Why was Speer seemingly more successful at helping the Nazi war economy than his predecessor, Todt?
Fritz Todt vs Albert Speer
- Thread starter AbeLincoln1865
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Deleted member 1487
Was he? Largely the biggest success he had was getting Hitler to give him full control over the war economy, which all predecessors had lacked; one of the biggest problems the Germans had from 1936-41 (when Goering was in charge) was the lack of a unified production bureaucracy; it was a mess of overlapping responsibilities that Hitler wanted (that way he could stay in charge by being the final arbiter) and allowed for guys like Goering to encroach on others' turf by being the bigger bully (how he wrestled much of control over the economy away from Schacht). Thing is, as Goering started to fail and Todt was elevated to Armaments Minister he started to really take more and more charge of production away from everyone else that claimed some piece of the economy and by early 1942 finally managed after some brutal arguments with Hitler to have him sign it all over to his office. Mysteriously after that meeting the airplane that Goering had loaned Todt due to Todt's personal aircraft requiring repairs exploded shortly after take off. Perhaps Goering had him assassinated? Several times in WW2 people that were causing problems for the powers that were for both the Axis and Allies tended to mysteriously explode in mid-air...
Anyway Speer then got offered Todt's newly unified office and benefited from having all the bureaucracy unified under him. That and all the various production schemes pre-war finally came to fruition (pre-war the plan was for WW2 to start in 1942 when the economy would be ready for it).
That's why I wrote seemingly. I know Adam Tooze has shown Speer was not as good as most accounts say he was.
Garrison
Donor
I was going to mention Tooze as well. Wiking pretty much hits on the head when he says Speer benefited from programs and investments put in place long before he assumed his position, and as Tooze points out he benefited from the diversion of food from the occupied territories to Germany and a massive boost to the steel available for armaments, achieved at the expense of long term sustainability. His PR effort, both during the war and Nuremburg buffed up his reputation out of proportion to his real achievements.