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SPEER’S ANALYSIS OF THE LUFTSCHUTZ COST
In his memoirs, written secretively while serving his twenty-year sentence from the Nuremherg trials, Albert Speer has had a chance to digest his part in the great National Socialist experiment that resulted in World War II. Since hitler assigned him to design the production of war materials, among other projects, Speer was in constant contact with the ebb and flow of the war fronts, the unavailabili ty of war production labor, and the cost of air defense vs. offensive war efforts. Spccr’s recollections of the Nazis’ rise to power and its consequences was smuggled out of prison in bits and pieces by a 1)utchman who had once been a slave laborer. Published by Simon & Schuster, “Inside the Third Reich” is still in print and recommended reading for collectors of this era.

Speer answers our current question of the effectiveness of the Allied air raids:
...ln spite of the losses of factories, we were producing more, not less. These air raids carried (he war into our midst. In the burning and devestafcd cities, we daily experienced the direct impact of the war. And it spurred us to do our utmost.

Our heaviest expense was in fact the elaborate defensive measures. In the Reich and in the western theaters of war, the barrels often thousand anti-aircraft guns were pointed toward the sky. The same guns could have well been employed in Russia against tanks and other ground targets. had it not been for this new front, the air front over (;ermany, our defens ive strength against tanks would have been doubled, as far as equipment was concerned. Moreover, the anti-aircraft force tied down hundreds of thousands of young soldiers. A third of the optical industry was busy producing gunsights for the flak batteries. About half of the electronics industry was engaged in producing radar and communications networks for dcfnse against bonthing. Simply because of this, in spite of the high level of the German electronics and optical industries, the supply of our frontline troops with modern equipment remained far behind that of the Western armies.

In addition, Speer states: Thus a serious shortage of army communications eqUipment developed; for instance, walkic-lalkics for the infantry and sound-ranging apparatus for the artillery. In addition, further development of such devices had to be neglected in favor of anti-aircraft development.

As an absurd sideline, check out Speer’s experience with Goring after the 104h-bomber attack on Cologne the night of May 30, 1942. lIe says: By chance, Milch and I were summoned to see Goring on the morning after the raid. We found him in a had humor, still not believing the reports of the Cologne bombing. “Impossible! That many bombs cannot be dropped in a single night!” he snarled at his adjutant. “Connect me with the Gauleiter of Cologne.” Then followed, in our presence, a preposterous telephone conversation. ‘The report from your police commissioner is a stinking lie!” Apparently the Gauleiter begged to differ. “I tell you as Reich Marshal that the figures are simply too high. how can you dare report such fantasies to the Führer!” GauleiterOrohe, at the other end, was evidently insisting on his figures. “How are you going to count the fire bombs? Those are nothing but estimates. I tell you once more — they’re many times too high. All wrong! Send another report to the Führer at once, revising your figures. Or are you trying to imply that I am lying?”

One important point made by Specr is that he war could have been over sooner if the British had (I) followed thru with IhcRuhr “dam-busting” campaign and (2) the U.S.with additional attacks on the hall-hearing industry. In hindsight, he two targets may have had disastrous results to the Reich if these missions had been carried out to completion. Lone caution: the Schweinfurt raid was very costly to the B-li crews which took part. Spccr is saying that it çj accomplish much as a start.]

 

Danzig Report Vol. 1 - Nr. 107 - April - May - June - 2000, Page 26.