Herr Speer, will you briefly elucidate these orders?
SPEER: I can summarize them very briefly. They gave the order to the Gauleiter to carry out the destruction of all industrial plants, all important electrical facilities, water works, gas works, and so on, and also the destruction of all food stores and clothing stores. My jurisdiction had specifically been excluded by that order, and all my orders for the maintenance of industry had been canceled.
The military authorities had given the order that all bridges should be destroyed, and in addition all railway installations, postal systems, communication systems in the German railways, also the waterways, all ships, all freight cars, and all locomotives. The aim was, as is stated in one of the decrees, the creation of a traffic desert.
The Bormann decree aimed at bringing the population to the center of the Reich, both from the West and the East, and the foreign workers and prisoners of war were to be included. These millions of people were to be sent upon their trek on foot. No provisions for their existence had been made, nor could it be carried out in view of the situation.
The carrying out of these orders alone would have resulted in an unimaginable hunger catastrophe. Add to this that on 19 March 1945 there was a strict order from Hitler to all army groups and all Gauleiter that the battle should be conducted without consideration for our own population.
With the carrying out of these orders, Hitler’s pledge of 18 March would be kept, namely, that it would not be necessary “....to take into consideration the basis which the people would need to continue a most primitive existence. On the contrary, it would be better to destroy these things ourselves....” Considering the discipline which came into force in Germany in connection with every order, no matter what its contents, it was to be expected that these orders would be carried out. These orders also applied to those territories which had been included in the Greater German Reich.
During journeys into the most endangered territories, and by means of discussions with my associates, I now quite openly tried to stop the carrying out of these orders. I ordered that the high explosives which were still available in the Ruhr should be dropped down the mines, and that the stores of high explosives which were on the building sites should be hidden.
We distributed submachine guns to the most important plants so that they could fight against destruction. All this, I know, sounds somewhat exaggerated; but the situation at the time was such that if a Gauleiter had dared to approach the coal mines in the Ruhr and there was a single submachine gun available, then it would have been fired.
I tried to convince the local army commanders of the nonsensical character of the task of exploding bridges, which had been given to them, and furthermore by talking to the local authorities I succeeded in stopping most of the evacuation which had been ordered. In this connection the State Secretary of the Party Chancellery, Klopper, deserves credit in that he held up the evacuation orders which were to be sent to the Gauleiter.
When I came back from this journey, I was called before Hitler at once. This was on 29 March 1945. I had intentionally resisted his orders so openly, and I had discussed the lost war with so many of his Gauleiter that my insubordination must have become known to him. Witnesses are available from that period who know that that is what I wanted to achieve.