Americans Cross the Rhine and Speer's Ruhr Rebellion Goes Nowhere

At first, a war is a cause, a crusade. But ultimately it becomes nothing more than an intersection of x and y axes; a cost-benefit analysis, a calculus of conditions and circumstances. In this particular war, the lines had been crossed a long time ago and there was no longer any benefit, just cost. It wasn’t a question of belief or will, only numbers. And the numbers had said only one thing: the was is lost.

While the Western Allies stayed to the Western bank of the Rhine, people kept hoping it might somehow stay that way, as it had been two thousand years earlier when the Rhine had marked the Roman Empire’s northernmost border. They wondered what it might take to ultimately convince the British and Americans to stay put. The French could keep Strasbourg and the Alsace, the Russians the eastern bank of the Vistula. As far as fallback positions went, it almost bordered on the agreeable, Not that the Fuhrer would have seen it that way. But then again the Fuhrer wouldn’t be around for ever.

But of course now the Rhine was breached and the Americans were racing the Russians to Berlin. Now it was a question of trying to limit the destruction so that there might be something left for the future. It should be something everyone could agree to.

He and von Poser had gone in thinking it would be easy, since by then, Speer was on a personal basis with nearly every factory director in the Ruhr. Despite his youth, they all looked to him as a guiding light, someone who understood their needs and concerns, who respected their expertise and knew what could and could not be done. And he was someone they could speak frankly to about the suicidal course the war had taken. They’d all been acutely aware of what Hitler had done to the industrial areas in the east and were adamant the same thing not happen to their beloved Ruhr. Some had even dropped broad hints about their willingness to go against the regime should Speer elect to break with Hitler and lead a revolt. But now that Speer had come to do just that, they were suddenly overcome with reticence.

"Had I said that, Herr Reichsminister? You must be mistaken.”

"Don’t say these things, Herr Reichsminister. It’s treason.”

"Perhaps we should stop the conversation right here, Herr Reichsminister.”

"Herr Reichsminister, what you are suggesting is quite impossible.”

"Herr Reichsminister, you must not ask this thing!”

"Herr Reichsminister, I’ve always had the utmost respect for you, but if you do not leave at once, it will be my duty to inform the local Party militia of your subversion.”

"Now please, you must leave, immediately.”

"Get out.”

"Leave now!”

"Go!”

Not that it was surprising that everyone was now so scared. With everything in complete disarray and communication with Berlin hopelessly tangled, the local Nazi Party chiefs, the gauleiters, now held absolute power. Their “flying squads” seemed to be everywhere, examining travel documents, searching vehicles, questioning people about what they were doing away from the front lines, and then acting as judge, jury and executioner against anyone whose enthusiasm for the war they found wanting. Their victims were either taken away for torture interrogations or simply strung up from the nearest lamppost where they remained for weeks as a reminder to everyone else.

By the end of the first day, Speer was ready to throw in the towel and head back, and he would have except that von Poser’s steely determination showed no hint of flagging. So they went on, day after day, visiting chemical plants, steel mills, coal mines, electrical generating stations, ammunition works. Most of the distance driving they did at night, since during the day the sky teemed with enemy aircraft. Sometimes they traveled with military convoys, but more often alone. The roads were always kept dark and with their headlights masked down to tiny illuminated squares, they had to proceed slowly, since the roads were full of bomb craters and debris.

It was always a big guess where the roads would take them, since everything was rerouted and changed. Where the front actually was, was kept secret and more than once they ended up at the front lines with less than half a kilometer between themselves and the nearest enemy tank. Even more confusing was the fact that nothing looked familiar anymore. In his years as armaments minister, Speer had visited every factory town there countless times and knew the region like the back of his hand. But with half the buildings flattened and the sprawling industrial plants transformed into forests of twisted metal girders, frames and broken pipes, Speer and von Poser often found themselves disoriented. But as wrecked as everything looked, Speer knew that a surprising amount was repairable. Factories were often up and running again in a matter of days, machine tool works sometimes within hours. Of course if the militiamen really tried, they could render everything completely unfixable. And that was Speer’s biggest worry.

They drove around, visiting the factories that came their way. They’d talk to whoever was around, sound them out, listen to their excuses, nod sympathetically and then move on to the next location, hoping they’d get lucky. They’d knock off late in the afternoon, sleep a little, then drive through the night. Usually toward the dawn they’d find a command post where there were cots or they’d simply pull over and rest for a few hours. Sometimes they ate from their stock of canned food, but mostly they tried to eat whatever was being spooned out for the troops.

Then one night they were driving between Ludenscheid and Dessau on a particularly badly bombed stretch of autobahn. Speer sat beside von Poser in the front seat, an air defense map spread on his lap, while the radio alternated between piano concertos and a lifeless voice reading out positions of enemy aircraft; fighters reported in Grid E-6 heading westward, enemy fighters in Grid F-12 bearing east. Enemy fighters in Grid D-9 heading east, enemy bombers in Grid C-7, C-8 and C-10, high overhead heading west.

Then suddenly they heard the metallic scream of aircraft engines as machinegun fire ripped up the ground in front of them. Von Poser slammed on the brakes and before they knew it, the car was plummeting down the embankment. They pushed open the doors and jumped out onto the ground. A twin-engine Heinkel roared over them, with a smaller American fighter tight on its tail, firing away. The Heinkel’s starboard engine was aflame. Then its wing crumpled and it turned over, plunging into the darkness. A second later they heard the dull explosion and saw the flash of fire in a distant field.

They tried getting their car out of the ditch, but the mud was too thick and the four back wheels only spun uselessly. They stood around in the darkness unsure of what to do next. In another hour it would be light enough for the American Mustangs and Thunderbolts to return and begin strafing anything that wasn’t already blown up.

(Excerpt from Germania, Simon & Schuster, 2008, Kindle ebook version now available here).

Albert Speer Searches for Landmarks in Bombed-Out Berlin

Back in his office, Speer hung up his helmet but kept his overcoat on. The paper on the front windows had been blown out in the bombing and all that remained were a few jagged triangular strips fluttering along the edges like race pennants. It had been at least a year since anyone had replaced a window. Usually the electricity didn’t work and since the roof was mostly holes at this point, everything had a perpetually damp, musty smell. Speer lit a cigarette and stared out the window. It was early March and the skies over Berlin were perpetually gray. He wondered if by the time the actual spring came the war might already be over. He’d already had a number of the women in the office come up and ask if, with his connections, he could get them suicide pills. He promised he would look into it but he still hadn’t started asking around.

The intercom on his desk buzzed. Speer went over and pressed down the switch. “Yes?”

A female voice crackled on the other end. “Colonel von Poser is here to see you.”

“Send him in,” said Speer. A few seconds later the office door opened and in strode a short, frowning, white-haired soldier easily twenty years his senior. Colonel von Poser was Speer’s military liaison to the Army General Staff and by now one of the few men he trusted completely. Von Poser was of the old school. He hated Nazis and dilettantes and he hated discussing things in rooms he assumed were bugged. “Speer,” he grunted, “it has happened.”

Speer knew it could only mean one thing; that the Americans were now across the Rhine: Germany’s last barrier in the west. He got up from his desk and followed von Poser to the wall map. “Where?” he asked in a low voice.

Von Poser put his finger on a town called Remagen. “Apparently efforts to blow up the railroad bridge had not been as successful as originally claimed,” he muttered.

“Any chance they’ll be thrown back?”

Von Poser shook his head. “Speer, we don’t have anything to throw them back with. But you see what lies next.” His finger made a circle around the area just east of Remagen. It was the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heart, the biggest concentration of mines, steel mills, chemical plants and manufacturing anywhere in the world. “You know what’s going to happen next, don’t you?”

Speer nodded. Hitler would now have all the excuse he needed to unleash a spate of scorched-earth orders, just like he did when the Russians had moved into East Prussia a few months earlier. All the factories, all the mines, the rail yards, electrical plants, telephone exchanges, everything, would get blown up, smashed and destroyed, leaving behind a mangled, smoldering wasteland.

Blowing up the Ruhr’s factories was not going to keep the enemy from winning the war. Nothing could at this point. All it would accomplish was to ensure that the Germans who survived would spend the rest of their lives in the dark ages. This was Hitler’s new vision for Germany. It had to be stopped.

“So are you still willing to go ahead with our plan?” asked von Poser.

Speer nodded.

Von Poser gave a grim smile. “You know what your friend will do if he finds out?”

Speer shrugged. He knew.

“All right,” said von Poser. “I’ll get the auto ready. We leave when it gets dark.”

After that Speer had meetings that went on through the afternoon. When everyone had finally gone, Speer went back to his quarters and packed all his things into two pigskin traveling bags. In his valise he stuffed some reports and letterhead stationery, along with a thick sheaf of “Stay of Demolition Orders,” which his ministry had no authority to possess, let alone hand out, along with an inkpad and an assortment of rubberstamps from different governmental authorities. Then he gathered all the canned food from his personal larder and bundled it into a pillowcase from his bed.

With still an hour to kill, Speer lit a cigarette and went over to the couch and sat down.

You know what your friend will do if he finds out? They always referred to Hitler that way. Speer had always hated that. Hitler wasn’t his friend, Perhaps Speer was Hitler’s friend, perhaps even his only friend. But that wasn’t the same thing, was it? Besides, Speer knew what Hitler would do when he found out.

Reasonably speaking, all they could hope for now was to keep as much of Germany’s industrial base together so that some level of civilized life could continue after it was all over. He’d carefully broached that matter with Hitler during the winter, but Hitler dismissed it. “There is no need to preserve anything for the survivors, Speer,” he told him. “They will have proven themselves unworthy.”

Speer went over to the window and stared out. By now the bombing had taken out most of the city’s landmarks, leaving him without his usual points of reference. Locating Alexanderplatz had always been a matter of simply finding the old Town Hall’s clock tower and then going a little bit left. But now the tower was gone. So was the Karstadt department store, the Columbus building on Potsdamerplatz, the twin steeples of Saint Nicholas church. He tried to remember what they looked like, but they were already excised from his memory.

Instead what blazed unforgettably was the skyline of a city which had only existed on paper and tabletop scale models. He saw the dome, stretched out before him, larger than a sunrise, with its dozens of gigantic columns and a massive bronze eagle perched ominously atop its cupola.

And he heard Hitler’s voice reciting the numbers to onlookers, Sixteen times the size of Saint Peter’s in Rome!

And he saw the rest of the imaginary city, the broad avenues, the monuments, the palaces and plazas, the gigantic ministry buildings, cinemas, concert halls, hotels and storefronts, miles and miles of it. The two of them had spent years dreaming it up; a city greater than Rome, a light among nations, a capital fit to rule the world for a thousand years; Germania!

Speer had actually believed in it back when Germany’s future still loomed bright, enough so that he went ahead with demolition orders for whole neighborhoods in order to make way for it. Berlin’s destruction hadn’t started with the first British bombing raids, but with the bulldozing he had himself engineered.

Once the war had started the whole thing should have been shelved, but the war only stoked Hitler’s enthusiasm. And when the enemy bombing did come, Hitler acted gleeful. “They’re only doing our work for us, Speer,” he’d say. And Speer accepted it without question. Even after things went bad in Russia, Hitler insisted it be kept on as a top priority, summoning Speer to the studio in the middle of the night so they could discuss the changes which still kept occurring to him on a daily basis. They’d spend endless hours bent down at eyelevel to the miniature streets and buildings, peering under archways, discussing each gallery and staircase.

Even now, with the enemy at their door, Hitler still wouldn’t let it go. In his mind, Germania was still every bit as real as the miracle weapons, Inevitable Victory and all the other shabby fantasies which he insisted everyone believe in. And it was all Speer’s fault for wanting a thousand years of glory.

Going to pick up his bags, he paused for a moment to look at himself in the mirror. Was this the face of a future world leader? Except for some rings under his eyes and a receding hairline, there was still far too much boyishness in it. He was neither handsome nor ugly, his face was round, his chin soft. It was only the face of a technocrat. No, that’s not completely true, he told himself. His eyes had it. Dark, brooding, even without a night’s sleep, they had a sharpness to them, inquisitiveness, too, and sardonic humor. The face of a man who could put things into perspectice.

Speer went downstairs to the garage where Colonel von Poser was waiting beside a supercharged, six-wheeled Mercedes. They drove out after nightfall, heading west.

(Excerpt from Germania, Simon & Schuster, 2008, now also available on Kindle here).