dealing with the Allies without regard to Hitler66- a plan by which
they both surely wished to be able to secure their own survival after the war.
Hitler, to whom news was brought of the opposing views of his 'favourite
minister' by Speer's rivals, suspected him of wanting to evade the 'responsibil-
ity' which 'we' - as Hitler wrote to Goebbels - 'had to carry anyway' and
presented him with an ultimatum on 28 March to commit himself to 'the prin-
ciples of his present conduct of the war'.67 Speer's letter to Hitler dated 29
March 1945 in which he is supposed to have rejected the ultimatum, provides
further key evidence of Speer's position in his relationship with the Fiihrer.68In
connection with Hitler's remarks of 19 March, he again turned against the
idea of destroying the foundation of the lives of his own people, the responsi-
bility for which, however, he was concerned anew to lay at the door of the
enemy, who had to 'take the historical blame on itself'. He asked Hitler to

62 BA/MA, RM 7/102, Hitler's order (signed by Keitel) of 21 March 1945 to the Wehrmacht
leadership, 99f; RH 2/334, note from the Commander-in-Chief of the reserve army of 26 March
1945, concerning the transfer of the reserve training units behind the western and eastern fronts,
Aktion Leuthen, 27.
63 IMT, vol. 41, Speer to Hitler, 29 March 1945, 426.
64 Speer had told Goebbels on 14 March that Hitler himself had emphasized in Mein Kampf
with regard to the first world war 'that there is no place in the politics of war for leading the
people to a heroic downfall'. Goebbels-Tagebiicher, vol. 15, entry for 14 March 1945, 501.
65 For a chronological list of Speer's activities against the 'Nero order' up to 30 March 1945,
about which there are almost only later statements, see Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen
Kriegswirtschaft, vol. 3, 664-7.
66 BA, R 3/1624, Schwerin von Krosigk to Speer, 29 March 1945, 6.
67 Goebbels-Tagebiicher, vol. 15, entry for 28 March 1945, 619f; Speer, op. cit., 457-9.
68 IMT, vol. 41, letter from Speer to Hitler of 29 March 1945, 425-9; Annemarie Kempf's
testimony, 505; IMT, vol. 16, Speer's testimony, 550.
 A Forgotten
Schwendemann: of AlbertSpeer
Memorandum 609

withdraw his order to destroy of 19 March and promised in return to resume

work 'with greater energy'. At one point, as Frankfurt was being captured by
American troops, Speer declared - in line with his memorandum of 18 March
- that it was 'our duty to make every effort to increase resistance to the
utmost'.69 Characteristically, Speer made no mention in his memoirs of this
sentence, which his memorandum of 18 March pointedly includes!70Just like
his Fiihrer, Speer now also called upon the 'better Providence' which '[can]
still change our future: we can only contribute to the eternal future of the
German people by maintaining a strong position and our unshakeable belief in
it'. Hitler's armaments minister had come to the end of his tether and took
refuge in propaganda slogans. No wonder that Speer was later embarrassed by
this letter; in his Erinnerungen he describes it as a 'weak performance'.71
Speer's description of his discussion with Hitler on the night of 29-30
March 1945, to which again there were no witnesses, is sparse. Everything,
however, points to the fact that Speer, in conversation with Hitler, voiced pre-
cisely those opinions which he had formulated only hours before in his letter.
In any case, Speer did admit to having assured Hitler of his 'unconditional'
loyalty.72Goebbels commented on this in his diary: 'Speer has climbed down a
peg'.73However, Speer's renewed solidarity was the reason Hitler modified his
order to destroy industrial plants, for which Speer had once again been given
responsibility and also the authority to order measures of paralysis under
certain conditions.74Speer noted that the outcome of his discussion with Hitler
had been that the Fiihrer had 'established that there was no point in a
"scorched earth" policy for such a small territory as Germany. Such a policy
could only work in large territories like Russia.'7s
As we know from Goebbels' diary, the 'Emergency Defence Programme'
which was then in operation was also discussed on 30 March. Although Speer
tried to give the impression in his Erinnerungen that he had had nothing to do
with arms production since January 1945,76 this claim can in no way be
upheld. In the enforcement decree for the 'Nero order' which Speer formulat-
ed, he had once again adopted the principle that 'arms production' should be
maintained 'right up to the last possible moment',77although factories should
be protected from self-destruction whilst the remaining parts of Speer's arma-

69 Ibid., 429.
70 The comparison between Speer's letter and the quotations in his memoirs shows that in the
final passage he suppressed those testimonies which were not sympathetic to him, and did not
indicate where he had made omissions, so that the sense was distorted. Speer, op. cit., 459.
71 Ibid., 460.
72 Ibid., 460f.
73 Goebbels-Tagebiucher,vol. 15, entry for 31 March 1945, 643.
74 IMT, vol. 41, enforcement decree of Hitler of 31 March 1945, 433f; Speer's enforcement
regulations for the Fiihrer decree of 30 March 1945 re measures for paralysis and destruction,
435-7.
75 BA, R 3/1623a, memo of Speer, 30 March 1945, 75.
76 Speer, op. cit., 440.
77 IMT, vol. 41, 433.
610 Journalof ContemporaryHistoryVol 38 No 4

ments empire saw to it that the fronts were still being supplied with arms,
which was precisely what was needed to prolong the war.78Speer drew no con-
clusions from the fact that the awful destruction which was being inflicted on
Germany's economic potential day after day by the Allied bombings would
last until the Wehrmacht stopped fighting.
In April 1945 Speer, on Hitler's authority, tried to prevent bombings being
carried out by means of further orders concerning supplies, transport and
communications installations, as well as through his own intervention.79The
consequent implementation of the 'Nero order' would, however, no longer
have been possible, because, as Bormann himself pointed out, there were no
explosives for 'sustained destruction'.80Klaus-Dietmar Henke, one of the few
historians to take a critical stance vis-a-vis the 'Speer Myth' of 1945,81 has
drawn attention to the fact that the quick advance of the Allied troops in the
west and the rapid decline in loyalty towards the NS regime in the last weeks
of the war stood in the way of the implementation of Hitler's order to destroy.
Speer in no way acted in isolation in April 1945 in order to prevent 'something
worse', but it was rather down to 'a thousandfold alliance of the sensible' at
the local level who sought to avoid pointless destruction.82On the other hand,
self-destructive warfare continued to be waged with undiminished force as the
leaders of the Wehrmacht took literally Hitler's ideological basic command to
continue fighting 'to the last breath'. Above all, it was on the Eastern Front,
where the soldiers lived in fear of the wrath of the Red Army, that units liter-
ally fought to total self-destruction.83
The fact that Speer allowed himself to be impressed by such 'heroism' can be
seen in his letter to the Lower Silesian Gauleiter Hanke, who carried out
Hitler's command to fight 'to the last man' and without regard for the civilian
population in the 'defence' of Red Army-beleaguered Breslau. On 14 April
Speer wrote to Hanke that Germany would not go under, hailed him at the
same time as one of German history's 'heroes' whose 'greatness . . . would
later be of inestimable value to the people', and wished him a 'beautiful and
dignified' death in action.84Speer's flight to his Fuhrer shortly before the Red

78 Because- accordingto what Speertold the Ruhrstaff- therewere 'too manyguns'but at

the same time not enough munitions,two-thirdsof the entireiron quota would be used in the
manufactureof munitionsand only one third in the productionof weapons and tanks. BA, R
3/1623a, memoof Speer,7 March1945, 21f.
79 The correspondingorderscan be foundin BA, R 3/1623a, 130-40.
80 BA, R 58/976, Bormannto Kaltenbrunner, 4 April1945, 117.
81 Others included W. Naasner, Neue Machtzentrenin der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft
1942-1945. Die Wirtschaftsorganisationder SS, das Amt des Generalbevollmdchtigen fur den
Arbeitseinsatzund das Reichsministeriumfur Bewaffnungund Munition/Reichsministerium fur
Riistung und Kriegsproduktionim nationalsozialistischenHerrschaftssystem(Boppard1994),
188-96.
82 K.-D.Henke,Die amerikanischeBesetzungDeutschlands(Munich1995), 429-35, esp. 432.
83 Schwendemann, op. cit., 232-44.
84 Printedin B. and H. Heiber(eds),Die Riickseitedes Hakenkreuzes.Absonderlichesaus den
Aktendes DrittenReiches(Munich1993), 396f.
 of AlbertSpeer
Memorandum
Schwendemann:AForgotten 611

Army surrounded the capital city of the Reich fitted into this pathos of down-
fall.85His farewell to Hitler in the early hours of 24 April indicate that Speer
remained loyal to his Fuhrer to the end and that there was no break in their
relationship.
Speer's depiction of himself as a secret resistance fighter from the autumn of
194486does not stand up to scrutiny. In the second half of 1944 Speer was sec-
ond to Goebbels as the engine of 'total war', a ruthless mobilization of
German 'Volkskraft' (power of the people), and he had seen to it that arms
production continued, despite great problems in all areas.87Hitler repeatedly
expressed his 'unreserved admiration' for his 'ingenious organizer'.88Despite
the fact that in his memoranda Speer kept warning of further setbacks89if
Hitler's demands were not complied with, until the middle of January 1945 he
appeared ever optimistic to Hitler, Goebbels and other ministerial colleagues,
Gauleiters, generals and the staff of his own ministry that he could even
increase armaments so long as the Wehrmacht could hold the existing eco-
nomic area and no more skilled workers were conscripted into the army.90This
is what Speer promised Hitler after Anglo-American troops invaded France at
the end of August 1944, 'not only to maintain the present record high level' of
armaments production in an economic sphere confined to Central Europe,
'but to increase it considerably'.91Even on 4 January 1945 he told Goebbels
that he saw 'confidently into the future. There is still so much national

85 Speer, op. cit., 479-89; edited by Fest, 360-9.

86 Speer already maintained in summer 1945 when interrogated that he had practised 'active
resistance' against Hitler since January 1945; Schlie, op. cit., 74; see also Speer, op. cit., 409f.
87 Janssen, op. cit., 267-92; Naasner, op. cit., 183-8; Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen
Kriegswirtschaft, op. cit., vol. 3, 49f, 79f; R.-D. Miiller, 'Albert Speer und die Riistungspolitik im
totalen Krieg' in Das Deutsche Reich und der zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 2: Organisation und
Mobilisierung des deutschen Machtbereichs, 2. Halbbd.: Kriegsverwaltung, Wirtschaft und
personelle Ressourcen 1942-1944/45, 275-773, here 744-73. The conversations between
Goebbels and Speer during this period, which are documented in Goebbels' diaries (vols 13 and
14), show that, despite their rivalry, both were the most important protagonists of 'total war'. See,
for example, Goebbels-Tagebiicher, vol. 13, entry for 3 September 1944, 398f; vol. 14, entry for
1 December 1945, 308f.
88 Goebbels-Tagebiicher, vol. 14, entry for 2 December 1944, 321, 329f; W.A. Boelcke (ed.),
Deutschlands Riistung im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Hitlers Konferenzen mit Albert Speer 1942-1945
(Frankfurt 1969); memo of Speer, 5 November 1944, conversations with the Fuihrer, 1-4
November 1944, 431.
89 The various memoranda of the second half of 1944 are located in the BA under catalogue
number R 3/1518-1530.
90 BA, R 3/1553, text of Speer's speech to the Gauleiters on 3 August 1944, 87-132; R 3/1556;
main points for a lecture by Reichsminister Speer to the members of the Reich cabinet, 3-5; ibid.,
Speer's appeal in December 1944 'to the makers of German armaments!', 137-9; R 3/1557,
Speer's speech to the third course of commanding generals and corps commanders on 13 January
1945, 144-80; see also Naasner, op. cit., 182-9 and Miiller, op. cit., 753-73.
91 According to Hitler the borders of this area - which was to be defended in all circumstances
- should be the Somme to the west, the alps to the
south, southern Norway to the north and in
the east along the front between the Baltic and the Carpathian mountains, including parts of
Hungary. Goebbels-Tagebiicher, vol. 13, entry for 22 August 1944, 290.
612 Journalof ContemporaryHistoryVol 38 No 4

strength at our disposal that we will always be able to deal with such problems
that are inevitable in the sixth year of war.'92
Speer even influenced Hitler's strategic decisions. At his behest, Hitler
moved the centre of the war command to Hungary to secure that country's oil
and bauxite deposits.93It was due not only to the withdrawal of divisions for
the Ardennes offensive in the west, but also to the move to Hungary
because of a monthly production of about 23,000 tonnes of fuel94- that the
front in the eastern Reich broke up within a few weeks in January 1945 under
the blows of the Soviet winter offensive - with all the catastrophic conse-
quences for the East German civilian population fleeing in fear of their lives.95
The capture of the Upper Silesian industrial area by the Red Army in the last
weeks of January 1945 presented the first decisive turning-point for Speer. It
was only then that he informed Hitler that the war could no longer be main-
tained on economic grounds. However, Speer used his influence - as of
February 1945 he had also become transport dictator - to 'force out of the
arms production . .. anything which could still be forced out of it' so that the
Wehrmacht could continue to wage the hopeless war.96 As he had already
promised on 13 January 1945 at the beginning of the Soviet winter offensive,
in a speech to commanding generals of the front, Speer found himself continu-
ally journeying to sectors of the eastern and western fronts to the Chiefs of
Commands and Chief Quartermasters of the Army Groups, in order to find
out what their supply problems were - particularly of fuel and munitions
and to provide a solution.97
That Speer tried to show Hitler an alternative in his memorandum of 18
March 1945 was in no way strange. All Hitler's other henchmen also sought a

92 Goebbels-Tagebuicher, vol. 15, entryfor 4 January1945, 58. On 12 January1945 he again

told Goebbelsthat he saw '1945 as beingnot too unfavourable':ibid.,entryfor 12 January1945,
111.
93 BA, R 3/1621, Speerto Guderian,15 December1944, 4; Boelcke, op. cit., 427f; BA, R
3/1532, Speer'smemorandumaboutthe fuel situation,19 January1945, 12-19; G. Wagner(ed.),
Lagevortrdgedes Oberbefehlshabers der Kriegsmarinevor Hitler 1939-1945 (Munich 1972),
637f.
94 Accordingto Speer'smemorandumof 19 January1945 it was a questionof a monthlypro-
ductionof 15,000 tonnesof petrol(22 per cent of Germany'smonthlyproductionof petrol)and
8000 tonnesof diesel(11 percent).
95 Schwendemann, op. cit., 236-41.
96 Accordingto the agreementbetweenSpeerand Goebbelsof 30 January1945. Goebbels-
Tagebiicher,vol. 15, entryfor 30 January1945, 271f.
97 Speer conceals this in his memoirs,ibid., 441. Speerhad explainedto the commanding
generalsand corps commanders'that I spend a great deal of my time at divisionheadquarters,
with the corps, with the armies.Contactbetweenthe front and the armaments[ministry]in the
homelandcannotbe shortenough.I hope that I will soon meetone or otherof you on my travels
and find out about your concernsdirectlyat the front.' BA, R 3/1557, Speer'sspeech of 13
January1945, 144f. For Speer'stravelsto the front:BA R 3/1545, ReichministerSpeer'sjourney
to the EasternFront in January1945; Centrefor the preservationof historicaldocumentary
collections,Moscow, 1275-2-288, recordof the commander-in-chief of the secondarmy,Weiss,
of 25 January1945; telephoneconversationbetweenWeiss and Himmlerof 25 January1945,
104; Goebbels-Tagebiicher, entryfor 31 January1945, 283.
Schwendemann: Memorandum
A Forgotten of AlbertSpeer 613

way out in the face of total defeat in the spring of 1945. If Ribbentrop tried to
establish contact with the west with Hitler's uninterested approval, Goring
and Himmler did so behind the Fiihrer's back. Even Goebbels, who had con-
tinual tried to persuade Hitler to adopt a 'political solution', still hoped to
enter into negotiations with Stalin after Hitler's suicide.98Speer, who had told
Goebbels of his desire 'to attempt a political solution"'99and indicated as much
in his memorandum of 18 March to Hitler, was in any case the only one who,
by dint of his position of trust, dared to contradict Hitler by protesting openly
against a 'scorched earth' policy. However, there was no break in his relations
with his Fiihrer whom he assured of his 'undivided' loyalty. He proved this
loyalty by supporting the continuation of the war, rather than asking Hitler to
capitulate. These were probably the deciding reasons why, aside from person-
al considerations, on 30 March 1945 Hitler reinstated Speer's full power of
authority which enabled him to give orders preventing pointless bombings in
April 1945. In spite of this, the Wehrmacht's fanatical defence, to the point of
self-destruction, which was carried out by the Wehrmacht leadership acting on
Hitler's command with no consideration for the civilian population, soldiers
and material assets, formed the basis of the German war strategy until after
Hitler's suicide.100As a result of the hopeless defensive action against the last
great offensives of the anti-Hitler coalition in March and April 1945, many
towns and areas were turned into 'desert', which is what Hitler wanted to
achieve through his order of 19 March 1945.
The fact that Speer, in a gross overestimation of his abilities, saw it as his
task, as the future economics and production minister in the Donitz adminis-
tration,101to rebuild the destroyed Reich can only be described as an ironic
twist of history. It was, after all, Speer who had held the main responsibility
for the war being 'maintained' on economic grounds for so long when, in its
last phase, there was an exorbitant loss of life and massive destruction in the
Reich. In any case, his strategy in the memorandum of 18 March 1945 began
to take shape for him personally. His apparently calculated manoeuvring in
spring 1945, when he was already looking to the time after the war, gave him,
as opposed to the others whom Hitler had trusted, the opportunity to experi-
ence a 'favourable end of war', not least because, as Hitler's general manager

98 B. Martin, 'Die deutscheKapitulation:Versucheiner Bilanz des Zweiten Weltkrieges'in

FreiburgerUniversitdtsblditter, 130 (1995), 45-70, here 52-5; idem, 'Verhandlungenuber
separateFriedenschlisse1942-1945. Ein Beitragzur Entstehungdes KaltenKreiges'in Militdr-
geschichtlicheMitteilungen,1976, 95-113; H. Stehle, 'DeutscheFriedensfiihlerbei den West-
machtenim Februar/Marz 1945', VfZ, 30, 1982, 538-55.
99 Goebbels-Tagebiicher, entryfor 31 January1945, 271, and 1 February1945, 290. A num-
berof nazileadershad hopedthat Goebbelswould be able to persuadeHitlerto adopt a 'political
solution'. For details of January1945: ibid., entriesfor 28 January1945, 250ff, 257, and 31
January1945, 284; Goebbels'memorandumfor a specialpeacedeal with the SovietUnionof 21
September1944 in Goebbels-Tagebiicher, vol. 13, 536-42.
100 Schwendemann, op. cit., 232-44.
101 BA,R 3/1625, Speerto Schwerinvon Krosigk,15 May 1945, 25f; Fest,op. cit., 373f.
614 Journalof ContemporaryHistoryVol 38 No 4

of the material conduct of the war, he could 'win the enemy's respect' at
Nuremberg.

Translated by Helen F. McEwan

Heinrich Schwendemann
is currently working as an academic adviser in the History
Department at the University of Freiburg. He is the author of Die
wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem deutschen Reich und
der Sowjetunion von 1939 bis 1941 (Berlin 1993) and Hitlers
Schloss. Die 'Fiihrerresidenz'in Posen (Berlin 2003).