Speer at Glucksburg, the Night Before His Arrest

Manni helped Speer back to his room. Speer sat down on his bed while Manni rummaged through a dresser and found a pair of pajamas for him. “Do you need help getting into them?” he asked.

Speer shook his head. “Sit down, Loerber. Let’s have a last drink,” he said pointing to a nearby chair. Manni sat down while Speer brought out a bottle of schnapps and two glasses from a bedside table. He poured some into each glass and handed one to Manni. He raised his glass to Manni. Manni did the same to him.

“Happy Days,” said Manni.

“Happy Days,” answered Speer.

They drank. Manni drained his glass and set it down. Speer held on to his almost-empty glass and looked hard at Manni. “Am I a fool, Loerber?” he asked.

“Herr Reichsminister?” asked Manni.

“I mean it, Loerber. Tell me the truth. Do you think I am a fool?”

Sitting in his chair, Manni brought himself respectfully to attention. “Yes, Herr Reichsminister, I do think you are a fool.”

“Please tell me why?”

"Herr Reichsminister, is there any point?”

“Just tell me the truth.”

“Because you expect the whole world to see it your way,” said Manni. “You think that all you have to do is explain it to them, factually, in a helpful, reasonable voice, and the world will lose track of what you’ve done. Because you act candid, you assume they’ll accept your explanation that all you were was just a talented technocrat doing his job, no different from all the other people just like you who are doing the same thing all over the world. You think your reason and your irony is enough to keep the shit from touching you when the fact is you’re already up to your ears in it.”

Manni thought for a second, then added, “But beyond that, of course, I think you’re a great guy to work for.”

“And that’s why you’re still here?” Speer asked.

“That’s right.”

“You’re a spy, aren’t you?” said Speer.

Manni Loerber smiled like he’d just been paid a compliment. “And when did you come to that conclusion?” he asked.

Speer slowly shook his head. “In the Ruhr,” he said.

“You knew back in March and you haven’t done anything about it until now? I feel good about that.”

“You are a spy,” said Speer again. “Who are you working for?”

Manni answered proudly. “Herr Reichsminister, it was my honor to serve His Majesty, the King of England.”

Speer didn’t say anything for a while. Then he quietly muttered, “I guess I ought to be relieved it wasn’t the Russians.”

“Well I wouldn’t be too relieved,” said Manni. “It is my unfortunate understanding that all the best information got siphoned off by Soviet counter-spies and sent to Moscow.”

Speer thought about it. “Either way, Germany died.”

“I gather the Allied prognosis was that it was necessary to kill Germany in order to save it,” answered Manni.

“And your prognosis, Herr Loerber?”

“I don’t have one,” answered Manni. “I’m just glad it’s over.”

Speer smiled bitterly. “And I thought you were my friend. You betrayed me.”

Manni shook his head. “No Herr Reichsminister, it wasn’t betrayal.”

“It wasn’t? What was it?”

“It was serving two masters, Herr Reichsminister. And if I hadn’t served you well, we might have had this conversation sooner.”

Speer looked away, fuming with anger and humiliation.

Manni remained standing at attention. “Do you know what this is now?” he asked. “Herr Reichsminister, it is the end of the line. We are at the moment before the axe comes down. I heartily recommend you get some sleep. If you get up early enough, maybe you’ll get to eat breakfast before they come for you.”

Speer looked back up at Manni. “So what did the British pay you?” he asked bitterly.

“Thirty pieces of silver, what do you think? Listen, I’m a Jew, I’d have done it for free.”

“Suddenly everyone’s a Jew,” said Speer.

“I’m sorry,” offered Manni.

“Don’t be,” said Speer. “I’m sure I’m going to hell anyway.”

“Goodnight, Herr Reichsminister.” Manni turned to leave.

“So you’re a Jew?” asked Speer.

Facing Speer again, Manni smiled and gave a curt bow.

Speer shook his head angrily.

“If it’s any consolation, Herr Reichsminister, you almost succeeded in killing us off,” said Manni.

“So that’s what it is now?” said Speer. “You’re blaming me for that? You know I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Please, Herr Reichsminister,” said Manni. “Welcome to the rest of your life.”

“So what will become of me?” asked Speer.

“I don’t know,” said Manni. “I doubt they even know what they’re going to do. Ultimately these things tend to take on a life of their own.”

“Unless of course they just decide to kill me on the spot,” suggested Speer.

“That is always a possibility,” accepted Manni. “I don’t know anything other than it’s the Kibosh.”

“Kibosh?” asked Speer.

“It’s one of those American words,” said Manni.

“Ah,” said Speer.

“So what will become of you, Loerber?” asked Speer. “Will you go to London?”

Manni let out a short laugh. “I hope not,” he said. “I’d like to return to Berlin.”

“There’s not a lot there, you know,” Speer pointed out.

“Oh, I know,” answered Manni. “I’m not in that big a hurry. I’ve still got lots of friends in Hamburg. Some of them must be alive. I’m sure I’ll find something there.”

“So you’ve got it all figured,” said Speer.

“Only for the next day or so,” said Manni.

“I guess I should sleep,” said Speer.

“You’ll thank me in the morning, Herr Reichsminister.”

“I’m sure I won’t,” said Speer. “Do something for me, will you?”

“What?”

“There’s some reports on my desk on the left-hand pile. Bring them to Galbraith. I’d like him to see them. Do this for me, Loerber.”
(Another chapter left out of the published version of Germania, Simon & Schuster, 2008; Kindle copy available here).

George Ball, Paul Nitze, and John Kenneth Galbraith Drink Coffee on the Final Morning of the Third Reich

Back when I was originally researching Germania, I was able to get an interview with Paul Nitze, one of the greatest defense and foreign policy experts of the Postwar era, who had also been part of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey team that had gone to Flensburg in order to interview Albert Speer.  Nitze was very gracious and helpful and in the course of the two hours I spent talking with him, told many interesting and funny stories about their time at Flensburg and what it was like dealing with Speer.  The following excerpt, which did not make it into the final version of Germania, is based on what Nitze told me about the morning of the "Kibosh," when Speer, Doenitz and the rest of the Flensburg government were all finally arrested.

Barely five hours had passed since they’d come back from Schloss Glucksburg, when George Ball woke up in his bunk aboard the Patria. Seeing the bright morning sunlight eagerly streaming in through the tiny cabin’s lone porthole, he decided to get up. He thought how nice it would be to have coffee outside. He got dressed and then pulled out the Aladdin thermos flask his wife had given him from his bag and hurried to the officers’ mess to see if they’d fill it for him.

On the way he ran into Sergeant Fassberg. “What’s on the schedule for today, sergeant?”

“Nothing much,” Fassberg answered. “Apparently everyone else is still asleep.”

Hearing this, Ball held up his empty thermos and said, “I’m going topside for coffee. How about joining me?” He knew he shouldn’t be asking since, technically, he was an officer and they weren’t supposed to fraternize with noncoms. But being that his rank was largely administrative and with the war now over, he figured it was all bullshit anyway. Fassberg agreed it was an excellent idea. Ball went to the officers’ mess, got the thermos filled, filched two mugs, and with that, he and Fassberg made their way topside. But when they reached the entrance to the top deck, a British MP held up his gloved hand and turned them away.

“What’s going on?” asked Fassberg, perplexed.

“General Rook’s orders,” the MP told them. “He wants the deck cleared. The Nazi Admiral is coming.”

“Doenitz?” asked Ball.

“The new Hitler,” shrugged the MP. “I don’t know his name.” Then, to cover his bases, he guiltily added, “sir.”

“You know, we could always go ashore,” suggested Fassberg. “Have our coffee on the dock. I wouldn’t mind that.”

“Good idea,” said Ball.

Heading toward the gangway, they ran into Major Spivak. He looked worried. “Anyone seen Loerber? He hasn’t shown up yet.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, sir,” said Fassberg. “You know what he’s like. He’s probably got a bag on up at the castle.”

But Spivak was unconvinced. “I don’t like it,” he said nervously. “Being as much of a Kraut as he is, he could get into trouble with the MPs. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Kibosh is on.”

“It is?”

“I got it from on high.”

“Well I guess that explains that,” said Ball, thinking about what the MP told them.

“Listen,” said Spivak. “I’m going to take the jeep back up to the castle and make sure nothing has happened. Tell Galbraith when you see him.”

Out on the quay, Ball and Fassberg looked around until they found a low wall they could sit on. Ball poured the coffee and handed one of the steaming mugs to Fassberg.

“So today it all gets rolled up, hey?” said Fassberg. “About time, I’d say.”

“Amen to that,” said Ball.

“I mean this place has really become a joke.”

“Comic opera, I’d say,” agreed Ball.

It looked like any May morning in Flensburg. A flock of seagulls floated complacently on the oily waves, while further out in the harbor, the vast disarray of unmanned destroyers, minesweepers, gunboats and small craft bobbed discordantly from their tethers and chains.

“I don’t think any of them actually realize the jig is up,” said Fassberg. “I mean can you believe Speer?”

“Crafty little bastard,” said Ball. “I have to admit, there were times I forgot what I was dealing with.”

“Dirty Nazi rat,” spat Fassberg. “Where does he ever get the idea that he’d have a place running the post-war world? He’s nuts, right?”

Ball laughed. “It’s hard for some people to accept that the world will go on without them.”

A line of turreted, four-wheeled armored scout cars broke the morning’s peace as they motored noisily down the quay, causing the seagulls in the water to arch their necks, irritably flap their wings and fly away.

“But it really is a beautiful morning,” observed Fassberg. “A perfect day for all this shit to end.”

First published in 2008 by Simon & Schuster, Germania is now also available on Kindle here.

Admiral von Friedeburg Give His Final Salute, Takes His Leave

They drove down to the waterfront. There, on the quay beside the Patria, groups of people had gathered, talking nervously among themselves, like they knew they were about to witness something historical. There they found Galbraith and several of the others standing together in boisterous mood. When Manni approached them, they all seemed taken aback to see him there.

“Minister Speer thought you would like to have these reports,” said Manni, feeling a little ridiculous. But then he realized Galbraith was also embarrassed. Manni, like Speer, was from yesterday, an inconvenient reminder of something that wasn’t supposed to spill over into the present. Manni sensed his unease and imagined he probably felt like a swain that had been tracked down by the chambermaid of a lady whom he’d assiduously courted for what turned out to be only a brief dalliance.

Choosing to accept with aplomb the unpleasant role which had been accorded him, Manni gravely held out the reports to Galbraith like it was his bastard child. The effect must have worked, for Galbraith visibly froze with trepidation and reticence. Then, casting his eyes down in mock shame, Manni offered the unloved documents to Nitze. Please sir, his eyes seemed to be saying, give them a good home!

Nitze took the papers and began browsing through the titles. “Hey, this is some good stuff,” he declared. “An appreciation of the effect of bombing on the manufacture of specialty steels, Experience of the Vegesak shipyard in streamlining manufacturing processes for the Type XXI U-boats. Hey, look, here’s one on plans to destroy the Soviet Electrical Grid."

"You take care of it then,” Galbraith sniffed without interest.

“Gosh, a month ago this stuff would have been worth several times its weight in gold,” observed Nitze. “Now it’s just historical ephemera. Jesus, how the worm turns. Thanks. Say, where’s your brother Sebastian? We’ve been looking for him.”

“I don’t know,” said Manni. “He seems to have gone off on his own.”

Nitze laughed. “That guy can put a tomcat to shame!”

Manni laughed too, but it had a hollow sound. He looked at all the bustle. “What is going on here,” he asked.

“It’s the Kibosh, my friend,” said Ball. “The last of the Third Reich is finally being dissolved.”

“Oh,” said Manni, like he wasn’t entirely sure what it entailed. “I guess it took this long for the paperwork to catch up.”

George Ball laughed, Galbraith gave him an icy glance like he should feel free to leave. Nitze continued going through the reports, smacking his lips with delight as he did.

“We’ll tell your brother you were looking for him,” said Spivak pointedly.

Then Manni spotted Ziggy standing alone at the gangway, like a wallflower at an orgy. He excused himself to the Americans and went over.

“Hello, Ziggy,” he said.

“Hello,” said Ziggy.

“Seen anything of Franzi?”

“No.”


“Here comes somebody,” shouted someone in the crowd, “an admiral. Is it Doenitz?”

“I can’t tell,” answered someone else. “Ask him,” he said, pointing to Ziggy.

“Scuze me,” the man said. “Is that Admiral Doenitz up there?”

Ziggy looked up. It was an admiral coming down the gangway, escorted by a gruff-looking British soldier. But not Doenitz. Tall, not short, his posture stooped, his eyes defeated and lifeless, coming down the gangway with the heavy-footed shuffle of a man on his way to the gallows. It was von Friedeburg.

Reaching the bottom he stopped and turned to Ziggy. He spoke to him like each word was an effort. “Well Captain Loerber, I suppose this is the end. I want to thank you for your service and your comradeship. When you see the Grand Admiral, will you give him a message for me. Tell him this, ‘Admiral von Friedeburg, having fulfilled his duty to the last full measure, is taking his leave.’ Do you have it?”

Ziggy stared hard into von Friedeburg’s glassy eyes. “I will give him the message,” he said. “Goodbye Admiral.”

They saluted. Von Friedeburg turned and went with his guard over to a waiting truck. As the driver and the guard brought down the truck’s back gate, they looked up to see a large group of U-boat men being led down the quayside under British guard.

They were marching and as they approached von Friedeburg, they snapped into a salute and began singing defiantly. It was We are Sailing Against England, a song from the old days, when the future still looked bright, and their enemies’ days numbered.

“Heute wollen wir ein Liedlein singen, 
Trinken wollen wir den kuhlen 
Wein Und die glaser sollen dazu klingen 
Den es muss, es mus geschieden sein”

“The nerve!” fumed Fassberg. “I think somebody needs to remind these birds they’ve lost.”

“Fucken’ Krauts!” yelled someone else.

Gib’ mir deine Hand, 
deine weisse Hand Leb’ wohl, 
leib wohl Denn wir fahren, 
denn wir fahren, 
Denn wir fahren gegen Engeland, Engeland.

Ziggy watched von Friedeburg. His eyes were on the ground and he seemed too wrapped up in his own thoughts to notice them marching by. Ziggy snapped to attention and returned the passing men’s salute. “Admiral!” he shouted.

Unsre Flagge und die wehet auf dem Maste, 
Sie verkundet unsres Reiches Macht, 
Denn wir wollen es nicht langer leiden, 
Dass der Englsihmann daruber lacht.

“Admiral!” Ziggy shouted again, louder than before. Von Friedeburg looked up and came to attention and brought his right hand up sharply to his brow. The British guard grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him up onto the truck.

The marching sailors had passed, but they continued to sing the final refrain.

Gib’ mir deine Hand, 
deine weisse Hand Leb’ wohl, 
leib wohl Denn wir fahren,
denn wir fahren, 
Denn wir fahren gegen Engeland, Engeland.

"What happened to Franzi? Where is he?” Manni asked Ziggy.

“I don’t see anything,” answered Ziggy. “Give me a minute."

“Here comes another one,” someone in the crowd shouted.

“Which one is it?”

“An army guy.”

“It’s General Jodl.”

“Yeah? Ooo’s ‘ee when ‘ee’s ‘ome?”

“Head of the OKW operations staff.”

“Well he looks like an imbecile.”

“Imagine him leading anyone in battle?”

“I can’t imagine any of them leading anyone in battle.”

“Here comes Doenitz!”

“Jesus, I’m starting to feel like a bobbysoxer waiting to see Sinatra.”

“He’s so dreamy!”

“He looks like a pinhead.”

“Yeah? Well so does Montgomery.”

“So does Eisenhower.”

“So does Churchill.”

“So does Truman.”

“Well, Doenitz looks like a bigger pinhead than all of them.”

“That’s for sure!” Both the British and American elements of the crowd could agree on that.

“Honestly, who’d have thought that after spending all these years fighting the Nazis, they’d turn out to be just a bunch of jerks!”

Ziggy watched Doenitz being led off. God knows what fate awaited him. Maybe they’d hang him, maybe he’d just spend the next ten years in jail. Either way, Ziggy found it hard to care. This was a good day for Germany, he grimly told himself. The regime which had led them into the depths of barbarity was being expunged from the face of the earth.

He thought about his life as a U-boatman, his years at sea and the war which he shouldn’t have survived. He saw the image of himself standing on the deck of a ship staring out into the endless expanse of cold gray sea and suddenly it all felt like somebody else’s life.

But something about it didn’t feel right. He closed his eyes and let the image wash over him the way a memory could not. And he realized that image was not himself at all. It was Franzi, standing on the deck of a trawler which was only then clearing the Kattegat and making its way into the open waters of the North Sea. He couldn’t tell if he was happy. But he knew he wasn’t worried. At least not the way he’d been for the last ten years. He was with friends, friends, just like Sebastian had talked about.

The vision faded. Ziggy turned to Manni. “Don’t worry about Franzi,” he said. “He’s doing all right.”

Manni brightened. “Really?” he asked.

“Really.”

(This is a chapter left out of the final cut of my novel Germania, first published by Simon & Schuster in 2008, now also available on Kindle here).

Speer Tells the Americans Everything About Ball Bearings, but Won't Talk About Jews

By now, Albert Speer's fortnight-long discussions with the bankers-, economists-, and Wall Street lawyers-in-uniform who made up the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) have become the stuff of legend to a certain kind of World War II history buff. It has even found mention in a song by The Who. It is certainly one of the things that stoked my interest in the Flensburg period.  Below is excerpt that got cut from the final version of my novel, Germania.  I think the editor thought it was too technical to hold the attention of  hipsters and people who live in Olympia, Washington. But I wrote about it the way I did, because I still believe that if you can't grasp the importance of things like ball bearings and abrasives and oil baths, then you'll never understand how the fate of humanity sometimes hinges on seemingly inconsequential things.

Enjoy!


Speer decided to change the subject. “One thing I should mention, regarding ball bearings, is that, yes, there were times when for one reason or another we experienced some short-term shortages. During those times, yes, we were forced to turn to outside, foreign sources for ball bearings.”

Paul Nitze frowned. “Other sources? You mean Sweden?” he asked.

Speer gave a nod. “Yes,” he said, “from Sweden. But also from other sources.” He raised his eyebrows and gave a world-weary shrug. “I’m sure you know what I mean.”

Still frowning, Paul Nitze shook his head. “No. What do you mean?”

“From all those trading companies in South America and Spain that got them from American subsidiaries,” answered Speer.

“You’re saying you got American ball-bearings?”

“Of course. We also bought Canadian ball bearings and ones from Britain as well. There was a brisk trade in them through Ireland.”

After that they broke for lunch.

When they resumed, the discussion turned from the effects of aerial bombing, to a topic which seemed to fascinate everybody both in and outside of Germany: the wonder weapons.

“I’ll be honest with you,” began Speer. “They may have had great propaganda value, but personally, I never believed in them. My experience in other fields taught me that whenever you pioneer radical new technologies, you are going to have too many unexpected problems and at that time, our margin for error was not one that would allow for it. Of course we did it anyway. But very few ever reached completion. And when they did get produced we had neither the fuel for them nor the trained personnel capable of operating them.”

“The V-2 rocket is an interesting case in point. By all indications it was an incredible weapon. It went several times faster than the speed of sound, traveling into to the very realm of outer space. And its effect on the British public was possibly even too great to quantify. But when you look at the costs and the resources involved in bringing it to production, you have a different story.”

“We estimated that building a V-2 rocket cost approximately as much as it cost you Americans to build a B-17 bomber. On the face of it, it is a meaningless comparison, of course, since it was something you could afford and we could not. But be that as it may, it does nevertheless allow us to make a number of important observations.”

“Both cost the same to build and the V-2 missile’s one-ton warhead is roughly equal to a B-17’s bomb load. However the V-2 can only be used once, while the B-17 will keep flying until it is shot down. We estimated that on average a B-17 will complete seventeen missions before this happens.”

“Nineteen and a half,” corrected George Ball.

“Be that as it may, the V-2 will only fly once. Though I am sure the B-17’s vaunted Norden bombsite was never quite able to land a bomb inside a pickle barrel as had often been claimed, under the right conditions, if used properly, it successfully put bombs onto a factory or some other designated target. The V-2’s accuracy was so poor it could not be directed against any specific strategic target. At best it could be sent to hit a city or some other broadly defined area, and even then it stood a fifty percent chance of falling outside a thirty-mile circular area probability. Ultimately it was nothing more than a terror weapon.”

“But it was quite a terror weapon,” interjected Paul Nitze. “If anything came close to breaking the English will, it was that.”

“I’ll give you another example,” said Speer. “We had something called the ‘Volksjaeger,’ or ‘People’s Fighter.’ It was a rather ingenious little jet-powered aircraft that was built almost wholly from plywood and other non-strategic materials. One day someone came up with the design, literally on a paper napkin. We talked about it, drew it up, started a program, and one hundred days later we had one built and actually flying. After that we started building them in underground factories in the Harz Mountains. We even had a program set up to train Hitler Youth to fly them. I think the first unit became operational about three weeks ago. If they ever managed to do anything with them, I haven’t heard, but I doubt it was much.”

“It was an incredible achievement, but ultimately it was a complete waste of resources which we could not afford to squander. We would have been better off using our talents on something more prosaic, but useful. But of course, the Fuhrer liked that sort of outlandish thing. It captured his imagination and it allowed him to talk about the kind of visionary weapons that would restore our qualitative advantage and bring us to victory.” He gave a disgusted grimace. “A complete waste.”

“I guess that was lucky for us,” the young Air Force officer said joylessly.

Everyone nodded, including Speer. At that moment he suddenly remembered the other young officer who’d come with them that first time, the one who looked exactly like Manni Loerber. He’d never returned. But then, neither did Manni. He wondered if they’d found each other. 
(Germania was first published by Simon & Schuster in 2008, and is now also available on Kindle here)

Albert Speer and the Americans: End of a Very Short Love Affair

When it was all over and the Americans began to leave, Speer didn’t bother getting up from the couch. Those who tried to say thank you or goodnight found him sullen and cold. But then the magic spell had been broken and he was no longer Albert Speer, colleague, but Albert Speer, war criminal.

It wasn’t supposed to have ended like this, Speer told himself bitterly as he poured the last of the whiskey into his glass. This should have been the day the Americans offered him the job of overseeing Germany’s reconstruction.

And it had all started out so promisingly. The daily government meeting had finally ended and Speer had driven back to the Schloss. There, to his enormous relief, he found Galbraith and the others still waiting in the courtyard, guarded by the dozen-odd troops of Speer’s security detachment.

“I’m very sorry to have kept you gentlemen waiting,” he told them. “But the Grand Admiral insisted.” But rather than acting annoyed at the delay, the Americans clamored to hear details of what a real Nazi cabinet meeting was like. “Oh, it’s all like second-rate Warner Brothers,” joked Speer. They all laughed.

They’d brought two large bottles of Haig&Haig whiskey, an even-more flagrant violation of the anti-fraternization rules than anything they’d done previously. “I hope you’re in a mood to answer a lot of questions today,” said Ken Galbraith.

“I’m sure I cannot think of a more pleasant way to spend a May afternoon,” smiled Speer graciously. He led them back upstairs to one of his favorite salons and he opened one of the glass cabinets and broke out some glasses and passed them around. The University of Bombing was back in session.

“All right, who wants the first question?” asked George Ball after everyone had settled in with their drinks.

For the first hour or so, it went on its usual way, with questions about ball bearings and hydrogenation works and alloy steels. But the way their questioning lacked any real direction only fuelled Speer’s suspicion that today, perhaps, they might have something quite different in mind that they wanted him to talk about. He even got the feeling that perhaps they were just looking for the right moment when they could pop the big question to him: Professor Speer, we’ve been communicating with some people we know back in Washington and they share our enthusiasm for what you’ve managed to accomplish and they think, as we think, that you’re the best person to oversee the postwar reconstruction of German industry, no, Germany!, no, all of Western Europe!

Finally, just as he expected, they dropped the technical questions altogether. “Please,” one of them said, obviously speaking for everyone, “tell us what it had been like in the bunker.” Hearing it, Speer had to smile. It hadn’t even been a month, but already the bunker had reached mythic stature.

He obliged them with his best, most telling stories. He told them about Hitler directing non-existent divisions against the Red Army, and the situation conferences where factual information never entered the agenda. He described the endless cocktail party with its bourgeois niceties, and how even at the last hour, Hitler’s primary concern was playing his few remaining followers off against each other.

He told them about Goering; his flamboyant dress and rouged cheeks and how he had lions wandering about his palace. He told them about Rosenberg with his unfathomable theories of race, and how Ley, the perpetually drunk Labor Front chief, had once come to Speer with blueprints for a “death ray,” which, it turned out, required parts that hadn’t been in production in sixty years; or how Ribbentrop the foreign minister had laid down on Hitler’s threshold until the Fuhrer finally agreed to see him. Then of course, there were Hitler’s two military chiefs, Keitel and Jodl, who refused to visit the Russian front, until finally, the front came to visit them.

He kept talking and they listened on with such rapt attention that it almost puzzled him how much appetite they had for gossip and stories of bizarre personalities. But then, he thought, so much the better for me when the time comes for me to state my case, and high time he did.

So he began telling them about his break with Hitler that previous fall. How they would go head to head over different matters; offensive or defensive war, fighter planes over bombers, production of miracle weapons, whether they should cut out whole classes of medium caliber ammunition, until ultimately what they were arguing about was whether victory was even possible. He told them about the long slide downward, the looming inevitability of defeat and, finally, the Nero Decrees. He told them about how his relations with the Fuhrer kept getting worse and worse, to the point where Hitler stopped acknowledging his presence at the daily situation conferences.

After that, he described his own quest for redemption; how he traveled about the Ruhr with his stalwart band of fellow conspirators, countermanding Hitler’s orders, pleading and coercing the gauleiters and army commanders, sabotaging deliveries of explosives, diverting nitrogen away from ammunition plants to fertilizer production, and doing whatever it took to preserve Germany’s industrial heartland for the future.

Next thing he knew he was telling them about the strange young man he’d met, a onetime vaudeville performer with the uncanny ability to talk anyone into anything. He told them about the extraordinary adventures they had.

The Americans were dumbfounded. “A former child star? And he taught you to...juggle?”

Speer grinned.

Ken Galbraith cleared his throat. “Could you? ... Juggle for us, please?”

Speer looked mischievously at his audience. Dare he?

He went over to the glass cabinet and pulled out four small cut crystal glasses. Then, one by one, he threw them in the air and the next thing he knew he had all four going, round and round. For nearly a minute he juggled them and didn’t drop a single one and when he was finished he gathered them all inside the crook of his right arm and took a very theatrical bow. The audience went wild.

Thank you, thank you, gentlemen, Speer imagined himself saying. And for my next trick, I’m going to put all the war ravaged economies of Western Europe back on their feet. But I’m going to need a few assistants...from the audience...

He put the glasses on the table and sat back down on the couch. He looked expectantly at Galbraith. But Galbraith only smiled. Paul Nitze raised his hand and asked him if he’d been afraid that Hitler might hang him if he found out what he’d been doing in the Ruhr.

“Certainly I was afraid,” said Speer. “But we were all facing death anyway. It had all gone too far. But don’t let me paint myself as too heroic, gentlemen. What you have to understand about Hitler is that when it came to the people close to him, he was infinitely forgiving. For him to acknowledge that people had turned against him meant acknowledging he’d made a mistake picking them in the first place. That was why he preferred letting the Luftwaffe be destroyed than sacking Goering.”

“But how did you put up with it?”

“My secret was to focus all my energy on my work. As long as a task was challenging enough, I could completely lose myself in it.” He gave a sad smile. “It is ironic, gentlemen, that work was what got me in this mess with Hitler in the first place. I was never interested in politics or power. All I ever wanted was challenges and work and he kept giving them to me.”

He paused and saw them nodding in sympathetic agreement. Well of course they would, Speer told himself. They know all about hard work. So what do I have to tell them to make them bite?

“I can’t tell you how glad I am that this whole ugly episode is finally over. And now that the new day we have all waited for is finally here, I just hope we can put the horror behind us and start working together toward a peaceful, prosperous world. I can only hope I will be allowed to participate in this rebuilding.”

For a long pregnant moment no one said anything. Then a shrill, reedy voice shattered the meditative silence.

“I don’t get you, Speer.” A bookish, bespectacled little captain stood up. Speer could tell he was drunk.

“You talk all this wonderful stuff, like you’re so rational, and decent and just like us, and that’s what’s most horrifying about it. Here we are drinking with you, relieved that you’re not the monster we imagined.”

“But what good is any of it if all you do is sell out to someone like Hitler just so you can design some fucking building.”

“Easy, Burton,” said Galbraith.

“No! Fuck this whole thing! Don’t you see? As long as you get to maintain your irony and circumspection and don’t have to march around like a thug in jackboots, you’ll happily serve the biggest murderer in history. And you don’t simply serve the regime, you become Hitler’s friend, his only friend. God Almighty!”

“And don’t tell us you didn’t know about the millions of people he murdered, just because he didn’t bring it up during his little tea parties.”

"Burton, that’s enough!”

“The hell it is! You’re pathetic, Speer, and I hope they hang you. Now I’m finished. You can continue with your line of questions. Good night!”

He stormed out of the room and they could hear him stomping down the halls, cursing loudly as he did.

It didn’t last long after that. There were a few half-hearted questions about ball bearing works and then someone suddenly recalled a late night meeting they had to attend aboard the Patria.

Alone now, everything silent around him, his glass finally empty, Speer surveyed the dark room. The only flicker of light came from the fire, now down to its embers. He stared dully at it, imagining it was the light of a thousand torches and he was back at one of the great nighttime party rallies before the war.

He got up from the couch, walked over to the fireplace and, poking at the embers, watched the sparks fly up. Then he felt the careening vertigo, brought on by all the whiskey, and staggered back to the couch, laying his head back and closing his eyes.

And there it was, Germania; the Great Dome, bigger than sunrise and colder than an ice mountain. Speer wiped his hands over his eyes, but it wouldn’t go away. Then he saw all the others; the vast plazas and boulevards, the gigantic ministries and monuments, Soldiers Hall, the Armory, the Party Academy, the Triumphal Arch, and the tall, narrow columns topped with eagles lining Unter den Linden, which seemed to go all the way to the horizon.

We did it, Speer, you and I.

(Excerpt from Germania, first published by Simon & Schuster in 2008, now also available on Kindle here)

USSBS Tries to Grill Speer on Berlin Jews, Breaks for Lunch

“Experts and planners simply did not appreciate that the social and economic life of a large city will survive even when its physical structure is severely damaged. Life has a way of going on. Housing proved to be a highly elastic resource; bombed-out families doubled up with relatives and friends or were re-accommodated in factory dormitories or barracks or even schools. Transportation is much less elastic, but even there much can be done; non-essential travel can be restricted, sight-seeing busses diverted into the regular transit system, empty cabs filled and people can turn to bicycles.”

“I don’t mind telling you I was surprised myself how quickly everything was back up and running after bombings. Factories were relocated, machinery got shifted to intact buildings. Workers were put on second shifts where previously there had only been one. Everyone kept working and morale stayed high.”

Ken Galbraith held up his left hand while he continued scribbling furiously with his right. “Professor Speer, when you talk about housing being unexpectedly elastic, I’m wondering, can you tell us the degree to which the apartments and homes of people sent to concentration camps enabled this shifting?”

“That’s an interesting question,” allowed Speer. “I am sure it must have had some positive effect, but I do not have any information on this issue. Perhaps you should pose this question to Transport Minister Dorpmuller.”

But Galbraith wasn’t satisfied. “But weren’t you in charge of the forced deportations of the Berlin Jews?”

Speer frowned. “I think what you are referring to is that just before the war, as General Architectural Inspector for the City of Berlin, I did give orders for the forced evacuation of several Berlin neighborhoods, or approximately twenty thousand apartments which would be demolished to make way for the planned Grand Avenue and the urban structures which would be built along it. It is true that these did involve numerous Jewish-owned flats, but they also included even more flats that were occupied by non-Jews. And while I did give the orders for the demolition of these neighborhoods, the evacuations themselves were carried out by the Goebbels ministry.”

“Aren’t we getting a little off-topic here, Ken?” said Paul Nitze.

After that they broke for lunch.
(Excerpt from Germania, Simon & Schuster 2008)

Speer, Galbraith and the United States Strategic Bombing Survey

Today, following his second session with the Strategic Bombing Survey, Speer was again walking on air. Suddenly the future was rising before him in Technicolor and it looked so tantalizing that even though he knew it might be an illusion, he had to drink deep of it.

Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit, Captive Greece captured Rome. It was a phrase Speer had struggled with as a young student first learning Latin. How, he wondered, could a captive capture its conqueror? But now he understood. So charmed were his American interrogators by him, that they had decided, by unanimous assent, to rededicate their inquisition, “The University of Bombing,” with Albert Speer their honored professor.

And maybe the Americans were as much in love with him as they acted. For all he knew they were already sending the word back to their people in Washington that Albert Speer is one of us.

They’d spent the day discussing machine tools and the mixture of alloys for steelmaking. In Speer’s experience, unless the person was an engineer or technocrat, any discussion about such things would inevitably put them to sleep. But these Americans weren’t engineers. They were lawyers and economists and intellectuals and their passion for the ephemera of industry came from a different place. Like himself, they were driven to know the greater dynamics between machinery and human endeavor. These men understood that wars are not won merely by brave men with guns and force of will, but by production and logistics and unfettered supplies of oil, chromium, ball bearings and tungsten carbide.

“John Kenneth Galbraith;” Speer pronounced it slowly, savoring the sound of the words and then repeating it again, like an incantation which conjured up a shimmering of policy-level meetings and advisory groups. “John Kenneth Galbraith.”

“I tell you, Baumbach, this is a man who is going to matter in the post-war world. You wouldn’t believe how bright the guy is. He tried to nail my hide to the wall when I explained how we dealt with the shortages of tungsten carbide. He never imagined we’d rather cut out production of heavier caliber anti-tank ammunition in order to keep producing tungsten carbide machine tool bits. He thought I was lying. But I showed him. I had the numbers right there in my head. And when he saw that he’d been wrong and I was right, he said, ‘Well then, I take off my hat to you, Professor Speer!”

By now, of course, they were both quite drunk. Baumbach laughed and with a wide swoop of his arm snagged hold of the whiskey bottle from the table. Holding the bottle aloft, he proclaimed, “Let’s drink to your John Kenneth Galbraith!” He refilled Speer’s glass and then his own. Then, settling back onto the couch he clinked his glass against Speer’s. “Down the hatch!”

Speer drank the whiskey and leaned back in his chair. “I’m telling you, Baumbach, they ask such great questions.”

Instead of answering, Baumbach pushed himself backwards against the couch, snaking over the top until his head and shoulders pointed downward and his outstretched hands were touching the carpet. Apparently excited at seeing the world from upside down, he began waving his arms and addressing its inhabitants. “Well hello!” he called out. “So nice of you to join us. I guess the fact that you’re walking upside down must mean you’re from Australia. I suppose this means you are also a marsupial. Be that as it may, sir, you are welcome just the same. Why don’t you fix yourself a drink and come join us!”

At first Speer assumed Baumbach was speaking to imaginary guests. But then he looked over in the direction where Baumbach was waving and realized they weren’t alone. In the doorway stood a dumpy little man in a gray suit and ridiculous-looking square-frame glasses.

Placing his feet on the table, Baumbach pushed himself even further backward to get a fuller view of their visitor. The man just stood there looking so comically angry that it made Speer giggle. Then suddenly he realized the man was Himmler and in an instant the drunkenness dried up in him. He struggled to his feet. “Reichsfuhrer, I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you!” he said.

(Excerpt from Germania, by Brendan McNally, Simon & Schuster, 2009, now also available on Kindle)

Albert Speer Meets the Americans at Glucksburg

A week or so after the surrender, Albert Speer was visited by a group of American economists, bankers, and Wall Street lawyers dressed in US Army uniform. They were the directors of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, or USSBS, who had come to ask Speer questions about the effectiveness of the American daylight precision bombing campaign on the German war economy. Speer, it turned out, was happy to answer their questions and the single meeting quickly turned into a ten-day, very collegial, "University of Bombing," with Professor Albert Speer presiding. The alcohol-fueled symposium took place outside of Flensburg at Schloss Glucksburg, where Speer was staying with his friend, dive-bomber ace, Werner Baumbach.

The following is an excerpt from my novel Germania, originally published in 2008 by Simon & Schuster, now newly available on Kindle (buy it here).

Albert Speer

He awoke late in the morning with a terrible hangover. Staggering through the hall down to the kitchens he debated whether he should call in sick or just show up the way he was, since it seemed that was the way everyone else was half the time.

As he was working his way through a cup of tea, he heard agitated footsteps running up the corridor toward him. He started to feel a sense of dread. It was the captain of the honor guard, which had been assigned to him for security.

“Herr Reichsminister, we have an emergency!”

BUY THE BOOK

“What is it?"

“The American Army is here, demanding to see you.”

“What?”

“The Americans, your Excellency! There must be twenty of them. They’ve come in Jeeps.”

“In Jeeps? But what do they want? Are you sure they’re not looking for Himmler?”

“No, your Excellency. They say they want you. Reichsminister for War Production Albert Speer. Do you want my men to shoot at them?”

“No, absolutely not. Tell them to wait. I must get dressed first.”

He went back to his room and found his best gray suit. Then he selected a French tie and put it on. He took a glimpse in the mirror and thought to himself that he looked pretty good.

Schloss Glucksburg

The Americans were waiting for him in the courtyard. Twenty of them, just like the captain had said. They wore uniforms, but no helmets or guns.

Two very tall men stood together. One looked like a hawk, the other like an enormous owl. Next to them was a much shorter man who, by his sheer proximity to them, looked like a hedgehog.

“Good Morning, Herr Speer,” said the owl. “I hope you don’t mind us dropping in like this, but we were making everybody nervous at the Marineschule.” They grinned good-naturedly at Speer.

“We’ve flown in from Frankfurt this morning to interview you,” said the hawk. “Do you have some time to spare?”

John Kenneth Galbraith

“We should introduce ourselves,” said the hedgehog. He began pointing out the various army officers and sergeants and reciting their names though not their ranks. “This is George Sklarz, this is Burton Klein, Bob Gilchrist, Ernie Doyle, Walter Farley, Dan Watson.” He went on and on with the names. Speer tried to take it all in, but the names and faces were more than he could process, so he just nodded and smiled like the good host.

Finally the man pointed to his tall colleagues, “This is George Ball, this is Ken Galbraith and I’m Paul Nitze.”