Albert Speer
Page 13
As screenwriter Paul Schrader argued in defence of Taxi Driver, if writers stopped inventing criminals, ‘we would still have psychopaths, but we wouldn’t have art. We would still have Raskolnikovs but we wouldn’t have Crime and Punishment’. If Gitta Sereny hadn’t written her book about Albert Speer, his slave-workers would still have died, but we would be less able to understand why. For that reason alone, it seems to me worth taking the risk of putting his story on stage.
David Edgar
This is a revised version of an article published in The Observer, 30 April 2000
APPENDIX
Principal Characters
Below, Lt-Col Nicholas (Klaus) von Hitler’s adjutant 1937-45, and the man in Hitler’s HQ closest to Speer. He and his wife Maria remained Speer’s friends after Nuremberg. His memoirs were published in 1980.
Braun, Eva Hitler’s mistress from 1932 and, in the last days of their lives, his wife. A Bavarian girl of limited education, she was assistant to a photographer when Hitler met her. Hitler’s chauffeur said ‘She was the unhappiest woman in Germany. She spent most of her life waiting for Hitler’. Never allowed to appear in public with him, she was confined to his private life.
Casalis, Georges A former member of the French Resistance, he was chosen for the post of Spandau prison chaplain because he was Protestant, spoke German, and was a man of impeccable morality and exceptional humanity. He stayed at Spandau for the first three years. After doing his PhD and working for several years in Nicaragua, he became curator of the Calvin Museum in Noyon. He died in 1987.
Ganzenmüller, Theodor Young railway official, a protégé of Speer’s, and suggested by him to Hitler in 1942 for position as head of the railways. He and Speer worked closely on rail transport for armaments to the front. He was implicated in arrangements to transport Jews to Treblinka and though brought to court, declared unfit to plead on health grounds.
Hanke, Karl Secretary in Goebbels’ ministry and Speer’s patron. He offered Speer the job of redecorating his Grünewald villa. Hanke was Magda Goebbels’ lover, for whom she wanted to leave her husband. Goebbels threatened to take the children away and Hitler forbade him. Speer mediated. Hanke resigned and entered the army, leaving in 1941 to become Gauleiter of Lower Silesia.
Hess, Rudolf Deputy leader of the Nazi Party, he burned with religious fervour for his leader. Hitler: ‘With Hess every conversation becomes an unbearably tormenting strain. He always comes to me with unpleasant matters and won’t leave off’. He flew to Britain in May 1941 to persuade George VI to dismiss Churchill, make peace with Hitler and align with Germany against Russia. He was taken prisoner and remained in custody until the Nuremberg Trials. Sentenced to life, he lived to become Spandau’s last prisoner, and was found hanged there at the age of 93.
Himmler, Heinrich Reich Leader of the SS from 1929, head of all police from 1936, and in direct charge of the extermination programme. ‘Whether [Eastern] nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only insofar as we need them as slaves for our culture. Whether ten thousand Russian females drop from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch or not interests me only insofar as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is completed’. Arrested in May 1945, he took cyanide before he could be interrogated.
Kempf, Annemarie (formerly Wittenberg) A passionate young Nazi, she was recruited by Speer from Goebbels’ ‘Gauleitung’ at 17. Her husband Hans went missing in action in Russia, 1944. After Speer was sentenced she worked on a farm; later accepted a job in Bonn in order to campaign for his early release; spent the rest of her life caring for disturbed children, and remained Speer’s friend till his death.
Schaub, Julius Rose from Sergeant to SS General by 1945 without substantially changing his role as Hitler’s Personal Aide. Sent to the Berghof in April 1945 to burn Hitler’s private papers.
Tessenow, Heinrich Philosopher architect under whom Speer studied. Speer: ‘I admired – no, I worshipped him, but it never became a personal relationship in any way’. The only architect who refused to participate in the redesign of Berlin, he lost his chair at the Technische Hochschule, though due to Speer’s intervention kept a second chair at the Academy of Arts.
Todt, Fritz Head of construction for the Third Reich’s Four Year Plan. He joined the Nazi party in 1922 and rose to be an SS colonel. Appointed inspector general of the German road system in 1933. He served as Reich Minister for Munitions, 1940-42. As creator of the Autobahn system, he was ‘one of Germany’s most influential men’ and the world’s principal user of concrete. He died in a mysterious accident in February 1942 and was succeeded as Minister for Armaments by Albert Speer.
Wolters, Rudolf Speer’s associate and helper throughout his life. Like Speer, his father was an architect; they met as students in Munich. Speer recruited him as part of the team redesigning Berlin; he went with Speer to the Ministry of Armaments; during Speer’s imprisonment he remained his lifeline, taking charge of the family finances and processing the 25,000 letters he wrote from Spandau.
Apart from Speer and Hess, the other prisoners in Spandau were:
Dönitz, Karl Commander of the German navy from 1943 and nominated by Hitler to succeed him. After Hitler’s death, he became Head of State for seven days in May 1945. Sentenced at Nuremberg to 10 years’ imprisonment, he was released in 1956.
Funk, Walther The Third Reich’s minister of economics from 1937 to 1945. Appointed President of the Reichsbank in 1939. Arrested and tried as one of the 22 major war criminals at Nuremberg, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but released from Spandau on health grounds in 1957.
Neurath, Konstantin Freiherr von Made Foreign Minister in von Papen’s 1932 Cabinet and stayed on in Cabinet when Hitler became Chancellor. He was removed from the Ministry after protesting at Hitler’s plans for conquest. Sentenced to 15 years at Nuremberg but released in 1954 on health grounds.
Raeder, Admiral Erich Commander of the German navy from 1935 to 1943. When war came, his failure to stop the Allied convoys crossing the Atlantic infuriated Hitler, who forced his resignation and replaced him with Dönitz. Captured in Berlin in 1945, he was found guilty at Nuremberg and sentenced to life imprisonment. He appealed in vain for a death sentence, and was released in 1955.
Schirach, Baldur von Head of Hitler Youth from 1933 to 1940, and Gauleiter of Vienna from 1940 to 1945, Schirach escaped capture at the end of the war and hid in the Austrian Tyrol, posing as a novelist. He was arrested and charged mainly for his administration of foreign workers and his treatment of Jews in Vienna. He was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment.
Chronology of the Third Reich 1933–45
1933 National Socialist leader Adolf Hitler and former Chancellor von Papen agree on a coalition. President Hindenburg gives Hitler the Chancellorship. German parliament building burnt to the ground. Hitler is given emergency powers by presidential decree. Thousands put into camps by police and the SA (brownshirt stormtroopers). Dachau concentration camp opened. Enabling Law passed, giving special powers to the Chancellor (Hitler) for four years. Labour Unions dissolved. Law Against the Establishment of Parties makes Nazis the only legal party. All journalists registered and licensed to write. Hitler takes Germany out of the League of Nations. Speer meets Hitler for the first time.
1934 Night of the Long Knives. Hitler orders the killing of his enemies in the Nazi party. A law is issued legitimizing all the killings. Death of President Hindenburg. The office of President is abolished, Hitler supreme as Führer of the Third Reich.
1935 Treaty of Versailles disarmament clauses renounced by Hitler; universal conscription ordered. The first Nuremberg laws on Jews are announced in the official gazette. Further laws will be published each year. The Nazi swastika banner becomes the national flag. National Law of Citizenship: marriages between Aryans and Jews or Mischling (mixed race) forbidden.
1936 German troops re-enter the Rhineland. Span
ish Civil War begins. Germany triumphs at the Olympic Games in Berlin, though medals won by black Americans, including four gold to Jesse Owens, cause embarrassment to the Nazis. Mussolini announces anti-Communist Axis with Germany.
1937 Speer’s German pavilion faces the Soviet pavilion at the Paris World’s Fair.
1938 Hitler marches into Austria, which ceases to exist. All laws of Germany, including racial laws are made to apply to Austria. All Jewish wealth to be registered. At a meeting in Munich, British PM, Neville Chamberlain agrees with Hitler, Mussolini, and Daladier that the Sudetenland should be annexed by Germany. In ‘Crystal Night’ pogrom throughout Germany more than 7,000 Jewish shops are looted, hundreds of synagogues burnt down, and 20,000 Jews arrested. All Jews are expelled from schools. Compulsory ‘Aryanization’ of all Jewish shops and firms.
1939 Germany occupies Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia) as ‘Protectorates’. Confiscation of all Jewish valuables. Soviet-German non-aggression pact. German armies invade Poland and annexe Danzig. Britain and France declare war on Germany. Soviet Union invades Poland. Jews in Germany forbidden to be outdoors after 8pm in winter and 9pm in summer. Little military activity on the Western Front. Period of the ‘Sitzkrieg’ or phoney war.
1940 First deportation of Jews from Germany. German invasion of Denmark and Norway. German invasion of Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. ‘Fall of France’ surrender signed at Compiègne. Hitler visits Paris. Battle of Britain.
1941 Germany occupies Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece. Rudolf Hess flies to Britain on an unofficial peace mission ‘Barbarossa’: German invasion of Russia. Hitler issues the ‘Commissar Order’, legalising the killing of non-military Russians; no soldier who kills anyone in the specified categories can be held responsible. Gypsies and Jews are quickly added to the list. Millions of civilians, non-Jews as well as Jews, are killed. Göring orders Heydrich, chief of SS security police, to submit a draft for the achievement of the ‘final solution to the Jewish problem’. 1.5 million Jews shot in the conquered Russian territories. Yellow star compulsory for Jews in Germany. General deportation of German Jews begins. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. Germany declares war on USA. German troops falter 50 kilometres from Moscow, where the temperature falls below –40ºc.
1942 ‘United Nations’ conference in Washington: Britain, USA and Soviet Russia agree on no separate peace with Germany. Wannsee Conference formalises the ‘Final Solution’ (the extermination of the Jewish people). Death of Fritz Todt in an air accident. Speer succeeds him as Minister for Armaments. Hitler appoints a Commissioner General to organize the mass deportation of slave workers from the east. Over 3.5 million put to work in the first year. Deportation of 300,000 Jews from Warsaw ghetto, mostly to Treblinka, one of the four extermination camps. Mass gassings begin at Auschwitz. German troops enter Stalingrad. Germany now at its peak of conquered territory. Russian counter-attack at Stalingrad.
1943 Final surrender of Germans in Stalingrad. Germans and Italians surrender in North Africa. Soviet victory at Kursk. Germany now unable to wage offensive war in Russia. Mussolini overthrown and imprisoned in Italy. Allies land on Italian mainland; Italy surrenders. Italy declares war on Germany.
1944 Allies capture Rome. ‘D-Day’ Anglo-American landings in Normandy, France. Graf Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg tries and fails to assassinate Hitler. Paris retaken by Allies. Russians enter Rumania and Yugoslavia. 400,000 Hungarian Jews killed at Auschwitz, bringing total of gassings there to 1.2 million. Russians enter Hungary. Ardennes offensive – the last major German offensive action.
1945 Russians liberate Auschwitz. British cross Rhine to the north. Vienna taken by Russians. Anglo-American forces drive east. British liberate Bergen-Belsen. Berlin entered by first Soviet forces. Hitler commits suicide. Admiral Dönitz becomes Head of State for the last seven days of the Third Reich.
DAVID EDGAR
David Edgar was born into a theatre family and took up writing full time in 1972. In 1989, he founded Britain’s first graduate playwriting course, at the University of Birmingham, of which he was director for ten years. His stage adaptations include Albie Sachs’s Jail Diary, Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby (both for the Royal Shakespeare Company), Gitta Sereny’s biography of Albert Speer (National Theatre) and Julian Barnes’s Arthur & George (Birmingham Repertory Theatre), as well as a version of Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder (Chichester Festival Theatre). He has written two community plays for Dorchester: Entertaining Strangers and A Time to Keep (with Stephanie Dale). His original plays for the RSC include Destiny, Maydays, Pentecost, The Prisoner’s Dilemma and Written on the Heart. Other recent plays include Daughtersof the Revolution and Mothers Against (Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Playing with Fire (National Theatre) and Testing the Echo (Out of Joint). He is the author of How Plays Work.
A Nick Hern Book
Albert Speer, based on the book Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth by Gitta Sereny, first published in Great Britain as a paperback original in 2000 by Nick Hern Books Limited, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP
This ebook first published in 2016
Albert Speer copyright © David Edgar 2000
‘Afterword’ © David Edgar, 2000
‘Principal Characters’ and ‘Chronology of the Third Reich’
copyright © Royal National Theatre 2000, printed with permission
Front cover design: courtesy Michael Mayhew
Typeset by Country Setting, Kingsdown, Kent CT14 8ES
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 85459 485 3 (print edition)
ISBN 978 1 78001 704 4 (ebook edition)
David Edgar has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work
Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth by Gitta Sereny first published in Great Britain in 1995 by Macmillan, published in paperback by Picador in 1996
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