“The material superiority of the enemy can therefore no longer be compensated, even by the bravery of our soldiers.”
Herr Speer, what did you mean by the last sentence I quoted?
SPEER: At that time Hitler issued the slogan that in defense of the fatherland the soldiers’ bravery would increase tremendously and that vice versa the Allied troops, after the liberation of the occupied territories, would have less will to fight. That was also the main argument employed by Goebbels and Bormann to justify the use of all means to intensify the war.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Herr Speer, did other sources advise Hitler in the same way that you yourself did?
SPEER: In this connection I shall take several points together. Guderian, the Chief of Staff of the Army, reported to Ribbentrop at that time to tell him that the war was lost. Ribbentrop reported this to Hitler. Hitler then told Guderian and myself at the beginning of February that pessimistic statements of the nature of those contained in my memorandum or the step I had taken in regard to the Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs would in future be considered as high treason and punished accordingly. In addition, some days later, in a situation conference, he forbade his other close collaborators to make any statements about the hopelessness of the situation. Anyone who disobeyed would be shot without regard for position or rank and his family would be arrested.
The statements which Guderian and I made to Hitler about the hopelessness of the war situation had precisely the opposite effect from that which we desired. Early in February, a few days before the beginning of the Yalta Conference, Hitler sent for his press expert and instructed him, in my presence, to announce in the most uncompromising terms and in the entire German press, the intention of Germany never to capitulate. He declared at the same time that he was doing this so that the German people should in no case receive any offer from the enemy. The language used would have to be so strong that enemy statesmen would lose all desire to drive a wedge between himself and the German people.
At the same time Hitler once again proclaimed to the German people the slogan “Victory or Destruction.” All these events took place at a time when it should have been clear to him and every intelligent member of his circle that the only thing that could happen was destruction.
At a Gauleiter meeting in the summer of 1944 Hitler had already stated—and Schirach is my witness for this—that if the German people were to be defeated in the struggle it must have been too weak, it had failed to prove its mettle before history and was destined only to destruction. Now, in the hopeless situation existing in January and February 1945, Hitler made remarks which showed that these earlier statements had not been mere flowers of rhetoric. During this period he attributed the outcome of the war in an increasing degree to the failure of the German people, but he never blamed himself. He criticized severely this alleged failure of our people who made so many brave sacrifices in this war.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Generaloberst Jodl has already testified before this Court that both Hitler and his co-workers saw quite clearly the hopelessness of the military and economic situation. Was no unified action taken by some of Hitler’s closer advisers in this hopeless situation to demand the termination of war?
SPEER: No. No unified action was taken by the leading men in Hitler’s circle. A step like this was quite impossible, for these men considered themselves either as pure specialists or else as people whose job it was to receive orders—or else they resigned themselves to the situation. No one took over the leadership in this situation for the purpose of bringing about at least a discussion with Hitler on the possibility of avoiding further sacrifices.