That's fascinating. Do you happen to know his name or have links to where I can read further about this person?
Was Albert Speer genuinely remorseful about his role with the Nazis?
- Thread starter DeltaEnterprise252
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That's fascinating. Do you happen to know his name or have links to where I can read further about this person?
There's a chapter about people who refused or avoided taking part in mass killings in "The Good Old Days": The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders, by Klee, Dressen, and Riess. The statement by SS-Oberführer Professor Dr Franz Six on p. 83 matches the circumstances described earlier:
Six had actually been selected by Heydrich to command the SD in Britain, working on lists of prominent Britons. When the Royal Navy and the English Channel forced him to pursue other opportunities, he ended up commanding Vorkommando Moscow, a part of Einsatzgruppe B. His unit had killed 144 people (a tiny number by Einsatzgruppe standards) by the time he was promoted. After the war, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison after the Einsatzgruppen Trial at Nuremberg; he served 7.5 years.
I get the sense that Six's transfer was not entirely motivated by a disgust for mass shootings. He may, like Speer, added that detail later. More likely, he thought such low-level dirty work was beneath him, and he transferred to a higher-ranking, higher-paid position where, fortunately for him, his career wasn't encumbered by his time with the Einsatzgruppen. Until, that is, his more successful British counterpart put his name on a list.
Definitely an interesting person, and a similar one to Speer.
I was referring to Erwin Schulz in this case. He has a brief Wikipedia profile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schulz
I was referring in particular to his profile in Michael Wildt's book about the RSHA's leadership corps. 'An Uncompromising Generation'. It's a really, really good book. He's one of the three Einsatzkommando leaders the book discusses in detail as part of a collective biography of the RSHA leadership. I really cannot recommend it enough.
To clarify, Schulz was not a good guy. As Einsatzkommando leader during the campaign in the Soviet Union, he still ordered the murder of thousands of Jews. And he continued to faithfully serve the Third Reich as an SS leader after being recalled. He was still a Nazi. But he seems to have drawn the line when the Einsatzgruppen started murdering women and children.
Due to manpower shortages, many of the people under his command were cadets of the Security Police school, of which he was basically the inspector-instructor, so they were essentially his students on top of being his subordinates. When he asked for a transfer, he persuaded command to cut their deployment short, using the argument that their present mission was taking too much of a toll on them psychologically (which was definitely a thing in the Einsatzgruppen and Police Battalions, it's one of the reasons the SS built the gas chambers, though the Holocaust by bullets continued alongside the Operation Reinhard death camps).
Long story cut short, Schulz was recalled back to Berlin, promoted and given a different job. His colleagues and many of his subordinates thought he was a 'wuss', but he wasn't harmed.
Regarding Six, I agree that he probably thought this was beneath him, though being sent to head a murder squad in the East was a career opportunity for many and not a punishment in the SS - Ohlendorf's career benefited from it and Erich Ehrlinger was promoted to head of the RSHA's personnel department pretty much solely on the basis of his successful record as the incredibly murderous leader of an Einsatzkommando. It was a chance to 'prove your toughness and earn glory'. I'd say Six would've probably been responsible for more murders if Moscow had actually been taken (or if the unspeakable sea mammal had succeeded thanks to ASB intervention).
See, he used to run an 'academically' orientated department in the RSHA, which was supposed to 'scientifically and historically analyse Jewry, freemasons and other ideological enemies' and stuff. But that department didn't work out because its purpose was rather...obscure and so it didn't last long. Plus I get the impression that he wasn't good at office politics, which put him at a disadvantage when dealing with ambitious colleagues and his rather overbearing boss.
So he probably perceived his new job in the East as a comedown. He didn't even get to run a full Einsatzgruppe unlike his colleagues Nebe and Ohlendorf (Vorkommando Moskau was attached to Einsatzgruppe B, which was run by Nebe, a man who'd been Six' peer in the RSHA). The RSHA under Heydrich and later Kaltenbrunner expected its members, especially its senior figures, to have a 'soldierly attitude' and be ready to move from murdering people from behind the desk to murdering them at the 'frontlines'. I'd say Six had no ethical problem with the killings, but liked doing it from behind a desk more and felt his department wasn't being appreciated enough.
He was involved in the SS's operations to murder the Polish intelligentsia following the German invasion. Moreover, he openly supported the Final Solution in his new job at the German Foreign Office after being recalled from the East in a speech to the 'Jewish specialists' and 'Aryanisation advisors' from the German embassies, saying the 'physical annihilation of the eastern Jews would deprive Jewry of its biological reserves' and this was great since the Jews were the sworn enemies of Germany and controlled the allied powers. Worth noting that he continued to rise in rank in the SS after switching jobs. He was an SS-Brigadeführer when the war ended. Lutz Hachmeister wrote a biography about him, though I don't know whether it's been translated into English, and Wildt also talks about him in his RSHA study.
Fun fact, the section that was responsible for studying the old Catholic Church's persecution of witches was located in his old RSHA department (though Six was no occultist or neo-pagan type).
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I was thinking of the song but I think we’d agree Tom was much pithier.
mariano kant
Banned
he made lots of money and got away with it, why the hell would he ever feel sorry.
for killing jews, maybe....he was a nazi at worse, and the worst possible type of social alpinist "entrepeneur" at best, of course not.
for killing jews, maybe....he was a nazi at worse, and the worst possible type of social alpinist "entrepeneur" at best, of course not.
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Amazingly the guy is still alive. Only stopped teaching physics a couple of years ago.I was thinking of the song but I think we’d agree Tom was much pithier.
It was disgraceful for von Braun to get a free pass, but both the US and Soviets wanted missile people and were willing to overlook anything to get them.
I need to dig out my Tom Lehrer collection and listen to them again, in particular THE HUNTING SONG and SO LONG MOM...
Regarding the toll bit on the Death Squad members its always fascinated me. That you saw so many cases of members basically becoming full blown alcoholics and committing suicide or even in a few cases murdering their own families before killing themselves. Mostly because it seems odd that the men could initially participate in the shootings without much problem but as they continued many would experience a major toll. To me it would seem like the breaking point would come before the first or after committing the first slaughter. But instead it seems like the ones who broke did so after participating in numerous massacres.
Yes unfortunately nobody tosses away high quality engineers and scientists.
In any trial, the bar for prosecution to win should be high.
Certainly the Nuremburg trials prosecuted many people to their death sentence successfully. Scores of millions of people are dead, after a war the German leadership straight up started. Somebody was going to have the pay. Hard to feel sorry for the people hung in that situation.
Speer was a borderline case. He did work for his country, had political power, but certainly had little say in starting the war though and certainly had the power to be worse than he actually was in the later years. In any such borderline legal case, if the defendant is articulate, likable and can take the stand and generate some empathy, its hard to get a conviction. He did serve time regardless, just avoided the hangman's noose.
if guys like Guderian are writing books, getting interviews, Speer is probably in the same league.
The British more than anybody it seems, have the ability, a good thing, to take a "sporting" look at their victorious wars, they are going to go after people hard who didn't play by the "rules" (i.e. people who shoot British POWs etc.) but they have this ability to "shake hands" and talk about the "big game" afterward. So the fact that the German survivors were treated kindly by British writers afterward isn't surprising.
Certainly the Nuremburg trials prosecuted many people to their death sentence successfully. Scores of millions of people are dead, after a war the German leadership straight up started. Somebody was going to have the pay. Hard to feel sorry for the people hung in that situation.
Speer was a borderline case. He did work for his country, had political power, but certainly had little say in starting the war though and certainly had the power to be worse than he actually was in the later years. In any such borderline legal case, if the defendant is articulate, likable and can take the stand and generate some empathy, its hard to get a conviction. He did serve time regardless, just avoided the hangman's noose.
if guys like Guderian are writing books, getting interviews, Speer is probably in the same league.
The British more than anybody it seems, have the ability, a good thing, to take a "sporting" look at their victorious wars, they are going to go after people hard who didn't play by the "rules" (i.e. people who shoot British POWs etc.) but they have this ability to "shake hands" and talk about the "big game" afterward. So the fact that the German survivors were treated kindly by British writers afterward isn't surprising.
Garrison
Donor
I'm sorry but if you think that Guderian and Speer are on the same level then I can only suggest reading some of the books referenced over the last few pages.
And regardless of if he was really remorseful, he had to avoid the hangman's noose first and have enough image to make a living and have a social circle afterwards, not many people would act different.
That's fair enough, I haven't read those, Speer may be awful and not remorseful per the OP, but was likable and had a good defense in the trials and so managed to avoid the hangman's noose. (Still convicted of "Crimes against Humanity", served his time).
Guderian did led army groups during the initial expansions of the war, had political connections and positions of power until the end, people committed atrocities under his command. Certainly knew a lot at the time. He never resigned. Hardly an innocent of "Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace", more so than Speer on that count. Other generals like Manstein were convicted of crimes.
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Grey Wolf
Donor
I would think so
Most people are sociopaths to some degree
He convinced himself that what he was doing was justified and fine, while he was doing it
Later he convinced himself that it wasn't and that he was sorry for it
The idea that humans have an innate sense of both right and wrong and sorrow is a rather fallacious one. Humans have evolved to survive, and feelings and beliefs are internal structures that support this end.
Most people are sociopaths to some degree
He convinced himself that what he was doing was justified and fine, while he was doing it
Later he convinced himself that it wasn't and that he was sorry for it
The idea that humans have an innate sense of both right and wrong and sorrow is a rather fallacious one. Humans have evolved to survive, and feelings and beliefs are internal structures that support this end.
Do you have evidence or a source for this?
Fallacious how?
I don’t want to turn this thread into a debate on objective morality but what real difference is there between saying humans have an innate sense of morality and saying morality is an internal structure we evolved? Innate and internal sound like the same thing. They’re not mutually exclusive.
In regard to Speer, it is pretty obvious that Speer was not genuinely remorseful about his role with the Nazis. In fact, if I remember correctly, he was sort of resentful that all the "good" that the Third Reich did in regards to Germany would be forgotten. But, I had read in a book that Speer eventually realized that Hitler was a criminal when he was ordered to completely destroy Germany's infrastructure and Industry as the Allies invaded Germany. This order horrified Speer as he knew that the war was lost by that point and that Hitler had ordered this senseless destruction of Germany in order to punish the German people for being weak compared to the superior Slavs. If he had implemented Hitler's order, then millions of Germans would suffer in the post-war era.
Again, I am not saying Speer was a good guy. He was a criminal too, but it is interesting that he only got that moment of clear comprehension near the very end.
Again, I am not saying Speer was a good guy. He was a criminal too, but it is interesting that he only got that moment of clear comprehension near the very end.
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At least, so he, a man skilled with PR who made all sorts of tapes that were later discovered where he talked about his real/less massaged views on Nazi Germany (There was a documentary on them), claimed, among many other disproven lies.