Albert Speer Quotes

10 Sourced Quotes

Today, almost forty years later, I grow dizzy when I recall that the number of manufactured tanks seems to have been more important to me than the vanished victims of racism.

Albert Speer
Hitler's dictatorship differed in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. His was the first dictatorship in the present period of technical development, a dictatorship which made complete use of all technical means for the domination of its own country. Through technical means like the radio and the loud-speaker, eighty million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man.

Albert Speer
I felt this coming. I tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Hitler in 1945. I am not concerned with jurisdiction of the court as Hess or others are. History will show the trials to be necessary.

Albert Speer
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.

Albert Speer
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.

Albert Speer
20 years. Well … that's fair enough. They couldn't have given me a lighter sentence, considering the facts, and I can't complain. I said the sentences must be severe, and I admitted my share of the guilt, so it would be ridiculous if I complained about the punishment.

Albert Speer
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.

Albert Speer
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.

Albert Speer
So long as Hitler had temperamental outbursts of hate, there was yet hope for a change towards more moderate directions. Therefore, it was the resoluteness and coldness which made his outbreaks against the Jews so convincing. In other areas when he announced horrifying decisions in a cold and quiet voice, those around him, and I myself knew that things had now become serious. And with just this cold superiority he declared also, when we occasionally had lunch together, that he was set to destroy the Jews in Europe.

Albert Speer
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.

Albert Speer