>From Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer (p249):
(Hitler) received me once more in the small room in the pleasant house.
He was sitting alone at the table. Without more ado he declared: "Draw
up a decree in my name ordering full-scale resumption of work on the
Berlin buildings .... Wasn't Paris beautiful? But Berlin can be made far
more beautiful. In the past I often considered whether we would not have
to destroy Paris," he continued with great calm, as if he were talking
about the most natural thing in the world. "But when we are finished in
Berlin, Paris will be only a shadow. So why should we destroy it?" With
that, I was dismissed.
>Message text written by Alison Croggon
>
>
>>My understanding is that the only thing that saved Paris was that Speer's
>Berlin was going to outshine it - Hitler actually had planned to raze it
>to the ground, BECAUSE of its architecture, as nothing could outshine the
>Reich. But that's by the by.
><
>
>Well, Speer says otherwise. It was not because of its architecture that
>Hitler ordered the city to be razed - his policy extended to all occupied
>areas under threat of recapture, and was designed ostensibly to hinder
>allied productivity in these areas. It WAS, however, the architecture that
>saved the city, and this in direct contravention of Hitler's dictate.
>
PO Box 186
Newport VIC 3105
AUSTRALIA
home page: http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/bronte/338
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|