May 4, 1965
Recently, in these days full of memories, I have considered how I would probably
characterize Hitler today, after the passage of twenty years. I think I am now less sure than I
ever was. All reflection magnifies the difficulties, makes him the more incomprehensible. Of course
I have no doubts at all about the judgement of history. But I would not know how to describe the
man himself. No doubt I could say that he was cruel, unjust, unapproachable, cold, capricious, self-pitying,
and vulgar; and in fact he was all of those things.
p.425

I don't even know what he felt for Germany. Did he love this country even a little, or was it only an instrument
for his plans? And what I have frequently asked myself ever since our disagreements over my memoranda, did he
feel in regard to the downfall of the Reich? Did he suffer on its account?
p.426

My whole life, in fact, appears to me strangely alienated. Architecture I loved, and I hoped to make my name
live on in history by building. But my real work consisted in the organization of an enormous system of technology.
Since then my life has remained attached to a cause that at bottom I disliked.
p.450-451

Spandau, The Secret Diaries

A lot have been said about Albert Speer. For many, he was an opportunist who joined Hitler's entourage only to gain
power, fame and privilege. For some, he was a loyal party member who believed in the Nazi ideals wholeheartedly.
And for some, he was just a hypocrite trying to make his way out of the death sentence.

The real motivations behind his actions will remain unclear. Maybe he was sincere when he said he took all responsibility
and thus the guilt for everything that was perpetrated by way of crime or maybe he was merely playing the good Nazi.

He's an enigma thats for sure. One cant help but pondering him. So much is bekievable. So much is seemingly contradictory.

Artists are to some extent always compromised and at some point has to take a stand.

One odd thing as i read that transcription was his use of ''technology'' when I was expecting ''terror''. What did he mean?

Accidental duplicate posting redacted and retracted...

It seems that the Nazi regime was a good example of people caught up in a lie. In the book "People of the Lie", Scott Peck tries to present examples of what he calls an 'evil personality type.' Those who fall into this category are surrounded by lies and live in a fantasy world created by them. For those on the outside, the only symptoms seem to be strange statements that either don't seem to make sense or that we realize are outright lies.

So it may have been with Speer, who managed to say some of the right things, but may not have been completely convincing. On the other hand, it may be that he was still in denial of the depth of evil he had been involved in. At any rate, the use of a word without emotional connotation seems to imply an acceptance of the system he was involved in.

Cigdem,

A very interesting citation. Do you have anything on either the Nazi Ratlines, the Ukrainian Ratlines or some of the persons
linked into the Assassination of JFK to share with us? People like Mae Brussell and John Judge have written much on this topic
as well as Dick Russell.

My list of interest would include the following names in no particular order:

Charles Willoughby
Bonner F. Fellers
Theodor Oberlander
Albert C. Wedemeyer
George Stratemeyer
Yaroslaw Stetsko
Charles Thurout Pichel
Laurence Dennis
Anastase Vonsiatsky
William Dudley Pelley
Maximillian St. George
Mitchell Werbell III
George de Mohrenschildt
George Bouhe
Warren de Breuys
James Wheeler-Hill
Baron Charles Wrangel
Adrian Arcand
Boris Brasol
Frederic Rene Coudert
Philip J. Corso
George Sokolosky
Westbrook Pegler
Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith
Rev. Gerald B. Winrod
George de Mohrenschildt
Reinhard von Gehlen
Robert J. Morris
Edwin A. Walker
E. Howard Hunt
George Lincoln Rockwell
Wickliffe P. Draper


None of them were little ants and they all had some role in the JFK hit or the very early planning of this incident.

What is your interest in Albert Speer and Adolph Hitler? You are a teacher in Turkey, correct?

Just curious.

John

Speer mentions the Kennedy assassination on page 398 of Spandau, The Secret Diaries but
only for one line.

November 25, 1963 I feel that Kennedy's assassinaton is not just an American tragedy, but
a tragedy for the world.

I haven't come across any of the names on your list in Spandau and I don't think Speer had anything
to do with the JFK assassination for he was in prison from 1946 to 1966 and had little contact with the
outside world.

The aim of this thread is not to track down the possible suspects in the JFK assassination but to discuss the
role Albert Speer played in the Nazi era. However, thanks for your interest.

Pam, very interesting imo.

There seems to me to be something aimless, yet searching about him. The dissociation is perhaps how he resolves a conflicted nature that is sick in some definable way but with a conscience that he describes perhaps more than merges with wholly. One wonders, along with him, what exactly is his true self. It kind of seems to have a cover element to it. Perhaps he's looking for some of the absolution that he denies hitler (for good reason of course as he clearly recognises (dissociation?))

When he states he cannot describe hitler yet then makes very categorical statements indicates a kind of muddle headedness that perhaps is not so at all? (Interesting topic btw Cigdem. I would like to come to a deeper understanding of this person.) He seems odd and not odd at the same time.

There was an establishment of what is acceptable, and not, as far as ''nazi art'' goes and he was perhaps a kind of adherent to that withoput a real understanding of the full implications, or, as indicated, a faltering self denial.

The BBC documentary on Speer - parts 1-6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deGwMxn_HU8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnWCd4il8pk...feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80vkCLV_bto...feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWtdv8Hkw0Y...feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yx6wjzCP2c...feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UKncb35rFU...feature=related

And a New Statesman article dated 2001
http://www.newstatesman.com/200111050043

Apart from skilfully playing the Anglo-Americans off against the Russians, his strategy was to "cop a plea", recognising the unparalleled crimes of the National Socialist regime and accepting moral responsibility for them in the abstract, while insisting that he had been ignorant of the worst crimes, above all, the extermination of Jews. This mixture of apparent penitence and apparent innocence worked a treat, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison while other, less adroit, defendants were hanged. At his trial, Speer was, as Fest writes, "still expecting a significant postwar career", and indeed he found one, emerging from Spandau for 15 profitable years as an author and chat-show guest, before dying on a visit to London in 1981. Not everyone fell for the Speer spiel. One of the Americans interrogating him, the economist J K Galbraith, was sure he had concocted a cunning ruse. Decades later, Speer was interrogated again, this time by Gitta Sereny, who peeled away the onion skins of memory until she had him begging for mercy, and showed, to her own satisfaction, that he had known far more than he wished to acknowledge. All of this is carefully described by Fest, who takes it at face value - as indeed he has a tendency to take the whole ludicrous National Socialist movement at its own estimation. Looking at the way Speer designed the Nuremberg rallies with the latest technology to produce "an atmosphere of magic, mystery and exaltation", Fest writes that many visitors were so impressed by the spectacle "that they were prepared to overlook some of the regime's more repulsive features". But those displays of deranged kitsch were some of its more repulsive features, as were Speer's plans for rebuilding Berlin as "Germania". He was visited there by his father, about the only attractive figure in this book, who thought Hitler was a "criminal upstart" and who said, after looking at his son's grandiose schemes, "You've all gone completely mad."

That is really interesting Cigdem. I talked with someone who was kind of there at the time and she gave me a lead towards what she called (and this is from memory) Funkis. An art movement that should not be decorative but rather functional. To serve a purpose. So. Perhaps one can see him as a gifted artist able to move from the creation of the culture of NAZI'sm and then shift into a actor mode. In a way one could perhaps say he was the Architect of NAZi germany. Another thought that came was that Hitler was an artist with a more draughtman/colourist style (that interestingly can be seen in Idiot Savant artists). Perhaps it s at this level that Hitler and Speer, at first perhaps, met in spirit, and this special position gave him a great deal of latitude including (as op Clauzwitz was implemented in the last few days as the Russians were drawing closer by the second), and affected the outcome ostensibly contrary to Hitlers orders where others would have been instantly shot. The movie Downfall intrigues me. If that is the true Speer then he kind of becomes even more enigmatic.

JFK himself made some curious statements about Hitler in his August 1, 1945 visit to Berchtesgaden and Eagles' Nest:

After visiting these two places, you can easily understand how that within a few years Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived.

He had boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way that he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him. He had in him the stuff of which legends are made.

PRELUDE TO LEADERSHIP: The European Diary of John F. Kennedy, p. 74

I dont know if that is so curious. It can be seen as prescient in the light of the experience of the day. Hitler, while leading his country and its people to destruction, is certainly significant in the grand scheme of things and while rightly reviled as all such people should properly be, before they get into a position to become so influential.

Anyway it's nice that all these other forum sections exist where interests other than JFK can be persued.

http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/ARTS/artReich.htm
"Divine destiny has given the German people everything in the person of one man. Not only does he possess strong and ingenious statesmanship, not only is he ingenious as a soldier, not only is he the first worker and the first economist among his people but, and this is perhaps his greatest strength, he is an artist. He came from art, he devoted himself to art, especially the art of architecture, this powerful creator of great buildings. And now he has also become the Reich's builder." (ed : and Speer as his Architect?)

--Hakenkreuzbanner (The Swastika Flag), June 10, 1938


Speer : http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ahbuild.htm
''Building is not merely a way of passing time for the Führer, rather a serious way of giving expression in stone to the will of the National Socialist movement.

It is unique in German history that at decisive moments the Führer concerned himself not only with the larger questions relating to the world view and politics of the new era, but simultaneously and with the knowledge of an expert began to build monuments in stone that will express his political will and cultural ability in the coming millennia.

After long centuries of confusion, these buildings express a clarity and strength that will result in an entirely new style of architecture.''

It strikes me that an overall important theme for the NAZI's was the establishment of a Culture that had a solid awe inspiring facade as part of its propaganda machine which was peripheral still to the ultimate aim of destroying Bolchevism. Hence the functional style that in a way provided an alternative to the Soviet realism. Speer must have had a special role in this.

(The passage referred to could be a mistranslation as Technic also applies to the arts as a mode or technique. In this context Speers words make more sense (to me anyway). ''System of technology'' could mean he is writing about the overall facade of NAZIsm that was so essential in order to fool enough people long enough to sacrifice themselves on the altar of Fascist self immolation.)


___________

add: On a slightly different tack.
re: culture and economics. It's basically about market placement. Recognition, advertisement. Everyone and everything in such a culture, to some extent, presents a public persona in order to gain that which is coveted, whether it is placing a beutiful woman next to a car (which has nothing to do with the inner woman or the car at all, or preening at a gathering of any kind, choosing to buy something to bling up with because its a fad lasting or lingering. Markets, like cultures are continually ripping down the old and replacing witth the new. There were other functional recoils re baroque for example with the Aesthetics arguing for a choosen group to determine what is artistically acceptable or not. A lot has to do with the dialectical thesis antithesis evolution of culture. What the NAZI machine did do was organise this into a nationwide paradigm that beguiled people world wide and its anti bolchevic (not communist, there has never been an example of it) stance gave it appeal to Capital globally. Fascism is a mistake, an aberration, a dead end, the place where lemmings go. Likewise the visual can serve as a cruel temptation that divides and creates strife where none is appliccable except in the subliminal realm.

quote name='John Dolva' date='May 28 2009, 11:04 PM' post='167899'
I dont know if that is so curious. It can be seen as prescient in the light of the experience of the day. Hitler, while leading his country and its people to destruction, is certainly significant in the grand scheme of things and while rightly reviled as all such people should properly be, before they get into a position to become so influential.

Perhaps Hitler had a much stronger influence on high rank officials than he had on his people.
Schirach once told Speer, Don't you see, with Hitler's death it wasn't so much the government as the State itself that ceased to exist. The State was indissolubly bound up with Hitler, to which Speer replied, Just tell that to Dönitz. As Hitler's successor and the Reich's last head of state I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear it.

Anyway it's nice that all these other forum sections exist where interests other than JFK can be persued.

http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/ARTS/artReich.htm
"Divine destiny has given the German people everything in the person of one man. Not only does he possess strong and ingenious statesmanship, not only is he ingenious as a soldier, not only is he the first worker and the first economist among his people but, and this is perhaps his greatest strength, he is an artist. He came from art, he devoted himself to art, especially the art of architecture, this powerful creator of great buildings. And now he has also become the Reich's builder." (ed : and Speer as his Architect?)

--Hakenkreuzbanner (The Swastika Flag), June 10, 1938


Speer : http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ahbuild.htm
''Building is not merely a way of passing time for the Führer, rather a serious way of giving expression in stone to the will of the National Socialist movement.

Although Speer thought Hitler was a self-pitying cruel man, there was also a feeling of admiration in Speer towards him. No doubt a part of this feeling stemmed from the love of art that they both shared. Also it should be added that Hitler himself admired Speer as much as Speer admired him.
During a walk in the woods near his house in Obersalzberg, Hitler turned Speer and said, Speer, you are my architect. You know that I always wanted to be an architect myself. The World War and the criminal November Revolution prevented that. Otherwise I might today be Germany's foremost architect, as you are now.

Yes amongst his inner circle that could very well have been so, and this connection is special. + I see Speers statement as being sarcastic. Doenitz supposedly was in the process of enacting Op Valkyrie # whatever, forgot for now, II or III, which was a shift to places like Argentina by sub from Norway. If so, I suspect Speer must have known this but the person he said this to was out of the loop?

Hitlers delusions are there clear to see, and I doubt Speer was stupid, so this in a sense gave him a hold on Hitler. How he used it might be interesting to know. He comes across so far (to me) as quite self serving.

I'm gonna look into what he meant with ''November Revolution"". The Russian and Western Calendars did not coincide so if he refers to the October Revolution which led to the ascendancy of the Bolchevics....

...if Hitler is this delusional, and obsessed through some kind of intense Napoleonic complex or perhaps something in his life that was thwarted by the Bolchevic Revolution which led to the end of WWI, when he was a lowly Corporal. A person so delusional and obsessed can perhaps be manipulted by colder more calculating persons. I don't know.

_________

random ponderings :

Perhaps there was a grouping that set about setting the stage for someone like Hitler. Millions had lost a father figure during the war and the yearning unleashed could be projected on to the Leader who actually was the leader of nothing from get go.? A facade that by its name not just its actions were deceptive, the ''National Socialist German Workers' Party'', for the people in power, by the people in power, of the people in power, founded in Germany in 1919 (as the White armies were on the move, backed by most of the industrialised west)

Could Speer in fact be The Overt Stay Behind????? A stay behind in a world with no boundaries as the Fourth Reich was kick started in South America and elsewhere, again according to the always there fallback Valkyrie Plan???



edit:typo

Interesting ideas, especially considering the fact that Hitler killed himself on Walpurgisnicht, one of the most important days in witchcraft; almost as though he were hurling his legacy off into the future.

Another curious thought is the development of the Fourth Reich in America, starting with our own OSS/CIA with Reinhold Gehlen (who should have been court-martialed) as one of its founders. And let us not forget the Nazi physicists who came over to the US with Werner Von Braun from Penemunde, all of whom were Nazis and contributed to the devastation of the war through the development of the V-1 and V-2 rockets, but instead almost at once gained high security clearance in our own govt and all the perks that went with it.

I'd love to hear you elaborate on that, Mike. I think I get it. But rather than asking lots of q's, could you elaborate , please?

Speer oversaw the rocket-factory tunnels of the Mittelwerke, at Nordhausen (Dora), while slave labor was worked to death, starved, or executed there to produce what, in the day, were the equivalent of terror-weapons.

http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Ca...dhausenEng.html

At Nuremberg and in the months before the trials, he emerged as the echt deutschlander of the intellectual traditions of Schiller and Goethe, largely through the allies' spurious estimation of his non-war achievements and personality traits. After Spandau, he made, and had bestowed upon him, a second career as the elder statesman of Nazism, the eminence whose mere unflappability defied the diverse enthusiasims of Hitler, and whose assassination plot, sadly, failed.

What's to like? Speer was not the only German officer to countermand Hitler's orders to devastate the infrastructure of Germany before surrender - just the most self-publicized.

A lot to admire, though, if you're bent on evading the noose through your CV and an impeccable performance on your orals. In many ways, Speer was very lucky to have been at a remove from power. Immediacy didn't serve Himmler well, and had Speer been placed to succeed Hitler as Doenitz was, the sentence surely would have been death, not the 20 years Speer got, or the ten for Doenitz.

Gitta Sereny's interviews with Speer, and her Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (1995) pretty much puncture any reputation made for Speer at the trials, in his books, and in the popular media.

Was Speer the Stay-behind? Well, there are no other serious candidates. And John Dolva is right - in business, it's Location. Location, Location...