Now Hitler was planning to extend the scorched-earth policy in the east to the Reich itself, ostensibly to deny the invaders means of sustaining their assault on the homeland, emotionally to vent his hate and to repay the ultimate insult to the world of his creation in blood and ashes. Of the top leadership, only Speer was able to remove himself and look into the vortex from the outside. After returning from an inspection tour of the Rhineland industries in mid-March convinced that the war was lost economically, he set about writing a memorandum – on the day Himmler received his dressing-down
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