Nazi Ideology and Engineers at War: Fritz Todt’s ‘Speaker System’

Abstract

Fritz Todt created a program of lectures for German engineers in 1941. This ‘Speaker System’ was designed to enhance technical training, spread Todt’s Deutsche Technik ideology and prepare for technocratic Nazi control of postwar Europe. The Speaker System illustrates the tension inherent in the ‘ideological-pragmatic synthesis’ that was the Third Reich. Due to deteriorating wartime conditions and to Albert Speer’s shift to a ‘total war’ footing, the Speaker System faded away after 1943. Lectures were on the whole apolitical, with the ideological thrust varying widely between regions. Many speakers were not members of the Nazi Party or its engineering affiliate, demonstrating the regime’s wartime shift to technological pragmatism. Fritz Todt’s ideological vision proved secondary to the core Nazi goals of conquering Lebensraum and destroying the Jews.