Fritz Todt

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Fritz Todt (1940)

Fritz Todt (born September 4, 1891 in Pforzheim ; † February 8, 1942 at Rastenburg Airport , East Prussia ) was a German civil engineer . During the time of National Socialism he was first general inspector for roads and from 1940 Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition . Among other things, he led the construction of the Reichsautobahn . The Organization Todt , a military organization founded in 1938, was named after him.

Life

Fritz Todt was born on September 4, 1891 in Pforzheim as the son of the ring manufacturer Emil Todt (1861–1909) and his wife Elise, b. Unterecker (1869–1935) born. In 1910 he graduated from Reuchlin-Gymnasium in Pforzheim and then served as a one-year volunteer with the 14th Field Artillery Regiment . Todt then studied civil engineering at the Technical University of Munich . During the First World War , which interrupted his studies, he was promoted to lieutenant in the reserve in 1914 and a battalion adjutant in the 110th Grenadier Regiment. In 1916 Todt joined the air force . In August 1918, he was seriously wounded in an aerial combat as an aircraft observer. After completing his studies in Karlsruhe , he worked first in power plant construction and later in the road construction division of the construction company Sager & Woerner , for which he worked as an engineer from 1925 to 1933. On January 5, 1922, Todt joined the NSDAP and in 1931 became Standartenführer of the SA . He received his doctorate in 1931 at the Technical University of Munich with a thesis on "Sources of error in the construction of country roads made of tar and asphalt" .

On July 5, 1933, he became General Inspector for German Roads and was thus in charge of building the Reichsautobahn . Furthermore, the entire German road system was under him, u. a. the expansion of the German Alpine Road . He owned a hunting lodge near her in Hintersee (Ramsau) . In his function as general inspector he edited the magazine Die Strasse .

At the National Socialist exhibition “Planning and Construction in the East” on March 20, 1941, from left: Rudolf Heß , Heinrich Himmler , Philipp Bouhler , Fritz Todt, Reinhard Heydrich , far right: lecturer Konrad Meyer

Alan S. Milward characterizes this phase as follows:

“Todt kept his personal views on economic issues and, what was more important, the success of the motorway project in the focus of the 'Führer'. At the same time, his conscious pose as a technical expert, as a man with no interest in internal power struggles [...] saved him from opposition from the more important party leaders for a long time. "

- Alan S. Milward

In November 1934 he took over in personal union the management of the National Socialist German Federal Technology (NSBDT) mounted on the Plassenburg operating in Kulmbach training facility, and was director of the Office of Technology . He was also appointed to the board of directors of the Deutsches Museum in 1934 .

In 1937 Todt was awarded the Werner von Siemens Ring . In 1938, along with Ernst Heinkel , Ferdinand Porsche and Willy Messerschmitt, he received the German National Prize for Art and Science , which Adolf Hitler founded in 1937 and which was endowed with 100,000 Reichsmarks.

In May 1938 he founded the Todt (OT) organization named after him . She was in World War II a . a. used in the construction of the West Wall , the Atlantic Wall , the construction of the submarine bases on the French coast and in conquered areas. In December of the same year he became general representative for the construction industry.

Also in May 1938, Todt was elected chairman of the Association of German Engineers (VDI) from 1939 onwards . The previous chairman Heinrich Schult had made his office available after Todt, as head of the NSBDT, claimed the right to award VDI honors.

As Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition from March 17, 1940, he headed the entire German war economy . At the beginning of the war he was appointed major general in the Air Force . At the end of July 1941, he was also appointed General Inspector for Water and Energy .

On September 4, 1941, on the occasion of his 50th birthday, he founded the Dr. Fritz Todt Foundation , which was supposed to support the next generation of technicians, especially talented young people from poor families, through training grants.

In the foreground the grave of Fritz Todt with a restitution stone that has meanwhile been removed from the Invalidenfriedhof in October 2004 - in the background the grave of Scharnhorst
State act for Todt: The dead man who was driven from the New Reich Chancellery to the Invalidenfriedhof receives a Hitler salute .

On the evening of December 20, 1941, a meeting of Eastern Front officers took place in the Fuehrer's headquarters in Rastenburg in a hostile atmosphere. Reports of the harsh consequences of the first winter at −35 ° C had arrived at the OKH , OKW and Hitler, but were ignored, thus ruining the plan to take Moscow quickly. The armaments minister, Todt, who was deeply impressed by this, was characterized by Guderian as an “ intelligent man with healthy human feelings ”. Todt presented (only) two new trench furnaces to the Führer. The supplies of artillery and ammunition to the Eastern Front had become inadequate.

On February 8, 1942, Todt was killed in a plane crash not far from the Führer headquarters in Wolfsschanze near Rastenburg . He was buried in the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin . Adolf Hitler posthumously awarded him the German Order of the NSDAP . In Germany, streets in numerous cities had been named after him until 1945. a. in Berlin, Dresden, Chemnitz, Pforzheim, Karlsruhe and Rastatt.

Albert Speer became Todt's successor as Reich Minister .

The “Siegfried” battery, located near the village of Haringzelle on Cap Gris-Nez , was renamed “ Battery Todt ” after the death of the engineer Fritz Todt .

Awards

Dr. Fritz Todt Prize

On February 8, 1944, the second anniversary of Todt's death, Hitler donated the Dr. Fritz Todt Prize as an award from the NSDAP for “inventive achievements that are of outstanding importance for the national community because of the improvements in weapons, ammunition and Wehrmacht equipment and because of the savings achieved in terms of manpower, raw materials and energy. "

The badge of honor, with which a value prize and a certificate were connected, was awarded in gold, silver or steel. Hitler personally awarded the golden badge of honor at the joint suggestion of the head of the German Labor Front ( Robert Ley ) and the head of the main office for technology of the NSDAP ( Albert Speer ), silver and steel by the responsible Gauleiter with the corresponding DAF and NSDAP leaders at Gau level.

literature

Web links

Commons : Fritz Todt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

Remarks

  1. ↑ The article is available online on the website of the publishing institute ( PDF , approx. 957 kB).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christian Groh (ed.): New contributions to the Pforzheim city history. Volume 3. Regional culture, Heidelberg 2010.
  2. ^ Bavarian Main State Archives IV ; Digitized copy (war ranking 18062, images 116–128) from ancestry.com, accessed on July 12, 2018.
  3. ^ Alan S. Milward: Fritz Todt as Minister for Armaments and Ammunition . In: VfZ 14, 1966, issue 1, pp. 40–58 (PDF; 951 kB); here p. 44.
  4. ^ Reference in the catalog of the German National Library
  5. ↑ On the hunting lodge in Ramsau: Arson - Schaun's in Ramsau - in: Der Spiegel 32/1952 of August 6, 1952: "Küsswetter (...) also got, albeit without success (...) Niederberger in the spring of 1947 on at least three different ones Days asked to burn down the hunting lodge of the former Reich Minister Todt am Hintersee because it was inhabited by the American Captain Payton, who hated kissing weather ” .
  6. ↑ a b Alan S. Milward: Fritz Todt as Minister for Armaments and Ammunition . In: VfZ 14, 1966, issue 1, pp. 40–58 (PDF; 951 kB); here p. 45.
  7. ^ Karl-Heinz Ludwig: The VDI as an object of party politics 1933 to 1945 . In: Karl-Heinz Ludwig (Ed.): Technology, Engineers and Society - History of the Association of German Engineers 1856–1981 . VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1981, ISBN 3-18-400510-0 , p. 420 .
  8. ^ Kurt Mauel: From 140 years of history of the VDI . In: Association of German Engineers (ed.): Festschrift 140 years of VDI . Düsseldorf May 1996, p. 32 .
  9. ↑ Heinz Guderian: memories of a soldier. Kurt Vowinkel Verlag, Heidelberg 1951, p. 240 ff.
  10. ↑ The German builder 12/1939.
  11. ^ Peter Koblank: The Goering Speer Ordinance. Employee invention right in the Third Reich / Dr. Fritz Todt Prize. EUREKA impulse 12/2012, p. 2. Available in: Best of Koblank.
  12. ↑ First published in: International Archive for Social History of German Literature 18, 1993, No. 2, pp. 76–120.
personal data
SURNAME Todt, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Reich Minister during the Nazi era
DATE OF BIRTH September 4, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Pforzheim
DATE OF DEATH February 8, 1942
Place of death Rastenburg , East Prussia