The Battle of the Architects

Hermann Giesler on left; Albert Speer on right,

The Contradictious Speer

 From Hermann Giesler’s memoir Ein Anderer Hitler
Der zwiespältige Speer, pages 332-339
1977 edition, Druffel-Verlag

Translated  by Wilhelm Kriessmann and Carolyn Yeager
copyright Carolyn Yeager 2014

This section from Giesler's memoir Ein Anderer Hitler deals with his correction of Albert Speer’s insulting statements about the Fuehrer at occasions when Giesler was present or knew differently because of his own experience with Hitler.

To add some perspective to Giesler’s account, we remind you that Speer’s biographer Gitta Sereny titled her book, Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth.

In addition, Nicolaus von Below, Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant from 1937-45, wrote in his memoir At Hitler’s Side about an incident of seeing a striking red color appear in the sky while in the company of Hitler on the terrace at Obersaltzberg in Aug. 1939. He told Hitler it augured a “bloody war.” He said he “recounted this conversation to Speer in 1967 but later he (Speer) attributed my remark erroneously to Hitler in his book Erinnerungen.”1

Hermann Giesler on left; Albert Speer on right,

The following is something of a masterpiece of satiric wit from Giesler. -cy

The Column Saint

 From Hermann Giesler’s memoir Ein Anderer Hitler
Der Säulenheilige, pages 355-360
1977 edition, Druffel-Verlag

Translated byWilhelm Kriessmann and Carolyn Yeager
copyright Carolyn Yeager 2014

In the year 113 the Roman senate erected a gigantic column for the emperor and military leader Trajan. (Shown right) On the capital of the column stood the gilded statue of the honored.

The art historian Bruhns writes ”Used to gigantism and always striving to exceed, Rome created that form of eternal triumph which then did mankind not less convince of its greater impression than the older kind of triumphal arch, now of a lesser rank. As the colossal column expresses the idea of “height” exceptionally well, it can also be used very well for the adoration of the “highest.” Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius were given similar columns in Rome. Arcadius got his at the new capital Constantinople.

When Europe during the Napoleon era felt itself specially close to Rome’s greatness, it presented the new emperor with the Vendome column in Paris—and his conqueror, Alexander of Russia, a second one in Petersburg.”

The emerging Christianity overthrew the images of antique greatness and now paid homage to its believers on imposing columns. After the final decline of the ancient dignities around the 4th and 5th centuries, ascetic Christians requested the top of the Roman columns as pleasing to God. The best known among them was Symion Stylites from Aleppo. Those ascetics and penitents, called stylites or “Säulenheilige (column saints), strove to increase their ranking  by self-elevation.