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Fritz Todt’s “Speaker System”

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Nazi Volksgemeinschaft Technology

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Abstract

In 1941 Fritz Todt created a program of lectures for German engineers, designed to enhance technical training, spread Todt’s “German Technology” ideology, and prepare for technocratic Nazi control of post-war Europe. Lectures were on the whole apolitical with the ideological thrust varying dramatically between regions. Many of the speakers were not Nazi party members, nor required to be, and German engineers were far from fully politicized in 1942. Due to deteriorating wartime conditions and Albert Speer’s shift to a “total war” footing, the Speaker System faded away after 1943, demonstrating the regime’s wartime shift to technological pragmatism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Adam Tooze, “The Economic History of the Third Reich,” in Nazi Germany, ed. Jane Caplan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 195.

  2. 2.

    Thomas Klepsch, Nationalsozialistische Ideologie: Eine Beschreibung ihrer Struktur vor 1933 (Münster: Lit, 1990), 246–247.

  3. 3.

    “Die Aufgaben der Gauämter für Technik,” Sonderdruck, Rundschau Deutscher Technik, January 1941, 21, in BArch, NS 14/10. On the growth of wartime authority for Nazi engineers, see Karl-Heinz Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1974), 189–198; and Dieter Rebentisch, Führerstaat und Verwaltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Verfassungsentwicklung und Verwaltungspolitik 1939–1945 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1989), 346–352. Ludwig goes so far as to refer to a Machtergreifung of the war economy by engineers. Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure, 190, and idem, “Ingenieure im Dritten Reich, 1933–1945,” in Ingenieure in Deutschland, 1770–1990, eds. Peter Lundgreen and André Grelon, (Frankfurt: Campus, 1994), 349.

  4. 4.

    Franz Seidler, Fritz Todt: Baumeister des Dritten Reiches (Munich: Herbig, 1986), 59.

  5. 5.

    Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (New York: Penguin, 2006), 513; Konrad Jarausch, The Unfree Professions: German Lawyers, Teachers and Engineers, 1900–1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 174.

  6. 6.

    “VDI im NSBDT,” Der Ingenieurnachwuchs (Berlin 1938), BArch, NDS 52/26. See also Jarausch, Unfree Professions, 183–184; Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure, 288–300.

  7. 7.

    Circular of the NSBDT Reichswaltung, May 19, 1941, BArch, NS 14/10. See also Seidler, Fritz Todt, 54.

  8. 8.

    NSBDT Order Nr. 4, August 30, 1941, BArch, NS 14/50, folio 2.

  9. 9.

    “Ingenieur-Fortbildung,” October–December 1941, BArch, NSD 52/27.

  10. 10.

    Seidler, Fritz Todt, 60.

  11. 11.

    Hauptamt für Technik, Amt I circular, May 31, 1941, BArch, NS 14/49, folio 2. Throughout the chapter, where paragraphs contain multiple quotations from the same source, a single endnote reference to the source is provided.

  12. 12.

    Gauamtsleiter, Amt für Technik, Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt to Hauptamt für Technik, October 9, 1941, BArch, NS 14/50, folio 1. Figures for the Speaker Program in Magdeburg-Anhalt from October to December 1941 corroborate that there was little effort at political indoctrination there: only one lecture out of 73 was “techno-political.”

  13. 13.

    Otto Streck, Leiter des Amtes I, Hauptamt für Technik to Amt für Technik, Gau Steiermark, July 14, 1942, BArch, NS 14/52, folio 2.

  14. 14.

    Form sent by NSBDT Gauwaltung Magdeburg-Anhalt, [cover letter stamped September 19, 1941], BArch, NS 14/50, folio 1.

  15. 15.

    Hauptamt für Technik, Amt I, to Gauamt für Technik, Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt, September 24, 1941, BArch, NS 14/50, folio 1.

  16. 16.

    Gauwalter Köhns, Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt, to the Reichsleitung NSBDT, September 16, 1941, BArch, NS 14/50, folio 1.

  17. 17.

    Hauptamt für Technik, Amt I, to Amt für Technik, Gau Kärnten, November 12, 1941, BArch, BArch, NS 14/50, folio 1.

  18. 18.

    Schönleben, NSBDT Fachgruppe Bauwesen, NSBDT circular Nr. 111/1941, November 14, 1941, BArch, NS 14/51.

  19. 19.

    On Todt’s death and sources related thereto, see Chap. 10.

  20. 20.

    Saur later became infamous as the ruthless head of the “Fighter Staff” (Jägerstab) in Albert Speer’s Ministry for Armaments and War Production.

  21. 21.

    Hauptgeschäftsführer, Fachgruppe Bauwesen, to Otto Streck, September 9, 1942, BArch, NS 14/52, folio 2.

  22. 22.

    Auszug aus dem Reichsverfügungsblatt, Ausgabe A, Nr. 27/1941 of June 6, 1941, concerning “Massnahmen gegen fahrlässige Preisgabe von Staatsgeheimnissen: Reden und Vorträge militärischen Inhalts,” BArch, NS 14/49, folio 2.

  23. 23.

    “Aufbau des Rednerwesens im NSBDT,” April 1942, BArch, NS 14/53, folio 2.

  24. 24.

    Ibid.

  25. 25.

    Ibid.

  26. 26.

    BArch, NS 22/330.

  27. 27.

    See Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure, 192–193, 198.

  28. 28.

    Deisenroth, Hauptamt für Technik, circular to all Gauamtsleiter der Ämter für Technik, November 14, 1942, BArch, NS 14/50, folio 1.

  29. 29.

    NSDAP Gau Danzig-Westpreußen, Amt für Technik, to the Hauptamt für Technik, December 31, 1942, BArch, NS 14/49.

  30. 30.

    Seitzinger, NSDAP Gauleitung Schleswig-Holstein, Amt für Technik, to the Hauptamt für Technik, December 18, 1942, BArch, NS 14/49.

  31. 31.

    Gaustellenleiter, NSBDT Gau Weser-Ems, to the Hauptamt für Technik, November 25, 1942, BArch, NS 14/49.

  32. 32.

    Gauhauptstellenleiter Schilling, NSDAP Gauleitung Wartheland, to the Hauptamt für Technik, November 27, 1942, BArch, NS 14/49.

  33. 33.

    “Veranstaltungsplan,” NSBDT Gauwaltung Bayreuth, n.d., NS 14/ 52, folio 1; NSDAP Gau Danzig-Westpreußen, Amt für Technik, to the Hauptamt für Technik, December 31, 1942, BArch, NS 14/49.

  34. 34.

    Jahn, Amt für Technik, Gau Westfalen-Süd, to Hauptamt für Technik, November 21, 1942, BArch, NS 14/49, folio 1. In this instance, the local lectures were probably not very ideological, as the Gau Office of Technology scheduled “techno-political” but not weltanschauliche lectures.

  35. 35.

    Letter of NSBDT Gauwaltung Ostpreußen to Hauptamt für Technik, March 5, 1943, BArch, NS 14/52, folio 2.

  36. 36.

    Notice of NSBDT Gau Westfalen-Süd, March 25, 1943, BArch, NS 14/52, folio 2.

  37. 37.

    Speer Anordnung 1/43, February 22, 1943, BArch, NS 14/10. See also Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure, 203.

  38. 38.

    Hauptamt für Technik, “3. Durchfürungsbestimmung zur Anordnung 1/43,” June 18, 1943, BArch, NS 14/10. Among the six was Heinrich Himmler’s brother, Gebhard, charged with professional questions. For Gebhard Himmler’s career, see Karin Himmler, Die Brüder Himmler: Eine deutsche Familiengeschichte (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2005), 174–191.

  39. 39.

    “Ingenieure Fortbildung: Vorträge u. Lehrgänge, Okt.-Dez, 1941,” BArch, NSD 52/27; and “Ingenieure

    Fortbildung: Vorträge u. Lehrgänge, Jan.-June, 1942,” BArch, NSD 52/28.

  40. 40.

    A well-known Nazi economist, Daitz founded the Gesellschaft für europäische Wirtschaftsplanung und Großraumwirtschaft in 1939 and the Zentralinstitut für nationale Wirtschaftsplanung und Großraumwirtschaft in Dresden in 1941.

  41. 41.

    Schemm, NSBDT Gauwaltung Franken, “Vortragsbeurteilung,” April 23, 1942, BArch, NS 14/50, folio 1.

  42. 42.

    “Merkblatt des Gauamtes für Technik der NSDAP und der Gauwaltung des NS-Bundes Deutscher Technik,” Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt, October 1, 1942, BArch, NS 14/52, folio 1.

  43. 43.

    Amt für Technik, Gau Westfalen-Süd, to Hauptamt für Technik, November 21, 1942, BArch, NS 14/49, folio 2.

  44. 44.

    Haus der Technik, Essen, catalog of speeches for Oct. 1–Dec. 31, 1941, BArch, NS 14/52, folio 1.

  45. 45.

    “Ingenieure Fortbildung: Vorträge u. Lehrgänge, Jan.-Juni 1942,” BArch, NSD 52/28. Here and below, overall statistics on regional lectures are from the lists in NSD 52/ 27 and NSD 52/28.

  46. 46.

    “Schulungsplan und Ingenieur-Fortbildung Oct.–Dez. 1942,” NSBDT Gauleitung Magdeburg-Anhalt, BArch, NS14/52, folio 1.

  47. 47.

    “Vorlesungsverzeichnis vom 1. Oktober bis 31. Dezember 1941,” Haus der Technik/Essen, BArch, NS 14/52, folio 1.

  48. 48.

    “Veranstaltungen im Oktober 1942,” Haus der Technik/Essen, BArch, NS 14/52, folio 1.

  49. 49.

    BArch, NS 14/53, folios 1 and 2.

  50. 50.

    Mecklenburg is an anomaly, for it showed absolutely no interest in techno-political lectures—none were offered in the October 1941–June 1942 period—yet in this catalogue, it had one of four Gau speakers listed with techno-political themes, thus the highest ideological percentage.

  51. 51.

    Hauptamt für Technik, Order 3/40, October 8, 1940, BArch, NS 14/10.

  52. 52.

    Michael Kater found similar regional differences in the Nazi Party membership of doctors, ranging from almost 80% of self-employed doctors in Thuringia to percentages in the 30s in Baden, Hesse-Nassau and Württemberg and less than 26% of non-Jewish doctors in Berlin. Michael Kater, Doctors under Hitler (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 58.

  53. 53.

    Amt für Technik, Gau Bayerische Ostmark, to Hauptamt für Technik, December 8, 1942, BArch, NS 14/49, folio 1.

  54. 54.

    See the comments of Magnus Brechtken in Die NS-Gaue: Regionale Mittelinstanzen im zentralistischen “Führerstaat,” Jürgen John, Horst Möller, and Thomas Schaarschmidt, eds. (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), 407. 

    Representative of the new interest on how regions integrated National Socialism is Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann and Maiken Umbach, Heimat, Region and Empire: Spatial Identities under National Socialism (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.)

  55. 55.

    Hans Mommsen, “Reichsreform und Regionalgewalten—Das Phantom der Mittelinstanz, 1933–1945,” in Zentralismus und Föderalismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Deutschland und Italien im Vergleich, Olivier Janz, Pierangelo Schiera and Hans Siegrist, eds. (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2000), 227–237; D. Rebentisch, Führerstaat und Verwaltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Verfassungsentwicklung und Verwaltungspolitik, 1939-1945 (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1989).

  56. 56.

    On the relationship of the VDI to the Party, see Gerd Hortleder, Das Gesellschaftsbild des Ingenieurs: Zum politischen Verhalten der Technischen Intelligenz in Deutschland (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1970), 132–138; and Karl-Heinz Ludwig, “Der VDI als Gegenstand der Parteipolitik 1933–1945,” in Technik, Ingenieure und Gesellschaft: Geschichte des Vereins Deutscher Ingenieure 1856–1981, Karl-Heinz Ludwig and Wolfgang König, eds. (Düsseldorf: VDI Verlag, 1981): 407–454.

  57. 57.

    In a self-serving report, written in 1947 to exonerate the VDI, Alfred Raupp claimed that large chapters had some political latitude with presentations. Raupp’s report is to be viewed with great skepticism, but on this point may contain a grain of truth. “Vorläufiger Bericht über die Einstellung des VDI zum Nationalsozialismus, zum Militarismus und zum Monopolkapitalismus während der Jahre 1933–1945,” VDI Archiv, Düsseldorf, 8, 10.

  58. 58.

    Although undated, internal evidence suggests that this “Reichsrednerliste der NSBDT” dates from late 1942, NS14/47.

  59. 59.

    Twenty-two were members of both the Party and the NSBDT; four were members of only the NSBDT, two were members of only the Party, and information is lacking for three.

  60. 60.

    See in particular the speaker programs in BArch, NS 14/52.

  61. 61.

    “Schulungsplan und Ingenieur-Fortbildung Okt.–Dez. 1942,” NSBDT Gauleitung Magdeburg-Anhalt, BArch, NS14/52, folio 1.

  62. 62.

    “Reichsrednerliste der NSBDT,” n.d., BArch, NS 14/47. Nine of the Reich Speakers held a position in a Gau Office for Technology—but seven of the nine were from Schleswig-Holstein!

  63. 63.

    See Kater, Doctors under Hitler, 54–55.

  64. 64.

    It would appear that the individuals on the list were reviewed by the regional Offices of Technology, who informed the Main Office of their findings.

  65. 65.

    See Dirk Böndel, et al., Ich diente nur der Technik: Sieben Karrieren zwischen 1940 und 1950 (Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1995); and Michael Petersen, Missiles for the Fatherland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

  66. 66.

    Jarausch, Unfree Professions, 195.

  67. 67.

    Gauamtsleiter, NSDAP Gauleitung Hessen-Nassau, Gauamt für Technik, to the Hauptamt für Technik, November 27, 1942, BArch, NS 14/49.

  68. 68.

    There were 1178 NSBDT members among the 1856 engineers in the Gau—up from 868 NSBDT members for 1422 engineers the previous year. “Leistungsbericht des Gauamtes für Technik und des angeschlossenen Verbandes NS-Bund Deutscher Technik 1941/42,” with cover letter of the NSDAP Gauleitung Wartheland, Amt für Technik, to Hauptamt für Technik, September 18, 1942, BArch, NS 14/ 50, folio 2.

  69. 69.

    Jarausch, Unfree Professions, 195.

  70. 70.

    Merkblatt des Gauamtes für Technik der NSDAP und der Gauwalting des NSBDT, Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt, October 1, 1942, BArch, NS 14/52, folio 2.

  71. 71.

    “Hauptamtleiter Generalinspektor Dr.-Ing. Fritz Todt: Die Gemeinschaftsaufgaben der deutschen Techniker im NSBDT,” Deutsche Technik, October 1937, 469–72; Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure, 130.

  72. 72.

    “Leistungsbericht des Gauamtes für Technik und des angeschlossenen Verbandes NS-Bund Deutscher Technik 1941/42,” with cover letter of the NSDAP Gauleitung Wartheland, Amt für Technik, to Hauptamt für Technik, September 18, 1942, BArch, NS 14/50, folio 2

  73. 73.

    Stemming from its origins in Gottfried Feder’s Militant League of German Architects and Engineers (KDAI), the NSBDT urged architects to join, but there is little evidence of their active involvement. See the list of NSBDT professional societies in Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure, 194–195. As a basis of comparison, there were 126, 993 architects, 16,932 chemists and 266,457 engineers in Germany in 1939. Jarausch, Unfree Professions, 237. The sometimes-nebulous distinctions between Diplom-Ingenieur, Ingenieur and Techniker make counting engineers in the Third Reich difficult, in addition to which chemists and architects are at times included in the statistics. See Jarausch, Unfree Professions, 17–19, 161, 231; Michael Kater, The Nazi Party: A Social Profile of Members and Leaders, 1919–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 11–12.

  74. 74.

    Kater, Doctors under Hitler, 56–57, 63, 66–67 and 245, Table 2.4.

  75. 75.

    There were, for example, 18,299 NSBDT members in Berlin at the beginning of 1943 and 5711 members in Gau Essen in July 1942, but it is unclear what percentage of total engineers in each region they represent. Irrek to Saur, Jan. 2, 1943, and “Zahl der NSBDT-Mitglieder im Gau Essen nach dem Stande vom[?] 21.7.1942,” both in BArch, NS 14/85.

  76. 76.

    Karl-Heinz Ludwig says that engineers joined the NSDAP to a lesser extent than similar professions. Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure, 108. Konrad Jarausch asserts that “about two-thirds of the technicians had no direct NS affiliation at all,” Jarausch, Unfree Professions, 166.

  77. 77.

    Kater, Doctors under Hitler, 59. Standing the traditional argument on its head, Wolfgang Hormalus contends that it was the political and social indifference of engineers that made them susceptible to Nazi manipulation and indoctrination. Wolfgang Horlamus, Deutsche Ingenieure und Wissenschaftler zwischen Gleichschaltung, Weltkrieg und Kaltem Krieg (1933–1948): Ein Beitrag zur historischen Friedens- und Konfliktforschung–Das Verantwortungsproblem (Munich: Grin, 1990), 265.

  78. 78.

    On the regime’s shift to pragmatism in physics, see Margit Szöllösi-Janze, “National Socialism and the Sciences: Reflections, Conclusions, and Historical Perspectives,” in Science in the Third Reich, Margit Szöllösi-Janze ed., (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 12; and idem, “‘Wir Wissenschaftler bauen mit’: Universitäten und Wissenschaften im Dritten Reich,” in Der Nationalsozialismus und die deutsche Gesellschaft: Einführung und Überblick, Bernd Sösemann, ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2002), 165; Kristie Macrakis, Surviving the Swastika: Scientific Research in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 153, 204; Mark Walker, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power, 1939–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 66, 229; Alan Beyerchen, Scientists Under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community in the Third Reich (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977), 188. On wartime Party radicalization within Germany, Hans Mommsen, “The Indian Summer and the Collapse of the Third Reich: The Last Act,” in The Third Reich between Vision and Reality: New Perspectives on Germany History, 1918–1945, Hans Mommsen, ed. (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 116–117; and Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944–1945 (New York: Penguin, 2011).

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    John C. Guse

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Guse, J.C. (2023). Fritz Todt’s “Speaker System”. In: Nazi Volksgemeinschaft Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32056-9_11

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