Posted on 06/08/2015 9:41:00 AM PDT by don-o
Albert Speer’s career is a microcosm of the decent (but philosophically agnostic) citizen living in an indecent (and ideologically fanatical) society. Speer served as Hitler’s chief architect, and during the Second World War was Germany’s minister of armaments.
As such, Speer was a leading technocrat in a totalitarian state. While 21st century America is a far cry from the death camp regime, totalitarian aspirations are no longer a fringe phenomenon.
Ideological despots are increasingly mainstream, and many individuals in power are bent on controlling the “totality” of national life. Their politicized morality is opposed to traditional beliefs, and it is growing more brazen and assertive.
So if we are to avoid the desperate choices that faced people like Speer, we should be aware of these trends before they become “inevitable,” as they did during Hitler’s seizure of power.
(Excerpt) Read more at theimaginativeconservative.org ...
Albert Speer, wasn’t really a Nazi ideologically, but that didn’t save him from doing 20 years in prison for serving them.
Two things that always stuck out for me:
Most Germans did not join the Nazi party. That didn’t stop them.
The German military never ran out of quality weapons and ammo even to the final days of the war. Even under great stress from collapsing fronts and massive bombing. A testimony to Speer.
Speer was quite the Nazi.
He was also smart enough to realize that people in the Western Democracy’s want desperately to find a “Good German” and was able to meld his story to fit.
First we will make the revolution and then we will find out what for. - Tom Hayden 1968 p.282
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ominous-Parallels-Freedom-America/dp/0452011175
Reminds me of “conservatives” who who want Americans to accept the “inevitability” of same sex”marriage”,surrender their principles, and even embrace the sodomite agenda. A pox upon such an attitude.
Only a very small fraction of people in any society have particularly strong ideological commitments, whether it's Nazism in 1930's Germany, Communism in Soviet Russia, or anything else. The vast majority just do what they need to do to function and advance in their society - paying lip service to the ideology, and carrying out whatever tasks are required of them to get by.
The notion that Germany was transformed almost overnight into a society of foaming at the mouth fanatics down to a man, all obsessed with killing Jews and other alleged racial inferiors is nonsense. Albert Speer is probably typical of most Germans from low-level functionaries, enlisted men, and workers up through the business, military, and even political elite.
The Nazi ideology was absolute obedience. Speer did not personally order any murders, he was careful to leave that to others.
Not to be confused with only a very small fraction of people that ends up in power. You don't suggest that only the people who have strong ideological commitments end up in power? In reading some of Martin Gilberts books I recognize that there is an evil propensity, down to a man. Evil doesn't recognize statistics.
Hatred to murder doesn’t require any sophisticated ideological commitment.
Speer was an enthusiastic Nazi until Germany started losing the war. I’d say he was at best a lesser evil.
Speer certainly did use slave labor (under orders, but he did) under grossly inhuman conditions. That cost him the twenty years in prison. There were two defendants at Nuremberg who denounced Hitler: Speer and Baldur von Schirach, the organizer of the Hitler Youth and governor of Vienna. The latter got his sentence for deporting 50,000 Jews from that town and he made the mistake of checking up on them afterward. When he stormed into Himmler’s office to demand what was happening to the Jews the latter was reportedly speechless that von Schirach didn’t know. They all knew. How could you not know?
Even among the leadership, there’s always a mix of fanatical true believers and opportunists who are along for the ride. Once a party or ideology is established, there are many more of the latter than the former. In Brezhnev’s Soviet Union, there probably weren’t very many people full of Leninist revolutionary zeal, just party pen-pushers and enforcers following orders/routines and greasing the wheels.
I have my doubts that anyone could rise that high in the Nazi party or the Third Reich—let alone get as close to Hitler personally as Speer did—without being ideologically committed. He also lied about his knowledge of the Holocaust, to save his skin
On the other hand, Hitler's enemies did apparently think he could be won over. And he was the most prominent Nazi to take responsibility for the actions of Hitler's regime.
Speer seemed to me to be a very complex character. I have his Inside the Third Reich, as well as Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and hope to read them both at some point in the fall.
I was talking to someone yesterday who was in the US Army and stationed in Germany when Speer was released from prison. He wrote Speer a letter and wound up getting to interview him. He just had a lot of interest in WWII and in the Nazis.
There people in the army who wanted Hitler gone like generals Beck, Halder and Stulpnagel. But by the time they decided to do something, it was too late.
Fine, the few and the many. Evil is there for both of them.
Speer did very well for himself, including being a regular VIP at the Eagle’s Nest, and the acquisition of a personal fortune, all based on his use of slave labor to build the Nazi war machine and its infrastructure. Any attempt to portray him as a decent man in a tough moral position and nothing more is a lie. If he were that noble, like Einstein and thousand of other decent humans, he could have left Germany.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.