Posted on 04/09/2023 12:48:35 PM PDT by Paal Gulli
Albert Speer was a very clever man. He exhibited enough remorse at Nuremberg to avoid the hangman’s noose, but not so much that it would have been obvious.
After he was released from prison, Speer became a celebrity of sorts. He gave many interviews, including one for Playboy magazine. Speer was the good Nazi, the unaware Nazi.
I’m thinking that the many slave laborers he oversaw would disagree with that.
My grandfather was involved in Nuremburg at the trials as a judge but not with the biggies. He died in his early 50’s.
There were also a lot of Ukrainian atrocities against Poles, as documented in the movie “Wołyn”.
There was another Nuremberg movie made around 2000.
I hate the fact though that Alec Baldwin played Justice Jackson, it pretty much ruined the movie for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45dOPamly3A
A rocket scientist from Germany was asked about slave labor and he said “I wasn’t given a vote on whether it was used”. IOW if he had objected, it would not have changed anything. The best they could do is demand they be treated properly so they could do better work.
> “I wasn’t given a vote on whether it was used”. <
And therein is a great moral question, one that could be debated for a year in a philosophy class. You are a technician (or a soldier) in the service of a monstrous regime. What do you do?
If you faithfully serve the regime, you are complicit in the murder of many innocents. Their blood is on your hands. No doubt about it! But if you object, you are a dead man.
I think Oskar Schindler got it right (God bless him). Schindler worked quietly but determinedly behind the scenes. He saved many innocents, and he’s sabotaged the Nazi war machine.
There is no evidence that Albert Speer or Wernher von Braun, etc. did any of that.
A fella named Joachim Peiper. He was the 30 year-old Lt. Colonel who gave the orders at the Malmedy massacre in Belgium-WW2. A sick SOB.
Served only 10 years-thought that was enough. He was burned in his own house in 1976-20 years of freedom. Pugeot hired him. Never relented his views.
Malmedy was not his only war crime. Others were much worse.
So must ask-Were the Nuremberg trials fair? Your family member gets killed and a government body decides what’s just punishment?
It’s good that you brought that up. Joachim Peiper is a perfect example of how Nazi murderers were let off after the war ended. Peiper should have been hanged by 1946 at the latest. Yet as you noted, he lived comfortably until vigilante justice finally caught up with him.
By the way, such inexplicable forgiveness is not new. I recently read a book about the Napoleonic wars. After Napoleon was finally exiled to St. Helena, there was an outcry by many worthies in Britain. Napoleon is a misunderstood genius! He does not deserve such a degrading fate!
No matter that Napoleon butchered hundreds of thousands, including many British.
Yes, lots of complexities. The same reason those only peripherally involved in the Nazi regime (like the musicians etc. whose performances were used for propaganda) were let go after de-Nazification.
I’m still waiting for one major commie to swing for the mass murders they did before WW2.
And not so potato peeling cook assigned at a concentration camp.
He was the only one in Hitler's inner circle who plead guilty. A Jew testified on his behalf, the only such case for the inner circle.
It seems interesting to me that Lt. Speer from the Band of Brothers became the American commander at Spandau. Those two Speers conversed often.
...and now the commies have control of our Nation.
You'd be wrong on that score. A Jew testified on his behalf at the trial. Speers battled the SS often trying to get larger rations and more sleep in a warm place for the laborers. Speers even followed that man's report with a comment about trying to do that simply to raise production efficiency; but, the Jewish witness still thanked him for his life.
Guess again.
“Was shooting those German soldiers a cruel necessity? A war crime? Both?”
It’s called”victor’s justice” and the Nuremberg trials were a mockery of true justice.
Might as well shoot every Nazi that fell into their hands like the Soviet’s did.
Just don’t call it justice. Call it what it is. Retribution.
Help me out, then. What evidence is there that Albert Speer tried to mitigate the horrors of the Nazi regime?
Oh, and Speer’s attempt to stop Hitler’s scored earth decree in the spring of 1945 doesn’t count. The war was long lost by that time. The handwriting was on the wall. Hitler was done. It took no special insight to realize that.
In regards to my post #11, I think it was neither justice nor retribution. It was what the American soldiers there perceived as a necessity.
Was it also a war crime? I’m just happy I don’t have to sit in judgment of that. It’s way above my pay grade, something that G_d will decide.
Please permit me to add something to my post #37, something broader.
I believe that justice was served at Nuremberg. The condemned defendants truly were guilty of horrific crimes. The noose was an appropriate punishment.
Ah, but here’s the thing. War crimes were committed by all sides in that terrible conflict. A prime example of that is Stalin’s mass execution of the Polish upper class at Katyn.
But only the losers in a conflict get punished. Same as it ever was.
Speer was the good Nazi, the unaware Nazi.
____________________________________________________________
Speer attended Himmler’s 1943 Posen speech. Himmler told everyone in attendance exactly what was happening with the Jews. Speer was hardly unaware.
From the Jewish Virtual Library:
Speer's position was such that he was not directly concerned with the cruelty in the administration of the slave labour programme, although he was aware of its existence. For example, at meetings of the Central Planning Board he was informed that his demands for labour were so large as to necessitate violent methods in recruiting. At a meeting of the Central Planning Board on 30th October, 1942, Speer voiced his opinion that many slave labourers who claimed to be sick were malingerers and stated: " There is nothing to be said against SS and Police taking drastic steps and putting those known as slackers into concentration camps." Speer, however, insisted that the slave labourers be given adequate food and working conditions so that they could work efficiently.
Exactly what was said at his trial. No more, no less. Exactly what I said in my post.
If you don't like how Speers' own testimony and that of a Jewish ex-prisoner affected the decision, take it up with the judges at Nuremberg.
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