Hitler’s Regard For Stalin

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32395, 7 September 1970, Page 4

Hitler’s Regard For Stalin

(By EMIL SVEILIS, of United | Press International, through N.Z.P.AJ NEW YORK. Adolf Hitler regarded Josef Stalin as the best man to handle the Russians and had the Nazis won the war, Stalin may have been kept on as leader of the Soviet people, according to one of Hitler’s closest confidants.

“In general, he (Hitler) regarded Stalin as a kind of colleague,” claims Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and later his Minister of Armaments and War Production. In his book, "Inside the Third Keich," published last month, Speer wrote that Hitler felt more and more respect for Stalin as the war ground on. Hitler remarked "with jesting tone of voice that it

[would be best, after a victory over Russia, to entrust the administration of the country to Stalin, under German hegemony, of course, since he was the best imaginable man to handle the Russians,” Speer wrote. Real Enemy

“Did Hitler think that his real enemy lay in the West?” the author asked. “Did he feel solidarity with, let alone sympathy for. Stalin’s regime? I recall a good many earlier remarks of his which could possibly be interpreted in that sense and which might be seen as the motivation for his conduct at this time.”

Speer produced a wealth of little-known details of everyday life of the people around Hitler. Men like: Herman Goering, a “dope addict” and a “glutton” who described Hitler’s dinner menu as “too rotten for my taste.”

Heinrich Himmler, the S.S. chief who thought the

allies would demand hisi services as police chief of Germany once they won the war. Martin Borman, Hitler’s ruthless secretary described by Speer as a “peasant . . . known for his brutality and coarseness.” Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda chief who could get in and out of rages just by suggestion. Speer, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his part in the building of the Nazi war machine, recalled that Hitler once told him: “There are two possibilities for me: to win through with my plans or to fail. If 1 win, 1 shall be one of the greatest men In history. If I fail, I shall be condemned, despised and damned.” To the end Hitler refused to leave Berlin and take flight with some other Nazi officials who tried to escape the allies. He told Speer that he would not fight personally

(because “there is always the danger that I would only be wounded and fall into the bands of the Russians alive. “I don’t want my enemies to disgrace my body either. I’ve given orders that I be icremated. Fraulein (Eva) Braun wants to depart this life with me, and I’ll shoot Biondi (his dog) beforehand. “Believe me Speer, it is easy for me to end my life. A brief moment and I’m free of everything, liberated from this painful existence.”