Frases de Albert Speer
Albert Speer
Fecha de nacimiento: 19. Marzo 1905
Fecha de muerte: 1. Septiembre 1981
Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer[1] fue un arquitecto alemán y ministro de Armamento y Guerra del Tercer Reich durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Speer fue arquitecto jefe de Adolf Hitler antes de asumir la oficina ministerial. Se le conoce como «el nazi que pidió perdón»[2] porque en los juicios de Núremberg y en sus memorias aceptó su responsabilidad en los crímenes del régimen nazi. A pesar de ello, su nivel de implicación en la persecución de los judíos y su conocimiento del Holocausto siguen siendo motivo de controversia.[3][4]
Speer se unió al Partido nazi en 1931 y enseguida comenzó una carrera política y gubernamental que duró catorce años. Su formación como arquitecto le ayudó a ganar importancia dentro del partido y además se convirtió en miembro del círculo más cercano al Führer, pues Hitler le encargó diseñar y construir varios edificios, entre ellos la Cancillería del Reich y el Campo Zeppelín de Núremberg, sede de los multitudinarios congresos del partido. Speer también diseñó una ambiciosa reconstrucción de Berlín que contemplaba la creación de enormes edificios, amplias avenidas y un sistema de transportes reorganizado. Ministro de Armamento y Guerra de Adolf Hitler desde febrero de 1942, Speer fue capaz de mantener durante el conflicto una elevada producción de material militar a pesar de los masivos y devastadores bombardeos de los Aliados sobre Alemania.
Acabada la guerra, fue juzgado en Núremberg y sentenciado a veinte años de prisión por su papel en el régimen nazi, principalmente por el uso de trabajadores forzados. Cumplió toda su condena, en Berlín Oeste, la mayor parte de ella en la prisión de Spandau, y tras su liberación en 1966 publicó dos exitosos libros autobiográficos: Memorias: Hitler y el Tercer Reich vistos desde dentro y Diario de Spandau. En ellos detalla su estrecha relación con Hitler y ofrece una perspectiva única sobre el funcionamiento del régimen nazi. Más tarde escribió un tercer libro, Infiltración, sobre las Schutzstaffel . Albert Speer murió por causas naturales en 1981 durante una visita a Londres.[5]
Frases Albert Speer
„Even the last scintillating assembly of the leaders of the Reich could scarcely distract me from my cares. That was the gala celebration of Goering's birthday on January 12, 1944, which he held at Karinhall. We all came with expensive presents, such as Goering expected: cigars from Holland, gold bars from the Balkans, valuable paintings and sculptures. Goering had let me know that he would like to have a marble bust of Hitler, more than life size, by Breker. The overladen gift table had been set up in the big library. Goering displayed it to his guests and spread out on it the building plans his architect had prepared for his birthday. Goering's palace-like residence was to be more than doubled in size. At the magnificently set table in the luxurious dining room flunkies in white livery served a somewhat austere meal, in keeping with the conditions of the time. Funk, as he did every year, delivered the birthday speech at the banquet. He lauded Goering's abilities, qualities, and dignities and offered the toast to him as "one of the greatest Germans."“
Funk's extravagant words contrasted grotesquely with the actual situation. The whole thing was a ghostly celebration taking place against a background of collapse and ruin.
Fuente: Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (1970), p. 322
„At a situation conference early in February the maps showed the catastrophic picture of innumerable breakthroughs and encirclements. I drew Doenitz aside: "Something must be done, you know." Doenitz replied with unwonted curtness: "I am here only to represent the navy. The rest is none of my business. The Fuehrer must know what he is doing."“
Fuente: Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (1970), p. 427
„The Nuremberg Trial stands for me still today as an attempt to break through to a better world. Still today I acknowledge as generally correct the reasons of my sentence by the International Military Tribunal. Moreover, I still today consider as just that I assume the responsibility and thus the guilt for everything that was perpetrated by way of, generally speaking, crime, after my joining the Hitler Government on the 8th February 1942. Not the individual mistakes, grave as they may be, are burdening my conscience, but my having acted in the leadership. Therefore, I for my person, have in the Nuremberg Trial, confessed to the collective responsibility and I am also maintaining this today still. I still see my main guilt in my having approved of the persecution of the Jews and of the murder of millions of them.“
Testimony of Albert Speer, Munich, 15 June 1977 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/speer.html
„In the burning and devastated cities, we daily experienced the direct impact of war. It spurred us to do our utmost…the bombing and the hardships that resulted from them did not weaken the morale of the populace.“
Fuente: Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (1970), p. 363
„20 years. Well … that's fair enough. They couldn't have given me a lighter sentence, considering the facts, and I can't complain. I said the sentences must be severe, and I admitted my share of the guilt, so it would be ridiculous if I complained about the punishment.“
To Dr. G. M. Gilbert, after receiving his sentence. Quoted in "Nuremberg Diary" by G. M. Gilbert - History - (1995)
„The sacrifices which were made on both sides after January 1945 were without sense. The dead of this period will be the accusers of the man responsible for the continuation of that fight, Adolf Hitler, just as much as the destroyed cities, destroyed in that last phase, who had lost tremendous cultural values and tremendous numbers of dwellings…. The German people” he said” remained faithful to Adolf Hitler until the end. He has betrayed them knowingly. He has tried to throw them into the abyss…“
As quoted by chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson in the closing summation of the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials on July 26, 1946
„The tremendous danger, however, contained in this totalitarian system only became abundantly clear at the moment when we were approaching the end. It was then that one could see what the meaning of the principle was, namely, that every order should be carried out without any criticism. Everything... you have seen in the way of orders which were carried out without any consideration, did after all turn out to be mistakes... This system let me put it like this to the end of the system it had become clear what tremendous dangers are contained in any such system, as such quite apart from Hitler's principle. The combination of Hitler and this system, then, brought about this tremendous catastrophe to this world.“
As quoted by chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson in the closing summation of the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials on July 26, 1946
„I felt this coming. I tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Hitler in 1945. I am not concerned with jurisdiction of the court as Hess or others are. History will show the trials to be necessary.“
To Leon Goldensohn, April 14, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - (2004)
„Hitler's dictatorship differed in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. His was the first dictatorship in the present period of technical development, a dictatorship which made complete use of all technical means for the domination of its own country. Through technical means like the radio and the loud-speaker, eighty million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man.“
1946. Quoted in "Nuremberg: The War Crimes Trial" by Richard Norton-Taylor, Nicolas Kent - Drama - (1997)
