by David Edgar
FRITZ. Just charged for everything.
HILDE. Fritz! Papa.
SPEER. Hilde, my dearest. And Ulf . . .
MARGRET (gesturing to MARGRET JNR). Albert, your daughter.
SPEER. Margret.
MARGRET JNR. Papa.
SPEER. Still, so like my mother.
HANS. And like her mother, sir. I’m Hans Nissen.
SPEER. Of course, of course.
Shakes hands.
And where is little Annagret?
MARGRET JNR. She’s in bed, papa! Tomorrow.
SPEER (turning to ARNOLD). Of course, of course. Now, Fritz?
ARNOLD. No, Arnold, father.
Pause.
SPEER. Arnold.
ARNOLD. Yes.
SPEER. Ah, well. In jail, your mother sent me photographs I thought were Albert but turned to out to be me as a boy.
This rescues the moment. With a playful if not entirely convincing punch to the shoulder.
So – Arnold.
ARNOLD. Yes. Father, you look marvellous.
SPEER. Well, you’re the doctor. Fritz.
Shaking FRITZ’s hand.
How could I mistake the hell-raiser?
FRITZ. Hell-raiser?
MARGRET. You got drunk – once. I foolishly mentioned in a letter.
FRITZ. Right.
ERNST JNR. And by process of elimination . . .
SPEER. Ernst.
Shakes hands.
It should be easy when you’re standing. I marked your heights up on the wall. As through the years you grew – grew up from . . .
MARGRET (rescuing). Just grew up.
Slight pause.
ANNEMARIE. It’s hard to know what to say to someone who is locked away from you for twenty years.
SPEER realises it’s ANNEMARIE. During this ALBERT nods to the WAITRESSES, who bring drinks on trays.
SPEER. Frau . . . Annemarie.
ANNEMARIE. Albert.
SPEER. For twenty years, I have been just Number Five.
ANNEMARIE. For those who love you, you have never just been Number Five.
FIRST WAITRESS offering to SPEER.
FIRST WAITRESS. Herr Speer.
SPEER. Please, my wife.
FIRST WAITRESS gives a drink to MARGRET.
MARGRET. Thank you.
SECOND WAITRESS. A canapé?
SPEER. Aha! Paté de fois gras! I chose it because it’s the one thing everybody likes.
As the drinks and canapés are handed round, SPEER takes a canapé and bolts it in one. Then he takes another and does the same. ANNEMARIE notes this undelicate behaviour.
FRITZ (taking a drink). Well, I suppose, if I’m to live up to my reputation.
SPEER nods to ULF who surreptitiously produces a small jewellery case.
MARGRET JNR. Now, father, would you like to sit . . .
ALBERT. Should we move into the dining room –
SPEER. Now, I have a duty to perform, in relation to the most important person in the room.
A moment or two while people work out who that is. ULF gives SPEER the case.
FRITZ. Speech, speech.
SPEER. To thank her, on all your behalfs, for bringing you all up as she has. Which is all the speech she’ll get from me.
He hands the case to MARGRET.
MARGRET. Albert, how was this done?
MARGRET opens the case. It’s a gold watch.
MARGRET. Oh, Albert.
SPEER. It should be engraved.
ULF. It is engraved!
MARGRET (reads). ‘To his Libra, on his day of Liberation’. Albert.
MARGRET JNR. It’s beautiful.
ULF. Is it all right?
MARGRET. Of course it is.
ERNST JNR. But mum’s not libra. She’s a virgo.
Pause.
HILDE. Ernst.
HANS. I’m sure it’s right . . .
ERNST JNR. Eighth of September. Virgo.
SPEER. The . . . the eighth.
Pause. ARNOLD and ALBERT look at HILDE and ULF. HILDE: ‘Nothing to do with me’. ULF: ‘I did as instructed’.
MARGRET. Well, all I can say is that I am personally delighted that your father of all people can make a mistake with numbers.
Rescue successful.
And I feel that everyone should go through and enjoy what Fritz reminds us is a most expensive dinner.
HILDE. Yes.
The party proceeds to the table for dinner.
RUTH. What are your plans for the immediate future, Herr Speer?
SPEER. Well, I have many old acquaintances to renew. As Aunt Annemarie knows, my friend Rudi Wolters has promised me a Westphalian ham and a bottle of Johannisberger 37.
MARGRET. I think the places are all marked.
SPEER. It will be strange, we two old codgers meeting after all this time. He’s very fond of all the children.
HILDE. ‘Fond’ is an understatement!
Everyone is seated.
SPEER. Yes indeed. (To RUTH.) And then . . .
ALBERT taps his glass with a spoon, MARGRET shaking her head, but:
ALBERT. No, Mama, no speech. But just to raise a glass to welcome Father home. Having been kept from us for twenty years.
RUTH. Hear hear.
ARNOLD (raising his glass). Father!
THE OTHERS (variously). To Father. Papa. Albert. Herr Speer.
SPEER. Well, as is well known, I too am not one for making speeches. And so . . . the feast!
Atmosphere fully restored. EVERYONE starting to eat.
RUTH. ‘And then’?
SPEER. I’m sorry?
RUTH. You were talking of your plans.
SPEER. Oh yes. I intend to write my memoirs.
Sudden silence.
MARGRET. Memoirs.
SPEER. Yes. My life and deeds in Hitler’s Germany!
MARGRET. He told the press he was going to practise as an architect.
SPEER. Well, that was for the press. (To RUTH.) Since you raise . . . the matter of the future. (To MARGRET.) So what’s wrong?
MARGRET There’s nothing wrong.
SPEER. That is clearly not the case.
Agonising pause. MARGRET stands.
MARGRET. Excuse me, please . . . I’m sorry.
She hurries out.
SPEER. Uh . . .
ANNEMARIE. Oh, Albert.
ANNEMARIE stands and follows MARGRET out. Neither SPEER nor anybody else knows what to say. SPEER stands and goes into the other room. ALBERT makes to follow but HILDE goes instead.
HILDE. Papa, you must see how she feels.
Slight pause.
SPEER. Go on.
HILDE. After twenty years of watching us grow up, and building our own lives . . . For it to be . . . the only thing we’re known for. To have it all raked up again.
SPEER. ‘Raked up again’. I see.
Pause.
In fact, I’ve made you my literary executor.
HILDE. What? What about Uncle Rudi?
SPEER. I think it’s for the best.
Pause.
I am determined. I will write the book. I think I owe it to the world. And of course I had thought – or hoped, at least –you would support me.
MARGRET comes in, followed by ANNEMARIE.
MARGRET. Albert, I’m sorry. Please. Let’s go back into dinner.
SPEER. Yes. of course.
SPEER looks back at HILDE.
HILDE. Papa, of course you have my full support. In anything you do.
SPEER looks at HILDE. He turns back to MARGRET, who puts out her arm. SPEER goes and walks with his wife back into dinner. HILDE to ANNEMARIE:
Nevertheless . . .
2.2.3 Germany, late 1970s
ANNEMARIE out front:
ANNEMARIE. And of course the problem was: for him, it had never really been a real family. He hardly knew them in the war. And being locked away from them for twenty years . . . But it was also the family in which he had
grown up: his father stopping him pursuing the career he wanted to, his mother such a snob, having to wed in secret because they disapproved of Margret’s social class, the intolerable pressure over Ernst at Stalingrad . . .
And so how was he to know what it was like to be a real father? How could he understand they had their own lives and their own concerns? How could he know they wouldn’t – couldn’t – welcome him as he imagined, unconditionally, with open arms?
2.3.1 Germany, 1970
A publisher’s party, in the garden of their offices. Suddenly, the stage is flooded with PARTYGOERS: in addition to fashionable YOUNG PEOPLE in bright late-60s summer clothes (and even possibly some CHILDREN), they include Wolf-Jobst SIEDLER (Speer’s publisher), MARGRET Speer and Nicholas and Maria VON BELOW, and SPEER himself. A table piled high with copies of SPEER’s Reminiscences (Inside the Third Reich in English), with another table next to it for him to sign. A microphone on a stand.
Drinks and cocktail bits are taken round by staff in casual clothes. Everything is easy, informal, contemporary, assured . . . in marked contrast to the nervous stuffiness of the previous scene. SIEDLER moves immediately to make a speech.
SIEDLER. Ladies and gentlemen . . .
As always, the volume is wrong but it is quickly and effectively sorted.
Ladies and gentlemen, a moment, your attention. Ullstein is . . . well, moderately proud to welcome almost all of you to its summer party. And of course our guest of honour.
Smattering of applause.
As many people know, particularly in the accounts department, his reminiscences were intended to be a modest success with a long shelf-life in a slow-burn market. I think it is fair to say we failed in this.
Laughter.
We did not intend to sell half a million hardback copies, nor the serial rights to Die Welt for 600,000 marks, nor to clean up Europe and then north America in paperback. Through all of this, I’ve asked myself, how could this thing have gone so wrong?
Laughter.
Clearly we underestimated our new author.
Applause.
And also the importance of his mission, which was to speak, now, a quarter of a century on, not to his own generation but the new generation of young democratic Germans, neither traumatised by guilt nor tortured by denial. To the generation of his children.
He looks around.
Necessarily but bravely honest about that tragic period and his role in it. Herr Albert Speer.
SPEER comes to the microphone.
SPEER. Well, I am not one for making speeches.
The usual laughter and calls of ‘shame’ and ‘go on’.
And although there is a perfectly good story illustrating this . . . I am advised by Herr Siedler to point out that you may read it on page 217.
Laughter.
All I will say is to thank Herr Sidler for all his efforts with I fear an often recalcitrant new author. Thank you.
Applause. SIEDLER back to the microphone a moment.
SIEDLER. And I believe Herr Speer – who is not recalcitrant at all, will sign copies which we happen by coincidence to have available for purchase here this very afternoon.
The formality breaks. SPEER is escorted by a YOUNG WOMAN to his table. MARGRET meets the VON BELOWS.
MARGRET. Well, Klaus. How good of you to come.
VON BELOW. Margret.
MARGRET (kissing FRAU VON BELOW). Maria.
SIEDLER working his way over.
VON BELOW. He’s looking marvellous.
FRAU VON BELOW. You both are.
MARGRET. He’ll be delighted that you’re here. He speaks so warmly of the help you gave him with the book.
VON BELOW (demurring). Well . . .
MARGRET. Help that I fear I was unable . . .
FRAU VON BELOW. Well, of course, it all looks different in retrospect. I mean, those evenings at the Berghof with the Chief were not quite so boring at the time.
SIEDLER arrives.
SIEDLER. Klaus, Frau von Below, I’m so pleased you could come. It’s my aim to persuade your husband to follow in Herr Speer’s footsteps.
FRAU VON BELOW. Really?
SIEDLER. Please, let me introduce you to our chairman.
SIEDLER moves off with the VON BELOWS, leaving MARGRET standing for a moment alone. Meanwhile, SPEER is signing books. His current customer we will know later as MRS WINTERINGHAM.
SPEER. Who shall I write it to?
MRS WINTERINGHAM. To Trudi.
SPEER. Ah.
He signs, hands the book over.
MRS WINTERINGHAM. Thank you, Herr Speer.
SPEER takes the book from the next in line.
SPEER. Thank you. How would you like this signed?
WOLTERS. Oh, I think, ‘to Rudi’ would be fine, don’t you?
SPEER looks up.
SPEER. Rudi. You’re here.
WOLTERS. Well, you know what they say, about Mohammed and the Mountain.
SIEDLER arrives.
SIEDLER. Now, I hope we’re not exploiting you too grossly . . .
SPEER. Herr Siedler, this is Rudolf Wolters.
SIEDLER. Ah. ‘My friend’.
WOLTERS. And erstwhile literary executor.
Slight pause.
SIEDLER. Um . . .
WOLTERS. Albert I need a word with you.
SPEER looks at SIEDLER.
SIEDLER. Of course.
To the queue.
A moment, and Herr Speer will return.
He leads SPEER and WOLTERS to the building.
2.4.1 Germany, 1970
Continuous: a room inside the publisher’s building. SIEDLER leaves SPEER and WOLTERS.
WOLTERS. Well, congratulations Herr Reichsminister.
SPEER. Rudi, it’s good to see you.
WOLTERS. Thank God you didn’t say ‘Long time no see’.
SPEER. Why not?
WOLTERS. It’s what you said when you got out.
SPEER. Did I really? Well, it hasn’t been so long this time.
WOLTERS. It has been long enough.
SPEER. Now look.
A young MALE PUBLISHER enters with a tray: full glasses of champagne, a bottle and a plate of bits.
MALE PUBLISHER. Herr Siedler thought you might like something before it all goes.
SPEER. Thank you, yes.
MALE PUBLISHER (picking up the edgy atmosphere). You were . . . it was champagne . . . ?
WOLTERS. It was champagne.
The PUBLISHER goes out. SPEER hands WOLTERS a glass.
Well . . . to two old codgers and their memories.
They drink.
WOLTERS. From one old codger and his royalties.
Pause.
Of which I’m sure the vast proportion have been properly donated to the best of causes. It would never do for the great post-Nazi rent-a-penitent to profit from his crimes. Having resolved to walk into his dotage in a hairshirt, renouncing all the vanities and luxuries of life for locusts and wild honey.
SPEER (gesturing to the feast). So, a locust? or another spoonful of wild honey?
WOLTERS. Well, precisely.
SPEER. So is this why you came to see me? To draw my attention to this contradiction?
WOLTERS. No, of course not.
SPEER. Rudi, I didn’t mention you because I thought it would be best. As an architect practising in the current atmosphere.
WOLTERS. You think I didn’t like your wretched book because I wasn’t in it?
Enter a young FEMALE PUBLISHER.
SPEER. If not, I apologise for the suggestion.
FEMALE PUBLISHER. Ah, Herr Speer, I’ve found you.
SPEER. Yes, I am having what is obviously a private conversation –
FEMALE PUBLISHER. There is . . . I have to tell you . . . there’s a lot of people waiting for your signature –
SPEER (sharply). But still a moment if you please!
Slight pause.
FEMALE PUBLISHER (put out by being snapped
at). Of course.
She turns and goes. SPEER to WOLTERS.
WOLTERS. Oh, don’t worry. I’m not the first thing to be rubbed out of your past. And I doubt I’ll be the last.
SPEER. I have said, I’m sorry.
WOLTERS. Though you were right in one respect. The reign of terror’s hotting up again.
SPEER. The reign of terror?
WOLTERS. Having run out of all the various butchers of wherever, moving on to the so-called ‘perpetrators from the desk’.
SPEER. Yes?
WOLTERS. Which is why I came to see you.
SPEER. Oh?
WOLTERS. The Chronicle.
SPEER. Yes, you wrote to me. I wrote back. There’s a problem?
WOLTERS. Describe the situation as you see it.
SPEER (slightly offended). Rudi.
WOLTERS. All right. From 1940 I kept a chronicle of your activities. Of which there were four copies. Three are lost, the fourth I bury in my garden. In 1964 I dig it up, have it retyped, and two years later I hand this retyped version on to you. And like the splendid citizen you are you hand it over to the Federal Archives in Koblenz.
SPEER. Yes.
WOLTERS. However there is a British writer called David Irving who finds another copy –
SPEER. – who thinks that Hitler is a man much misunderstood . . .
WOLTERS. – who points out that Hitler was an ordinary, walking, talking human being with grey hair, false teeth and an obsession with his bowels. As opposed that is to either Superman or Lucifer Incarnate.
SPEER. And he comes across another copy of the original. In some library?
WOLTERS. The Imperial War Museum . . .
SPEER. . . . and compares it to the retyped version in Koblenz . . .
WOLTERS. . . . and finds they’re not the same. Because your old friend Rudi has been through the original, correcting style and grammar, and deleting one or two things that he felt were irrelevant or repetitive or just plain silly . . .
SPEER. Which is all understandable enough, hence my proposal that we send Koblenz our original, which if anybody wants to plough through they’re quite welcome. After all, Irving has presumably ploughed through it all already.
WOLTERS. I see. You think that Irving read it all.
SPEER. I understand he’s more than diligent.
WOLTERS. The London copy’s incomplete. It’s only 1943.
SPEER. So he gets to catch up on the rest in Germany. Rudi, I really don’t see the problem.
WOLTERS. The problem isn’t 1943. The problem’s 1941.