Latest news with #OrganisationTodt
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The brutal men who built Hitler's war machine
The title and sub-title of Charles Dick's well-researched and scholarly book, Unknown Enemy: The Hidden Nazi Force that Built the Third Reich, do him, and it, no favours. Yes, Dick has studied, in depth, the Nazi machine – Organisation Todt (OT), named after its founder Fritz Todt – and which Hitler charged with overseeing the infrastructure of the new Germany. But OT was not an unknown enemy, and it certainly isn't after much scholarship on it. Dick himself published a book on it three years ago, though for an academic market, of which this appears to be in effect a 'popular' version, and it is 15 years since Blaine Taylor's Hitler's Engineers: Fritz Todt and Albert Speer – Master Builders of the Third Reich. As well as books, there are numerous articles in learned journals. But then this is a book for the mass market, which is not credited with too much intelligence; early on, we're told that the Red Army answered to 'Soviet dictator Josef Stalin'. (We are, at least, spared the formula 'Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler'.) Todt was a highly qualified engineer who had fought in the Great War and joined the Nazi party early on. Hitler had great regard for him, not because he was a sycophant – he was far less of one than many who greased up to the Führer – but because he was exceptionally good at his job. He took a realistic view of what his organisation could do, and never overpromised about the speed at which it would do it. Hitler's first great dream in transforming Germany was to improve the roads, so OT built the autobahns. Hitler also regarded them as essential to get his troops to all corners of Europe swiftly, in order to discharge his acts of conquest. When the Second World War came, OT had new priorities: the Atlantic Wall, submarine pens, mines for raw materials, bunkers for command posts and, after the devastating RAF raid on Peenemünde in summer 1943, huge underground factories in which to develop the V-2 and also to build Messerschmitts. This is where Dick lifts up the stone: much of what OT achieved, or tried to achieve, required slave labour. As such, OT played its part in the Final Solution and other war crimes. This book is a depressing reminder that most of the leaders of the organisation, and the chief brutes who worked under them, got away with it. Todt himself did not live to have judgement passed on him: he was killed in a plane crash just after meeting Hitler at his eastern command post in 1942. There have been conspiracy theories ever since that the plane was sabotaged on Hitler's orders. Todt, who had a remarkable grasp of realism in a movement characterised by blind fanaticism, had been to tell his Führer that the war against the Soviet Union was unwinnable, and the Germans should offer peace terms before the conflict broke the Reich's economy. Dick discounts the theory and is right to do so, given the absence of evidence. He points out that if Hitler wanted to be rid of Todt, he had plenty of other means by which to do so. Todt was succeeded by Hitler's blue-eyed boy, Albert Speer. Speer later served 20 years in Spandau for war crimes but managed to charm some of the judges at Nuremberg into believing he should not be hanged. However, his responsibility for OT, the orders he repeatedly gave for the urgent completion of infrastructure projects, whatever the cost, and the bestial conditions in the labour camps for which he was responsible suggest a rope round his neck was the very least he deserved. He compounded his offence by continuing to lie about what he knew – or didn't know – in the 15 years between his release in 1966 and his death in 1981. Dick highlights some of the discrepancies in the stories he told at various times, and his apparent unawareness that a sustained act of genocide was happening. Dick presents the story often from the point of view of the enslaved: Jews for whom getting on an OT work detail was a possible escape from the gas chambers, Russian prisoners of war, Poles and others from the overrun territories of the East. There were also German criminals, hauled out of jail and put to work on lethal projects such as the railway in north Norway that could help ship iron ore to the Reich. Those from western Europe whom the Nazis considered racially superior – French, Dutch, Danes – had better treatment, but the management and overseer class were almost entirely German, and contained the usual quota of sadists and psychopaths. Dick does highlight the odd more humane SS officer, but they were rare birds. What he also makes clear was that OT leaders did not merely work their charges to death, they beat them to death, shot them and sometimes even buried them alive if it suited them. They deserve their place in infamy, but the question of how so many of them got away with their hideous crimes shows just how ineffective the restoration of order in post-Nazi Germany really was. Unknown Enemy: The Hidden Nazi Force that Built the Third Reich is published by Bloomsbury at £25. To order your copy for £19.99, call 0330 173 5030 or visit Telegraph Books Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The brutal men who built Hitler's war machine
The title and sub-title of Charles Dick's well-researched and scholarly book, Unknown Enemy: The Hidden Nazi Force that Built the Third Reich, do him, and it, no favours. Yes, Dick has studied, in depth, the Nazi machine – Organisation Todt (OT), named after its founder Fritz Todt – and which Hitler charged with overseeing the infrastructure of the new Germany. But OT was not an unknown enemy, and it certainly isn't after much scholarship on it. Dick himself published a book on it three years ago, though for an academic market, of which this appears to be in effect a 'popular' version, and it is 15 years since Blaine Taylor's Hitler's Engineers: Fritz Todt and Albert Speer – Master Builders of the Third Reich. As well as books, there are numerous articles in learned journals. But then this is a book for the mass market, which is not credited with too much intelligence; early on, we're told that the Red Army answered to 'Soviet dictator Josef Stalin'. (We are, at least, spared the formula 'Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler '.) Todt was a highly qualified engineer who had fought in the Great War and joined the Nazi party early on. Hitler had great regard for him, not because he was a sycophant – he was far less of one than many who greased up to the Führer – but because he was exceptionally good at his job. He took a realistic view of what his organisation could do, and never overpromised about the speed at which it would do it. Hitler's first great dream in transforming Germany was to improve the roads, so OT built the autobahns. Hitler also regarded them as essential to get his troops to all corners of Europe swiftly, in order to discharge his acts of conquest. When the Second World War came, OT had new priorities: the Atlantic Wall, submarine pens, mines for raw materials, bunkers for command posts and, after the devastating RAF raid on Peenemünde in summer 1943, huge underground factories in which to develop the V-2 and also to build Messerschmitts. This is where Dick lifts up the stone: much of what OT achieved, or tried to achieve, required slave labour. As such, OT played its part in the Final Solution and other war crimes. This book is a depressing reminder that most of the leaders of the organisation, and the chief brutes who worked under them, got away with it. Todt himself did not live to have judgement passed on him: he was killed in a plane crash just after meeting Hitler at his eastern command post in 1942. There have been conspiracy theories ever since that the plane was sabotaged on Hitler's orders. Todt, who had a remarkable grasp of realism in a movement characterised by blind fanaticism, had been to tell his Führer that the war against the Soviet Union was unwinnable, and the Germans should offer peace terms before the conflict broke the Reich's economy. Dick discounts the theory and is right to do so, given the absence of evidence. He points out that if Hitler wanted to be rid of Todt, he had plenty of other means by which to do so. Todt was succeeded by Hitler's blue-eyed boy, Albert Speer. Speer later served 20 years in Spandau for war crimes but managed to charm some of the judges at Nuremberg into believing he should not be hanged. However, his responsibility for OT, the orders he repeatedly gave for the urgent completion of infrastructure projects, whatever the cost, and the bestial conditions in the labour camps for which he was responsible suggest a rope round his neck was the very least he deserved. He compounded his offence by continuing to lie about what he knew – or didn't know – in the 15 years between his release in 1966 and his death in 1981. Dick highlights some of the discrepancies in the stories he told at various times, and his apparent unawareness that a sustained act of genocide was happening. Dick presents the story often from the point of view of the enslaved: Jews for whom getting on an OT work detail was a possible escape from the gas chambers, Russian prisoners of war, Poles and others from the overrun territories of the East. There were also German criminals, hauled out of jail and put to work on lethal projects such as the railway in north Norway that could help ship iron ore to the Reich. Those from western Europe whom the Nazis considered racially superior – French, Dutch, Danes – had better treatment, but the management and overseer class were almost entirely German, and contained the usual quota of sadists and psychopaths. Dick does highlight the odd more humane SS officer, but they were rare birds. What he also makes clear was that OT leaders did not merely work their charges to death, they beat them to death, shot them and sometimes even buried them alive if it suited them. They deserve their place in infamy, but the question of how so many of them got away with their hideous crimes shows just how ineffective the restoration of order in post-Nazi Germany really was.
Business Mayor
09-05-2025
- Business Mayor
‘One bunker is now a surf school': a tour of Jersey's wartime coastal defences
I 'm woken by a tractor uprooting jersey royals in the potato field next door. In my simple hexagonal room, dawn illuminates five high slit windows marked with military coordinates and a compass etched into the ceiling. But heading downstairs, I timeslip into a 19th-century lounge where gothic-style windows frame sea views in three directions. During the second world war, Jersey's occupying forces requisitioned Nicolle Tower, a whimsical two-storey folly, and added an extra level. In what is now the bedroom, German soldiers kept lookout for an allied invasion that never came. Nicolle Tower, where German soldiers kept watch. Photograph: Debbie Ward It's thanks to restoration charity the Landmark Trust that I'm enjoying this hilltop tower. Inland from Le Hocq beach, it is now a self-catering holiday let. It's unique, yet one of a staggering 1,200 fortifications on Jersey, the Channel Islands having served as a showcase for Hitler's Atlantic Wall defences. During my 1980s childhood holidays, abandoned bunkers invited exploration and sibling jump scares. Now, on the 80th anniversary of liberation, which came on 9 May 1945 (a day after the German forces on mainland Europe surrendered), I want to discover how some of these structures have found a new lease of life. I start in an underground hospital hewn into rock. It never treated battle casualties; instead, a postwar farmer used its extensive passages to cultivate mushrooms. Now it houses Jersey War Tunnels, the museum of the island's almost five-year occupation. A tank on display at the Jersey War Tunnels museum. Photograph: Visit Jersey I learn about the scramble for evacuation, how remaining residents swapped meagre rations through newspaper personal ads, and about Organisation Todt, the huge Nazi construction operation that saw hundreds of fortifications built. Hand tool marks can still be seen in half-finished sections of the tunnels, one of which has lighting effects to simulate a rock fall. Elsewhere, amid islanders' personal stories are interactive exhibits posing the ethical dilemmas they faced, such as whether to launder a German uniform in exchange for food. That evening, I join nonprofit Jersey War Tours inside a resistance nest set into the sea wall at St Aubin's Bay. Our guide, Phil Marett, winds a hatch and sweeps the anti-tank gun over a deserted beach, demonstrating how soldiers were primed for a D-day-like scenario. Inland at Le Coin Varin, a farmer's field contains a huge block-shaped battle headquarters. Once poorly disguised as a house, its chimneys hid periscopes. Time has laced the outside with vines, but inside, acrid-smelling rooms are blackened by modern fire brigade drills. Nearby, Marett points out an oddly shaped bungalow that the homeowners built around another abandoned bunker. Waves crash below the wild headland of our final stop, Noirmont Point, where, amid the gorse, a crack of light entices us into Battery Lothringen. In a restored two-storey subterranean command bunker, I note the poignant bunk-side photo of an elderly German man who returned here as a tourist. Original graffiti at Battery Lothringen. Photograph: Debbie Ward Compared with that austere, imposing space, the cosy hexagonal lounge of Nicolle Tower feels like a trinket box. Its bookcases hold a thoughtful selection relating to Jersey's nature and history, but having stayed in other Landmarks, I seek the logbook first. Completed by visitors, this is part diary, part crowd-sourced guidebook and always charming. At a sea view writing desk, I turn the pages and smile at former guests' tales of big birthdays and marriage proposals and a naked yoga session interrupted by a dog walker. Many have left recommendations for walking routes and pubs. A few have contributed affectionate watercolours of the folly. Next day, I head to Faulkner Fisheries, a fishmonger and cafe based inside a former bunker for 45 years that lies on a rocky peninsula to the north of St Ouen's Bay, the largest of Jersey's sandy beaches. Lobsters destined for the lunchtime barbecue shuffle inside seawater pools flushed via pipes converted from wartime ventilation shafts. 'In the end tank, where the crabs are, there was a gun pointed towards Guernsey,' owner Sean Faulkner tells me as he shows me around. 'The office was originally another machine gun post.' Based inside a bunker, Faulkner Fisheries keeps its lobsters where a gun post once stood. Photograph: Danny Evans Faulkner grew up on a farm opposite, playing in the bunker as a child and diving for crabs to sell from a junkyard pram. After a career in the merchant navy, his youthful exploits became his business. As I enjoy huge, garlicky scallops at a picnic table, watching the waves glint in the sunlight, the plump seafood, barbecue aroma and 5-mile (8km) surfing beach suddenly recall Australia. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Later, on a cobbled slipway, I spot a smaller bunker housing boards and wetsuits. Jersey Surf School is painted on its original, still sturdy metal doors. Water ingress is never a problem, owner Jake Powell tells me, before reminiscing about teenage parties around a bar he constructed in another bunker. Jersey's vast tidal range reveals extensive rockpools, not least at La Corbière lighthouse, where I linger for the celebrated sunset view. Standing sentinel opposite is the Radio Tower, a German range-finding post. For years, a coastguard headquarters, it has since found a third use as holiday accommodation. The charity Jersey Heritage oversees this and other fortifications, from German-adapted martello towers to a 1940s bunker turned cold war shelter, many open to visitors. Chief executive Jon Carter acknowledges their tourist interest. 'They were all built in the most scenic places with the best views because that was the idea – they were observational and they wanted arcs of fire,' he tells me over tea. The celebrated sunset view at La Corbière lighthouse, Jersey. Photograph: Max Burnett The metres-thick reinforced concrete of these mass bunkers makes their destruction unviable. The mixture of abandonment, historical reconstruction and pragmatic reuse I've seen reflects decades of fluctuating attitudes. Any continued discomfort about the structures' presence is now less about why they were built than how, Carter explains. The back-breaking work often fell to prisoners of war and forced labourers. At the government's behest, Jersey Heritage is working with volunteer preservationists the Channel Islands Occupation Society to consider the reuse of 70 state-owned fortifications too, connecting with those 'wrestling with the same conundrums' along the Atlantic Wall. Carter anticipates a continued mixture of 'selective preservation' and 'contemporary use'. Next, I visit the island's newest fortification museum St Catherine's Bunker, which Marett dubs 'a real Bond villain lair'. Its cliff-face gun post fronts substantial German-built tunnels. For years, though, this was a fish market. Like the bunker turned toilets I discover on my childhood beach, it feels an ironic counterpoint to hubris. Ten minutes away, I lunch at Driftwood Cafe at Archirondel Beach. As I tuck into thick crab sandwiches opposite the French coast, fisherwoman and cafe owner Gabby Mason tells me she'll be at sea over the Liberation 80 weekend, her boat decked in flags. From today into next week, there will be street parties, an international music festival and historical re-enactments, including, in St Helier, British soldiers raising the union jack above Liberation Square, so named in 1995 to celebrate 50 years since the end of occupation. The Landmark Trust is also celebrating – 60 years of restorations. Before I leave Nicolle Tower, I take in those glorious views a final time and add a logbook entry, my own sliver in the multilayered history of this building and this island.
