PROSECUTOR. The Defendant Speer – between 1932 and 1945 was: A member of the Nazi Party, Reichsleiter, member of the Reichstag, Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions, \ Chief of the Organization Todt, General Plenipotentiary for Armaments in the Office of the Four Year Plan, and Chairman of the Armaments Council.
JUDGE. In accordance with Article 27 of the Charter, the International Military Tribunal will now pronounce the sentences on the defendants convicted in this indictment. Defendant Joachim von Ribbentrop, on the counts of the indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to death by hanging. Defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the Tribunal sentences you to death by hanging.
PROSECUTOR. The defendant Speer used the foregoing positions and his personal influence in such a manner that: \ He participated in the military and economic planning and preparation of the Nazi conspirators for Wars of aggression and Wars in Violation of International Treaties, Agreements, and Assurances set forth in Count One and Count Two of the Indictment . . .
JUDGE. Defendant Julius Streicher, the Tribunal sentences you to death by hanging.
PROSECUTOR. . . . and he authorized, directed, and participated in the War Crimes set forth in Count Three of the Indictment . . .
JUDGE. Defendant Fritz Sauckel, the Tribunal sentences you to death by hanging.
PROSECUTOR. . . . and the Crimes against Humanity set forth in Count Four of the Indictment, including more particularly the abuse and exploitation of human beings for forced labour in the conduct of aggressive war.
JUDGE. Defendant Albert Speer! On the counts of the indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to death by hanging!
SPEER wakes in terrible agitation.
SPEER. Not – yet.
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR (from a list, to NEURATH, emphatically, but with terrible pronunciation). Konstantin von Neurath. Foreign Minister. Fifteen year.
FRENCH OFFICER. On admission, the prisoners will undress completely. Prisoners will be addressed by their convict number, in no circumstances by name.
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR. Now you are Number one.
NEURATH undresses. KARL DÖNITZ is admitted.
Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz: ten year. Number Two.
DÖNITZ undresses. Baldur von SCHIRACH is admitted.
Baldur von Schirach. Hitler youth leader, twenty year. Number Three.
SCHIRACH undresses. HESS is admitted.
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR. Ah. Hess. Hitler Deputy, till 1941. Sentence to life. Is number four.
HESS doesn’t undress. SPEER admitted. He is 42.
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR. Albert Speer, Arm Minister, 20 year.
SPEER sizes up the situation.
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR. I say a lucky man.
GUARD (shouts to HESS). Undress!
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR. His number five.
HESS and SPEER begin to undress. We sense hostility from the other PRISONERS to SPEER. Walter FUNK is admitted.
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR (to FUNK and RAEDER). Walter Funk, Reichsminister for Economics. Number six, for life.
Erich RAEDER is admitted.
And Admiral Erich Raeder is number seven. Also life.
As the later PRISONERS finish undressing, the FRENCH OFFICER continues to read out the rules. GUARDS gesture to them to go and dress in the concentration camp uniforms. HESS is swaying.
FRENCH OFFICER. The discipline of the institution requires that prisoners should adopt a standing position whenever approached or in the presence of prison officers. They will salute by standing at attention at the same time removing their headgear.
HESS gestures to the GUARD who goes to speak to him. A GUARD goes and whispers to him.
The prisoners may approach an officer or warder only if ordered to do so or if they want to make a request.
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR (in Russian). Ftchyom tam dela? [What’s the problem?]
GUARD (nodding to HESS). This man says he will faint.
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR (Russian). Poost syadit. [Let him sit down.]
GUARD(to HESS). You must sit down.
HESS sits on the floor. The other PRISONERS continue to dress.
FRENCH OFFICER (continues). Prisoners shall at all times wear the clothing provided for them. Imprisonment shall be in the form of solitary confinement. Approaching any window – including those in the cells – is strictly prohibited. The Prisoners may not talk or associate with one another except with special dispensation from the Directorate. However religious services and walks in open air will be carried out together.
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR. Form line!
The PRISONERS form up in their concentration camp uniforms.
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR (Russian). Zaklyutchyonnym vazzmozhina boodit intiressna oozznat shto etoo adezhdoo nasseeli oozniki konstlagirey. [The Prisoners may be interested to learn that these clothes were worn by prisoners in concentration camps.]
GUARD (translates). The Prisoners must like to know that these cloths are worn by prisoners in concentration camp.
No response from the PRISONERS.
RUSSIAN DIRECTOR (Russian). Im shto, ni panyatna? [Do they understand that?]
GUARD (translates). Do you understand?
The PRISONERS give slight nods. HESS nods and is helped to his feet.
RUSSIAN OFFICER. So, gentlemen. Welcome to Spandau.
As the DIRECTOR, OFFICER, GUARDS and PRISONERS leave, and the next scene is set up, SPEER speaks out front.
SPEER. You ask me how I felt? That I was getting what I deserved.
What, did I really feel that? Well, my feelings then were complex. I am putting them in simple terms for you.
But I can assure you, at that moment, nothing could have been better designed to make me feel very humble indeed.
CASALIS. Herr Dönitz.
After a moment, DÖNITZ puts his chair upright and shakes CASALIS’s hand.
(To the next man.)Herr Schirach?
SCHIRACH. Yes.
Shake hands.
CASALIS(to FUNK). And – Raeder?
FUNK. Funk.
CASALIS. Herr Funk.
FUNK (shaking hands, nodding to the next man). Raeder.
RAEDER. Admiral Raeder.
CASALIS (shaking hands). How do you do. And . . . Herr von Neurath.
NEURATH shakes, pleased that CASALIS used the ‘von’.
And of course, Herr . . .
SPEER. Speer.
CASALIS. Herr Speer.
Shakes hands. To the GUARD.
Herr Hess?
The GUARD is baffled.
NEURATH (Russian). Nommerr chetyrree. [Number Four.]
SOVIET GUARD. He is in cell. No religion. ‘Mumbo jumbo’.
He indicates by the universal gesture that HESS is mad.
CASALIS. Please gentlemen be seated.
The PRISONERS sit on their chairs. The SOVIETGUARD sits on the lavatory.
My name is Georges Casalis. I minister to the Protestant French community here in Berlin. I was asked if I would be prepared to serve as pastor to the prisoners of Spandau, on the grounds I fear of my linguistic rather than my spiritual skills.
No laugh.
So, as required of me: your regular Saturday dose of mumbo jumbo.
No laugh.
The text on which I wish to speak today is taken from Luke’s gospel: ‘While he was in a certain city, there came a man full of leprosy – ’
The PRISONERS glance at each other.
‘ – and when he saw Jesus he fell on his face and begged him: Lord, if you will, make me clean.’
SCHIRACH a bark of a laugh. DÖNITZ leans over and whispers to FUNK.
Now, you may ask, why I have chosen this passage to discuss with you today.
The PRISONERS are chuntering. CASALIS looks up from his notes, deciding to confront the atmosphere directly.
But before I say anything more to you, I sense that you have something you want to say to me.
RAEDER stands. The SOVIETGUARD stands too.
RAEDER. Herr Pastor, we must protest.
CASALIS. Uh – why?
RAEDER. It is entirely inappropriate to address us in this way.
CASALIS. In what \ way?
FUNK. As lepers.
CASALIS. Ah.
Slight pause. SCHIRACH stands.
SCHIRACH. We are here not as criminals, but because we have been unjustly condemned.
DÖNITZ (stands). As men who only did their military duty.
FUNK (stands). Therefore we protest, in the strongest possible terms.
RAEDER. And if our protest should prove ineffective –
NEURATH. – we shall take official action.
A moment of standoff. NEURATH stands. SPEER stands.
CASALIS. Gentlemen –
DÖNITZ. And so good morning, Herr Pastor.
DÖNITZ leads the group, picking up their chairs and dragging them to the exit.
SOVIET GUARD. You want be take to cell?
DÖNITZ. ‘We want be take to cell’.
SPEER is following the group.
CASALIS. But gentlemen –
The GUARD calls up the corridor to other GUARDS.
SOVIET GUARD (in Russian). Kapitan Razzinskiy! Mne noozhna vasha pomashch! Dvaa tchelaveka! [Captain Rozinsky! I need your help! Two men!]
CASALIS. But, gentlemen, I don’t know what to do.
The PRISONERS look back at him, a little contemptuously.
If the words of the Bible are an offence to you, how can I be of help?
The other GUARDS arrive.
I had hoped we were to set out on a journey, to find common ground between us and our inner selves. Tomorrow, I shall deliver the sermon I have not delivered here, to my own congregation. Next week I planned to speak to you and then to them from Mark: ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician’.
He puts the Bible and the cross in the suitcase, and slams it shut.
That is, to anyone who wants to hear me.
RAEDER. We shall see.
DÖNITZ leads the PRISONERS out. SPEER lingers. When the others have gone, the SOVIET GUARD gestures for him to follow. SPEER demurs. CASALIS is picking up his suitcase.
SPEER. Well, that put the cat among the pigeons.
CASALIS realises that SPEER wants to speak to him. He puts down his suitcase.
CASALIS. That was not of course \ my intention –
SPEER. You should however pay no attention to that little spectacle.
CASALIS. I fear \ that’s not as easy –
SPEER. Your sermons should upset us. You should not spare anybody’s feelings.
CASALIS. No. Well, thank you.
Pause.
Herr Speer, would you like to join your comrades?
SPEER. Oh, come now, Herr Pastor. You have done your homework. You know that even if I saw those gentlemen as comrades, they would hardly think that way of me.
Pause.
CASALIS (to GUARD). Please, leave us for a moment.
After a beat, the GUARD understands, and leaves, shutting and locking the door behind him.
Your defence at Nuremberg: Your position in the government was merely technical. You made no ideological statements. You were aware that people were evacuated but you had no idea that they were being systematically put to death.
SPEER. But nevertheless . . .
CASALIS. Nevertheless it was your duty to assume your share of the responsibility for the catastrophe of the world war. Insofar as Hitler gave you orders and you obeyed them you must share the blame.
SPEER. Well done.
CASALIS (aware of being patronised). Well, thank you.
SPEER. So it will be no surprise that number five is hardly number one in the affections of his fellow-prisoners.
CASALIS. No.
SPEER. In the same way as I would imagine you are hardly popular with your associates.
CASALIS. I beg your pardon?
SPEER. I wondered what your comrades in the French Resistance think about your present ministry?
CASALIS. You’ve done your homework too.
SPEER acknowledges with a gesture.
I think they are suspicious of its premise.
SPEER looks questioningly.
Which is, that the greatest sinner can repent. And now Herr Speer, I think you should tell me what you want to say or go back to your cell.
Pause.
SPEER. I want to know if they are right. You spoke about a journey to becoming someone else. I wondered if you felt that anyone can leave their past behind, and become a different man. Or if there are crimes – and criminals – so terrible there is no price too high for them to pay.
CASALIS. What is the past self that you want to leave behind?
SPEER. The man who thinks it’s possible to be merely technical.
CASALIS. And what price do you think your crimes deserve?
SPEER. That is the question.
Slight pause.
CASALIS. Herr Speer. I don’t think I am looking at a man who wished he’d died at Nuremberg.
SPEER looks questioning.
But perhaps . . . a man who thinks he ought to have wanted to die.
Slight pause.
And yes. The crimes for which you took responsibility were terrible. In the scale of justice, maybe, for a judge, a jury, yes, there is no price too high. But I am not a lawyer, I am not here to judge, to probe or to interrogate. I am a priest, and as such I am not concerned with balancing your suffering against the suffering for which you were undoubtedly responsible. All I see before me is an individual soul. Alone, alive, and thus, yes, capable of change.
SPEER. And is this a journey I must make alone?
Pause.
CASALIS. Not if you’d prefer to walk in company.
Slight pause.
But only if you tell the truth, to me and to yourself. For although it’s possible that a man be born again, to do so he must confront the truth of what he was before.
SPEER. And so I tried to do so. Starting with my childhood, how at school I shone at mathematics, how my father nevertheless persuaded me to follow him into an architectural career. And how despite, yes, some initial disappointment, this course of study took me from provincial Heidelberg to Munich, to new interests and new friends.
Enter RUDOLF WOLTERS, a couple of years older than SPEER, now in his 20s. He tosses SPEER his informal 1930s clothes, into which SPEER changes, as:
WOLTERS. Say, you know your problem, Albert? You don’t do any work, you dress like a tramp, you’re always late and you can’t draw. Correct those faults, and you might make something of yourself in architecture.
SPEER (to CASALIS). Which of course was absolutely \ true.
WOLTERS. Oh, and that’s not to mention spending all your time with girls far too pretty for you doing pointlessly exhausting things in boats, down rivers and up mountains.
SPEER. Which was also true. The woman, naturally, was to become my wife. But this was after I had followed Rudi Wolters to the capital, falling under the influence of the great Heinrich Tessenow . . .
WOLTERS. . . . whose deep knowledge of the classical tradition . . .
SPEER. . . . love of peasant culture and hostility to internationalism . . .
WOLTERS. . . . inspires us all.
TESSENOW appears, bringing young ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS in his wake.
TESSENOW. So what is simple?
STUDENTS. Simple is not always good.
TESSENOW. But what is good?
STUDENTS. It’s always simple.
TESSENOW. And where will we find good and simple?
STUDENTS. Not in the cities! With the peasants! In the countryside!
SPEER. He told us in his classes in Berlin.
TESSENOW. And so what three things unite the principles of Germanic peasant architecture with those of Agrigento, Paestum and the Parthenon?
The STUDENTS are all keen to answer but TESSENOW silences them with a raised finger.
Herr Speer?
SPEER. Simplicity.
SPEER momentarily stumped. WOLTERS gestures at his own body.
SPEER. The proportions of the human form. And um . . .
WOLTERS holds up three fingers.
The rule of three.
TESSENOW. Exactly and precisely and entirely so.
TESSENOW sweeps off, followed by the STUDENTS, echoing:
STUDENTS. Exactly and precisely and entirely so . . .
SPEER. But what changed my life and fortunes was a chance meeting with the head of my party district.
CASALIS. You are in the party now?
SPEER. Yes, I joined in 1931.
CASALIS. Two years before Hitler came to power.
SPEER. Yes.
CASALIS. You will understand that for me that needs some explanation.
SPEER. Oh, Herr Pastor, just the chaos and despair of the depression. The six million unemployed.
CASALIS. Of course. But, still . . .
SPEER. And a meeting I had been persuaded by my fellow students to attend.
Massive applause. YOUNG NAZIS run in to catch a glimpse of a MAN in a blue suit, surrounded by an entourage of MINDERS, striding purposefully across the stage. SPEER finds himself caught up in their enthusiasm. Finally, the group rushes forward to the front of the stage, saluting and chanting:
YOUNG NAZIS. Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil!
On the last of which SPEER finds himself joining in. The YOUNG NAZIS withdraw.
CASALIS. And do you remember what he said?
SPEER. Well, as I recall, he concentrated on the way in which the war had eliminated the best, leaving the inferior in charge.
CASALIS. And what you felt?
SPEER. Well, I’d expected a vulgar rabble-rouser. In fact, he seemed quite quiet, almost shy . . .
CASALIS. But what you felt?
Slight pause.
SPEER. I felt he was a human being. That here was somebody who cared for us, the young. Who loved us. Individually. And afterwards I drove into the country, to the woods. And walked all night. And joined the Party.
And as the only member of my section with a car, and thus perforce a member of the Party’s motorists’ association, I was immediately appointed section head, and thus came to the notice of Karl Hanke, then a rising star.
HANKE. Speer.
SPEER. Who one day in 1932 pursued me to the Lehrter railway station.
HANKE. Thank God I’ve found you. They told me at your lodgings you had gone away.
SPEER. That’s right, I have. On Holiday.
MARGRET approaches.
MARGRET. Albert, the train is leaving.
HANKE. On holiday? For Christ’s sake, where?
SPEER. East Prussia. We’re going faltboating.
MARGRET. In fact, in less than five \ minutes –
HANKE. And all this – stuff –
SPEER. Is our equipment. My dear, this is Party Comrade Hanke.
MARGRET. I am very pleased \ to meet you.
HANKE. But Speer you cannot possibly . . . You know that we have taken over premises in the Voss Strasse?
SPEER. Yes.
HANKE. Which the Doctor wishes to refurbish. Instantly.
SPEER. Uh – yes?
HANKE. Speer, you claimed you were an architect.
SPEER. I am.
A whistle blows.
MARGRET. Um, Albert –
SPEER. And yes of course I will.
HANKE. Good man, good man. Thank God.
HANKE goes out. SPEER looks at MARGRET and the luggage.
MARGRET. The Doctor?
SPEER. Goebbels.
MARGRET. Ah. So we don’t go on holiday.
MARGRET goes out with the luggage.
CASALIS. So, effectively, your career began with Goebbels.
SPEER. And continued with him, yes.
ANNEMARIE. Herr Speer. My name is Annemarie Wittenberg.
SPEER. How do you do?
ANNEMARIE. You are the man who painted the outer office red?
SPEER. That’s right.
ANNEMARIE. And Party Comrade Hanke’s office yellow?
SPEER. Yes.
ANNEMARIE. I work in Dr Goebbels’ office. I am very happy there. But now, apparently, I have to work for you.
She goes out.
SPEER. And then in 1933, I saw some drawings on Karl Hanke’s desk.
HANKE. What are you saying? This appears to be ‘The backdrop for “a shooting match”?’
SPEER. Well, I said, the decoration for a rifle meeting. Not for a May Day rally to be addressed by the Chancellor of Germany.
HANKE (looking at another design). And you think that this is better. Just these . . . three big flags.
SPEER. Well, they are are tall. But like the pillars of the Parthenon, they are proportionate.
HANKE hands him the drawings.
HANKE. Well, then. Why not.
HANKE goes out.
SPEER (out front). And I have to say that the effect was considered something of a triumph.
We see the flags.
So much so, that Goebbels claimed it as his own idea. And when the time came to design the annual party rally at Nuremberg in 1933, I was called to Munich.
HESS. It is an eagle.
SPEER. Yes.
HESS. Around 20 metres wide?
SPEER. That’s right. Of course . . .
HESS. And mounted . . .
SPEER. On a truss. With nails.
HESS. Just like a butterfly.
SPEER. The idea is to overwhelm the viewer with its power and strength.
HESS. Hm. Only the Führer can decide if this will do.
A decision.
You will go and see him. He is here in Munich, in his apartment on the Prinzregentenstrasse. That will do.
HESS gives SPEER back the drawings and goes out. We see a MAN’s back, sitting at a desk. SPEER approaches him.
SPEER(to CASALIS). And so there he was. Sitting, looking at a pistol he’d dismantled on his desk. He didn’t look up once. I put the drawing down, he looked it, and said:
HITLER. Agreed.
And now we see the great eagle too.
CASALIS. And that was it? How did you feel?
SPEER. I felt – well, maybe, just a little disappointed. But he was the Chancellor of Germany. And then having finished Goebbels’ flat in record time, I was asked to join the team rebuilding the Chancellor’s apartments. Out of which arose an incident which was far from disappointing.
HITLER. When is this happening? I was assured that this was happening. Ah. It has happened.
He looks upwards.
Yesterday this room had not been plastered. Now it has. The ceiling moulding’s very handsome.
ANNEMARIE and WOLTERS rush in.
And the windows? When will they be glazed?
WOLTERS (looking in panic at a sheaf of worknotes). Um – I . . . I believe that they are due . . .
SPEER enters in a hurry. He now wears a waistcoat, collar and tie. He has a large plaster mark on his coat.
ANNEMARIE (prompting). The windows.
SPEER. Yes. The glazing in this section will begin on Friday.
HITLER. Will begin?
SPEER. And will be completed.
HITLER. And is the work on schedule, as a whole?
SPEER. It is.
Pause.
HITLER. I am in a hurry. All I have now are the state secretary’s apartments. How am I supposed to invite anybody there? It’s ridiculous how penny-pinching the Republic was. The entrance! And the elevator!
Slight pause. Suddenly, looking straight at SPEER.
You say this will be done on time?
SPEER. Yes, my Führer.
HITLER. So many people tell me what I need’s impossible.
SPEER. This is absolutely possible.
HITLER looks piercingly at SPEER.
HITLER. You are the man who refurbished Dr Goebbels’ flat. And designed the flags for the May Day rally at the Tempelhof?
SPEER. Yes, my Führer. But here of course I am merely making sure that the work’s completed in the timescale you have set.
HITLER. Of course. Well, you must come to lunch.
SPEER. Thank you my Führer. I look forward to it.
SPEER gives a slight bow. HITLER works out SPEER’s mistake.
HITLER. I meant, today.
SPEER’s second thought is the plaster on his jacket. He can’t stop looking down at it.
Don’t worry about that.
He turns and goes. SPEER turns to his colleagues.
WOLTERS. Who would have thought . . .
ANNEMARIE. Herr Speer.
SPEER. Well, I . . .
SCHAUB. Herr Speer, I think the Führer means that you should follow him.
SPEER. Ah. Right.
SPEER hurries out, followed by SCHAUB, into:
SPEER. I’m sorry, I \ didn’t realise you intended –
HITLER. Now, do you think that this will do?
He hands SPEER the jacket.
SPEER. But surely, this is \ your own special –
HITLER. Please.
SPEER hurries to change.
So tell me, how did you complete the Goebbels project by that deadline?
SPEER. Well, naturally, my team were all infused \ with commitment to the task –
HITLER. – with National Socialist ardour. Naturally. And?
SPEER. And I persuaded them to work around the clock.
HITLER. But even so . . . ?
SPEER. I had to dry the plaster every night, with an industrial fan I borrowed from a laundry.
HITLER. Then I have made the right decision.
SPEER has changed his jacket. HITLER looks fixedly into SPEER’s eyes. After a moment, SPEER turns away.
Or have I?
SPEER turns back, staring into HITLER’s eyes. Enter SCHAUB, allowing both SPEER and HITLER to break the stare.
SCHAUB. Your guests await, my Führer.
HITLER. Good. Come, let me introduce you to the Merry Chancellor’s Café.
HITLER hands SCHAUBSPEER’s old jacket and leads him out towards:
HITLER. Party Comrade Schirach.
SCHIRACH. Heil, my Führer.
HITLER. Dr Todt.
TODT. My Führer.
HITLER(to DÖNITZ). Admiral.
Enter HESS, clearly late. He sees SPEER standing nervously on the edge of things, in Hitler’s jacket.
HITLER (to von BELOW). Colonel.
VON BELOW. Führer.
HESS. Speer what are you wearing?
EVERYONE turns and looks.
Speer, this will not do. That is the Führer’s party badge!
HITLER. Yes, and the Führer’s jacket too. Herr Speer’s was soiled in his morning’s work.
HESS. My Führer, I apologise for lateness.
HITLER, going to his place at the table:
HITLER. No matter. No doubt you had last minute orders for your ‘special cook’.
Laughter.
I have the best vegetarian chef in Germany.
He sits. Others sitting. SPEER doesn’t know where to go.
And yet here I am . . . surrounded by eaters of burnt carrion! Herr Speer, please, sit by me.
After a moment, SPEER hurries over to sit by HITLER, who turns to HESS.
Now, Hess, you know Herr Speer.
HESS. I do.
HITLER. He refurbished Dr Goebbels’ rooms in record time. And he conceived the podium display at the May Day rally.
HESS. Not to mention the eagle design at Nuremberg.
HITLER. Ah.
SPEER. Indeed, my Führer, you did me the honour of approving my design in person.
HITLER looks to SPEER, a little surprised. Then he turns back to the company.
HITLER. I am asked why I am so concerned with beauty, and I answer with a question.
Slight pause. No one likes to volunteer the question.
It is this. How could the great betrayal have occurred, in 1918, quite so quickly, so dramatically?
Slight pause.
And the answer is, as I have said a thousand times, that the best of Germany had been destroyed, shot to blazes by French niggers in the trenches. So but the weakest elements remained. Leaderless, feminised, and naturally prey to any revolutionary bacillus Jewish agitators might care to spread among them. That is why our only duty is to purge the nation of this pestilence, to pass on a healthy Germany to future generations. That is why I surround myself with young men who are passionately committed to the pure and to the beautiful. Those for whom the word ‘impossible’ does not exist!
He turns to SPEER, gazing into his eyes.
Of course. I remember you exactly.
SPEER. So do you see? Do you understand? At the age of 28, to be plucked from nothing, to be chosen as the brightest and the best of my profession, by the man who as we saw it was the saviour of Germany.
CASALIS. ‘Saviour’. ‘Chosen’.
SPEER. Yes.
A social affair. Enter HANKE with MARGRET in formal dress. HANKE hands SPEER his jacket.
HANKE. Well, go on, Speer. Now is the moment.
SPEER (to CASALIS). The privilege of being in his closest circle.
HANKE. Introduce her.
SPEER. And yes, the thrill of being close to power.
HITLER comes over.
HITLER. Speer. You are able to grace us with your presence. Can this mean that we’ve run out of work for you?
SPEER. No of course not. Führer, may I present my wife?
HITLER. Your wife?
Slight pause.
HITLER. Of course. I am enchanted by the privilege of your acquaintance. Frau Speer, how do you do.
He kisses her hand.
MARGRET. I am very well, my Führer.
HITLER. A redoubled pleasure, being unaware for all these months of your existence.
MARGRET flashes a look at SPEER.
SPEER. Um I . . .
HITLER. You will forgive me, madam, if I ask how long . . . ?
MARGRET. Six years, my Führer.
HITLER. What? Six years?
SPEER. Um, I . . .
HITLER. And may I ask if there is any more concealment? Have you children?
MARGRET. No, my Führer, not as yet.
SPEER. In fact, my Führer, as it happens \ we are planning –
HITLER. What, six years married and no children? Speer.
Slight pause.
On this occasion I can hardly praise your prompt delivery.
EVERYONE laughs.
Frau Speer, your husband is going to make me buildings that will last a thousand years.
He looks at SPEER, bows, turns and goes. SPEER turns to CASALIS.
SPEER. And from then on, it was one task after another. Buildings. Pavilions. The Chancellory. And of course the party congresses.
CASALIS. The searchlights in the sky.
SPEER. The cathedral of light, as it was called.
Which emerges from the darkness behind SPEER.
Which served to dramatise the spectacle, while concealing the unattractive paunches of the party bureaucrats. It’s funny, isn’t it, that if anything, it will be these, dramatics, that I’ll be remembered for?
CASALIS. Does that concern you?
SPEER. Do you think it should? Sometimes I feel quite stirred, that the most successful creation of my life is an immaterial phenomenon.
CASALIS. Well, I can understand that. Dealing also as I do with immaterial phenonema. What is not there, as well as what is there.
SPEER. What do you mean?
CASALIS. I mean that perhaps those searchlights concealed more than the bellies of the bureaucrats.
SPEER. In Nuremberg, they had psychologists. They showed us inkblots. We had to tell them the first thing that we thought of.
CASALIS. And?
SPEER. I said: ‘You’ve got it upside down’.
Behind SPEER, Germania is beginning to materialise.
CASALIS. Yes of course. It is possible to read too much into these things. Please do go on.
SPEER. And then one day in 1936 I was told there was another job for me. ‘The greatest and the best of all’. Well, even he had got to be impressed with this.
CASALIS (surprised). uh – Hitler?
SPEER (suddenly aware of his slippage). My father.
FATHER. I am looking . . . I understand this is . . . I am looking for the headquarters of the General Inspectorate . . .
Lights come on, illuminating the model. Enter WOLTERS followed by ANNEMARIE.
WOLTERS. Herr Speer, how good to see you.
ANNEMARIE. We didn’t know that you’d arrived.
ANNEMARIE nods to WOLTERS to go off and find SPEER. WOLTERS goes.
FATHER. I lost . . . I must have come round the wrong way. There was a garden and a little door . . .
ANNEMARIE. My name is Annemarie Wittenberg. I am your son’s secretary.
FATHER. He has a secretary?
ANNEMARIE. Oh, he has a staff of 85!
She sees SPEER coming in and goes to him.
SPEER. Sir, you’re here.
ANNEMARIE (whispers). He came in through the Chancellory entrance.
SPEER is going to his FATHER. They shake hands.
FATHER. Albert.
SPEER. You are welcome, sir.
Pause. SPEER waits for his FATHER to acknowledge the model.
FATHER. You’re not in party uniform.
SPEER. No, I wear civilian clothes.
Pause.
FATHER(to ANNEMARIE). He was always slovenly in dress, as a young man.
SPEER. Sir, you will remember Rudi Wolters.
FATHER looks to the only person WOLTERS can be.
FATHER. Yes. I think I do.
WOLTERS. How are you sir?
FATHER. I am so-so.
SPEER is growing desperate.
SPEER. How is my mother?
FATHER. She is in good spirits. As are both your brothers.
Slight pause.
How is your family?
ANNEMARIE can’t bear it any more.
ANNEMARIE. Herr Speer, this is the model for the new Berlin.
FATHER. Yes so I see.
A telephone rings offstage.
ANNEMARIE. Herr Wolters, I’m sure Herr Speer would welcome a short interpretation.
ANNEMARIE goes out to answer the telephone. The FATHER looks at the model as WOLTERS starts the usual pitch.
WOLTERS. Well, sir. The overall principle is the intersection of four thoroughfares of equal width, themselves linked \ at their extremities with the autobahn –
FATHER. So where’s the south station?
Re-enter ANNEMARIE in some concern.
SPEER. Well, sir, in fact, the reordering of rail is Herr Wolters prime responsibility/. I’m sure –
FATHER. And the Tiergarten?
SPEER. But the major feature is the North-South axis flanked by state and representative buildings, 120 metres wide and five kilometres long running from –
FATHER. Ah. the figures. Always Albert and his figures. You know he wanted to do mathematics as a life career?
SPEER. Yes, sir. And it was you who persuaded me to change my mind.
ANNEMARIE (whispers). The Chief is on his way.
SPEER (whispers). He’s what?
FATHER. Rather than end up at a dead-end university, cramming little mediocrities to scrape through their exams.
SPEER. Well, I think we can agree that between us we took the right decision. But now, sir, I am told that we have guests . . .
FATHER. What at this hour?
The door at the back opens and Colonel VON BELOW admits HITLER with FRAU VON BELOW, 20, FRAU ANNI BRANDT, 33, and EVA BRAUN, 26.
HITLER. Come, come, this is much better.
SPEER. Yes, at this hour.
EVA BRAUN (seeing the model). Oh, look!
FRAU VON BELOW (to VON BELOW). What’s this?
HITLER (barring the model). Stop. Now.
VON BELOW. The Führer \ will outline –
HITLER. – will explain. I have always said: a new nation needs new buildings, most especially in its capital. Ladies and gentlemen, Germania.
A ‘reveal’ gesture.
EVA BRAUN. Well, look at that.
FRAU VON BELOW. Aha.
HITLER. And, see – here is its creator.
FRAU BRANDT. Good evening, Herr Speer.
SPEER (trying to introduce his FATHER). My Führer,/ may I introduce –
HITLER. We have all been looking at some movie. It is stupid. I ring Goebbels, ‘what is this stupid film? In the bin with it, in the bin!’ Now shall you explain it or shall I?
SPEER. My Führer, \ I would like you –
HITLER (prompting). The principle . . .
SPEER (giving up). The principle is the meeting of four equal thoroughfares, linked \ at their extremities –
HITLER. Yes, yes, yes. But this.
SPEER. Well, starting with the east-west axis, running \ along what is now –
HITLER. No. No. Starting with the North-South axis, here, Frau von Below, five kilometres long, 120 metres wide, do you know what that is wider than?
FRAU VON BELOW. No, I don’t my Führer.
HITLER. The Champs Elysée! Come, Frau Brandt, look here . . .
FRAU BRANDT. And those presumably are trees?
HITLER. But unlike Paris, not flanked with plutocratic utilitarian buildings, not by banks, but by monumental architecture, theatres, opera houses . . . Come, Fräulein Braun, Frau von Below, come, look here.
EVA BRAUN. Um, where?
HITLER is making FRAU BRANDT, FRAU VON BELOW and EVA BRAUN look through the arch up the boulevard to the domed palace.
HITLER. No, bend, through there . . .
FRAU BRANDT. Oh, yes, do you see, Fräulein Braun?
HITLER. The view through Speer’s triumphal arch.
SPEER. Your triumphal arch, my Führer.
EVA BRAUN. Yes, I can see, my Führer.
FRAU VON BELOW. Quite magnificent.
HITLER. Itself 72 metres taller than the Arc de Triomphe, bearing the names of the 1.8 million German war dead, leading to . . .
He runs up the North-South axis.
. . . the largest building in the world. Speer, Speer, tell us the dimensions.
SPEER. Well, it is designed to be 290 metres high.
HITLER. And seating . . .
SPEER. My Führer, you always have these figures at your fingertips.
HITLER. One hundred and eighty thousand people!
FRAU VON BELOW. Goodness.
EVA BRAUN (whispers to ANNEMARIE). What are those?
ANNEMARIE. They’re fountains, Fräulein.
FRAU BRANDT. The trees are very beautiful.
HITLER. While here is my new Chancellory, which Speer has promised me will be ready on the 10th of January 1939.
SPEER. As it will be.
HITLER. And do you know how Herr Speer will make this ready for the 10th of January next year?
EVA BRAUN. No, my Führer.
HITLER. By placing orders first for those items which take longest to produce. Which are?
FRAU VON BELOW. I’ve really no idea.
HITLER. The carpets! Can you believe that? It’s the carpets. With a logistic sense like that, this man should head the General Staff!
SPEER. My Führer, I am quite content with my present duties.
HITLER. But you must introduce me to your father.
ALL look at SPEER’s FATHER.
FRAU BRANDT. Ah.
HITLER. Who taught you I have no doubt everything you know.
HITLER goes to the FATHER, gives a kind of bow. Nervously, the FATHER puts his hand out. HITLER shakes it, but holds on, cupping the FATHER’s elbow and turning the gesture into a kind of embrace.
May I introduce Frau Brandt, who is married to my doctor. Fräulein Braun, who is visiting from Munich. My military adjutant, Colonel von Below and Frau von Below. Ladies and gentlemen, the father of my architect!
He turns back to focus on SPEER’SFATHER, who remains struck dumb.
They say I am obsessed with height and width and depth. But it is all your son. I say – 200 metres. He says – why not three?
He looks into SPEER’S FATHER’s eyes.
Now. You have the Führer. And his architect. And his plan to build a capital that will outshine even Paris, the greatest capital existing in the world. Is there anything you want to ask?
Pause.
FATHER. I would . . . I . . . as you raise the matter of the future, I would be interested to know . . . where the people, in the houses you are going to demolish . . . where they will go.
HITLER suddenly snaps round to SPEER.
HITLER. Well? That’s a question!
SPEER (unusually thrown). Um . . .
During this SCHAUB enters and comes forward.
WOLTERS(to the rescue). There is of course a comprehensive plan for the rehousing of those persons who are dispossessed. Garden suburbs will be built in which these people can be housed. Overall, the housing plan for the new Berlin \ will accommodate –
SPEER (back on track). The plan overall is to house eight million people.
HITLER (to the FATHER). There. You have the answer.
SCHAUB. My Führer. They have found another film.
HITLER. Well, let’s hope it’s better than the last.
The company, a little relieved, is moving to go. Again suddenly, HITLER returns to SPEER’SFATHER.
My esteemed Herr Speer. Your son is a philosopher. He builds with distant posterity in mind. He makes drawings of how the ruins of his buildings might appear when overgrown, abandoned, in a thousand years from now. Like the Pyramids or Agrigento or the Parthenon. What is left of a great age but its monuments? Your son has understood that. He is creating them.
SPEER’S FATHER is looking down, a kind of strange bow.
I too was a son who told his father that he yearned to be an artist. There the similarity ends. He told me that this was unthinkable. No! Never! What a thought!
SPEER’S FATHER is shaking.
Well, I have always said, my mission is to realise the hitherto unthinkable.
HITLER puts out his hand to SPEER’S FATHER, who does not respond. Quickly, turning to go.
What a father! What a son!
HITLER walks to SPEER, cups his arm, and walks quickly out.
FRAU BRANDT. Goodnight, Herr Speer. I hope . . . your father . . .
FRAU BRANDT, EVA BRAUN, VON BELOW, SCHAUB follow HITLER out. SPEER goes to his FATHER, tries to take his arm, but his FATHER pulls his arm away.
ANNEMARIE. Perhaps, Herr Speer . . . it’s very late.
SPEER (to ANNEMARIE). Go and call the car.
ANNEMARIE goes out.
SPEER (to his FATHER). He always likes to better me on figures.
FATHER. Hm.
SPEER. But once, I had to tell him that he was in error. We were discussing plans for the development of the Olympic Stadium. I pointed out that the athletic field did not conform to the dimensions laid down by the Federation. He replied that in 1940 the games will be in Tokyo. But after that, for all time to come, they will be here. And it will be us who will decide the necessary dimensions.
Re-enter ANNEMARIE.
ANNEMARIE. The car is here.
Slight pause.
SPEER. So, sir. What do you think?
FATHER looks at SPEER.
FATHER. I think – you’ve all gone insane.
He goes quickly out. ANNEMARIE looks back wide-eyed and then follows. SPEER to WOLTERS.
WOLTERS. He’s wrong.
SPEER. I showed Tessenow the designs for Nuremberg. He said: ‘They’re big, that’s all’.
WOLTERS. They are both wrong. How could they not be?
Slight pause.
You have not begun, Herr General Inspector.
SPEER smiles, and clasps his friend.
SPEER. ‘To have young men about me, for whom the word impossible . . . ’
WOLTERS turns to go.
Will you do the lights?
WOLTERS. Of course.
WOLTERS turns down the lights to a night effect and goes. SPEER looks at the model in the ‘moonlight’. Suddenly the door at the back opens. HITLER re-enters.
HITLER. Well, the second film was rubbish too. What did he think?
SPEER. It is hard for people of his age.
HITLER. Of course. And you are pulled two ways. You love your father, as your father. But your greater love is for your Fatherland. You must not feel guilty, it is rightly so.
Pause. HITLER looks at the model, bathed in the moonlight.
I can tell so few. My mission is to unify a single people in a single state. We are going to create a vast new Empire, combining all Germanic peoples, from Norway down to northern Italy. And your buildings, here, will crown that great achievement. Do you understand now why they must be huge? The capital of the Germanic Reich?
He goes and puts his hand on the top of the dome.
There are two possibilities. To win through, or to fail. If I win, I will be the greatest man since Charlemagne. If I lose – well, all this might just as well be dust. Goodnight.
SPEER. Heil, my Führer.
HITLER. Heil Speer.
HITLER goes out.
CASALIS. So what do you suppose he meant?
SPEER. Hitler?
CASALIS. Your father.
SPEER. He meant that he didn’t understand, like so many of his generation.
CASALIS. I meant, what did your father mean by saying nothing?
SPEER smiles and shrugs, as if this is all a little metaphysical.
You said, when Hitler spoke to him, he bowed and trembled and said nothing. And when afterwards you tried to take his arm he pulled away.
SPEER. Yes?
CASALIS. I wondered if he sensed something that you didn’t sense, yourself, till later.
SPEER. What, a ‘sense of evil’?
CASALIS acknowledges.
Herr Pastor, this was 1938.
CASALIS. So Hitler was not evil at that stage?
SPEER. Look. Of course, we knew that Hitler sought world domination. What my father didn’t understand, and you don’t understand, is that at the time we asked for nothing better. Eighty million Germans didn’t follow Hitler because he was going to murder people in lime ditches and gas chambers. They didn’t follow him because they knew that he was evil, but because they thought he was extremely good.
SPEER puts on his leather overcoat and cap.
And I’m afraid, most strongly in June 1940, at the fall of France. When in defiance of the whiners and the moaners, he had the world before him. And he laid it at my feet.
HITLER. I tell you. It was always my dream, to be permitted to see Paris. Haussman’s Boulevards. Les Invalides. I could have walked around Charles Garnier’s opera in blindfolds.
In three months, London will be rubble. And when you have finished, even Paris will be but a shadow.
SPEER turns back to CASALIS.
SPEER. It was his dream. Though of course if you want to visit Paris it isn’t strictly necessary to overthrow the government of France.
And then and there he ordered me to draw up a decree for the commencement of the reconstruction of Berlin. How could I not be his, then, body and soul?
HITLER looks at SPEER in triumph, turns and goes.
CASALIS. So you had your Mephistophilis.
SPEER. And he had his Faust.
And then one evening in his mountaintop retreat, when we had thought he’d long since gone to bed, he told me how he planned to crown his Paris triumph with an even greater victory.
FRAU BRANDT. No you mustn’t.
FIRST ADJUTANT. I’m shaking! It’s heavy in my hands!
MARGRET. What’s going on?
FRAU BRANDT. Very schoolboyish behaviour.
FRÄULEIN SCHRÖDER. Oh for God’s sake give it here.
She takes the cap.
There are, after all, but two possibilities.
SECOND ADJUTANT. One being that no one puts his hat on.
FRÄULEIN SCHRÖDER. And the other is that someone does.
FRAU BRANDT. Well, on your own heads be it.
FRÄULEIN SCHRÖDER puts the cap on. It’s far too big. The others laugh and applaud.
FRÄULEIN SCHRÖDER. Tara tara. Who’s next?
FIRST ADJUTANT. In such times one cannot use Salvation Army methods.
He puts the cap on. It’s far too big.
FRÄULEIN SCHRÖDER. Extreme times call for extreme measures!
The FIRST ADJUTANT puts the cap on. It’s far too big. He looks round for the next person to try it.
FIRST ADJUTANT. And now, Frau Brandt . . .
FRAU BRANDT. Oh no.
FRÄULEIN WOLF. Herr Speer?
SPEER diffident.
SPEER. Um . . . I . . .
MARGRET. Albert.
FRÄULEIN WOLF (winningly). Herr Speer.
Pause. SPEER takes the cap.
SPEER. Well, I have always said, my mission is to bring the unthinkable about.
He puts the cap on. It fits. Surprised applause. EVA BRAUN has entered.
EVA BRAUN. Dear Herr Speer, what are you doing?
She gestures offstage just in time for SPEER to rip the cap from his head and put it behind his back, before HITLER and VON BELOW enter, the latter carrying sheet music.
HITLER. Ladies and gentlemen, my profound apologies.
FRAU BRANDT. Well, it’s past bedtime . . .
Suddenly HITLER goes to MARGRET, kisses her hand.
HITLER. My own Frau Speer. Gracious ladies. Gentlemen.
Everyone takes this as a dismissal.
MARGRET. Goodnight, my Führer.
She goes out, the OTHERS follow, murmuring ‘Goodnight’ and ‘Goodnight, my Führer’. HITLER a slight gesture to SPEER to stay.
HITLER. Perhaps you too, my little applecake. Colonel, please.
EVA BRAUN shrugs. She goes to SPEER.
SPEER. Goodnight, Fräulein Braun.
With a slight gesture to SPEER.
EVA BRAUN. Goodnight, oh my dear Herr Speer. And goodnight my Führer.
She turns back and smiles at HITLER, taking the cap from SPEER with her back hand. She goes.
VON BELOW sits at the piano and plays a fanfare from Liszt’s Les Preludes.
SPEER. It’s Liszt?
HITLER. Yes. It’s from the Preludes. So what d’you think of it?
SPEER. I suppose, my Führer, that depends on what it’s for.
HITLER. This will be ‘for’ the decisive confrontation of our epoch. Of course I am told I must ‘negotiate’ with our enemies. That traitor Hess flies off to Scotland to sue for peace with that alcoholic gangster Churchill. But I say that we are now engaged in the final battle between Western civilisation and the international Jew-Bolshevik conspiracy. Our aim must be nothing less than the complete destruction of that criminal conspiracy, with implacable and iron zeal. Naturally I am told this is unthinkable. But I say, one good strong German kick, and the whole rotten edifice falls in.
SPEER. Russia.
HITLER. Yes.
He looks at SPEER. It’s the stare game. Without taking his eye off SPEER.
HITLER. The victory fanfare. You will hear it frequently.
He holds the stare.
And for those who make the final sacrifice, your Germania will stand as their memorial for ever; the names of our heroic fallen carved on every stone.
Finally, HITLER breaks the stare, then goes to SPEER and cups his elbow.
And you will have all the granite and the marble that you need.
The fanfare continues orchestrally. Exit HITLER and VON BELOW.SPEER turns to CASALIS. Behind him, a dark void from which snow billows.
SPEER. But it was clear within months of the actual invasion of the Soviet Union that there were much more immediate construction needs.
GANZENMÜLLER. Ah, Herr Wolters, please try this.
WOLTERS. What is it?
GANZENMÜLLER. It’s the real stuff.
WOLTERS. Herr Ganzenmüller, this is General Inspector Speer.
GANZENMÜLLER. Welcome to the Ukraine, sir. Please try some caviare.
WOLTERS. Herr Ganzenmüller is performing miracles with what we must call for want of any better term the Ukraine railway system.
SPEER. Well, I’m all for miracles.
He takes caviare.
That’s good.
Enter a group of SPEERCONSTRUCTION WORKERS and SOLDIERS, led by a MAJOR, MUSICIANS and two TUFTIES – young Ukrainian women – with trays of glasses and vodka.
MAJOR. Now after so many cheerful days with the Speer Construction Squad can this be Herr Speer himself? Tufty One, vodka for Herr Speer!
SPEER. Tufty?
WOLTERS. Ukrainian girls.
MAJOR. You will find this a change from building palaces and opera houses.
SPEER takes vodka from one TUFTY, as the other hands vodka out to the rest.
SPEER. It is a change which I enthusiastically proposed, Herr Major. Over half my workforce is assisting with reconstruction work in Russia.
MAJOR. A toast! In acknowledgement of Herr General Inspector’s visit from Berlin! To our matchless constructional facilities! To our Repair Sheds!
FIRST SPEER SQUAD. Water tanks.
MAJOR. To our insulated water tanks!
SECOND SPEER SQUAD. Lumber!
THIRD SPEER SQUAD. Tracking!
FOURTH SPEER SQUAD. Nails!
All drink. Recovering from the hit:
SPEER. Well, in that case, all these things will be provided instantly. Herr Wolters, see to it at once.
Cheers, on the edge of mockery, but ambiguous enough for the MAJOR to move on.
MAJOR. Then – music!
Sad music is played. The MEN move upstage.
SPEER(to GANZENMÜLLER). So the problem is supplies.
GANZENMÜLLER. Supplies of the right thing at the right time. Guns, no ammo. Tanks, no fuel. Troops, no trains.
SPEER. You mean it’s not production, it’s logistics.
GANZENMÜLLER. Of course I needn’t tell you this. The man who worked out that the first thing that you have to order for a building is the carpeting.
SPEER (smiles). Yes.
GANZENMÜLLER. Apparently, the war economy was two days from collapse through a shortage of ball-bearings.
He does a gesture – a machine turning.
Work it out.
SPEER. Oh, I don’t need to.
GANZENMÜLLER is fearful he may have gone too far.
GANZENMÜLLER. But then again, we both know the order: ‘Everyone need only know what is going on in his domain’.
The MAJOR approaches.
SPEER. And may I ask, is all this typical? This gloomy music?
Pause.
GANZENMÜLLER. It is typical of men so far from home.
SPEER. In circumstances such as these.
MAJOR. And up against what they are up against.
WOLTERS. The elements?
MAJOR. The enemy.
SPEER looks surprised.
Oh yes, Herr Speer. First thing you learn about the Ivan, don’t underestimate his natural resourcefulness. Give him an axe, in a few hours time he’ll have knocked up anything. A sledge, an igloo . . . And the way they use that damned T-34.
WOLTERS. The tank.
MAJOR. The tank . . . the pillbox, the bivouak, the bulldozer . . . And Army Group Centre enters Russia with 2,000 different types of vehicle.
GANZENMÜLLER. And a million spare parts.
MAJOR. And all they’re issued with is fuel and ammo. So if they need spare parts, they rip ’em from the wrecks. Oh, yes, despite the propaganda, we have an enemy.
SPEER. The propaganda?
MAJOR. Surely you’ve heard the shit. ‘One good strong kick, and the whole rotten edifice falls in’.
A moment of stand off, between SPEER and the MAJOR.
And you know they say you have to kill each Ivan twice. And no one who draws blood here leaves the place alive.
SPEER. And I’m sure you discourage such defeatist talk, Herr Major. Concentrating solely on ensuring that these brave young men are properly supplied. As will I.
MAJOR. But of course, Herr General Inspector.
The MAJOR goes out.
GANZENMÜLLER. And now you will forgive me. Tomorrow I have to open up a railway line as far as Sinelnikovo. With the assistance of the Speer Construction Squad, and a goodly slice of the surrounding peasantry.
SPEER. And they are collaborative?
GANZENMÜLLER. Collaborative and numerous. Goodnight, Herr Speer.
He goes out.
WOLTERS. Apparently, the chaps say that the Jewish details are the best. They work double shifts, even voluntarily. Of course, they know \ that if they don’t –
SPEER. That Ganzenmüller is presumably the best man we have.
WOLTERS. A man for whom the word impossible does not exist?
SPEER. Exactly and precisely so.
They stand listening to the music for a moment.
I have a brother, out here, somewhere, Rudi.
The scene disperses.
SPEER. And so on the evening of the 7th February I arrived at Hitler’s eastern field HQ, hoping to report to the Minister of Armaments, Dr Todt, who had built the autobahns and to whom I was, in a sense at least, now working. But when I arrived I was informed that Dr Todt had been with Hitler for some time. And later that he was in the operations room.
TODT. Champagne?
SPEER. Champagne.
SPEER pours TODT a glass of champagne and hands it over, as:
TODT. Maybe we should have stuck to France.
SPEER. Ah, but I hear the Georgian wines are marvellous.
TODT. Oh, well, then. Let’s plough on.
SPEER laughs, as a STAFF OFFICER moves forward with an intelligence report.
SPEER. How is the Chief?
STAFF OFFICER. Heil Hitler, Herr Reichsminister.
TODT. ’Hitler.
TODT doesn’t want to answer SPEER’s question with someone listening. The STAFF OFFICER moves a flag on the map, as:
TODT. So how long are you here for?
SPEER. I should leave tomorrow. On that ghastly train.
The STAFF OFFICER withdraws.
TODT. Speer, have you actually read Mein Kampf?
SPEER. Well, not exactly. In fact, I told the Chief. He said not to bother, it had been overtaken by events.
TODT. Well, yes, in some respects. However.
He takes out a notebook and reads from it.
‘The task of diplomacy is to ensure that a nation does not heroically perish, but that measures are taken to preserve it’.
Pause.
SPEER. So what’s the relevance of that?
TODT. It is relevant to what I’ve spent the last two hours trying to explain to him.
SPEER. Which is?
TODT. That if we haven’t beaten Russia by Christmas then we’ve lost the war.
SPEER has to ask the question:
SPEER. So, why?
TODT. American technology, and Russian space. I mean, just look at it.
SPEER. Well, yes \ but on the other –
TODT. Oh, and your housekeeper.
SPEER. My housekeeper?
TODT. You have one?
SPEER. Yes.
TODT. And your maid. And maybe a governess?
SPEER. I’ve got five children.
TODT. We are in the third year of what is now a world war. And we employ the same number of domestic servants as we did in 1939. And when you raise the possibility of mobilising women workers, like the Russians, like the British, you are told about the moral threat to German womanhood. Oh, and look.
There’s a tray of coffee things. He picks up a paper-wrapped sugar cube from the sugar bowl.
We’re still wrapping sugar-cubes in pretty paper.
SPEER. I understand you were two days away from running out of ball-bearings.
TODT. No, worse. We were nearly out of screws.
SPEER. Who’d have your job?
TODT. Oh, Speer.
The other STAFF OFFICER comes forward, to move a flag. SPEER and TODT notice that he moves the flag that his colleague moved forward back. TODT is a little drunk.
Hey. You don’t want that shitty train. I’m flying to Berlin at daybreak. Want a ride?
The STAFF OFFICER withdraws. SPEER, trying something out:
SPEER. Of course . . . in fact, there’s millions. Men and women. In the east. Collaborative and numerous.
TODT. Aha. The ‘Slav subhumans’.
SPEER. Yes. But what I meant \ was that they might –
TODT. I’m sorry. You’re a young man. You think solutions. I just – brood.
SPEER smiles, as if to say ‘don’t worry’.
I’ll see you on the plane.
TODT goes. SCHAUB enters. During the following, the young STAFF OFFICERS go too.
SCHAUB. Herr General Inspector. You’re still up.
SPEER. Yes. Though I think I’m going to bed.
SCHAUB. He wants to see you.
SPEER (looks at his watch). Oh, can’t you tell him . . .
SCHAUB. He is on his way.
Enter HITLER. SCHAUB salutes.
’Hitler!
HITLER acknowledges. SCHAUB goes out. HITLER is still ruffled from his conversation with TODT, but suppressing it.
HITLER. My dear Speer. How are you?
SPEER. My Führer. Very well. Perhaps a little tired.
HITLER. How are Frau Speer and your family?
SPEER. I fear I haven’t seen them in a while.
HITLER. You have been in the Ukraine. Now don’t remind me. Albert, Hilde . . . Fritz, Margaret . . . Ernst.
SPEER. Arnold. Who is nearly two. Ernst is my brother.
HITLER (that explains it). Ah.
SPEER. Who is a little more than two.
HITLER. And presumably . . .
SPEER. Serves in the sixth at Krasnograd.
HITLER. Ah. There are bold and heroic deeds in prospect for the Sixth. So, Arnold nearly two.
SPEER (smiling). In fact, I’m going home tomorrow.
HITLER. Not by train I trust. I will have von Below get you on a flight.
SPEER. Thank you, my Führer. But I have arranged a lift with the minister of armaments first thing.
HITLER. Oh, have you?
Slight pause.
SPEER. I saw him earlier.
HITLER. Yes, so did I.
Slight pause.
SPEER. He seemed . . .
HITLER. Speer, we live in times when only optimists can achieve anything. The trouble with Herr Todt is that he is fundamentally and unshakably a pessimist. Whose pessimism extends beyond his own domain, to matters which do not concern him.
SPEER. I think he is worried about the labour problem.
HITLER. I know. But I will not drive German women from their homes.
SPEER takes the sugar cube from his pocket.
SPEER. I think he feels that under total war \ there are some things –
HITLER picks up a sugar cube and eats it.
HITLER. And I will not deny them some at least of the things that make life civilised and elegant.
SPEER puts the sugar cube back in his pocket.
SPEER. When of course . . . we have twenty million potential men and women workers under our control.
HITLER. Well exactly. Twenty million Slav subhumans. Leaderless, supine, with no defence against the Jew-Communist embrace. I tell you, Speer, now is not the time to use Salvation Army methods! Set them all to work!
SPEER. Well, of course it is not precisely my area of responsibility –
HITLER. No. You are not Dr Todt.
HITLER goes to SPEER and pats his shoulder.
Your charming wife. Your lovely family. From Albert down to Arnold nearly two. Yet your absolute priority? The greater German good.
Slight pause.
I am adamant about the women. But it may be . . . that we should ensure that production for the civilian market . . . is in proportion to the national need.
SPEER. Well, I’m sure \ that would be –
HITLER. What is the time?
SPEER. I fear \ it’s very late –
HITLER (looks at SPEER’s watch). You’re going to fly in three hours’ time?
SPEER. Well, I . . .
HITLER. It’s up to you.
Pause.
Sometimes, I regret what history requires of me. One cannot be the Führer all one’s life. This war is robbing me of my best years. Sometimes I think, I should hang up my field grey jacket and go home to Linz, my birthplace on the Danube, where my remains will lie . . . But I have burnt my bridges. So have you.
Slight pause.
You know, it may well be . . . that I will need to speak with you tomorrow.
He looks at SPEER.
Shall I have von Below call the pilot?
SPEER. No, I’ll do it.
HITLER. Well.
Slight pause.
You’re right. Twenty million foreign workers. Teach them to read roadsigns. Tell them the capital of Germany’s Germania. And work them all like dogs to death. Goodnight.
SPEER. Heil my Führer!
HITLER. And Heil Speer.
HITLER goes. Darkness. We hear the sound of an aeroplane taking off and then immediately spiralling down to crash.
ANNEMARIE. But, Herr Speer . . .
SPEER. It’s all right, Wittenberg.
ANNEMARIE glances questioningly at WOLTERS, who shrugs, as SPEER begins to speak.
SPEER. Party Comrades! Esteemed employees of the Ministry of Armaments! It is my sad duty to report that at the zenith of his labours, your leader Reichsminister Professor Todt was taken from you yesterday in a plane crash in East Prussia.
Shock.
The Führer has placed me in charge of all Dr Todt’s roles and functions.
People look at each other.
I have proposed – and the Führer has agreed – to free our war production industries from the shackles of duplication and bureaucracy. I have recommended – and the Führer has enthusiastically approved – the severest penalties for the use of materials, machinery or manpower for unauthorised or private purposes. With the Führer’s keen endorsement, I have ordered the full mobilisation of up to twenty million workers from the conquered territories.
A little applause; alarm from the STATE SECRETARY.
I have nothing else to say. We have a war to win and we shall win it. Sieg Heil!
SPEER leaves the microphone.
STATE SECRETARY. Well, congratulations, Herr Reichsminister.
The REST dispersing. We see an army private, on the edge of the crowd, waiting. It is Speer’s brother ERNST.
SPEER. Thank you, State Secretary. Rudi, have Wittenberg call up that railway engineer we met in the Ukraine.
STATE SECRETARY. However, I must respectfully enquire \ about the matter of –
WOLTERS. You mean, the one for whom the word ‘impossible’ . . . ?
SPEER. Precisely so.
STATE SECRETARY. . . . as to what specifically is meant by ‘freeing war production from duplication and bureaucracy’. \ As of course –
SPEER. I think he is about to be promoted. Yes, State Secretary?
STATE SECRETARY. And . . . exactly what is meant by it.
SPEER. Well, certainly, I am eager to discuss all aspects of the new production policy. Do I have an office?
STATE SECRETARY. Yes of course.
ANNEMARIE. Herr Speer, there is something I must ask you.
SPEER. I will be with you in a moment.
WOLTERS and the STATE SECRETARY go.
SPEER. Of course, I didn’t realise at first. I thought he meant for me \ to take over Todt’s construction work –
ANNEMARIE. Herr Speer, do you intend for me to remain your secretary in your new post?
SPEER. Of course.
ANNEMARIE. Because if so I would like a day or two to think about it.
ERNST. Albert.
SPEER. What?
He turns to see ERNST.
ANNEMARIE. And as I have already booked a holiday . . .
SPEER. Why – Ernst.
ANNEMARIE. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind . . .
SPEER. Please, Wittenberg . . . a moment.
ANNEMARIE thrown by the sight of SPEER’s brother.
ANNEMARIE. Yes of course.
SPEER. Ernst, why are you here?
ANNEMARIE. But it is Frau Kempf, Herr Speer. As you may recall, you commissioned me to buy a present for my wedding.
She goes out, leaving SPEER and ERNST alone.
ERNST. Here in Berlin? On leave. Here at your ministry? Our mother telephoned me with your news. She said that I should come at once so you could get me out.
Enter the STATE SECRETARY’S ASSISTANT.
ASSISTANT. Reichsminister, I have to tell you that the State Secretary is waiting.
SPEER. I will be with him in a moment. What d’you mean?
The ASSISTANT goes out.
ERNST. I mean that you get me transferred to the west.
SPEER. Oh Ernst you know I can’t do that.
ERNST. Whyever not? You’re the Minister of Armaments.
SPEER. But I have been appointed quite specifically to stamp out \ special favours –
ERNST. Our mother said you would. She said you’d do this for her sake.
Enter WOLTERS.
WOLTERS. Albert, the natives are \ getting restless –
SPEER. One moment. Ernst, I’ll do my best. I shouldn’t but I will.
ERNST. To do what?
SPEER. To get you transferred to the west. Now, Rudi . . .
ERNST. Oh, Albert. When?
SPEER. Well, obviously, at the end of this campaign.
ERNST (desperate). I’m sorry . . . ?
SPEER. Rudi, please tell them that I’m on \ my way . . .
ERNST. Well, then, that’s that. We are preparing the advance towards the Volga.
The STATE SECRETARY is coming out into the courtyard.
STATE SECRETARY. Now, I am so sorry, Herr Reichsminister –
ERNST. So, till we meet again, Herr Professor Speer.
He salutes.
SPEER. Ernst, please, a moment –
STATE SECRETARY. But if you are to alter Ministry practices and protocols to the extent that you imply, then I will need to know on what authority \ these proposals have been made and who will be deemed responsible –
ERNST. I’m sorry. I will miss my train.
SPEER. Ernst, stay. State Secretary, it is not me implying anything. It is implementing what the Führer has commanded. That is ‘my authority’.
ERNST. Heil Hitler!
He clicks his heels, salutes, turns, and goes quickly out, SPEER turns back to him.
SPEER. Ernst . . . What?
Turning back.
Do you see?
Outflanked, the STATE SECRETARY senses that he must leave and be followed.
STATE SECRETARY. I await you in your office, Herr Reichsminister.
He goes out.
WOLTERS. Your brother?
SPEER. Yes. He’s a private with the sixth.
WOLTERS. I know, you told me. So what really happened in East Prussia?
SPEER (still looking after ERNST). I thought he meant I was to take on Todt’s construction work. I didn’t know he wanted me to be the Minister of Armaments.
WOLTERS. I meant, what happened to Herr Todt?
SPEER turns back to his old friend.
SPEER. Apparently, there was diminished visibility . . . It’s thought the pilot couldn’t make out the horizon.
WOLTERS. Ah.
SPEER. But of course . . . this matter isn’t our domain.
SPEER. So what was I to do? I didn’t even shake his hand. And then as the weeks went by there was my father.
SPEER’S FATHER appears.
FATHER. He’s in an advanced observation unit. He is ill. He is your brother. Surely you, you of all people, can get him out.
SPEER. And as the months, my mother.
FATHER disappears, ANNEMARIE appears.
ANNEMARIE. She rang again today. Five times. She said you can’t do this to him.
ANNEMARIE disappears.
SPEER. I had been given what was probably the second most important job in Germany, at a time of national peril. And I was supposed to put my family before my country?
CASALIS. Your country?
SPEER. Yes of course.
CASALIS. Or your career.
SPEER. And my career. Yes. And why not?
CASALIS says nothing.
But still . . . when as the battle raged, I was invited to the grand reopening of the Berlin State Opera, sumptuously restored . . .
Enter MARGRET, pregnant, in an evening gown. SPEER joins her in their row of seats at the opera. They speak quietly to each other.
MARGRET. Albert, what’s Sixth Army disease?
SPEER. Jaundice. My mother telephoned.
MARGRET. More than once. Apparently your brother’s in a field hospital. With whatever.
SPEER. I know. He wrote to me.
MARGRET. Why can’t they fly him out?
SPEER. Because . . . it’s not that simple.
MARGRET. Albert, is there something going wrong?
SPEER. No, of course not. Have we ever lost a battle? Have the Russians ever won?
MARGRET. Well, that’s all right then. So, what opera are we seeing?
SPEER. The Magic Flute.
MARGRET. Oh good. A fairy tale.
As the overture begins, SPEER to CASALIS.
SPEER. And so we sat there in our box in those softly upholstered chairs among this festive audience, and all I could think about was the crowds at the Paris opera during Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.
CASALIS. Did he survive?
SPEER. Towards the end, I asked the people who were flying supplies in to the troops at Stalingrad to try and find him. Apparently, he’d left the so-called field hospital, and dragged himself back to his observation post. And in fact there was one last letter, full of bitterness and rage, against me, his brother.
Pause.
But no they never found him. And my mother told me the wrong brother died.
The opera breaks up and MARGRET goes.
CASALIS. And after Stalingrad? Did you think that maybe Dr Todt was right? And that far from being saviour of Germany, Hitler’s actions would destroy your country and its people?
SPEER. Herr Pastor, I have to tell you, that there is an intoxication in the very fact of power. To have the final word, to deal with expenditure in billions . . . But I knew the war would not be won if we continued to refurbish hunting lodges and manufacture ladies’ summer outerwear. As I was forced, over the coming months and years, to repeat ad nauseam. Until I finally confronted the assembled Gauleiters of Greater Germany, at the lovingly and lavishly refurbished castle Posen in the Warthegau.
SPEER is moving to a lectern, lit by candelabra. A little afterthought.
Where my friend Karl Hanke, now Gauleiter of Lower Silesia, had been primed to put a question.
SPEER to the lectern. A group of GAULEITERS sit in ornate chairs, among them HANKE.
Yes?
HANKE. Herr Reichsminister. Are you seriously suggesting that those Gauleiters who are not prepared immediately to shut down all consumer goods production in our provinces might face arrest and and even – penal servitude? In concentration camps?
SPEER. Yes, that is exactly what I mean. As the Reichsführer-SS Himmler will underline this afternoon. Next question?
CASALIS. That doesn’t answer me.
SPEER. It was the only way to see it, at the time. I was Hitler’s Minister of Armaments.
SPEER leaves the lectern. Enter HITLER, furious, to SPEER, waving a document.
HITLER. So what is this?
SPEER takes the document.
SPEER. It is a memorandum, on the manganese situation.
HITLER. Which you copied to my chief of staff.
SPEER. My Führer, it’s good news. It confirms we have eleven month’s supply in Germany.
HITLER. This is intolerable. I have ordered all forces to be concentrated in defence of Nikopol, to the last man and at any cost, precisely to protect its vital manganese. Now I appear a liar and what’s worse a fool. You will not communicate directly with my chief of staff. You will not proceed beyond your own domain.
SPEER (thrown). My Führer, naturally, I had no intention \ of giving out a false –
HITLER. Your fault! Your responsibility! Why not admit it, just this once? There are those who say you are the second man in Germany. Do not delude yourself, Herr Speer!
HITLER storms out.
CASALIS. But surely the important thing was not your relationship with Hitler but the twenty million foreign workers you had commandeered. Who unlike the Gauleiters were really subject to arrest and servitude in concentration camps.
SPEER. Yes, some of them, of course. This was not the Salvation Army.
CASALIS. And did you know that Hitler ordered physical destruction of the commissars in Russia? That this order was extended to the Jews and gypsies? That his troops were told they would not be held responsible for killing innocent civilans in defiance of the rules of war?
SPEER. No. I did not know of this order.
CASALIS. But surely you had seen a concentration camp?
SPEER. I visited Mauthausen, I think, in March of 1943. But of course, you are a VIP. You see what you are shown. There was a quarry.
CASALIS. Whereas of course thousands of civilians were being sent to camps where the ‘special treatment’ they received was very different.
SPEER. Of which of course I knew nothing at the time.
CASALIS. But you knew that women, children, old men, were transported . . .
SPEER. Yes of course I did. Every day, as I drove down to the Ministry, I would see crowds of people on the platform of the Nikolassee station. Wearing yellows stars. Presumably, awaiting . . . transportation as you say.
Behind SPEER we see, through the smoke of the railway station, a WOMAN and her elderly FATHER, not badly dressed but with meagre luggage and wearing the yellow star.
CASALIS. And did you not imagine what might lie in store for them?
SPEER. As I said, I had no idea what happened inside concentration camps.
CASALIS. What no idea? From anything you saw or any place you visited? What, no idea at all?
Pause. Now, the WOMAN and her FATHER have gone, and further back in the darkness, through clouds of dust, we can see a long tunnel, full of still, emaciated creatures, and hear the insistent sounds of a cement mixer and an electric saw.
SPEER. It was the worst place I had ever seen.
Pause.
It was code-named Dora. It was the plant that made the V-2 rocket, built in caves and tunnels in the Harz Mountains. It was worked by prisoners from a nearby concentration camp. Which had of course all kinds of security advantages.
I visited in December 1943. The condition of the prisoners was utterly . . . well, the word barbaric is . . . Typhoid was rampant. The prisoners were quartered there, in the sodden, caves, and of course mortality was extremely high. Not least because . . . their ‘rations’ were rancid slop. And the sanitary arrangements . . . There were these barrels, with planks, they had to sit on, literally on top . . . and of course, from time to time, apparently, they’d slip and fall into . . . And of course, the smell . . .
As the vision fades, SPEER is tottering.
So, what? Did I ‘imagine’?
CASALIS. And that was in December 1943? And you fell ill in January?
SPEER collapses. WOLTERS and ANNEMARIE rush in to him. As, helped by ORDERLIES, they take him out, CASALIS turns to the entering MARGRET.
MARGRET. Herr Doctor, how is my husband?
KOCH. Well, his temperature and pulse are very high.
MARGRIT. He’s spitting blood?
KOCH. He’s haemorrhaging, yes.
MARGRIT. So this is not what Himmler’s doctor diagnosed? This is not ‘rheumatism’?
KOCH. Frau Speer, your husband is extremely ill.
MARGRET. Will he survive?
KOCH. His temperature has stabilised.
Slight pause.
Yes, I think, now, that he will survive.
Pause. MARGRET breathes deeply. Then she recovers.
KOCH. Frau Speer. In the midst of . . . the crisis which we hope has passed . . . Your husband looked up to me, quite suddenly and said: ‘I’ve never been so happy’.
CASALIS. Do you remember saying that?
SPEER. No, but I remember feeling . . . no.
CASALIS. What do you remember feeling?
SPEER. Things which I fear you would respond to with a healthy scepticism. As did my wife.
CASALIS. Try me.
Pause. During this the group round the bed gradually turn to look at SPEER.
SPEER. Well, apparently, it’s fairly common. It was on the worst night, in the hospital, when my temperature and pulse were God knows what, I was haemorrhaging, my skin was blue. And I was suddenly above myself, and looking down, and seeing everything so clearly . . . the doctors and the nurses, hovering, my wife, looking soft and slim, quite beautiful . . . and the ceiling, which was plain and white, was suddenly magnificently ornate, like a mediaeval castle, like indeed the mediaeval castles which my colleagues had so lovingly restored . . . And feeling, yes, that I had never been so happy in my life. But then quite clearly . . . and for me, then, sternly and implacably, I heard two words. ‘Not yet’.
Slight pause.
You don’t believe me.
CASALIS. I believe that’s what you remember.
SPEER a little laugh. The hospital scene breaks up behind him.
And I believe that your illness was the result of things outside you.
SPEER. Herr Pastor, my illness began with the recurrence of a knee injury, on a Christmas trip to Lapland.
CASALIS. Your wife thought you were wrongly diagnosed.
SPEER. I was. And then I was correctly diagnosed.
CASALIS. And other people feared you had been poisoned.
SPEER. Herr Hess believes he’s being poisoned every day.
CASALIS. But nevertheless. You nearly died.
SPEER. And nevertheless, recovered.
CASALIS. And when you had recovered, changed?
Pause.
SPEER. You are trying to connect my illness with the things I’d seen. Of course, I understand. It is the fashion of the age.
Slight pause.
And yes, things changed. But the change did not originate with me.
HITLER. My dear Speer, how are you?
SPEER (to CASALIS). He was in Austria for a conference with the Hungarians.
HITLER. I am delighted that you are recovered.
SPEER. As ever, he kissed my wife’s hand.
HITLER kisses MARGRET’s hand.
HITLER. Now you see, what I have always told your husband, dear Frau Speer. It is this love of sliding down the sides of mountains in the snow. These long boards on your feet – it’s madness! In the fire with them! Please assure me, Speer, you will throw them all away!
HITLER holds out his hand. SPEER does not take it, but speaks again to CASALIS.
SPEER. And it was his face.
HITLER. And I believe . . . it is your birthday?
SPEER. And I looked at him – his sallow skin, his ugly nose, and thought – how could I not have seen?
HITLER smiles, pats SPEER’s arm.
HITLER. Well, then. Well, there it is. Well done.
HITLER and MARGRET go out. SPEER stands, takes off his dressing gown, puts on his overcoat.
SPEER. And for the first time, the magic hadn’t worked. And I thought: who is this man, who had meant so much to me?
CASALIS. So this was – essentially aesthetic?
SPEER. It was the moment that I realised – he’d changed. That he’d betrayed those great ideals with which he had inspired us all.
CASALIS. And you don’t think that this was connected \ with the labourers –
SPEER. With the workmen in the mountains? No. I wish it was. Mine was not a moral opposition. It was because from that point on – as the Russians, British and Americans closed in on us – he extended his intentions to my area of responsibility.
We begin to sense the firework display of a distant air-raid, coming closer.
And I finally realised that he intended to pull the German people down into perdition with him. That far from saving it, he was preparing to destroy his Fatherland.
And worst of all that there were people – good people, friends – prepared to let him drag them down.
HANKE. Speer. Welcome.
SPEER. Hanke, my dear friend. This is so beautiful.
HANKE. We begin by refurbishing a Karl Friedrich Schinkel building on the Wilhemsplatz, all those years ago. And we end destroying one in Breslau.
Looking out.
Well, if the Americans don’t do it first.
SPEER. ‘Destroy’?
HANKE. The order is quite clear. Monuments. And palaces, castles, telephone exchanges. Theatres, opera houses, industrial plants. I have it pinned up on every noticeboard.
SPEER. What, alongside ‘every man need only know what is going on in his domain’?
HANKE. So you think the war is lost?
SPEER. But if it isn’t lost . . . then why destroy what we must recapture?
Pause.
HANKE. ‘The enemy will be defeated by weapons that are superior to his’.
SPEER. I have told Goebbels he must stop promising ultimate salvation through miracle weapons which do not exist. We must face up to what is happening and not destroy our people’s vital means of life.
HANKE. And leave a perfect Schinkel building to be trashed by the Red Army?
SPEER. I believe that beauty is a vital means of life. And we have to stick to not destroying it, whatever we have to face up to, in the future.
HANKE. Sometimes I wonder – if the Führer only knew . . .
SPEER. Oh, Karl. My friend.
A moment.
HANKE (gesturing around him). All right. For you. I’ll leave your precious Schinkel standing. Prove your point.
Pause. The bombing very loud, the explosions lighting up the sky.
SPEER. My friend. Your name will live in the German Pantheon forever. You are going to a fine and worthy end.
HANKE. You know, there is a kind of . . . dreadful beauty in all this.
SPEER. I know. As does the Führer.
HANKE looks at SPEER, then turns and goes quickly out. SPEER turns to CASALIS.
SPEER. But it got worse. On the 19th of March Hitler issued another decree, ordering the physical destruction of all German industry, and the forcible evacuation of the German population in the west ahead of the advancing American and British armies. And so whatever the risks to me and to my family, I knew I had to go back to the ruined Chancellory to make one final effort to persuade him to relent.
SPEER. Ah, Wolf, I have a document for \ the Führer –
FRAULEIN WOLF. He has your document, Herr Speer.
SPEER. Reichsminister. This is another document, I want you to type up on the 12 point typewriter . . .
FRÄULEIN WOLF. I can’t, Reichsminister.
SPEER. Whyever not?
FRÄULEIN WOLF. I have been ordered not to.
She hurries on. SCHAUB appears.
SCHAUB. Follow me.
SPEER. And so I was led along the narrow corridors, surrounded as I knew by walls 3.6 metre thick, beneath the five metre, solid concrete roof, to the room where he awaited me.
HITLER. Well, Herr Speer, you see that despite the efforts of the enemy above us we may still converse surrounded by your architecture.
SPEER nods graciously. HITLER puts on his spectacles.
An irony, in view of your defection to the ranks of the whiners and fainthearts.
SPEER. Um \ may I ask –
HITLER. Yes, here it all is, your report, the usual stuff . . . Final collapse of the German war economy . . . war cannot continue on the military plane . . . our obligation to maintain the people’s means of life . . . We have no right, it is not our duty, no one can take the viewpoint that the fate of the German people as a whole is tied to his fate personally.
He takes his spectacles off and glares at SPEER.
SPEER. My Führer. I am merely echoing what you yourself said so eloquently in Mein Kampf . . .
HITLER. You haven’t read Mein Kampf.
SPEER. You will not wish me to deceive you.
HITLER. It is not a matter of what you say to me. I am told that you have told the Ruhr Gauleiters that the war is lost. Are you aware that that is treason? And what measures I would have to take? If you were not my architect?
SPEER. My Führer you must act as you think fit. Without consideration for my person.
Pause.
HITLER. I must act ‘without consideration for your person’.
A sudden change of tack.
Speer, you have worked too hard. You should take some leave.
SPEER. No, my Führer. I am fit and well. If you want to get rid of me, you must dismiss me.
HITLER. You know I can’t do that.
SPEER. Nor can I remain the Minister in name if I desert my post.
Pause. HITLER doesn’t know what to do. He sits and looks away. SPEER sits.
HITLER. All right.
Pause.
You know, in some ways the enemy’s advance is a great help to us. People fight fanatically when they have the war at their front door.
SPEER. My Führer, as I pointed out in my memorandum the enemy’s military superority \ means that –
HITLER. I sometimes think, the luck. I was always lucky. And then that dreadful early winter in 1941. And the allies get blue skies for Normandy. But, yet, despite all of that, we struggle on, with unshakable determination. You – what – you doubled tank production in two years. You trebled airplanes and munitions. Artillery, quadrupled. When naturally the moaners and whiners said it was impossible.
Pause.
Which is why I will give you one more chance.
SPEER. I’m sorry?
HITLER. If you can assure me that the war can still be won, then you can keep your post.
Pause.
SPEER. My Führer, the war is lost.
HITLER. Or indeed, if you still had faith the war might still be won.
Pause.
Or even . . . that you hoped that we aren’t lost. At least you could say that. And then I would be satisfied.
SPEER. My Führer, how could I lie to you? It would be like lying to myself.
HITLER stands.
HITLER. You think about it. And then let me know.
SPEER. Um . . . ‘think about it’?
HITLER. Whether you’re prepared to hope the war might still be won.
SPEER. But I . . .
HITLER. You know, when the whiners and the fainthearts say that it’s impossible, then I say – look at Speer.
HITLER hits SPEER with the glare. It holds a long time.
You can say it in your own words. Any way you like.
SPEER turns away. HITLER pleased to have won, but furious that SPEER has not done what he asked.
Well, there it is.
He turns to go. Suddenly.
SPEER. My Führer, how could you doubt me. I stand unconditionally behind you.
HITLER turns back to SPEER. We don’t know how he will react. After a long moment, it is HITLER who turns away, nodding, his eyes brimming with tears. He comes to SPEER putting out his hand. SPEER puts out his hand, HITLER takes it and converts it into the elbow cupping gesture.
HITLER. Well. Heil Speer.
SPEER (pressing his advantage). My Führer. Will you do one thing for me?
HITLER looks quizzically at SPEER.
Will you give me and my ministry sole responsibility for implementing your decree of March 19?
HITLER. For implementing? Not for changing it?
SPEER. For implementing it, my Führer. Absolutely and entirely.
SPEER takes a paper from his pocket.
SPEER. It will require a sentence.
HITLER. Yes of course.
SPEER gives the piece of paper to HITLER.
Very well.
HITLER takes the document to a table to sign it.
A glass of wine?
SPEER. That would be very welcome.
HITLER calls.
HITLER. Schaub!
To SPEER, as he signs.
My hands are shaking. Lately it’s been hard for me to write even a few words.
Enter SCHAUB.
SCHAUB. ’Führer.
HITLER. Schaub, can you have them get a glass of wine for the Reichsminister.
SCHAUB goes out. HITLER stands, turns back to SPEER.
You know, if the war is lost then the people will be lost, and it is not necessary to worry about their needs. For the garbage left over after this will be only the inferior, as the best are dead. And the future belongs entirely to the hard men of the east.
SPEER. What?
HITLER hands him the document.
HITLER. We will leave this world in flame. I am confident in assigning this last duty to my Minister of Armaments.
HITLER disappears.
ANNEMARIE. Thank God.
SPEER (handing WOLTERS the document HITLER signed). Five thousand copies.
WOLTERS. New orders?
SPEER. Yes. And are \ the vehicles I ordered –
WOLTERS (reading the document). Yes, as you ordered.
ANNEMARIE. Cars, trucks, lorries, motorbikes, and bicycles . . .
WOLTERS. . . . standing by.
SPEER. Excellent.
WOLTERS (reading). So you got the old man to sign over everything to us.
SPEER. The Führer assigned me this last duty, yes.
WOLTERS. To countermand his general order as and when we think it fit.
SPEER. No.
WOLTERS. But that is what you plan to do.
SPEER. I plan to stop the destruction of the factories and farms and mines on which our people’s future life depends.
SPEER turns to go.
Where are you going first?
SPEER. East.
WOLTERS. A question.
SPEER. Yes?
WOLTERS. What happens if you turn the corner and run into an enemy patrol?
Slight pause.
SPEER. Oh, I’ve got that all worked out. It’s simple. I’d surround them.
The tension between them is broken. WOLTERS laughs, turns and goes out.
CASALIS. And did it work?
SPEER. Yes. It saved German industry.
CASALIS. By betraying Hitler.
SPEER. As he and those who followed his last orders had given up the German people.
CASALIS. So despite your efforts there was destruction?
SPEER. Yes, sadly. For instance, I discovered that despite his pledge Karl Hanke had in fact blown up the Schinkel building. And everything besides. And then escaped from an inferno of his own creation.
CASALIS. Your old friend.
SPEER. Yes.
CASALIS. And so did you see Hitler, once again?
SPEER. Yes, on the 25th of April . . . I flew in and landed on the East-West axis and I was taken down into the bunker, where at approaching midnight I was told I was invited for refreshments.
SCHAUB enters.
SCHAUB. Please follow me.
SPEER. And so I did.
SPEER. Eva.
EVA BRAUN. Oh good it’s you.
She retrieves a lit cigarette she’s just hidden.
SPEER. I didn’t know you smoked.
EVA BRAUN. Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. Do you want one?
SPEER. No.
EVA BRAUN. If ‘someone’ comes in and detects the smell, it’s yours. But I bet you’d like some cake and some champagne.
SPEER. You’re the first person to think I might be hungry.
EVA BRAUN. Everybody’s got things on their minds.
SPEER. As have you.
Pause. She busies herself with cake and wine.
EVA BRAUN. Do you recognise your furniture?
SPEER. Of course.
EVA BRAUN. It too is a comfort to me in these times.
SPEER. I’m pleased.
EVA BRAUN. It’s so sad, what’s happened to all those lovely rooms upstairs.
SPEER. Yes, it is. But is not the saddest.
EVA BRAUN. Pop!
She pours champagne.
So how’s Frau Speer, and all the children?
SPEER. She’s very well. I’ve moved them to a place of safety, in the . . . in the area the British are attacking now.
EVA BRAUN. Good man. D’you want some cake?
SPEER. I saw Goebbels earlier. He appears to think that we can make a separate peace with the British and Americans.
EVA BRAUN (cutting cake). Oh, is that right?
SPEER. Well, I’m not sure it’s entirely realistic . . .
EVA BRAUN (handing SPEER a piece of cake). Hey, have you heard the latest?
SPEER. No?
EVA BRAUN (stubs out her cigarette). His ministry is putting out fake horoscopes. Do you want a peppermint?
SPEER. Fake what?
EVA BRAUN finds a newspaper.
EVA BRAUN. Look here, it’s true.
She opens the newspaper, pops a peppermint into her mouth.
Now, what are you?
SPEER. Professionally?
EVA BRAUN. Your birth sign, Herr Reichsminister.
SPEER. Well, I was born on March 19.
EVA BRAUN. Ah. Pisces. ‘You are going through a term of trial but if you are steadfast and your will remains unshakable you will prevail against all odds’. So what’s Frau Speer?
SPEER. Well . . . she’s September . . .
EVA BRAUN. Oh, Albert.
SPEER (guessing). The 28th.
EVA BRAUN. Libra. And yes. Sometimes she must fear she’s on the wrong path but nevertheless she will reach her final destination. So – you’ve done the right thing there.
SPEER. And you?
EVA BRAUN. Well, I’m Aquarius. And although things may look black I must be assured that they who love and care for me are acting always for the best. Isn’t it priceless?
Pause. Delicately, she puts her hand on SPEER’s arm.
You know he had decided to stay here, and I am staying with him. Like everyone, he wanted me to go to Munich. But I’m happy to be here. And you know the rest, of course.
Slight pause.
So my dear Albert, please, no pestering! I have reached my destination.
SPEER smiles. EVA BRAUN eats another peppermint.
EVA BRAUN. He was so pleased you came.
SPEER. Yes. Though I fear he would be less pleased if he knew \ what I've been –
EVA BRAUN (interrupting). He thought that you had gone against him, like the others.
SPEER. You see, I have been countermanding \ orders to destroy –
EVA BRAUN (interrupting). But I know that you will always stand behind him, unconditionally.
Pause.
SPEER. But surely. We must surely, all of us, feel there were things that shouldn’t have occurred. Things said or done, or left undone.
EVA BRAUN. You mean, not having children?
Pause.
Well, perhaps. But after all, I am the Mother of the Nation.
SPEER smiles, a little wanly, giving up. EVA BRAUN yawns.
Well, I must go to bed. And you must go to . . . to your family.
They look at each other.
I told him – Speer will not betray you. Well, my case is proved, I think. Don’t you?
SPEER says nothing. EVA BRAUN puts her hand out to SPEER.
EVA BRAUN. Well. So long.
SPEER. So long.
She shakes his hand. SPEER turns and goes out of the room.
SPEER. Heil, my Führer.
HITLER. Ah, Speer, you’re leaving?
SPEER. Yes, my Führer.
HITLER. Ah.
HITLER looks at SPEER. For a moment, the same, blinding look.
HITLER. Well, then. Well, there it is. Goodbye.
To VON BELOW.
Will you get Keitel? If we’re going to split the two commands, then we must do it now, while there’s still a corridor . . .
HITLER goes out with VON BELOW following.
SPEER. So that was it. No wishes to my family, no . . . statement, affirmation. No good luck. Nothing beyond . . . goodbye. And he was gone.
And so I went north, to join Dönitz, who was trying to negotiate surrender with the British. I was assigned a small room in a navy barracks. Frau Kempf had packed a small overnight bag for me, in which she’d put a portrait photograph of the Führer, in a silver frame, which he had given me six weeks before.
ANNEMARIE goes out with the jacket. SPEER goes and looks at the picture.
CASALIS. And presumably that’s where you heard about his death?
SPEER can’t answer. He nods.
And may I ask – what did you feel?
SPEER says nothing. Instead he starts to sob. He can’t stop it, it goes on and on, until he is literally too exhausted to sob any more. He looks to CASALIS.
SPEER. I felt that I was free of him at last.
CASALIS. You felt that you were free of him? At last?
SPEER a little wearily, taking his prison jacket from the case and putting it on:
SPEER. I’ve said. I realised too late.
CASALIS. Of course. You were an expert, not a politician.
SPEER. Yes.
CASALIS. You had sought where possible to improve the conditions of your workers.
SPEER. Yes.
CASALIS. You had visited one concentration camp.
SPEER. Yes.
CASALIS. You were ignorant of a systematic plan \ to murder –
SPEER. Yes.
CASALIS. But what do you think you would have done, if you had known?
Pause.
SPEER. This is of course the question. And the answer doesn’t help me sleep at night. I fear I would have said: ‘You’re killing them? But that’s insane. I need them for my factories’.
That is why I came to you, and asked you to help me to become a different man. And you said you could and would if I told you the truth.
CASALIS. And do you think you have?
SPEER. Why, do you think I’ve been lying to you all this time?
CASALIS. No, Herr Speer. I don’t think you’ve been lying. But I must tell you the questions that remain. You have told me you were let down by this man who had promised you so much. But was it really that? Was it not rather a playing out of what was there from the beginning? Is it not the case in truth that the hope was always false because the choice was always wrong? That there was a straight line from your building of the new Berlin to the blasting of that tunnel by those miserable slave-workers in the mountain. That the granite for Germania was quarried by the inmates of Mauthausen. That the searchlights which obscured the stomachs of the party bureaucrats at Nuremberg also blinded you to what was being thought and said and planned. Herr Speer, you have presented me the story of a man who was inspired by great ideals and saw those great ideals betrayed. And yet. I see a man with all the intellectual, yes, and all the moral strength to have seen through all of this. Surely, when you look back to the first time when you looked into those eyes, don’t you ask yourself, how in God’s name was I taken in by that?
SPEER is appalled.
SPEER. Look, Pastor. You had a simple war. Dangerous of course. Unenviable in many ways. But simple in that in hindsight there’s no doubt at all that you were right. Now put yourself in my shoes. Ask yourself what hindsight asks of me. Had I done what was required of me by posterity in the war I would have been shot by Hitler. Had I admitted what I was asked to admit after the war, I would have hanged at Nuremberg. My crime consisted of not knowing and not asking what I didn’t know, about an evil we will perish if we do not understand. For that – I have been condemned as a war criminal, robbed of my freedom, tortured with the knowledge that I based my life upon a catastrophic error. If you demand of me that I should have done more than I did, then you must be sure that if – God forbid – it came to that for you, you would make and meet the same demands on yourself. Till then . . . I must repeat. I could have known, I should have known. I didn’t know. I was blinded by what I felt about him at the start to what he reall – . . . To what he had become.
CASALIS. But still, you see, you cannot say: ‘to what he really always was’.
CASALIS realises he has gone too far.
I’m sorry. I should not have . . . It is not my job to judge \ or to cross-examine you –
SPEER. So what is your job? If it is not ‘to judge to probe and to interrogate’.
CASALIS. It is to repeat those two words. To a man who thought he should have died at Nuremberg.
SPEER. What words?
CASALIS. ‘Not yet’. To a man who now may have begun to live.
SPEER. Begun?
CASALIS. Like his garden here in Spandau, he has cleared the undergrowth. Now the time has come to plant new seeds in fresh soil.
Enter HESS with a chair.
HESS. Ah. There you are.
SPEER. Herr Hess?
HESS. I’ve something for you.
SPEFR. Yes?
HESS. I broke my chair. You lent me yours.
SPEER. I did.
HESS. I understand you take your chair to religious service every Sunday. So you will have need of it. I mended mine. The whole thing’s mumbo-jumbo, anyway.
He goes out, leaving the chair.
SPEER. In fact it is not my chair. It’s Neurath’s. It was found for him to help his back. But oddly enough, it is my chair in another sense. In that it was my own design.
Pause.
CASALIS. Well.
SPEER. Herr Pastor, God preserve your strength.
CASALIS. And yours. Please – stay. You have your chair.
CASALIS goes. SPEER turns out front.
SPEER. And he was gone. To complete his doctorate at Strasbourg.
Pause.
I said that when I heard of Hitler’s death I felt that I was free of him at last. But as you know that isn’t true at all.
Yes. Yes. That’s when the dreams began.
Dreams of his knowing what I did, dreams of his knowing what I thought.
And I realised he wasn’t really dead at all.
VON BELOW. In October 1942, I was approached by a young lieutenant of the communications corps, who’d been working on a cable transfer somewhere in the Ukraine. He’d come upon a troop of SS shooting men and women in a trench.
I naturally investigated this. I was advised that this was not a matter of concern for me.
Now the fire feels like the torches of the Nuremberg rallies. Enter GANZENMÜLLER.
GANZENMÜLLER. On the 28th of July 1942, yes, I appear to have signed a letter to SS General Wolff. ‘With reference to our telephone conversation of 16th July, I am able to inform you that since 22 July one train a day, with 5,000 Jews, is going from Warsaw to Treblinka . . . ’
Now the torches are topped by Speer’s Cathedral of Light, through which walks HANKE.
HANKE. All right. I’m going to say this once – and you’re going to say nothing. There’s a place, in Upper Silesia, on the Vistula near Crakow.
It’s vast, goes on for ever. I.G. Farben has a plant there. In the Polish it’s Oswiecem and we call it Auschwitz. And if you’re invited there – don’t go. I can’t describe it. I am not permitted to describe it. Just don’t go.
HIMMLER. I want to speak now, in this most restricted circle, about a matter which you, my party comrades, have long accepted as a matter of course, but which for me has become the heaviest burden of my life – the matter of the Jews.
The brief sentence ‘The Jews must be exterminated’ is easy to pronounce, but the demands on those who have to put it into practice are the hardest and the most difficult in the world.
We, you see, were faced with the question ‘What about the women and children?’ And I decided, here too, to find an unequivocal solution. For I did not think that I was justified in exterminating – meaning kill or order to have killed – the men, but to leave their children to grow up to take revenge on our sons and grandchildren.
For the organisation which had to carry out this order, it was the most difficult one we were ever given. I think I can say that it has been carried out without damaging the minds and spirits of our men, or of our leaders.
Blackout.
End of Act One.