The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944–1945

121. John Toland, The Last 100 Days, London, 1965, pp. 73, 238–44, 478–81; Padfield, pp. 573–8; Weinberg, p. 818; Peter R. Black, Ernst Kaltenbrunner: Ideological Soldier of the Third Reich, Princeton, 1984, pp. 242–5; BA/MA, N574/19, NL Vietinghoff, ‘Kriegsende in Italien’, fos. 41–6.

122. For interesting speculation on Speer’s power ambitions at this juncture, see DRZW, 10/2 (Müller), pp. 74–84; and Müller’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 Dorpmüller.—DRZW, 10/2 (Müller), 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. März 1945’, in Kriegsende Deutschland, p. 163; and, for a different interpretation, DRZW, 10/2 (Müller), pp. 86–8. An extract from the memorandum was already published by Gregor Janssen, Das Ministerium Speer: Deutschlands Rüstung 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 Müller’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 Führer 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.