Albert Speer Quotes

The Americans had not played a very prominent part in the war of 1914-1918, he (Adolf Hitler) thought, and moreover, had not made any great sacrifices of blood. They would certainly not withstand a trial by fire, for their fighting qualities were low. In general no such thing as an American people existed as a unit; they were nothing but a mass of immigrants from many nations and many races.

He was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games.

In the burning and devastated cities, we daily experienced the direct impact of war. It spurred us to do our utmost ... the bombing and the hardships that resulted from them (did not) weaken the morale of the populace.

One seldom recognizes the devil when he is putting his hand on your shoulder.

Hitler knew nothing about his enemies and even refused to use the information that was available to him. Instead, he trusted his inspirations, no matter how inherently contradictory they may be and these inspirations were governed by extreme contempt and underestimation of the others.

Hitler had a great gift for adjusting - consciously or intuitively - to his surroundings ... With enormous histrionic intuition he could shape his behavior to changing situations.

I do not think that in those early days of September, Hitler was fully aware that he had irrevocably unleashed a world war. He had merely meant to move one step further. To be sure, he was ready to accept the risk associated with that step, just as he had been a year before during the Czech crisis; but he had prepared himself only for the risk, not really for the great war.

No doubt concentration camps were a means, a menace used to keep order.

In all my activities as Armament Minister I never once visited a labor camp, and cannot, therefore, give any information about them.

For the commission to do a great building, I would have sold my soul like Faust. Now I had found my Mephistopheles. He seemed no less engaging than Goethe's.

At headquarters, where everyone lived under the tremendous pressure of responsibility, probably nothing was more welcome than a dictate from above. That meant being freed of a decision and simultaneously being provided with an excuse for failure.

As I see it today, Hitler and Goebbels were in fact molded by the mob itself, guided by its yearnings and its daydreams. Of course, Goebbels and Hitler knew how to penetrate through to the instincts of their audiences; but in the deeper sense they derived their whole existence from these audiences. Certainly the masses roared to the beat set by Hitler's and Goebbels' baton; yet they were not the true conductors. The mob determined the theme. To compensate for misery, insecurity, unemployment, and hopelessness, this anonymous assemblage wallowed for hours at a time in obsessions, savagery and license. The personal unhappiness caused by the breakdown of the economy was replaced by a frenzy that demanded victims. By lashing out at their opponents and vilifying the Jews, they gave expression and direction to fierce primal passions.