7223 - Albert Speer Document Signed at Nuremberg, Summoning a Witness to Prove He Blocked Hitler's 'Scorched Earth' Decree

Albert Speer Document Signed at Nuremberg, Summoning a Witness to Prove He Blocked Hitler's 'Scorched Earth' Decree Partly-printed DS, in German, signed “Speer,” one page, 8 x 12, November 8, 1945. Document headed (translated), "The International Military Tribunal, Defendant's Application for Summons for Witness," made while preparing his defense for the Nuremberg trials. Speer and his defense lawyer request testimony from "von Poser, Lt. Col.," citing his knowledge that "the witness accompanied defendant since the middle of 1944 on almost every trip. He is familiar with the steps taken to prevent Hitler's orders of Sept. 1944 and March 1945 from being carried out and his knowledge of other 'illegal' acts of the defendant." Speer claims that this "preventative action applied equally to orders also in Luxembourg, Alsace, Lorraine, Czechoslovakia, large parts of Poland and Austria," and that his authority was "actually limited to 'Greater Germany.'" Signed at the conclusion in fountain pen by Albert Speer, and countersigned by his defense counsel. In fine condition. The March 1945 order at the center of Speer’s application was Hitler’s infamous 'Nero Decree,' which called for the destruction of Germany’s industrial and transportation infrastructure rather than allow it to fall intact into Allied hands. Speer later maintained that he worked actively to frustrate the order, issuing counter-instructions and intervening to preserve factories, bridges, power facilities, and other essential resources as the Reich collapsed. Lt. Col. von Poser, Speer’s aide from mid-1944 and a companion on nearly all of his wartime travels during the final months of the conflict, was therefore a potentially valuable defense witness, capable of testifying firsthand to the measures Speer claimed to have taken against Hitler’s September 1944 and March 1945 directives. The application is a revealing example of Speer’s emerging Nuremberg defense: portraying himself not merely as a senior Nazi official, but as a technocrat who had increasingly defied Hitler and sought to limit the destruction accompanying Germany’s defeat. The application also anticipates the central strategy Speer would pursue throughout the trial: acknowledging his place near the summit of the Nazi regime while separating himself from Hitler’s most destructive decisions. His opposition to the 'Nero Decree' became one of the most important examples he used to support that distinction, reinforcing his claim that by the final months of the war he had moved from obedience toward active resistance.