In this connection, reference can be made to a report on “Industrial Mobilization and Design and Development of Nazi Germany,” issued by the Office of Military Government for Germany under date of October 5, 1945. The report is based on an examination of Albert Speer by several officers of the Intelligence Department, and deals with the part Speer played subsequent to the year 1942 when he was directed to take over the administration of German war production. Speer had realized immediately what great fundamental errors had been committed and how small armament output had remained prior to his taking over. The Reichswehr had dealt with armament problems theoretically and industry generally had had no great inclination to participate in preparatory work. The government organizations had become so large that they had managed only to keep each other busy; they committed what might be called mental incest and paved the way for all the mistakes that had later kept armament production at a surprisingly low level. Speer had gone on to say that the Germans had been at a great disadvantage because their rearmament had been planned too long on a theoretic basis. A strict system of discipline and orders fully in accord with their authoritarian regime had replaced what this apparatus lacked in knowledge and ability. He had written a memorandum to Hitler on July 20, 1944, in which he stated that Russia and the United States were to be envied because external circumstances had forced them to improvise. The United States had had to raise their armed forces quickly and therefore could not do without the active personalities in industry, politics, and public life. In Germany, on the other hand, those who occupied themselves with war production were professional soldiers, a closed corporation without the benefit of fresh outside minds. For this reason, Speer believed that the extended theoretical preparation of German armaments had been mainly responsible for their low level of production until after 1942 when he had restored the principle of individual initiative by putting war production back into the hands of private industry. Within a year he had completed an organization of completely new leading personalities to restore the autonomy of industry and preserve its unity even in the most trying times. The virus that infected Germany also attacked us, but our rugged constitution enabled us to throw it off. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN For What Is a Man Profited?