by David Edgar
Pause.
SPEER. Yes?
WOLTERS. Do you remember, when your father asked the Chief where the people who’d been dispossessed would go?
SPEER. Yes, I suppose so.
WOLTERS. To which the then official answer was that the plan was for them to go and live in garden suburbs.
SPEER. Yes.
WOLTERS. While as it fell out, actually, a lot of them would end up somewhere very different.
Slight pause.
SPEER. So? I was the General Inspector of Buildings. I had nothing to do with the evacuations.
WOLTERS. Not directly.
A sharp knock on the door.
SPEER. Yes, what?
The MALE PUBLISHER is trying to get SPEER to come out.
MALE PUBLISHER. Herr Speer, I know you’re busy, but there is a considerable queue outside –
SPEER. I know. I will be with them very shortly.
WOLTERS. Natives getting restless.
SPEER. So?
WOLTERS. Minutes of meetings 1941. Attended by our people, Goebbels’ people, and SS-Lieutenant-Colonel Adolf Eichmann. To plan the eviction and evacuation of nearly 80,000 persons from Berlin. I wonder, can you guess what race of persons these ‘persons’ might have been?
SPEER. And you cut this out.
WOLTERS. Yes I cut this out.
SPEER. Although far from silly or irrelevant.
WOLTERS. Yes.
SPEER. You know I didn’t know of the evictions.
WOLTERS. I’m afraid you did. There’s some notes, still happily in my possession, with an entry on I believe the 20th of January 1941. ‘Couple action on the Jew-flats with preparation for emergency quarters for persons’ – rather different persons, obviously – ‘made homeless through bomb damage’. All quite clearly in your writing.
SPEER. Well, of course, I knew that people were deported. As I have always said. I didn’t know where they were going.
WOLTERS. No of course you didn’t. That’s the point. They were just another group of people, being shoved about. Along with soldiers, foreign workers, ordinary prisoners, prisoners of war, conscripted or evacuated, bombed out, picked up, taken in custody for the protection of, relocated, handled, processed, dealt with. In the chaos of a war which was already termed a war of national survival. It’s only now it looks like what you claim it was: the first step on the road to what you ‘should’ and ‘could’ but didn’t know was the Greatest Crime in Human History.
SPEER shrugs at this sarcastic hyperbole.
But now it all looks different. You know that Theo Ganzenmüller wrote some note in 1942, confirming he’d been able to provide some trains for the transportation of some persons somewhere as requested. The kind of routine memo we all wrote a hundred of a day. Unfortunately, the somewhere was Treblinka.
SPEER. Well, yes, of course . . .
WOLTERS. But you, great National Scapegoat, you reverse it. It’s remarkably ingenious. You flagellate yourself in hindsight actually to justify your actions at the time. Your sin is to have stood above the fray, to have kept your hands clean, never to have known. And by this sleight of hand your betraying him turns into him betraying you.
SPEER. Rudi, that’s enough.
WOLTERS. So when did he stop living up to your grand ideal? Well, by the bunker, obviously. So, when he gave you the the Arms job? When you designed Germania? When you joined the party? When you sat about and planned a better world with me?
SPEER. You know, it’s interesting, what you say about betrayal. Because for all those years, whenever I felt lost, or let down or abandoned or betrayed, whenever I was near to losing faith in humankind, I’d tell myself: just think of Rudi Wolters.
Pause.
But I suppose, we knew that it could never –
WOLTERS. Which is why I have to tell you what I really feel. How could I lie to you? It would be as if I lied to me.
SPEER looks at WOLTERS, with the stirring memory of that sentiment.
SPEER. Well at least, we must hope, it isn’t lost for ever.
WOLTERS. What, your faith in humankind?
SPEER. Unlike the original version of the Chronicle. Which should I think be lost forever.
WOLTERS. I’m sorry?
SPEER. As so much else has been. After all, it refers to matters which aren’t in the book. About which I knew nothing. So, for the greater good.
WOLTERS. We should pursue the line of least resistance.
SPEER looks askance.
Oh, don’t worry. The original will vanish without trace. As if it never was. From your and everyone’s domain.
SPEER stands a moment. Then, suddenly, he turns and goes back out, almost bumping into the entering MARGRET.
MARGRET. Albert, I have been sent to drag you back . . .
SPEER. I’m coming. Look who’s here.
He goes out.
MARGRET. Rudi. How wonderful to see you.
WOLTERS. Margret.
They shake hands. She looks questioningly.
I have been talking to the Great Best-Seller.
MARGRET. When he returned, you know, it was to be the Modest Architect. Have you read the book?
WOLTERS. Oh, yes. Have you?
MARGRET. I read the bit about Eva Braun. He seems to have been quite taken with her. I always found her rather bossy and pretentious.
WOLTERS. Of course, he talked much more about you and your courtship in his letters to the children.
MARGRET. Yes. Hilde showed me. It was incredible. All these feelings which he had inside. From a man who virtually never said a word to me.
He offers her champagne. She declines.
I’ve been chatting with Klaus von Below. He’s considering a book himself. But he’s afraid, there was some incident. A young man came to see him about something dreadful that he’d witnessed. And of course there was nothing he could do.
WOLTERS. It was a war. And it was a quarter of a century ago.
MARGRET. Of course.
Slight pause.
You know, he’s working on another book.
WOLTERS. Oh?
MARGRET. It’s about his time in Spandau.
WOLTERS. Ah.
MARGRET. Some of it was lying on his desk. It was a description of a dream.
WOLTERS. He always said the Spandau dreams were quite agreeable.
MARGRET. Not this one.
WOLTERS looks inquiringly at MARGRET.
It begins with Albert in a factory. Someone – Hitler I presume – is coming for a great inspection. And although he’s Minister of Armaments, he’s sweeping up the floor.
WOLTERS. At Nuremberg, they made the surviving prisoners sweep up the gymnasium where they’d done the hangings.
MARGRET. Well, that would explain it. Then like you are in dreams he’s in a car, and he’s trying to get his arm into his jacket.
WOLTERS. Presumably, that’s the jacket Hitler lent him when they met.
MARGRET. Of course. And then he’s in a vast square, I suppose the great square that they planned for all those years, and Hitler’s there as well, and asks his adjutants: where are the wreaths? And then Albert looks surprised, I would imagine, because the adjutant explains that nowadays ‘he’ lays wreaths all the time. And so he does, singing a kind of dreary plainsong chant, as on and on they come, wreath after wreath, piled ever higher, seemingly without end.
She’s looking out towards the garden party.
And look. Look, still they come.
WOLTERS (sensing she’s talking about something else). Excuse me?
MARGRET. He’s still signing.
WOLTERS turns out front.
WOLTERS. Not for the last time. As his Spandau Diaries were to prove another publishing phenomenon.
But once again, there was no place for his indefatigable and yet absent ‘friend’.
Those years in which I was his lifeline, and he was my life.
WOLTERS goes. MARGRET out front.
MARGRET. I’m sor
ry. I would like to talk about it, but I can’t. I’m sure you understand.
You see, my fear is that sometime, somebody like you, with the best of good intentions, will ask me what I knew.
And I don’t know which is worse. Having known about it . . . or the truth. That I knew nothing of what went on at all.
I am so sorry.
MARGRET turns and goes out.
2.5 A music auditorium in a University, Germany,
early 1970s
The music auditorium has been taken over by a meeting that has had to move from a large hall – it is crushed and crowded and there’s an improvised quality to the arrangements – the female student CHAIR sits on a piano stool, there is no table in front of the guests SPEER and SIEDLER, no water jug or flowers, and the lectern is a music stand. There are SECURITY MEN among the AUDIENCE.
CHAIR. Fellow students, fellow members of the University Historical Society, ladies and gentlemen. I must first of all apologise for the conditions. Which as everybody knows were brought about by the actions of people who prefer to shout down rather than to listen and discuss. We are grateful to the music faculty for loaning us their auditorium at such short notice. Well, at none at all.
Slight pause.
As you know our speaker this evening is the author of a noted and important autobiogaphy, about an unhappy period in our country’s recent past. He is accompanied by his publisher, Herr Siedler. We are very grateful to them both for agreeing to proceed with this symposium under the circumstances. Herr Albert Speer.
SPEER goes to the music stand. Applause and a little booing – the booing is booed back.
SPEER (adjusting his notes). No, no.
Putting on his glasses.
Well, first of all I am very pleased to be speaking in a place dedicated to music. However, I must confess that I am here under somewhat false pretences. I have never been a speech-maker, and in fact there is a story illustrating this. On the occasion of his 50th birthday, I was pleased to hand over the first completed stage of the new Berlin to Hitler. For some days he had been announcing gleefully: ‘A great event! Speer’s going to make a speech!’, and when he arrived he took his place expectantly. I took a deep breath, cleared my throat and spoke these exact words: ‘My Führer. I herewith report the completion of the east-west axis. May the work speak for itself!’
It was of course a good joke. And I must admit my pleasure that he accepted it as such. ‘You got me there, you rascal, Speer’, he’d say. ‘Two sentences indeed!’ Still, he told me it was one of the best speeches he had ever heard.
We are detecting opposition in the room.
And of course I made many other speeches, including one at the Nuremberg trial, in my defence. But what I want to do tonight is to explain to you how I can speak of Hitler as a normal walking human being . . .
FIRST HECKLER. Normal?
SPEER. And how it was not in fact till Nuremberg that I realised that, yes, this superficially normal human being was in fact a man of quite –
SECOND HECKLER. No Nazis! Speer out out!
SPEER. But I detect that there is something which you want to say to me.
SECOND HECKLER. Speer out!
SIEDLER. No, no.
CHAIR. Herr Speer, we ask you to ignore this anti-democratic spectacle.
SPEER. It would I fear be undemocratic of itself to do so.
Pause. The FIRST HECKLER helps out the SECONDHECKLER.
Go on, go on.
FIRST HECKLER. When did you know about the killing of the Jews?
SPEER. What, as a systematic policy of elimination?
FIRST HECKLER. Yes of course.
SPEER. As I say, at Nuremberg.
Chuntering.
CHAIR. Please, Herr Speer, do you continue your prepared address.
SPEER. No, I am happy . . . as I say, I am not an orator. I will answer questions.
Pause. SPEER returns to his seat.
CHAIR. Well, in that case, may I ask . . . ah, yes.
Points to FIRST QUESTIONER.
FIRST QUESTIONER. Speaking of Nuremberg, Herr Speer –
AUDIENCE. Can’t hear!
The FIRST QUESTIONER is handed a microphone.
FIRST QUESTIONER. Speaking of Nuremberg, may I ask about your work on the design of the party rallies there?
SPEER. What about them?
FIRST QUESTIONER. Did you feel that by providing such spectacular visual effects you were an important part of the Nazi propaganda machine?
SPEER. Well. At the time, I was a professional architect. My job was not to be concerned with political issues.
SECOND HECKLER. No, of course not!
CHAIR (to SECOND QUESTIONER). Yes, please.
SECOND QUESTIONER. ‘Herr professor’, when you joined the party, were you an anti-semite?
SPEER. No. As far as practising anti-semitism is concerned, or making anti-semitic remarks, my conscience is entirely clear. Nor, as it happens, was I a real professor.
SECOND QUESTIONER. But you were a real Nazi.
SPEER. I was a member of the National Socialist Party. And yes, I knew the party was anti-semitic, of course, and I also knew the Jews were leaving Germany.
FIRST HECKLER. And being murdered?
CHAIR. Please.
SPEER. I’m sorry, I thought she was asking about when I joined. When, like many – most I suspect – I assumed that antisemitism was a – vulgar incidental to the party programme.
SECOND HECKLER. Incidental!
SPEER. Which of course proved to be far from the case. But even later on, I knew the Jews were being evacuated, but I did not know they were being murdered as a systematic policy.
THIRD QUESTIONER. Herr Speer, you do understand why people find this hard to credit?
SPEER. I understand that people do. But it is nevertheless the case.
Slight pause.
The final solution was a secret from the German people. And as one of them, it was a secret from me too.
There is a hostile atmsophere growing in the room. SIEDLER feels he needs to rescue.
SIEDLER. Perhaps to clarify this point, it’s worth asking how it was that a person of your position in the German state would not know this.
SPEER. Well, as I say, the policy was secret –
SIEDLER. As clearly you knew people who did know.
SPEER. The whole ethos of the Hitler state was about the will of a single individual. Everyone was told: you need only be concerned with your domain.
SIEDLER. And if you had known, and protested, what would have happened?
Slight pause.
SPEER. Well, people were shot for less. For example, Hitler had made clear to me that if I countermanded him, that that would be treason, with the usual consequences.
SIEDLER. You are referring to your overruling Hitler’s orders to destroy German industry in the last months of the war?
SPEER. That’s right.
FIRST QUESTIONER. So why weren’t you executed, when you told him?
SPEER. I’m sorry?
As the FIRST QUESTIONER quotes, SIEDLER searches for the right page.
FIRST QUESTIONER. It’s in your book. Here. ‘I confessed to him in a low voice, that I had not carried out any demolitions but had actually prevented them. For a moment his eyes filled with tears’.
SPEER (to SIELDER). Um, where . . .
FIRST QUESTIONER. It’s just before you offer to stay with him in Berlin. Presumably to die along with him and Eva –
SIEDLER hands the book over to SPEER to read. SPEER interrupts.
SPEER. Ah yes. ‘Perhaps he sensed I didn’t mean it’. It was of course a time of great emotion. But it is true, at that late stage, he did not fulfil his threat. In fact, as I recall, he told me: ‘We will never speak of this again’.
FOURTH QUESTIONER. So did ‘his eyes fill up with tears’ when he watched the film of people he’d had hanged with piano wire on meathooks?
SPEER. No, this is a myth. Hitler
did not watch films of anybody being executed. He was notoriously squeamish.
FIRST HECKLER. You said he did! He said it in an interview!
SPEER. I was misreported. It was after all an interview in Playboy magazine.
Laughter.
You may know, they have a fold-out section: misquotation of the month.
Laughter.
SIEDLER. In fact, I could read out what you actually said about this incident –
Suddenly, another QUESTIONER, with documents, marches to the stage.
FIFTH QUESTIONER. Or instead you could read this.
The CHAIR and SIEDLER stand.
SIEDLER. Um . . .
SPEER. What is that?
CHAIR (precautionary). Please, Guard . . .
SPEER (stands). No, let him be.
A SECURITY MAN hovers as SPEER goes over to the FIFTH QUESTIONER.
FIFTH QUESTIONER. It is a speech, transcribed from phonograph recordings, from the state archives at Koblenz.
SPEER. Yes?
The FIFTH QUESTIONER holds his document out to SPEER.
FIFTH QUESTIONER. Read it.
The GUARD puts his hand on the FIFTH QUESTIONER’s arm.
SPEER. What is this?
FIFTH QUESTIONER. Read it.
SECURITY MAN. Come along . . .
SPEER. No, no.
He reads, a little bemused.
‘You will not doubt that the economic aspect presented many great difficulties’ –
FIFTH QUESTIONER. Further up.
SPEER. ‘I want to speak now, in this most restricted circle, about a matter which you, my party – ’
FIFTH QUESTIONER. From there.
SPEER. ‘The brief sentence “The Jews must be exterminated” is easy to pronounce. But the demands on those who have to put it into practice are the hardest and the most difficult in the world’. Who is it?
FIFTH QUESTIONER. Himmler. Now read that.
SPEER. I, um . . . You will forgive me . . .
The FIFTH QUESTIONER snatches his papers and goes to the CHAIR.
FIFTH QUESTIONER. All right, you read it.
CHAIR. No.
FIFTH QUESTIONER. ‘To listen, to discuss’.
FIRST HECKLER. Read it!
SIEDLER. I’ll read it.
He reads the passage pointed to.
‘We, you see, were faced with the question ‘What about the women and children?’ And I decided, here too, to find an unequivocal solution. For I did not think that I was justified in exterminating – meaning kill or order to have killed – the men, but to leave their children to grow up to take revenge on our sons and grandchildren’.
