Searching For Tariq Speer - The War On... Posted by Jeff (Thursday February 13 2003 @ 09:44AM EST)

As the it was driven from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, the Iraqi army executed orders to destroy Kuwaiti oil. For about eight months, firefighters from ten countries battled the raging disaster. This was a preview of what promises to be the grand finale. The 1991 objective was to lift Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, the current objective is to remove Saddam Hussein from power. If the current objective is met, the Iraqi leader is aware of the personal consequences. He will be put to death. A man backed into the corner will fight with great tenacity and one of the items in his arsenal is the rule book. The Allies faced a similar situation in Europe during the Second World War. Certainly the Allied objective was to lift Nazi occupation throughout Europe, but the top priority was to get Hitler. As the backs of his soldiers got closer and closer to Berlin, Hitler ordered mass destruction. If he couldn't have the lush agricultural lands of Europe, then nobody would have them. He order them burned. He ordered the infrastructure destroyed, bridges, roads, rails, buildings. Destroy everything. Destroy industry, public and private records, art and the great cathedrals. His successors should inherit a wasteland. In the East, against an enemy bedeviled by years of Nazi propaganda, these orders were executed to varying degrees. In the West, they stiff faced resistance from none other than one of Hitler's closest political allies and one of his few personal friends. Albert Speer shared with Hitler a common love of architecture. The two were close. At Nuremburg, Speer told his captors that if Hitler had a single friend, then it was him. This closeness served him well. When a Fritz Todt was killed in an airplane accident in 1942, Speer was promoted to Minister of Armaments and War Production. He performed well in that role. The great economist, John Kenneth Galbraith who was in charge of assessing the effects of Allied bombing after the war, was startled by the findings. German production of war materials increased every since 1940 and reached peak production in December 1944 despite heavy allied bombing. Production tapered off only as the war wound down. The efficiency of German industry under the weight of heavy bombing can be partially attributed to Speer's proficiency as Minister of Armaments. He was close to Hitler, he was successful. Yet when push came to shove, Speer countermanded Hitler's orders to destroy the West. Did Speer have a falling out with his leader once the war appeared lost? Emphatically no. In fact as Berlin was close to falling into Soviet hands, as Speer was directly defying Hitler's orders, he went to the decimated German capital--at great personal risk--to visit his friend in the bunker. There was some talk of the war effort, but not much. This was a personal visit, a final good-bye. Speer was loyal to the end. For all his shortcomings as a person (Speer disacknowledged any involvement in the Holocaust, a denial which--although definitively unproven--remains dubious), Speer did the right thing by countermanding Hitler's order of complete and total destruction. And while his motives may have been self-preserving, posterity still benefitted from his efforts. Now on the brink of war, posterity requires another Speer. We need a Tariq Speer to do the right thing. Most of the chicken hawks screaming for Iraqi blood (or oil, same thing), seem oblivious to Iraq's potential for destruction. They are quick to shout rhetoric for the purpose of scaring the public into war, but do they actually realize the damage a hunted Saddam Hussein can wreak on the economic and health care systems of the world? The immediate economic impact remains clear to even the chicken hawks, Saddam Hussein will follow his own 1991 lead and set Iraqi oil ablaze. This act will have some short term ramifications, but it is manageable. But there is a greater potential danger lurking in Iraq. Saddam Hussein most likely possesses one of the great banes of humanity. He most likely has smallpox hidden in a freezer. In the early 1970s, around the time that Iraq was putting its biological weapons unit together, smallpox broke out in Iran and spilled over the border into Iraq. It is hard to imagine that the Iraqis did not add that virus to the arsenal. It is equally hard to imagine Hussein not giving the order to use it as American armies close in with intent to kill. Isolated and contained, Hussein has no incentive to unleash the deadly virus. But with Hussein's single pawn facing Bush's queen in the deadly end game, the former has a chance to flip the table and leave all the pieces on the floor. He can unleash the "eradicated" disease. Hence my plea for an Iraqi version of Albert Speer. I'll take him in any form, flaws and all. The man who refuses to let smallpox back into the wild is a man who deserves to get out of this alive. When Hussein's king is toppled, I hope that lone pawn is still standing watch over the smallpox in the freezer with the key stuffed down his pants...

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By Anonymous (Monday February 17 2003 @ 12:27PM EST)

Your comments about Galbraith and the Bombing Survey bear correction. JK Galbraith was not head of the USSBS (United States Strategic Bombing Survey) but was an important member of the 300-member civilian component. Franklin D'Olier (Chairman of Prudential Insurance was the head of the survey). Other notable members: Paul Nitze, George Ball. Understanding the effects of the Combined Offensive Europe are beyond this space but a few important notes are in order to clear up the frequently heard assertion that the Strategic Bombing Offensive in Europe had no effect beyond the obvious one of drawing the Luftwaffe out to its destruction. The German economy up until the beginning and through much of the bombing campaign was under-mobilized. Hitler preferred to have butter with his guns throughout most of the war. German women were not mobilized into the economy at even the same level as they had been in 1914-1918 (obviously slave-labor took up some of this slack). As late as September 41 during Barbarossa, Hitler ordered cut-backs in armaments production to better service the civilian economy. For most of the war, much of German industry ran on single shifts with average work weeks. The effect of this is that the German economy had much slack and had not been efficiently organized on a war-time basis. This slack meant that industrial bombing did not always have immediate effects. Speer certainly was higly instrumental in rationalizing economic production, but the growth rate during that period was off of a small base. The early air campaign 42-mid 43 targeted centers of population and not highly interdictive industrial targets. Following the Jan 43 Casablanca conference -- the air offensive was retargeted to industry -- starting with the aircraft industry (airframes and engines). This begins in earnest in Jun 43 and follows through the autumn with the two major strikes on the Shweinfurt ball-bearing plants. Up until this point, the aircraft industry was under control of Hermann Goering. Speer takes over after the first allied attacks and begins to rationalize a poorly run operation by dispersing various components. The allies actually back-off operations at this point because the October Shweinfurt raids using unescorted medium and heavy bombers had catastrophic losses. It is with the arrival of the P-51 Mustang long-range fighter escorts in December of 43 that the greater offensive begins. Of all the tons dropped in Europe (2.7 M) only 17% were dropped prior to 1944. The offensive now turns to Oil and synthetics. This is real bottleneck in German arms and the effect is significant. Beginning in May '44, production is dramatically cut and never recovers. Attacks on the sythetics plants also effects production of Nitrogen which is essential to ammunition. German shells begin to use filler to stretch the nitrogen and ammunition remains in shortage for the remainder of the war. Targeting next turns to the transportation networks. By this time because of Speers dispersals, the transport network is highly critical for assembling war materiel. The offensive result is highly disruptive to army supply and civilian comfort. The one system never targeted directly during the Air Offensive was the electrical system -- because the allies erroneously believed that it had enough redundacy and that circuits could be rerouted very quickly. The other point that you should consider that is relevant to your search for a Tariq Speer is that Speer's claims of saving German industry by countermanding Hitler's orders have always been treated with proper skepticism. Galbraith as early as 1945 doubted the veracity of these claims as well as the supposed attempt as gassing the Fuhrerbunker. He was also cognizant of the fact that the rise in production under Speer was off of a very weak beginning.

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By Jeff (Monday February 17 2003 @ 10:30PM EST) In order to demonstrate Speer's role in resistance to scorched-earth policy and for fear of collapsing into the black hole of an extended research project I'll simply note the migating circumstances cited by the International Military Tribunal in its judgement with regard to Speer: "It must be recognized that Speer's establishment of blocked industries did keep many laborers in their homes and that in the closing stages of the war he was one of the few men who had the courage to tell Hitler that the war was lost and to take steps to prevent the senseless destruction of production facilities, both in occupied territories and in Germany. He carried out his opposition to Hitler's scorched earth program in some of the Western countries and in Germany by deliberately sabotaging it at considerable personal risk." If you question the extent and effectiveness of Speer's resistance to scorched-earth, then perhaps it will please you to consider Tariq Speer the embodiment of all who resisted the policy. I'd prefer wide spread resistance to Saddam's final Hurrah as well. Above I am claiming that Speer was loyal to the end citing his final trip to Berlin to see his friend, H. He did NOT attempt to gas the Fuhrerbunker. No claim regarding this was ever made by me. With regard to Galbraith, I didn't mean to imply that he ran the show. If this work goes to a second edition, "in charge of" will become "charged with." (Makes a note to his editor...) [ reply | parent ]

By Anonymous (Wednesday February 19 2003 @ 02:45PM EST) I wouldn't use the International Mil. Tribunal's words as evidence of the facts but rather of what Speer was able to convince them of and not inconsequently, what they chose to believe. Certainly in comparison to anyone else of similar rank or position, he stands out -- but that's not much of a comparison. I do believe Speer did oppose and countermand some of the scorched earth orders -- but there were many individuals (industrialists, Wehrmacht officers, etc) who were actively opposing where possible -- so treating Tariq Speer as a collective emobodiment probably gets to the point. However -- I cannot agree that Speer had not broken with Hitler. His estrangement began or caused his illness and hospitalization in '44. Hitler and Speer had a fairly dramatic break in a meeting in Fuhrerbunker in Mar 45. Speer himself in all his versions of the story (3-4) never appears to have come to a clear idea of why he returned to Berlin in Apr 45. Various indications from him are that he "wanted to be in center of it all again" -- that he wanted to see Hitler once again to confront the path they had traveled together. Loyalty does not pop at the top of the list. The story of the final meeting has a number of versions as mentioned -- the one that seems to ring most true is found in the Spandau Diaries -- and describes a fairly flat meeting -- mainly a discussion of mundane affairs and issues -- no confessions no emotion. Speer seems to spend most of his time with Magda G. and Eva B. As for gassing the Fuhrerbunker, this is a claim that was made by Speer -- that he in early '45 had investigated the opportunity to admit gas into the bunker via one of the air exchange pipes. A number of severe contradictions in this claim have accumulated over the years -- but that's par for the course with Herr Minister Speer. [ reply | parent ]

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