Whatever one may think of the ethical considerations behind Kesselring’s refusal, he understandably felt no scruples in giving his support to Albert Speer, Reich Minister for Armaments and War Production, who was doing all he could to sabotage the execution of the "scorched earth” order promulgated by Hitler on March 19, 1945.
In setting out its motives, the monstrous Fiihrerbefehl used the following line of argument:
"The fight for the existence of our people obliges us to make total use, even within the Reich, of whatever means may weaken the fighting power of the enemy and prevent him from pursuing his advance. Any means capable, directly or indirectly, of inflicting lasting damage on the offensive strength of the enemy must be resorted to. It is erroneous to think that by leaving them intact or with only superficial damage, we may more profitably resume exploitation of our communication and transport systems and our industrial or productive installations when we reconquer our invaded territory. When the enemy comes to retreat, he will have no consideration for the population, and will leave only scorched earth behind him.
"For this reason I command:
1. that within the Reich the communications and military transport systems, and the industrial and productive installations, which the enemy may use immediately or within a limited period for the prosecution of the war, be destroyed.”
Article 2 of the same decree divided powers for this purpose between the military chiefs and the civil administrators; and Article 3, ordering the immediate transmission of the order to army commanders, declared invalid any directive which sought to nullify it.
So Hitler joined Morgenthau, whereas even Churchill and Roosevelt had rejected the inhuman and demented notion of "pastoralising” the German people. Albert Speer, however, devoted his entire energies to opposing the implementation of this insane order: verbally on March 18; and in writing in two letters, the second of which, dated March 29, is preserved among the appendices that Percy Ernst Schramm adds as a supplement to his masterly edition of the O. K.W. war diary.
"From what you have told me this evening [March 18] the following emerges clearly and unequivocally, unless I have misunderstood you: if we are to lose the war, the German people are to be lost as well. This destiny is unavoidable. This being so, it is not necessary to secure the basic conditions to enable our people to ensure their own survival even in the most primitive form. Rather, on the contrary, we should ourselves destroy them. For they will have proved themselves the weaker, and the future will belong exclusively to the people of the east, who will have shown themselves the stronger. Furthermore, only the unworthy will survive since the best and bravest will have fallen.” Here revealed was the ugly bedrock of Hitler’s totally nihilistic nature.
World History
