It's early 1942,
and Nazi Germany is now up
against the industrial might of Soviet Russia and the United States.
[Roger] This is a nightmare scenario for Germany's military and political planners.
They're faced with a two-front war
against enemies on both sides who can out-produce them in every sphere.
Hitler needs a man to revolutionise the German war machine.
But no one expects the Führer to choose his friend, Albert Speer.
[Sönke] Speer was an architect, he was not a manager,
he was not an engineer, he was not even a general.
It's a promotion that soon stirs up
a rat's nest of inner-circle jealousy and intrigue.
It's a very public humiliation for Göring and a very public success for Speer.
[Guy] And that kind of success makes him
an immediate target for other members of the inner circle.
[Emma] He's got Bormann briefing against him,
Himmler jostling for power.
It's a confrontation that might even threaten Speer's life.
This raises the kind of tantalising prospect
that members of Hitler's inner circle are actually trying to murder each other.
This is the inside story of Hitler's henchmen,
the power struggles, blind ambition and fawning sycophants
that would create a monster and fuel the most brutal horrors of the Third Reich.
In the snow around Moscow,
the rapid advance of the Nazi war machine has been halted.
This time, Blitzkrieg tactics have failed to deliver a swift victory.
Once the Blitzkrieg ground to a halt in the Soviet Union in 1942,
the nature of the war itself changed,
and Germany found itself effectively in a war of attrition, in a war of production,
which is an extremely difficult prospect.
It has to out-produce the economic might of the Soviet Union.
Nazi Germany needs more tanks and guns fast
but its economy isn't ready for a long drawn-out war,
and to make things worse, a plane crash has led
to the death of the very man Hitler needs to arm and supply his war machine.
Minister of Armaments Fritz Todt.
[Sönke] Todt was a well-known man,
a capable man and the big question is who will be the successor.
It's a chance to save the Nazi war effort.
For Hitler's number two, Hermann Göring,
this is an ideal opportunity to repair a once-glittering reputation.
By 1942, there had been some big setbacks for Göring.
Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe is not the force it once was.
Göring's star is on the wane.
Göring's career may be in the doldrums
but he has good reason to believe that he is the obvious choice.
Göring, you have to remember, is in charge of the four-year plan.
The four-year plan is basically the office
that's been created to rearm Germany and when Fritz Todt dies,
he is fully expecting that either he or one of his men will fill that position.
Göring is banking on being put in full control
of the supply and manufacture of armaments.
But when he arrives at the Führer's office,
he gets a nasty surprise.
Hitler has already found a new man to rearm Germany,
his chief architect Albert Speer.
When Speer is appointed, you know,
this is an absolute shock and a bolt from the blue.
[Sönke] Everyone knew Speer as Hitler's architect
but everyone was surprised that he was the successor of Todt
because he was not an engineer, he wasn't even a general,
he had no idea about weapons... weapons industry whatsoever.
But a move like this should come as no surprise to Göring
as Hitler likes to keep his inner circle in check
by keeping those closest to him on the back foot.
Hitler likes to surround himself with people who say yes.
He therefore has a habit of giving people jobs
for which they have no background knowledge, no experience,
and are unlikely candidates for those jobs.
Now, Speer thought that he himself
was the only thing approaching a friend that Hitler ever had.
Hail victory! Hail victory!
Albert Speer had first met Hitler almost a decade earlier,
when, as a relatively inexperienced architect,
he was asked to submit designs for the Nuremberg rally.
It's Speer's idea for the Nuremberg rallies,
these absolutely astonishing cathedrals of light
with all these anti-aircraft lights shining up into the air.
They just would absolutely wow and impress
the crowds and everyone attending these rallies.
But they also impress Hitler himself.
To the young architect's surprise and excitement,
the Führer invited him to regular luncheons
to discuss his own architectural dreams for a new Germany.
Speer and Hitler have this immediate rapport,
because they both have this kind of artistic sensibility,
and they would spend hours, you know,
looking over models or architects' plans and drawing up ideas.
There was a lot of sort of intimacy between them. They were like pals.
Speer would soon show that he could also undertake major projects
including Hitler's new Reich Chancellery, which was built within a year.
The architect may have no experience of armament production,
but so far, in the eyes of the Führer, he hasn't put a foot wrong.
[James Holland] I think he thinks here's someone who is...
not tainted by anything that's come before.
He's not been tainted by the failures in the Soviet Union the previous year.
He's not Göring. He's someone new.
He's someone I can trust and I think he's worth a punt.
But Speer's appointment is a massive gamble.
With the United States entering the war, the future of Nazi Germany
is now dependent on knocking out the Soviet Union before it's too late.
They've got one more chance.
And that is in the summer-campaigning season of 1942.
They've got this last chance to defeat the Soviet Union.
But of course, their factories are also pumping out more tanks and machinery
and now Britain and the United States
are also supplying them through Arctic convoys as well
with more and more material. So the race is on.
It's a daunting challenge
but Speer's first hurdle is to deal with the very man who wanted his job.
Speer, travelling to see Göring soon after his appointment,
would have been expecting something of a showdown.
Speer now finds himself thrust into the bear pit of Hitler's inner circle,
surrounded by dangerous men who all jealously guard their grip on power.
And Göring is itching to put the young upstart in his place.
[James Holland] Speer knows that he's completely in above his head.
Yes, he's been in the inner court,
but he's always been just some guy who builds buildings.
He hasn't actually been involved on a kind of day-to-day basis
of the political machinations of the Third Reich, so suddenly he's saying,
I have to sink or swim with the big boys and they don't get bigger than Göring.
Hitler's number two receives Speer like a pompous patrician
telling the newbie just to follow his lead and all will be well.
Göring just wants to go, OK, fine,
you're now going to be consumed into the four-year plan we're going to set up.
And, you know, you'll just basically do what I say.
[Roger] Göring outlined the areas beyond which Speer was not to tread
and Speer realises at that point that he's being... set up.
[James Holland] This is kind of heartstopping moments for him
and he's got to show Göring right from the outset
that he's not going to be pushed around.
Speer may be a political novice but he has come prepared.
He can't push Göring around, but Hitler can.
He reveals a decree from the Führer himself.
Hitler says that these new areas as far as armaments production was concerned,
it was all to be under Speer's competence.
It was to be taken away from Göring's competence as head of the four-year plan
and was to be given to Speer.
Speer is playing his trump card.
His personal bond with the Führer.
[James Holland] What he has managed to get out of Hitler
is a concession that he can go straight to him.
He has a direct access to the Führer
and the Führer says, “I will back you up on anything."
And Göring just has to kind of suck on that.
With Göring out of the way, Speer gets to work.
And as an outsider, he brings some much needed reforms.
For a Nazi Germany where everybody is enmeshed
in bureaucracy and overlapping hierarchies,
and nobody can get anything done,
Speer comes in and he sets up these new, clean lines of control
on a more business-like basis.
[Roger] The German war economy had never really been properly rationalised.
So first of all, that's what Speer begins to do.
So he tries as far as is possible
to ensure that each individual factory produces one product,
whether it be a rifle or an artillery piece or whatever it is.
And at the same time, he's banging heads together
and people that don't toe the line and do the right thing are removed.
Crucially, Speer has good news for his Führer.
He expects production of armoured vehicles to double by the end of the year.
Speer's star is growing ever brighter.
For Speer, it's an absolute dream,
and he describes how they would have a monthly phone call
in which he would report to Hitler
how things were going and he would get praise.
And he would begin by saying "Heil Hitler,"
and Hitler would reply "Heil Speer,"
and just to have
that sort of jokey respect from the Führer was extraordinary.
However, this unique friendship is being watched enviously.
Speer's relationship with Hitler is very threatening to Martin Bormann.
Bormann is the Head of the Nazi Party Chancellery and Hitler's closest aide.
Bormann is a man of very base origins who is a creature of Hitler,
who is someone who is in it for himself and he's absolutely ruthless.
This wily bureaucrat has made it his life's work
to become the Führer's official shadow.
[Emma] All his power comes from his proximity to Hitler...
and to controlling who has access to Hitler
and suddenly this glamorous man comes along
and Hitler just accepts his calls and overrides Bormann.
Over and above the daily access,
it's Speer's emotional connection with the Führer that hurts most.
[Emma] Hitler seems to like Speer,
to be excited about the conversations that they can have,
but Bormann is kind of like a lapdog or something.
He's very, very useful to Hitler,
but it's all entirely practical instructions
that go from Hitler to Bormann.
Through his unique relationship with the Führer,
Speer has made a dangerous enemy in Bormann.
But the realities of war soon present
more pressing problems for Hitler's new minister.
Summer 1942, Operation Case Blue is under way.
It's the Führer's grand plan to finally knock Soviet Russia out of the war.
But as more and more men are sent to the front,
there are fewer left to work in Speer's factories.
Speer knows where he can find labour, but it means dealing with
the most feared and fanatical member of Hitler's inner circle,
SS boss Heinrich Himmler.
Heinrich Himmler is the head of the SS, which we conventionally think of
as the architects of the Holocaust, but it's often forgotten
that the SS is the largest economic player in the Third Reich as well.
Although names like Auschwitz and Dachau are synonymous
with the extermination of millions of Jews and other political prisoners,
Himmler's vast network of concentration camps are also a vital source of labour.
The problem is, he wants to keep them for himself.
Himmler is very keen to expand the economic enterprises of the SS
and actually have munitions factories set up within concentration camps,
using all of that, to him, free labour, to make munitions and everything else.
Speer disagrees with this, because he sees this
as being fundamentally an inefficient way of making arms.
He wanted to have the established armaments factories
staffed with concentration-camp labour to build armaments.
With Himmler reluctant to cooperate, Speer is keen to find other sources of labour.
Luckily, there is a man with a mutual interest,
itching to get back into the Führer's thoughts: Joseph Goebbels.
Goebbels is the Nazi head of propaganda
and one of Hitler's most devoted followers.
But the spin master has recently found himself
drifting from the centre of power.
Goebbels' job as propaganda minister
became more and more difficult as the war went on.
Because when you report successes and conquests and great victories,
that's fairly easy and fairly straightforward.
When the war began to turn more sour,
this becomes much more difficult to represent.
However, Goebbels has found inspiration from an unlikely source,
someone who has made a virtue out of stoicism and self-sacrifice.
[Churchill on radio] We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind.
We have before us many, many, long months of struggle and of suffering.
Goebbels was enormously impressed by Churchill's public speaking
in Britain's hour of crisis, and although he loathed and detested Churchill,
he recognised in him a fellow orator.
[Churchill] I would say to the House
as I said to those who have joined this government,
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
[narrator] Goebbels believes that he too can inspire the German people
to join the war effort on every front.
And he sees a potential ally in Albert Speer.
Goebbels pitches a programme of austerity measures,
one of which could solve Speer's labour problem.
Goebbels and Speer develop a kind of alliance,
because both of them believe that all Germany's energy
should go towards the war effort,
and they believe that women should be working in armaments factories and so on,
as they are in the countries of their enemies, such as Britain.
The conscription of German women onto the factory floor is an obvious solution,
but they both know Hitler will take some convincing.
LABOR SERVICE FOR THE REICH!
After months of discussion, Speer and Goebbels present their new plan.
It's called Total War.
However, Hitler is reluctant to accept the need for women to build munitions
or do anything that might bring the war closer to home.
Hitler is very worried about losing the home front.
He always has one eye on protecting German civilians
from the realities and the hardships of war.
This stems from the circumstances of the end of the First World War,
which is when effectively the home front was lost
and that led to the collapse of German armies in the field.
And Hitler said right from the outset of his political career
that would never happen again.
And the idea of German women working in factories
also goes against Hitler's ideological...
WORKING MEN ARE BOLD, CHEERFUL SOLDIERS
...goals for a Germanic master race.
Another element is Germany's breeding programme.
Hitler wants German women to focus on breeding
and producing a new, strong generation of Aryans to dominate Europe.
Despite Hitler's reservations, Speer and Goebbels don't give up.
Too much is at stake.
[Emma] Speer and Goebbels know the situation is desperate
and give it everything and Hitler gives some ground,
but he tells them that they will have to work
on the Total War project with Martin Bormann.
This is devastating news for Speer and Goebbels.
They must now share control of their project with a major inner circle rival.
One of the problems that affects the inner circle all the time
is the uncanny ability of Martin Bormann
to pour bureaucratic treacle into anybody else's gearbox.
Every time a project ends up with Bormann,
it ends up being slowed down by committees, meetings,
and it's a source of constant frustration,
but, of course, it's all about Bormann seizing as much power as he can.
[Emma] For Bormann, a project like this is a win-win because if it fails,
he will be able to cast it as Goebbels and Speer's kind of...
irresponsible, unpractical efforts.
But if it succeeds, then, of course, he can take part of the credit.
While Bormann gets his claws into Goebbels' and Speer's Total War project,
a beleaguered Hermann Göring spies a way
to exploit a developing crisis in the East.
Stalingrad.
As the Russian winter returns,
the Führer's Sixth Army has found itself surrounded by Stalin's troops.
But Hitler will not allow a tactical withdrawal.
His men must hold the city as a matter of principle.
Because it bears the name of Stalin,
Hitler becomes fanatically committed to the idea Stalingrad must be taken.
Now, militarily, that makes no sense.
The original plan had been to focus on destroying
the industrial capacity of the city and control its river, the Volga,
a crucial supply route to the Russian heartland.
The Germans reached the Volga in August '42,
and by reaching the Volga north of Stalingrad,
they cut off one of the most important lifelines of the Soviet economy.
But from August '42 onwards, the Germans pushed more and more resources
into Stalingrad to conquer the town,
but conquering the town was not really important.
But now after months of being bogged down in bloody streetfighting,
his army is in desperate need of supplies.
One man, however, has a plan to save the day and salvage his own reputation.
Göring, fascinatingly, saw in the impending crisis
a way of elevating himself in the estimation of the Führer.
Göring proposes an audacious plan to use his Luftwaffe
to create an air bridge to supply the besieged troops.
He puts on a very good show, he says,
mein Führer, I can do this, the Luftwaffe is ready and is able to perform this duty.
Stalingrad will be taken, mein Führer, your dream will be realised.
The Führer couldn't turn that down.
Faced with ice, snow and freezing fog, Göring's pilots begin
what his own senior staff already fear is an impossible task.
[Roger] The estimate that was given was that it would require
something like 800 tons daily to keep those soldiers supplied.
The reality was that they managed under a hundred tons per day.
As days turn into weeks, without fuel or food,
the Sixth Army is losing as many soldiers
by starvation and cold as it is by enemy bullets.
Göring's promise has proven to be a catastrophically empty one.
In reality, he had neither the aircraft nor the pilots to fulfil that task.
So the supply of the German soldiers in Stalingrad was simply, you know,
an air bridge too far for the German air force.
THE WAR CITY OF BERLIN SALUTES THE FÜHRER!
GREETINGS TO GERMANY'S FIRST WORKING MAN: ADOLF HITLER!
FÜHRER, YOU COMMAND, WE FOLLOW!
On the anniversary of the Führer's accession to power,
Göring, in an attempt to disguise his own failure,
tells the German troops perishing in the snow
their sacrifice will not be forgotten.
[as Göring] One day it will be said when you come to Germany,
tell them you have seen us lay down our lives at Stalingrad,
as the law, that is to say the law of the security of our people commanded.
[Guy] This much-vaunted air bridge
that was supposed to bring relief to Stalingrad has been an utter failure.
And then Göring has the gall, the utter temerity,
to make this speech.
And to them, it just sounds like their funeral oration.
[air-raid sirens]
But Göring's own humiliation is only just beginning.
As he starts his speech, the sirens wail over Berlin.
What makes this worse still, doubly ironic, is when this speech goes out,
British Mosquitoes are flying over to bomb Berlin.
For the first time, the Allies feel confident enough
to attack Berlin in broad daylight.
It's a humiliating reminder of another promise Göring failed to keep.
He says, if ever a British bomb falls on Berlin, you can call me Herr Meyer.
Which is a bit like saying, "You can just call me Mr Smith."
You know, just write me off as an ordinary person.
Of course, very, very shortly after that, British bombs do start falling on Berlin,
and so amongst the German population, he is, you know, called Herr Meyer.
[sirens]
[explosions]
As bombs rain down on Berlin,
the Führer is reeling from the loss of over 200,000 men in Stalingrad.
In front of his staff, Hitler blames
the Italians, Romanians and Hungarians fighting alongside his Sixth Army.
But within the inner circle, everyone knows Göring is the real fall guy.
This is just another one of Göring's failures,
which had all started at the Battle of Britain,
and then you've got the failure at Stalingrad,
and it's absolutely clear to Hitler that Göring is just not up to the job.
Yes, in his day, he was a brilliant pilot.
But he is not a brilliant Reichsmarschall.
Humiliated, the once-heroic fighter ace soon slips back into old habits.
Göring had been this kind of complete hero, ace pilot,
kind of glamorous sort of figure emerging from the First World War,
but he had also suffered injuries after the Beer Hall Putsch.
Back in 1923, during the Nazis' first failed attempt to seize power,
Göring had been shot and severely wounded.
[Guy] He's shot in the leg.
They manage to get him to a hospital, but when he's recovering from his wounds,
he starts developing an extremely serious morphine addiction.
And now, as his addiction once again rears its head,
the old fighter is losing his appetite to be Hitler's number two and successor.
Martin Bormann's power, however, continues to grow
as he cynically exploits Hitler's preoccupation with the Eastern Front.
[Guy] Bormann, by now, is an increasingly important figure.
It's a constant fight in the inner circle
to try and get Hitler's ear and get Bormann out of the way.
Even though the Stalingrad crisis has prompted Hitler
to allow Speer and Goebbels to enact some of their Total War measures,
Bormann is continually looking to minimise their scope and impact.
Bormann doesn't really think independently.
Goebbels and Speer are thinking independently
about what's best for Germany.
They're considering the situation.
Bormann only thinks about what's best
in terms of maintaining my relationship with Hitler and my hold on power.
But for Joseph Goebbels, the king of propaganda,
there is another way to bypass Bormann
and show Hitler that Germany is ready for Total war.
Go public and let the people decide.
TOTAL WAR IS THE SHORTEST WAR
I ask you:
Are you resolved
to follow the Führer, stand behind the fighting troops
as the phalanx of the homeland,
and fight this battle with grim resolve
through all turns of fate,
until victory is ours?
In front of a carefully selected audience, Goebbels seizes the opportunity
to turn Stalingrad into a story of heroic sacrifice
and tell the German people that it's now their turn to join the war effort.
In a way, it was Goebbels' finest hour
in that he recognised the gravity of the occasion.
He realised that this was a defeat which could not be glossed over.
But this wasn't just a Churchillian call to arms.
Goebbels wants to show Hitler
that all Germans are ready to do whatever it takes.
I ask you:
Are you resolved
to follow the Führer on the way to victory,
through thick and thin, and are you willing
to accept the heaviest personal burdens?
Hail victory! Hail victory!
Führer, you command, we follow you!
The speech has put Speer and Goebbels' plans back on track.
Thousands of German women register for work,
and, vitally, the Führer is impressed.
[Roger] Goebbels then followed this up, looking for the opportunity
to get a firmer grip on the German war effort.
[soundtrack only]
Now is the time to target Bormann
and they think they've found a chink in his bureaucratic armour,
a way to beat the schemer at his own game.
[Roger] They get together as many likeminded individuals as possible
to resurrect the defence council, which was something
that had been place up until 1939 but was effectively moribund.
Though this defence council had been lying dormant,
its powers are still in place.
And if resurrected, it could be used
to bypass Bormann's bureaucratic barricade around the Führer.
But there's a hitch.
The man in charge of this dormant agency is also out of action.
This is the problem. The head of the defence council was Herman Göring.
Speer and Goebbels need Göring on side,
but it's uncertain that he's up to the job.
[Roger] Göring himself is still rather unreliable.
He still has a rather nasty morphine habit.
He's actually rather adverse to doing anything
to actually solve the problems that Germany is facing.
Someone needs to snap Göring out of his slump.
But he's not even talking to Goebbels because Total War measures have led
to the closure of Göring's favourite restaurant.
So it falls to Speer to coax the old fighter back into the ring.
[Michael] Speer claimed that he wasn't really a political animal,
but he was indeed political when he needed to be and this is one of the instances
where he plays upon Göring's sensitivity over Bormann.
Speer takes full advantage of their mutual dislike and distrust for Bormann.
[Emma] Speer and Göring come from a very different background to Bormann.
They both look down on him, but they are also kind of
very aware of his ways of operating,
and there's this moment where Speer is reminding Göring
of the drip-drip of Bormann's technique.
He's always there with the Führer and he will brief against them.
And the final damning of Bormann in the eyes of Göring
is Speer's statement to the effect,
he's after your job, he wants to be number two in the party and in the nation,
and you stand in his way, and that for Göring is the clincher.
The two men agree a plan to chip away at Bormann's influence.
The first step, to target and discredit
one of his stooges at a meeting over the still-vital issue of labour supply.
As head of the resurrected council, Göring will lead the attack.
What happens is very similar to what might have happened in a medieval court.
It was an interpersonal attack,
not going directly for Bormann himself.
For a man new to politics, Speer has put together an unlikely coalition.
Together with Goebbels and Göring,
they can finally take Bormann down a peg or two.
But as Speer arrives, something's not right.
Goebbels is nowhere to be seen, and Bormann has a new friend.
Heinrich Himmler.
So, one can imagine when Speer walks into the room
and sees Bormann sitting next to Heinrich Himmler, he probably told himself
that this perhaps was a meeting that wasn't going to end well.
And it soon gets worse.
Göring goes off script and starts attacking Speer's deputy.
Speer is really bewildered at Göring's behaviour.
He just can't make sense of that
and Speer is worried that forces had aligned themselves against him.
With Goebbels absent and Göring's about-face,
it's clear Speer has been betrayed.
For Göring, the realisation that Himmler was lining up
on side with Bormann against Speer and his group,
that he perhaps thought that this was the side that he should also be on.
For Himmler, still jealously guarding his control of concentration-camp labour,
any attempt by Speer to gain more power is a potential threat.
[Roger] Himmler is very keen to not allow Speer to grow his own influence
much more than it already is, and what you could interpret this meeting as
is Himmler just reasserting his influence on the economic sphere
and reminding Speer of who is actually the bigger player.
For Speer, it's a painful reminder that his inner-circle rivals will do anything
to protect their personal positions over and above the crisis Germany faces.
But he's learning fast, his battle for control of the war economy isn't over yet.
Summer 1943.
The world witnesses the biggest tank battle in history
but also Nazi Germany's last strategic offensive on the eastern front.
Until the summer of 1943,
the Germans still believed they could win this war
but then Germany loses the Battle of Kursk in Russia,
which, in many ways, was a more important battle for the Germans than Stalingrad.
Nazi Germany is now fighting for survival.
And while Allied Bombs pummel its industrial heartland,
Speer is still battling to convince Hitler to fully mobilize the home front.
[Roger] And this is the problem: they're still making products
for the home front for domestic consumption.
They still haven't gone over to a war footing.
That should have happened in 1940 and it hasn't happened even in 1943.
Speer wants every factory to be turned over to the war effort.
No more luxuries or non-essential goods.
The war is now on everyone's doorstep.
Speer thinks domestic conditions should virtually mirror those at the front,
that those civilians living at home should have essentially the same food
and the same wherewithal as soldiers at the front.
To do this, Speer needs dictatorial control over Germany's economy.
And it appears the message is finally hitting home.
[Craigie] Speer gets a further promotion.
His title is Armaments and Production Minister.
And that makes him potentially more threatening to Bormann.
Speer has risen from political novice to a position of immense power.
But he knows that his austerity measures will not be popular
among many senior Nazis and that Bormann is waiting to pounce.
[Roger] Bormann is a conduit for all the complaints
that come from the Nazi gauleiters,
the regional commanders across Germany and beyond.
And many of them had local commercial concerns
and many of them also were not keen
to reduce the living standard on the home front.
But this time, Speer is not going to be outmanoeuvred.
In autumn 1943, Speer present his new plan, but also a new partner.
It's interesting that in these shifting alliances and power plays
between the senior Nazis that almost from one month to the next,
you could be a rival with someone and then forge a temporary alliance with them.
And that happens with Himmler and Speer.
Speer's old adversary appears to have had a change of heart.
Himmler, if he has eyes in his head,
is certainly aware that the war has turned very decisively against Germany.
But also we have to bear in mind that Himmler is the arch loyalist.
He is someone who's absolutely loyal to Hitler's words.
So, if Hitler has given this added remit to Speer's portfolio,
then Himmler's thinking is probably,
well, that's perhaps where I need to align myself as well.
Speer announces that the SS will ensure
that production of all non-essential consumer goods will stop within two weeks.
No more radio sets, refrigerators or cosmetics.
It's an all-out war against what Speer calls... the skivers and the malingerers.
[Roger] It's a very tough message
for many of those local party bigwigs to handle.
They're being told that unless they toe the line,
they will be potentially falling foul of the SS and the Gestapo.
But the lectures are not over.
What follows is one of the few recorded speeches by a senior Nazi
regarding what will become the single worst crime against humanity.
The Holocaust.
[Guy] The meetings at Posen are unique
because they're a very vocal expression
of the intention to eradicate a people.
Himmler said someone's got to do this dirty work,
someone's got to kill all these people,
all these Jews, all these homosexuals, all these political enemies,
someone's got to kill them to get rid of them,
so that humanity is saved from their so-called malignancy.
So therefore, they could say you've got to commit an evil act in order to do good.
[soundtrack only]
In his efforts to secure victory, Speer has made a pact with the Devil.
Yet he would later claim that he hadn't stayed
to hear his new ally's incriminating words.
I am very wary of any of Speer's claims.
He spends his entire life, from 1945 until the year he dies,
distancing himself from the Third Reich.
He is trying to show that, actually, he was very much the anti-Nazi.
A kind of good Nazi.
But in reality, Speer has never had any moral qualms
about using Jewish and foreign slave labour.
And now with SS cooperation, tens of thousands of people
will be worked to death building roads, fortifications and new weapons
in his bid to save the Nazi regime.
[Roger] Speer is not at all sentimental
about concentration-camp labour.
He's not particularly bothered
about the conditions that concentration-camp inmates live in.
Perversely, Speer would claim that his workers at least had a chance to live.
However, the death rate of those building his new secret weapon, the V2,
was the highest in the entire Nazi concentration-camp system.
[Roger] He's merely concerned with the weapons that he needs to produce
are produced as efficiently as possible.
So it's not a human concern that they'll be better treated
in his factories versus the concentration camps.
It's purely about the outcome.
However, new wonder weapons alone are not going to save Nazi Germany.
Despite Allied bombing and dwindling resources,
Speer's factories continue to build more and more tanks and planes.
But by January 1944, as the Soviets begin to enter Poland
and the Allies move up the Italian peninsula,
the stark reality is Germany no longer has the soldiers to use its new resources.
[Roger] Crucially, it all came rather too little, too late.
The shift to a Total War economy had come far too late in the day,
and by that stage, the war is all but lost.
The constellation of power ranged against Germany is so vast
that Germany really is in no position
to expect any sort of positive outcome by that point.
Whereas the Führer refuses to accept any notion of defeat,
the reality of situation is taking its toll on his most able minister.
Speer is now in a very difficult situation.
The reality of Germany's military situation,
of Hitler insisting on offensives which were impossible,
plus he's got Bormann briefing against him,
Himmler jostling for power,
it just becomes an absolutely unmanageable situation
in which all he can do is fail.
Stress and anxiety is pushing Speer to breaking point.
Speer is run down with exhaustion and this incessant, insane workload
have made him just in his late thirties feel like an old man.
[Roger] Speer is fighting on all fronts.
So not only is he trying to rationalise the German war economy,
he's also having to fight constant rearguard actions
against his fellow Nazis and rivals.
And this inevitably has an effect.
Speer in mid-January 1944
has what appears to be some sort of psychological collapse.
Exhausted, Speer admits himself into the SS clinic at Hohenlychen.
Initially, he has an inflamed knee and is hospitalised for that
but then he's subsequently kept in hospital for exhaustion.
The clinic is run by a physician with a rather dubious reputation.
During that time, he was treated by one of Himmler's pet doctors,
by the name of Karl Gebhardt, who was something of a quack.
For example, one of the treatments that he prescribed for Speer
was a massage with bee venom.
Quite what that was supposed to achieve, I'm not sure.
Speer develops depression and his anxiety increases as he refuses to stop working.
[Michael] He calls people to see him, he writes reports and reads reports.
But he feels vulnerable.
He wants to get back to the office, to the desk, as soon as he can.
Speer's concerns are justified
as rumours soon start spreading within his own ministry that he is incurably ill.
Being ill is very bad news for any Nazi.
When someone's being pushed from power,
the official message given out will usually be that they're ill.
In an almost pathetic cry for help,
he writes to the Führer complaining that his own staff are scheming against him.
[Roger] So Speer is in really desperate straits, he's confined to a SS clinic,
and he's having to write to Hitler to request
that his underlings be relieved of their duties.
But as his condition deteriorates,
there are concerns that Speer's rivals want to kill off more than his career.
[Guy] He's getting more and more ill.
And another doctor is summoned who says, hang on a minute,
you were in here with a knee complaint, you're spitting up blood,
you've got an embolism, how has this happened?
How Speer got so close to death is mystifying
but his long-serving secretary, Anne-Marie Kempf,
would claim that it wasn't an accident.
She overhears this conversation going on between two men,
and she hears the name Speer mentioned.
So she does what all kind of eavesdroppers do and she puts her ear to the door.
And she is amazed when she realises
that one of the voices is that of none other than Heinrich Himmler.
And she hears Himmler go, "Is he dead yet?"
Gebhardt just is about to start replying, and then Himmler just cuts him off
and says, "The less said, the better."
Whatever Himmler's intentions were, Speer does eventually recover,
suggesting this conspiracy theory
is more of a devious creation by its supposed victim.
[Roger] It's another example, I think, of Speer rewriting the history very subtly
to make himself look better than he was and that he too was a victim of the Nazis.
That here was Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS,
the head of this wicked organisation,
who not only was trying to exterminate the Jews,
he was also trying to do away with Albert Speer.
What is certain is that illness
has enabled Speer's rivals to continue to undermine him.
Bormann in particular has been busy.
Speer's aggressive speech to the senior Nazi district leaders
has created a severe backlash.
The focal point for all of that discontent is Bormann
and he collects up those complaints from the local party leaders
and as he has the ear of Hitler, he's feeding little snippets of information,
negative pieces of publicity, negative reports
to drive a wedge between Speer and Hitler.
[Emma] Bormann uses this to promote the idea
that Speer is going too far
and damaging morale in the country.
He's trying to bring Speer down, and it works.
Speer is no longer in the, kind of, Führer's golden glow.
Bormann has finally won.
Speer's monthly phone calls with Hitler are now a distant memory.
Absence and a willingness to push against vested interests
has led to Speer losing what matters most:
the confidence and authority of his Führer.
[Roger] The problem for Speer is at the end of the day,
like a medieval lord serving his master,
Speer is almost entirely almost dependent on Hitler's whim and Hitler's say-so.
So, it's clear to Speer that the relationship with Hitler
has fundamentally changed.
And he's much diminished from the figure he had been two years earlier.
As Nazi Germany faces a final showdown against Soviet Russia and the Allies,
Speer's inner circle rivals remain focused on their own push for power.
GERMANY WAKE UP
Goebbels' campaign to become minister for Total War
is gaining new impetus every day.
And with Speer neutralised,
Himmler can continue building up and supplying his own army of SS fanatics.
As for Speer, he is down but not out.
Nobody stays within the inner circle of the Third Reich
for the duration of the war without themselves being incredibly devious.
And Speer himself is devious.
In what will become a fight for survival,
Speer will implicate himself in the ultimate act of treachery.
The betrayal of the Führer himself.