How awe-inspiring is this? can you imagine being there and witnessing this? hundreds of air-raid lights shooting into the night sky. Albert Speer really was a genius, I can't believe they locked him away, he wasn't even loyal to Hitler, he refused to destroy the buildings he designed.







Just before 7:30 when it was nearly dark, a floodlight shoots heavenward. The small spotlight's beam reveals more than 200 enormous swastika flags that fly from 12 meter flagpoles in the evening breeze. Suddenly one realizes the enormous size of the field and drinks in the unforgettable picture. More lights illuminate the flawless white marble platform, an unforgettably beautiful sight. All who see the splendid sight stand still and breathe quietly. The first of the Führer's large buildings on the Nuremberg Reich Party Rally grounds is seen in all its beauty.
More lights shoot across the field, revealing the endless brown columns, showing their movements, until suddenly, at a command, the 90,000 are in place.
A festive mood fills all, as if they knew what an experience awaits them. But what actually happens surpasses all their expectations.
Orders blare from the loudspeakers, hurried automobiles dash here and there. Shortly before 8, the spotlights at the south fade. It is the direction from which the Führer will come. The 500 pupils of the party school Ordensburg Vogelsang have entered just before, displaying perfect order, and taken their position before the main platform.
The voice of Dr. Ley comes over the loudspeaker: "Attention! The Führer is here!" The shouts that always accompany the Führer resound from the Dutzendteich train station. The colonnade slowly circles the field, then suddenly — as the shouts of those on the other side of the platform announce the Führer's arrival —180,000 people look to the heavens. 150 blue spotlights surge upward hundreds of meters, forming overhead the most powerful cathedral that mortals have ever seen.
There, at the entrance, we see the Führer. He too stands for several moments looking upward, then turns and walks, followed by his aides, past the long, long columns, 20 deep, of the fighters for his idea. An ocean of Heil-shouts and jubilation surrounds him.
Several stars shine through the deep blue curtain of the cathedral of light, and the flags of the German nation flutter in the soft wind.
The Führer has reached his place. The loudspeaker thunders: "Flags. Forward, March!" We know that 25,000 flags are to enter. We look out and see thousands of golden points coming from the direction of the tribune on the far side. They move forward, the red of the flags appears, the black swastikas on the white background glow against the brown uniforms.
Now the flags cascade in, through eight side entrances, with another flood coming in at the wide middle entrance. Spotlights illuminate the flags at the head, casting a silver glow that intensifies as it nears us.
Finally, finally, as the masses gaze as if transfixed, the flood of flags comes to a rest.
The Leaders' Rally at Nuremberg in 1936

The old place has lost some of its' glitz over the years.....

__________________
"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Definitely awesome and something Hitler´s "shows" needed....

Albert did use the labour work force knowing what would happen to those poor creatures to begin with. So I think he was as guilty as the others and as well kept prolonging the war with bigger production figures. Lucky escape from the gallows.

__________________

Hey PactofSteel, i got a surprise for u....
I FOUND THE CLIP OF THIS SPEECH.
one of hitler's most reamarkable ever. just look here.....

YouTube - Judden

__________________
If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons
- Winston Churchill

I can't believe you have posted this. I'm sorry, but this is a man who was responsible for the use of forced labor including victims of the holocaust and foreigners wrenched from their homes. He was the man who kept the German economy together and extended the war by god knows how long. He was responsible for the pain and suffering of millions of innocent people, both through his economic work and his efforts on behalf of Nazi propaganda. I honestly can't believe he escaped Nuremberg with his life!

__________________
There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

yet he disobeyed a direct order from Hitler to destroy the structures.

So because a man refuses to obey an order to destroy buildings he designed (and loved) that makes up for the misery and suffering he caused?

Sorry, you seem to miss my point,maybe I could put it in simpler terms, Speer was a Nazi, a disloyal Nazi but one none the less and disobeying one of Hitlers orders does not redeem that, not when he wsa doing it to save his own creation. Not after all he had done.

__________________
There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

Destroying the factories etc would have only hurt the Germans, really...so Speer was helping Germany and Germans nobody else.

__________________

its interesting that you guys assume that just because someone was a Nazi automatically makes them pure evil, Albert Speer was a genius, and I don't believe the man was evil either. Yes he was involved with the force labor, so he should have rebelled against Hitler just to get sent to a concentration camp or been executed? did you forget that the "good and pure" USA had slaves at one time as well? are all Americans evil as well?

Just because Albert never really got dirt in his own hands, i.e. sent his orders from his ivory tower and did not run a concentration camp, does not mean he can be free of his responsibility. The result was the same. Neither Himmler killed anyone himself but he was responsible for the kills the SS did. Himmler even got nausea from seeing people being shot.

In early 1944 Speer was on a long sick leave probably due to nerve collapse. Yet he chose to return to continue his job.

No, not all americans are evil but then again we are not here to discuss the slave issue. But if you ask me the men who did it should have been judged.

__________________

It's also interesting that people persist in taking Speer as portrayed by himself in his memoirs, as an 'apolitical technocrat'.

In a signed affidavit written in 1977, Speer finally admitted ; -

' I still recognize today that the grounds upon which I was convicted at the International Military Tribunal were correct. More than this, I still consider it essential today to take upon myself responsibility, and thus the blame in general, for all crimes which were committed after I became a member of Hitler's Government on 8 February 1942. It is not individual acts or omissions, however grave, which weigh upon me, but my conduct as part of the leadership....
....to this day, I still consider my main guilt to be my tacit acceptance of the persecution and the murder of millions of Jews.' (Quoted in Sereny, p.707 )

Speer was indeed a genius - and an intelligent, sophisticated man ; that's precisely why we should all be thankful that there were not more like him among the Nazi elite. Speer excelled in the machinations of Nazi politics and escaped the gallows at Nuremburg - while his underling Sauckel did not - by creating then and subsequently what has been called 'the most cunning apologia by any leading figure of the Third Reich' ( Schmidt, p.204 ).

Anyone wanting to take Speer at more than face value can read Sereny, 'Albert Speer - His Battle With The Truth' ( London/New York 1995 ) and Matthias Schmidt, 'Albert Speer - The End Of A Myth' ( New York 1984 ).

__________________
"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

I'm ordering that book, thanks for the info.

Both books are well worth reading, and in fact they're essential of you're really interested in Speer. Neither is a 'hack job' and neither tries to either whitewash or smear the subject. Sereny's book is in effect an expanded version of her series of personal interviews and conversations with Speer ( which were almost his last ). She was absolutely no 'pushover' and was noted for her toughness, but even she clearly falls under Speer's very considerable personal charm and force of character.

__________________
"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Speer's never admitted to any such things: and the opportunists took well advantage of his humanity rather than his true responsibility, that was measured in large part due his credit as a man than due to his culpability as the armament minister. His collective responsibility lied in greater part to Germany whom he defended until the end as a German Officer. Where even as he sat and listened to the false testimony in the “Nuremburg trials” about the killing of the over 30K poles by Nazi officials was a lie and later the Soviets and communist government admitted responsibility for these actions. But the Nazi officers were hung for this but still he took credit for Germany and for this not because they did it or he had knowledge of it rather, because at the time he was collectively part of the war. And by the by this falsehood ended up not even being true but by the measure of his own self judgment he had the courage to take some responsibility because he was the armaments minister.
Just as the there were no one “gassed “ in Auschwitz he had no bloody idea what the tribunal was talking about and only admitted to slave labor camps, which of course this is true. And yes anytime there were shootings of “Pows” Hitler put an immediate end to it. That is why Himmler kept his “secret war” against bolshevism from reaching the “wolfs lair” or “Berlin’ Why yes that is why the Germans were so meticulous in there booking and calendaring of all the “Pows” of the captured territories. Thusly marking the “Pows" as slave laborers as this was a very essential part in the rebuilding and rearmament of Germany after all of the allied incendiary bombings that were taking place.
All of the countries had ‘internments camps’ even the United States and especially Russia! Albert
Speer's was in the dark with these so called hate crimes because they never happened. The people who were in the slave labor camps “Arbeit Mach Dich Frei” the “pows” were more valuable alive to Germany then dead. And sadly at the end of the war German citizens’ were starving soldiers were dying on the front starving. Sadly many ended up dying from natural causes in that war it is all a sad immutable point.
And according to the “PWE” Psychological War Executive by Great Britain’s intelligence reports from 1942-1945 They British knew this as well and it was they, who initially made the story up about “death camps“ with there Leaflet organization along with the PWE. In these reports they offered no evidence that Speers or Hitler had any knowledge of such criminal activities because no such activities ever happened. I have read the whole bloody dossier.
Speers was intensely critical of himself as a human being and so for this he was interestingly more convinced of his responsibility only because Germany took the chance “we gambled and lost” but according to the Geneva convention and the false accusation perpetrated against the Germans were far less guilty of war crimes. And criminals that were the Allies or more to the Point “Russia” who in effect were the real criminals of the war and literally decimated Germany, then later blamed the Germans for the crimes they had done in actuality. Case in point the 30K poles and a number of other events I will save for later postings. Speers in the end was mired in the dedication to his country and Adolf Hitler and his Love of Architecture and family. His continually introspective vantage point has grown and assessed itself similar to that of the chances they took in the battle of bulge and efforts to save the Third Reich from crumbling. While at the same time taking responsibility for the many millions of lives that were his to protect and serve. His justice as a human being far outweighed what the “misinformed” have tried to say of him posthumously. For he never abandoned Germany in there greatest hour and so he took
responsibility for all. And for this we must give him the respect he is due as human being and leader who never turned his back on duty and country. For one to be beset with such extraordinary challenges and never lose sight of what is truly important the of Love his family and country he should be given much respect and reverence and held to a light that few will ever cast a greater shadow than that of his creations indeed.

And your sources for this are....?

__________________
"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Spandau you are quite simply a TWAT.

__________________

Not the most civilised way of putting it but I think you may have just about summed it up there WW.

Sources for the above denialist rant? Irving, Zundel, Ahmadinejad. etc. etc.

Cheers,
Adam.

__________________
It's only the Internet.

Spandau

__________________

American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Well, I think Mr Spandau's posting is as close to Holocaust Denial as we've ever seen on these Forums - not just Holocaust, but just about anything else ever done in the name of Nazism ( in fact, I even started to wonder whether WWII happened at all, or was just a bad dream ? ). I'm rather surprised that he didn't cite Hitler's love of dogs and the fact that Goering enjoyed playing with toy trains.

The posting could - and probably should - be deleted, but I'm genuinely interested what sources Mr Spandau bases this extraordinary stream-of-consciousness-style rant of half-baked theories upon.

Let's be honest, for a self-professed 'seeker of the truth' ( sic ) to simply say 'I have read the whole bloody dossier' is pretty pathetic. What dossier ? Who compiled it ? Where can it be accessed ?

For a moment, I wondered whether Mr Spandau was in fact David Irving but that would be an insult to Irving, whose views may be deeply suspect but he does at least profess to be meticulous about sources.

So - over to Mr Spandau.....

__________________
"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson