You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
alternatehistory.com
3. The building of Germany: the Memoirs of Albert Speer, Chapter “Ostfront”
Sincere apologies for the delay, my own life caught up on me in a rather miserable manner but for now, I shall leave you with the next chapter.
The building of the New Germany: the Memoirs of Albert Speer, Chapter “Ostfront”
One of the greatest achievements of the German people and of the National Socialist leadership of the conquests of the east, but the initial conquest in Operation Barbarossa, in particular, stands out as one of these successes. Men like Goebbels, the talented orators and propagandists say that our success was due to the natural superiority of the Aryan peoples over the Judeo-Bolsheviks, whose diseased nature had eroded the Soviet Union which in turn allowed the triumph of national socialism over it. In reality, and in retrospect, I feel the only reason for our triumph was luck in the end.
The nature of Germany at the time after the crushing of King Jean and Maurras’ France and its exile into its various colonies was that similar to that of a hydra. It was multi-headed beast which was united by the body which my patron the Fuhrer provided. It was a nightmare of competing bureaucracies, which greatly hampered our ability to succeed. Power was fluid in that it was dependent on the Fuhrer's wishes often and how people understood them, with his vagueness being a great issue for us all.
This became increasingly evident as time went by, it seemed that Italy had its own ideas about what to do in this war, aside from reclaiming a few lost territories in France and in Corsica, it seemed to be mostly disinterested in furthering Germany. Whether this was the influence of Balbo or Mussolini’s sense of caution given the ascent of a Prime Minister quite friendly to Italy and its interests seemed to concern the Fuhrer. This suspicion brewed into a sense of paranoia and distrust which was not especially productive in the end and probably force Mussolini to be cautious in both the Balkans and in Africa. Knowing the state of his men at the time leads the prudent to the conclusion that we were quite fortunate that was the case, as otherwise we may very well have been distracted there. One of our crucial mistakes was the underestimating of Soviet Forces, had we not retained our singular focus on the USSR and had the British, Italians or another equally banal distraction spread it out, I fear that we would have suffered immensely.
The Soviets in the East had been facing difficulties with their military expeditions for some time now, firstly in Finland which was a considerable humiliation of the Russian war machine and in Lithuania, which was managing to stand against the Soviet advance into the Baltics, its forces proving a useful drain of resources and allowed our observers to study Soviet Forces. Ultimately, it seemed very much to be the case that these men were quite useful to our cause, despite their eventual fates at their hands and ours.
We began moving our forces, into the area swiftly after the destruction of the French forces early February and were, fortunately, able to do so mostly without obstruction. We eventually moved 3.25 million of our own men and nearly 700,000 men of other Axis nations, to the border in the east with the Soviet Union and Lithuania. Lithuania, while fighting a losing war was capable of providing quite considerable trouble for the Red Tsar Iosif Stalin. Rosenberg through decidedly curious machinations and his ties to the Baltic area managed to acquire the loyalty of the Lithuania's who would enable the Reich to move through their territory and assist their entrenched forces repel the invaders. They would later learn that Rosenberg’s promises are fleeting as the winter snows come spring. It was also during this time that Prime Minister Amery seemed to covertly pass on a message to Rosenberg, describing an arrangement to take in any Jews within Germany and have them be resettled in the dominion of Palestine. Such a proposal stuck Rosenberg rather confusedly, before realising that this was one of the supporters of the Balfour declaration. Rosenberg decided to forward the idea to Hitler himself, and his reaction was of predominantly disapproval. Regardless, and an arrangement was in place for certain Jews, — predominantly German and Hungarian in origin to be transferred to the dominion of Palestine. Hitler later came to rationalise this as Amery's desire to assist in the removal of Jews from Europe and helped mark a change in an approach to the Prime Minister, revitalising his hopes for a German-British alliance.
On the 14th of May 1941 Operation Barbarossa started and it seemed a great convenience to us that the Soviets were caught unprepared for the starting invasion. Heydrich told me that Stalin was paralysed and greatly distraught when first told of this, how he knows this, I know little of how he was able to acquire this information but Heydrich has always been the sort to acquire such knowledge with fairly considerable reliability. Regardless, it seemed evident in how our foe’s troops seemed to react. They were disorganised, hugely so due to a seeming breakdown in communications which proved deeply counterproductive to the art of waging war. It was also evidently not helped by Stalin’s purges of his officer cores, something which greatly dampened
Our reasons for invading Russia were ultimately Hitler’s in conception. He saw a variety of things in Eastern Europe, which became increasingly central to his ideology. He valued it for the agricultural value it would provide, preventing Germany from being embargoed like it was in the first great war. He imagined it as a new space for the Germans suffering the pressures of overpopulation where they could grow free away from the debauchery of urban cities. He most importantly saw it as the lair of Judeo-Bolshevikism and the subhuman Slavic races which inhabited it.
The drive to the east began with great success. Minsk fell within a day and by the end of June, we were pushing the front further and further to the point of reaching Kiev and being along the River Dnieper. Another crucial victory was at Smolensk, which put us even closer to Moskau; this was while the northern flank of our forces had crossed into the Baltics and stood at the gates of what was then Leningrad, and now is Adolfsburg. It came under siege by German forces, one which was especially brutal in character, however, thanks to poor enemy supply it fell in nine weeks. Much credit should be granted to the Finnish contributions to the battle, with many veterans of the Winter war being especially successful in combat. One could easily understand why the Finns took it upon themselves to exploit the opportunity to right what was wronged by the Soviets. Karelia was reclaimed during this time as well after a campaign quite favourable to the Finns with our reinforcements.
Army group centre was focused on Moskau was merely 36 miles away from the Soviet capital, albeit they were facing more difficulty near the end of July due to a sense of organisation finally returning to the Soviet forces however it did not help them account for their lack of supplies. However, they managed to halt our advance until Winter came in which offensive operations were slowed.
The fall of Leningrad and the ever encroaching march of German men seemed to have driven Stalin a man of questionable sanity at best to pursue a campaign of purges not seen since the Great Purge. Nearly the entirety of STAVKA was purged outright with the assistance of the NKVD under Beria (who seemed to be on manoeuvres himself at this time, preparing for what I suspect he knew would have been the coming disaster) due to their failures to hold Russia’s strategic cities. Zhukov, received a tip and was able to escape his fate however others weren’t so lucky. Stalin, in the end, assumed direct control over the war effort and its leadership. I do suspect had Stalin not repeat his mistakes, that our efforts would have been a lot more difficult in character.
We eventually ordered Case Plan Blue in Spring 1942, our Spring offensive towards the Red Army’s positions with the intent of securing the eastern goals. A drive towards the Caucasus was launched by a combination of the Wehrmacht and the SS, with three strategic targets in mind: the Volga river, the Baku oil fields however it should be noted the main target was the city of Stalingrad. Its name provided a great deal of power to the city, on top of is tactical and strategic uses given its position on the Volga. It’s taking was ultimately one of the steps necessary for Germany to succeed in the east, just how Vienna was central to further Ottoman expansion. The Battle of Stalingrad was hugely bloody in character, with huge casualties for all parties in the battle, something which would be unparalleled until the resumption of the advance east decades later. It was around this time I became Reichsminister of Armaments and War Production and began my efforts to reform and hugely improve the bureaucratic mess that was before me despite Göring’s wishes to replace Alfred Todt. I did not desire the role but only accepted due to it being Hitler’s wish and demand. Our economy was not geared towards meeting wartime demands, we had a variety of overlapping ministries, women barely working in industry. I still recall visiting a factory and finding not a single worker there. In the end, I lead quite a few programs going forwards, one focused on giving factories self-responsibility while also leading them to focus on a single product. My power grew significantly throughout the economy, with Hitler one day even declaring “Speer, I'll sign anything that comes from you” something I used to my advantage rather substantially. Economic reform after economic reform. It was the success of Generalleutnant Rommel in taking Stalingrad in October of that year — whose appointment there seemed to be at Hitler’s personal request — which made our victory feel almost inevitable. Yet it seemed to push Stalin over the edge, ordering a full scorched earth policy and the “liquidation of all potential allies and labourers of the Reich.” Thusly the Soviet men were forced to and the mobilisation of all. It seemed to be a suicidal move which only harmed Stalin’s increasingly manic efforts.
Perhaps it was a temporary mercy for the Russian peoples that Stalin died on the 18th of December (his birthday of all days), choking on a meal he was eating according the official stories realised by Beria although Heydrich and Canaris both suspected that this was nothing more than a cover story or whatever actually happened to him but the specifics remain ultimately unimportant. His death broke Russia and was the greatest stroke of luck he had in those days. His death left a sense of crippling paralysis which gave the Generals the vital opportunity to push deeper and deeper and eventually enabled us to take Moskau, especially when the emergency NKVD led government fled behind the Urals. While the USSR retreated, in a state of chaos and rumours of Zhukov’s return began to swirl, Hitler sent a proposal to the Emergency leadership of the USSR at the time hoping to exploit the sense of Chaos. His terms were the full visualisation of his Greater Germanic Empire, with all Soviet territory West of the Urals which the shambles of a government came to accept upon their defeat in Moscow and the collapse of their forces. In the end, we had succeeded finally, that on the 11th of February 1943, the Soviet Union conceded victory to Germany and our triumph was assured. We had done that which Napoleon and Charles XII had not, we had defeated the Soviet Union. Victory was finally ours.
The next chapter shall be focusing on the War in Asia and its conclusion in Europe, with both being rather different in this TL.