DR. FLÄCHSNER: Had not the war been lost before that?
SPEER: From a military point of view and as far as the general situation was concerned, it was certainly lost before that. It is difficult, however, to consider a war as lost and to draw the final conclusions as regards one’s own person if one is faced with unconditional surrender.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Did not considerations arising out of the production situation, of which you were in a position to have a comprehensive view, force you to regard the war as lost long before that?
SPEER: From the armament point of view not until the autumn of 1944, for I succeeded up to that time, in spite of bombing attacks, in maintaining a constant rise in production. If I may express it in figures, this was so great that in the year 1944 I could completely re-equip 130 infantry divisions and 40 armored divisions. That involved new equipment for 2 million men. This figure would have been 30 percent higher had it not been for the bombing attacks. We reached our production peak for the entire war in August 1944 for munitions; in September 1944 for aircraft; and in December 1944 for ordnance and the new U-boats. The new weapons were to be put into use a few months later, probably in February or March of 1945. I may mention only the jet planes which had already been announced in the press, the new U-boats, the new antiaircraft installations, et cetera. Here too, however, bombing attacks so retarded the mass production of these new weapons—which in the last phase of the war might have changed the situation—that they could no longer be used against the enemy in large numbers. All of these attempts were fruitless, however, since from 12 May 1944 on our fuel plants became targets for concentrated attacks from the air.
This was catastrophic. 90 percent of the fuel was lost to us from that time on. The success of these attacks meant the loss of the war as far as production was concerned; for our new tanks and jet planes were of no use without fuel.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Did you tell Hitler about the effect on production, of the bombing attacks?
SPEER: Yes, I told him of this in great detail, both orally and in writing. Between June and December 1944 I sent him 12 memoranda, all with catastrophic news.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Mr. President, in this connection I should like to submit to the Tribunal a document, a Speer memorandum of 30 June 1944. It is reproduced on Page 56 of the English document book and will be Exhibit Number 14. I should like to quote from this. Speer writes to Hitler:
“But in September of this year the quantities required to cover the most urgent needs of the Wehrmacht cannot possibly be supplied any longer, which means that from that time on there will be a deficiency which cannot be made good and which must lead to tragic consequences.”
Speer informed Hitler in another memorandum, dated 30 August 1944, on the situation in the chemical industry and the fuel production industry. This is Page 62 of the English text, Exhibit Number 15. I quote only one sentence: