During the last months of World War 2, when it was evident that Nazi Germany had lost,
Adolf Hitler issued a decree that would have surely doomed his own people.
In order to avoid benefitting the Allies as they advanced to Berlin, the dictator issued an
order to destroy all German infrastructure at the expense of the country’s future.
Hitler’s “Nero Decree” was issued on March 19, 1945. The order was termed after the infamous,
and some might say insane, Roman Emperor Nero who allegedly ordered much of his own capital
burnt to the ground. Both possessed by paranoia and obsessed with conspiracies against them,
the parallels between Nero’s and Hitler’s final days were stark.
Many of Hitler’s closest officials were convinced that the Nero Decree would bring devastating and
pointless ruin. Albert Speer, Hitler’s Minister of Armaments and close friend,
was left to carry out the task. To fail to do so would mean risking everything
and committing high treason against the man Speer had been so devoted to for many years...
Beginning of the End
At the peak of World War 2, the Nazi Empire ruled over a considerable part of Europe,
from France to the border with the Soviet Union and from North Africa to Scandinavia.
The totalitarian state had absorbed almost the entire continent, forcing practically
every country to ally with or be engulfed by the Reich. Hitler seemed unstoppable.
But although the dictator had claimed that the Third Reich would last for a thousand years,
his decisions ultimately caused the Empire to crumble.
The summer of 1941 proved to be a turning point in the war,
as Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union without realizing it was an overstretch.
In that December, the German forces suffered their first defeat before reaching the Soviet capital,
adding four excruciating years to the harshest conflict the world had ever witnessed.
As the Soviets retreated into their vast territory, the Wehrmacht was forced to
extend its supply lines. Not long after, the High Command instructed the troops
to live off the land and to steal from Soviet civilians as necessary.
However, the Easterners had learned a valuable lesson over a century before,
when Napoleon also attempted to invade Mother Russia.
Consequently, peasants burned their villages and crops, halting the Germans’ hopes for
sustenance or shelter and relying solely on their feeble supply lines.
Ever the acute strategist, the Fuhrer appreciated the Soviets’ scorched earth policy
even while losing, and this would shape many of his decisions later in the war.
The Nazi sphere would eventually be decimated by two fronts.
In the summer of 1944, the Allies invaded Normandy in France and liberated the country.
Meanwhile, the Soviets expelled the Nazi forces from their land with a massive offensive,
and the Red Army was also closing in on Warsaw.
Not a year later, in late February of 1945,
the Soviets seized essential coal mines in Poland, which significantly impacted the German supply.
Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Armaments, then wrote a letter to his close friend and leader,
Adolf Hitler. In it, Speer expressed that without the coal mines, the war was already lost.
However, the Fuhrer would not surrender and kept pushing his people to the limit,
claiming that Germany could still triumph.
The Fuhrer was delusionally convinced that the differences between the Western powers
and the Soviets would eventually break their alliance. Even more, he fantasized
that the Allies would eventually come to him and ask for his support against the Soviets.
In truth, the alliance was stronger than ever as they all faced a common enemy.
Speer soon realized that Germany was fighting a losing battle at the expense of the people.
But the Fuhrer was oblivious to the population’s needs and ignored Speer’s warnings,
losing plenty of close friends during the last months of the war.
Kindred Spirits
When Albert Speer first heard one of Hitler’s speeches in the early 1930s, he was quick to join
the growing National Socialist party. And by the time Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in
1933, the promising young architect was already in the inner circle of the rising Nazi regime.
Speer quickly became the Fuhrer’s favorite architect, materializing the ideas that
Hitler sketched and even becoming close friends out of their mutual respect and admiration.
In 1934, he became the Nazi party’s Chief Architect
and worked on several projects before the outbreak of the war in 1939.
Then, in 1942, Speer succeeded Fritz Todd as Minister of Armaments,
faithfully committing to the cause and the Fuhrer until he had a crisis of conscience.
On March 18, 1945, the Minister of Armaments addressed the Fuhrer in a memorandum,
expressing concerns that Germany's economy would not hold for more than four to eight weeks,
and setting an ultimatum for the Third Reich’s war effort.
Speer was especially concerned about the people’s survival, but the dictator was indifferent.
The following day, from his underground bunker in the Reich Chancellery gardens
where he stayed during the last months of his life, Hitler decreed:
(QUOTE) “Our nation’s struggle for existence forces us to utilize all means, even within
Reich territory, to weaken the fighting power of our enemy and to prevent further advances.
Any opportunity to inflict lasting damage on the striking power of the enemy must be taken
advantage of. It is a mistake to believe that undestroyed or only temporarily paralyzed traffic,
communications, industrial, and supply installations will be useful to us again
after the recapture of lost territories. During his retreat,
the enemy will leave behind only scorched earth and will abandon all concern for the population.”
The Nero Decree, also known as Scorched Earth Decree, was named after the brutal Roman Emperor
Nero, who allegedly masterminded the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD.
The decree mandated that Germany’s entire infrastructure should be
destroyed to avoid falling into enemy hands. Everything from production,
communication, and transportation facilities, to farms, power plants, railroads, bridges,
docks, factories, mines, dams, and communication lines, had to be immediately demolished.
Hitler entrusted this task to military officials, but also Reich Defense Commissars
and Nazi fanatic administrative officials known as Gauleiters.
However, his close friend Albert Speer was starting to doubt his ability
to ensure Germany’s future. As an architect, it was Speer’s desire to edify and not destroy.
Even though his relationship with Hitler had eroded over the last year and a half,
Speer visited him in his bunker and addressed him directly.
At first, Speer confronted the dictator and tried to convince him that the war was lost.
But Hitler tested his loyalty and gave him an ultimatum to reevaluate his position.
Speer maintained that he was unconditionally loyal
to the Third Reich and persuaded him to delegate the entire mission to him.
Speer knew that such an irrational mandate would reduce the country to a pre-industrial economy
and condemn its citizens to misery after the war. He then appealed to Hitler on a new memorandum.
The dictator then determined that: (QUOTE) “If the war is lost, the people will be lost also.
It is not necessary to worry about what the German people will need for elemental survival.
On the contrary, it is best for us to destroy even these things. For the nation has proved
to be the weaker, and the future belongs solely to the stronger eastern nations. In any case,
only those who are inferior will remain after this struggle, for the good have already been killed.”
Speer was appalled by the rigidity of his former friend. They had once been kindred spirits,
but now he had to do what was right for his country, even if it meant to betray the Fuhrer.
Defeat
Several Gauletiers and military commanders were
ready to follow the orders but quickly realized that the effort was futile.
Hitler might have also been aware of the situation,
but his arrogance didn’t allow him to recognize it, and it is believed
that this might be the reason he gave Speer the authority over the destruction mission.
He could’ve been well aware that Speer would probably sabotage the entire endeavor.
In theory, the Minister followed the orders. But as Propaganda Minister Joseph Gobbels pointed out:
(QUOTE) “We're giving out orders in Berlin that in practice no longer arrive lower down, let alone
can be implemented. I see in that, the danger of an extraordinary dwindling of authority.”
Speer prevented the execution of the Nero Decree and convinced Generals and
other officials to bypass the mandate to preserve vital resources and even lives.
For months, the Minister played a double game and concealed his deeds from Hitler,
as his actions would certainly be considered high treason.
Still, he stayed as close to the Fuhrer as possible so that no suspicions arose.
Speer would not confess what he had done until the end of the war when he visited his
former friend in his bunker. He then notified Hitler of his deceit and told him how he had
left buildings intact and important evidence deliberately untouched. The Fuhrer was angry,
but it is said that he only shed some tears and made no comment at all.
Days before his suicide, the two men met one last time,
and Hitler revealed his intentions to take his own life. Speer shook his hand and turned around.
The last thing Hitler told him was: (QUOTE) “So you’re leaving? Good. Aufweidersen.”
After the War
A provisional regime following Hitler’s demise was swiftly put in place.
It was known as the Flensburg Government, and Speer immediately joined.
His actions had proven successful, and the new authority dismissed the Nero Decree.
However, on May 23, 1945, all members of the provisional government were arrested
under orders from General Dwight D. Eisenhower,
and the Nazi leaders were taken before the justice at the Nuremberg trials.
Speer was the only official to accept responsibility for his actions,
even crying during the trial. While many people believe he manipulated the judges in his favor,
his life was ultimately spared.
The architect was then sentenced to 20 years in prison, as the court considered how he stood
up to Hitler and halted the Nero Decree. The former Minister of Armament fulfilled his time
at Spandau Prison, where he wrote two memoirs. He was released in 1966 and died 15 years later.
Apart from his complicity in the Nazi regime, Speer is also recognized as having
protected the German people from Hitler’s Social Darwinism and extremism at the end of the war.
However, during that time, the Fuhrer’s power was so diluted
that he couldn’t even act in the face of direct insubordination.
Like Speer later described, there was a (QUOTE) “broken man in the place of what Hitler once was.”
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