Albert Speer Quotes

#1. 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

#2. In all my activities as Armament Minister I never once visited a labor camp, and cannot, therefore, give any information about them.

Albert Speer

#3. One seldom recognizes the devil when he is putting his hand on your shoulder.

Albert Speer

#4. Hitler knew nothing about his enemies and even refused to use the information that was available to him. Instead, he trusted his inspirations, no matter how inherently contradictory they may be and these inspirations were governed by extreme contempt and underestimation of the others.

Albert Speer

#5. I was not a member of the SS.

Albert Speer

#6. 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

#7. 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

#8. Cases of sickness made up a very small percentage which in my opinion was normal. However, propaganda pamphlets dropped from aircraft were telling the workers to feign illness, and detailed instructions were given to them on how to do it.

Albert Speer

#9. 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

#10. No doubt concentration camps were a means, a menace used to keep order.

Albert Speer

#11. Temporarily in 1934 I became a department head in the German Labor Front and dealt with the improvement of labor conditions in German factories. Then I was in charge of public works on the staff of Hess. I gave up both these activities in 1941.

Albert Speer

#12. For the commission to do a great building, I would have sold my soul like Faust. Now I had found my Mephistopheles. He seemed no less engaging than Goethe's.

Albert Speer

#13. 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