On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany:           

“Destroy all German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants!”

If implemented, it would deprive surviving Germans of even the barest necessities after the war.  

Opposing him was Albert Speer, his favorite architect and Minister of Armaments. 

Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler pouring over architectural plans

But Hitler refused to back down. He gave Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.

The next day, Speer told Hitler: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!” 

“Then all is well,” said Hitler, suddenly with tears in his eyes.

“If I stand unreservedly behind you,” said Speer, “then you must entrust me rather than the Gauleiters [district Party leaders serving as provincial governors] with the implementation of your decree.”

Filled with gratitude, Hitler signed the decree Speer had thoughtfully prepared before their fateful meeting.

By doing so, Hitler unintentionally gave Speer the power to thwart his “scorched earth” order.

Trained as an architect, Speer had joined the Nazi Party in 1931. He met Hitler in 1933, when he presented the Fuhrer with architectural designs for the Nuremberg Rally scheduled for that year. 

From then on, Speer became Hitler’s “genius architect” assigned to create buildings meant to last for a thousand years. “If Hitler had been capable of friendship,” Speer said after the war, “I would have been that friend.”

In 1943, Hitler appointed him Minister of Armaments, charged with revitalizing the German war effort.

Nevertheless, Speer now crisscrossed Germany, persuading military leaders and district governors to not destroy the vital facilities that would be needed after the war.

“No other senior National Socialist could have done the job,” writes Randall Hanson, author of Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Valkyrie.

“Speer was one of the very few people in the Reich—-perhaps even the only one—with such power to influence actors’ willingness/unwillingness to destroy.”

Despite his later conviction for war crimes at Nuremberg, Speer never regretted his efforts to save Germany from total destruction at the hands of Adolf Hitler. 

* * * * *

As the Third Reich came to its fiery end, Adolf Hitler blamed the German people for being “unworthy” of his “genius” and losing the war he had started.

His attitude was: “If I can’t rule Germany, then there won’t be a Germany.”

Fortunately for Germany, one man—Albert Speer—finally broke ranks with his Fuhrer.

Albert Speer

Risking death, he refused to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. Even more important, he successfully blocked such destruction and persuaded influential military and civilian leaders to disobey the order as well.

As a result, those targets slated for destruction were spared.

Fast forward 75 years: Facing the end of his Presidency, Donald Trump desperately sought to remain in power. Having “joked” about being “President-for-Life,” he now fought to make that a reality. 

Unlike his 44 predecessors, he rejected the will of the voters and for almost three weeks denied his successor access to the resources he needed to launch a smooth transition.

Donald Trump

Even worse: Instead of showing concern for the country he claimed to love, Trump sought to relentlessly destroy those institutions that guarantee American freedom and safety:

• The Pentagon
• The CIA
• The FBI
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

His attitude clearly was: “If I can’t rule America, there won’t be an America.” 

Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans embraced his most outrageous lies—or refused to openly refute them—as the COVID-19 pandemic slaughtered about 1,000 Americans a day.

Even Republicans who privately admitted the Trump era was ending realized that 70 million hate-filled Americans voted for him in 2020. And eagerly awaited the coming of the next would-be Fuhrer.

They would also eagerly vote out of office any Republican who dared break with the man they worshiped like a cult leader. 

For Congressional Republicans, staying in office—and keeping their power and perks—was their top priority.

On November 25, 2019, CNN political correspondent Jake Tapper interviewed Representative Adam Schiff on Donald Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

What would it mean if Republicans uniformly oppose any articles of impeachment against Trump? asked Tapper.

“It will have very long-term consequences, if that’s where we end up,” replied Schiff.

“And if not today, I think Republican members in the future, to their children and their grandchildren, will have to explain why they did nothing in the face of this deeply unethical man who did such damage to the country.” 

In the end, only one of 53 Republican Senators—Mitt Romney—dared to vote for impeachment. And he became an instant pariah for it. 

On March 18, 1945, Albert Speer, opposing Hitler’s plans to destroy Germany’s infrastructure, addressed a memo to his Fuhrer, in which he wrote: “No one has the right to take the viewpoint that the fate of the German people is tied to his personal fate.”

The country is still waiting for a Republican Albert Speer to step forward and save America from the self-destructive intentions of its own would-be Fuhrer.

President Donald Trump seemed poised to fire his handpicked CIA director.    

He believed that Gina Haspel had stonewalled the release of documents supposedly exposing “deep state” plots against his 2016 campaign during the Obama administration.

[In fact, the Obama administration had acted entirely within the law during the 2016 Presidential campaign. The FBI has a legal mandate to keep track of subversive activities—especially when they involve members of a Presidential candidate’s campaign.

[On July 9, 2016, high-ranking representatives of the Trump campaign met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists with ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Gina Haspel

[The participants included:   

• Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.;
• His son-in-law, Jared Kushner;
• His then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort;
• Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to Putin; and
• Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet counterintelligence officer suspected of “having ongoing ties to Russian Intelligence.”

[The reason for the meeting: To dig up “dirt” the Russians might have on Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent for the White House.] 

Trump was also angry at FBI Director Christopher Wray—who replaced James B. Comey in May, 2017. Trump had fired Comey for daring to investigate ties between his 2016 campaign and Russian Intelligence agents. 

Christopher Wray

The reason for his anger at Wray: Wray had dared to contradict Trump’s false claims that

• “Rampant voter fraud” was a widespread problem; and
• Antifa posed a greater terrorism danger than white supremacist groups. 

During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, had quickly assessed Trump as an egotistical narcissist. By appealing to Trump’s vanity, Putin expected to sharply reduce the military and political threat the United States represented to a resurgent Russia. 

So notorious was the role played by Russian Intelligence in misleading American voters in 2016 that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.

The man ultimately tasked with this mission was Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency run by DHS.

Chris Krebs

Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. Among his duties:

• Sharing Intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
• Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
• Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.

As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments. 

By all accounts—except Trump’s—the 2020 election went very smoothly.

On November 17, 2020, Trump fired Chris Krebs. 

The reason: Krebs had not only countered Russian propaganda lies—he had dared to counter Trump’s as well. For example: He rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud: There “is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Trump fired Krebs by tweet—and accompanied the outrage with yet another lie:

“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling locations, glitches in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”

In a November 17 story on the CNN website, CNN reporters Kaitlan Collins and Paul LeBlanc bluntly concluded:

“[Krebs’] dismissal underscores the lengths Trump is willing to go to punish those who don’t adopt his conspiratorial view of the election.

“Since CNN and other outlets called the race for President-elect Joe Biden, Trump has refused to accept the results, instead pushing baseless conspiracies that his second term is being stolen.

“This includes falsely claiming during an election night address that he had already won reelection, that he had won states that were actually still up in the air at the time and that his opponents were perpetrating a fraud.” 

 * * * * *

Seventy-five years earlier, on March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Adolf Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.

All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.

If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war.  

Opposing him—at first openly, and later secretly—was Albert Speer, his former architect and now Minister of Armaments. 

Speer argued that there must be a future for the German people: “If our enemies wish to destroy us, why help them?  We must leave the people something.”

But Hitler refused to back down: “I don’t want to hear any more.”

He gave Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.

Speer could not directly promise to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. So he gave Hitler a vague answer that essentially committed him to nothing: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!”

On November 3, 2020, Joe Biden became President-elect of the United States by winning 79,658,000 votes, or 51% of the vote, compared to 73,886,400 votes, or 47.2% of the vote cast for President Donald Trump.              

In the Electoral College—which actually determines the winner—the results were even more stunning: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump. It takes 270 votes to be declared the victor.

Joe Biden

Despite this, Trump steadfastly refused to concede. He made a series of baseless claims that he was cheated of victory by 

• Illegal aliens being allowed to vote.
• A sinister computer program that turned Trump votes into Biden ones.

He repeatedly filed legal challenges to the vote, claiming himself the victim of massive fraud. This despite the utter lack of evidence of it.

On November 13, nine cases meant to attack President-elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.

In Michigan, Trump’s attorneys dropped their federal suit to block the certification of Detroit-area ballots.

By November 21, Trump had lost in 30 cases dismissed by judges or withdrawn by his own attorneys. 

Meanwhile, top Republicans—such as Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—refused to congratulate Biden as the winner.

Mitch McConnell

In a November 17, 2020 analysis, entitled  “Donald Trump Doesn’t Seem to Want to Do His Job Anymore,” CNN Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza wrote:

While Trump relentlessly asserted that he won the 2020 election, “he’s done next to nothing—at least publicly—to suggest he plans to continue doing the job in any serious manner through January 20.”  

According to Cillizza, since losing the election, Trump had filled his days with:

• Golfing
• Tweeting
• Making controversial military decisions
• Firing people 

Specifically:

Golfing: He played golf at his club in Virginia twice on the weekend of November 14-15. He was golfing the previous weekend, when Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 race by CNN and other media outlets.

Tweeting: He tweeted numerous lies and conspiracy theories, claiming he won a second term but was cheated by the counting of fraudulent votes. This led Twitter to flag a large number of his tweets as “inaccurate.”

Making controversial military decisions: The Pentagon signaled it was planning—on Trump’s orders—to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. [American forces had been warring with the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2001; they had been warring against Iraqi insurgents since 2003.] 

And in a move that was truly frightening: The New York Times reported that Trump asked his top advisers for options to strike at Iran’s nuclear capabilities before he left office. This would embroil the United States in a war that could easily turn nuclear.

Firing people: On November 9, Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Four senior civilian officials were subsequently fired or resigned—Esper’s chief of staff and the top officials overseeing policy and intelligence.

They were replaced with flunkies loyal to Trump personally.

[This was in fact how Adolf Hitler took control of the Wehrmacht.

Adolf Hitler

[Since taking command of Germany in the summer of 1934, Hitler wanted to replace two high-ranking military officials: General Werner von Fritsch and Colonel General Werner von Blomberg. Both were convinced that Hitler’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy was putting Germany on a collision course with war—a war the Fatherland could not win. 

[Hitler, in fact, meant to go to war—and despised Fritsch’s and Blomberg’s hesitation to do so. He decided to rid himself of both men. 

[On January 12, 1938, Blomberg married Erna Gruhn, with Hitler and Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring attending as witnesses. Soon afterward, Berlin police discovered that Gruhn had a criminal record as a prostitute and had posed for pornographic photographs.

[Marrying a woman with such a background violated the standard of conduct expected of German officers. Hitler saw the scandal as an opportunity to dispose of Blomberg—who was forced to resign.

[Shortly after Blomberg was forced out in disgrace, the SS—Hitler’s private police force—presented Hitler with a file that falsely accused Werner von Fritsch of homosexuality. Fritsch angrily denied the accusation but resigned on February 4, 1938. 

[From that point on, Hitler was in de facto command of the German Armed Services.]

Eighty-two years later, on November 3, 2020, President Donald Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election to former Vice President Joe Biden.

But Trump seemed determine to inflict as much damage as possible on the agencies responsible for protecting the security of the nation.

Besides wreaking havoc on the Pentagon, Trump was reportedly preparing to fire CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Trump had accused Haspel of stonewalling the release of documents that would supposedly expose “deep state” plots against Trump’s campaign and transition during the Obama administration.

In fact, the Obama administration had acted entirely within the law during the 2016 Presidential campaign. The FBI has a legal mandate to keep track of subversive activities—especially when they involve members of a Presidential campaign such as Trumps.

And he was furious that Wray had dared to contradict Trump’s false claims that:

• “Rampant voter fraud” was a widespread problem; and
• Antifa posed a greater terrorism danger than white supremacist groups. 

For Trump, contradiction was the same as treason.

Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments for the Third Reich, was appalled.           

His Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler—the man he had idolized for 14 years—had just passed a death sentence on Germany, the nation he claimed to love above all others.

On September 1, 1939, Hitler had triggered World War II with the invasion of Poland. This led to a series of quick, spectacular victories—over Poland, Norway, Denmark and France.

Then, on June 22, 1941, Hitler turned on his ally, the Soviet Union, with which he had signed a non-aggression pact in August, 1939.

It had taken the Wehrmacht six weeks to conquer France. Hitler believed that was how long it would take to defeat the Soviet Union.  

German soldiers invading the Soviet Union

Again, a series of spectacular battlefield victories followed—before the Wehrmacht was halted at the gates of Moscow. A year later, still enmeshed in Russia, the turning point came at Stalingrad, with the loss of the elite Sixth Army and 800,000 soldiers.

Starting in 1943, the Red Army slowly but steadily regained ground it had lost—the western half of Russia—and began pushing back the Germans. By March, 1945, it was fighting inside Germany—and heading straight for its capital: Berlin.

And by March, 1945, so were American and British forces. After landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944, they had steadily pushed their way across Europe and into Germany.

On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.

All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.

If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war. And he entrusted the campaign to Albert Speer, his favorite architect-turned-Minister-of-Armaments.

Click here: Hitler’s “Scorched Earth” Decree and Albert Speer’s Response

Now living in a bunker 50 feet below bomb-shattered Berlin, Hitler gave full vent to his most destructive impulses.

Adolf Hitler addressing boy soldiers as the Third Reich crumbles

“If the war is lost,” Hitler told Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.

“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.

“Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.”

* * * * *

Seventy-five years after Adolf Hitler planned the destruction of Germany, Donald Trump planned the same fate for the United States.

On November 3, 2020, Trump lost his bid to win another four years as President of the United States. In the early hours of November 4, 2020, he poured out his fury and self-pity in a televised address from the White House:

“Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it, we will not stand for it.” 

Donald Trump

Sounding like a petulant child whose party has been called off, Trump continued:

“We were getting ready for a big celebration, we were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just called off. The results tonight have been phenomenal…I mean literally we were just all set to get outside and just celebrate something that was so beautiful, so good, such a vote, such a success.” 

It was Trump—not his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden—who was demanding that the electoral process be halted. And that those votes that had not yet been counted be, in effect, flushed down the toilet.

“The citizens of this country have come out in record numbers, this a record, there’s never been anything like it to support our incredible movement….Most importantly, we’re winning Pennsylvania by a tremendous amount of votes. We’re up 690,000 votes.” 

Owing to the Coronavirus pandemic—which Trump had refused to aggressively address from its outset in January—millions of Americans had voted by mail. This was especially true of Democrats, who didn’t want to stand in Coronavirus-infected lines.

But Trump had convinced millions of Republican voters that voting by mail was subversive. So they showed up at the polls or stayed away out of a secret fear of COVID-19. 

Meanwhile, at the White House on Election Night, Trump continued to rant:

“These aren’t even close, this is not like, Oh, it’s close. With 64% of the vote in, it’s going to be almost impossible and we’re coming into good Pennsylvania areas where they happen to like your president. We’re winning Michigan…I said ‘Wow, that’s a lot’… 

“And we’re winning Wisconsin…so when you take those three states in particular and you take all of the others…and all of a sudden it’s not like we’re up 12 votes and we have 60% left, we won states and all of a sudden, I said, ‘What happened to the election? It’s off.’ And we have all these announcers saying, ‘What’s happened’ and then they said, ‘Ohhh.’” 

But this did not alter the reality that Joe Biden had become President-elect of the United States by winning 79,106,010 votes, or 51% of the vote.

On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany:       

“Destroy all German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants!”

If implemented, it would deprive surviving Germans of even the barest necessities after the war.  

Opposing him was Albert Speer, his favorite architect and Minister of Armaments. 

Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler pouring over architectural plans

But Hitler refused to back down. He gave Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.

The next day, Speer told Hitler: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!” 

“Then all is well,” said Hitler, suddenly with tears in his eyes.

“If I stand unreservedly behind you,” said Speer, “then you must entrust me rather than the Gauleiters [district Party leaders serving as provincial governors] with the implementation of your decree.”

Filled with gratitude, Hitler signed the decree Speer had thoughtfully prepared before their fateful meeting.

By doing so, Hitler unintentionally gave Speer the power to thwart his “scorched earth” order.

Trained as an architect, Speer had joined the Nazi Party in 1931. He met Hitler in 1933, when he presented the Fuhrer with architectural designs for the Nuremberg Rally scheduled for that year. 

From then on, Speer became Hitler’s “genius architect” assigned to create buildings meant to last for a thousand years. “If Hitler had been capable of friendship,” Speer said after the war, “I would have been that friend.”

In 1943, Hitler appointed him Minister of Armaments, charged with revitalizing the German war effort.

Nevertheless, Speer now crisscrossed Germany, persuading military leaders and district governors to not destroy the vital facilities that would be needed after the war.

“No other senior National Socialist could have done the job,” writes Randall Hanson, author of Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Valkyrie.

“Speer was one of the very few people in the Reich—-perhaps even the only one—with such power to influence actors’ willingness/unwillingness to destroy.”

Despite his later conviction for war crimes at Nuremberg, Speer never regretted his efforts to save Germany from total destruction at the hands of Adolf Hitler. 

* * * * *

As the Third Reich came to its fiery end, Adolf Hitler blamed the German people for being “unworthy” of his “genius” and losing the war he had started.

His attitude was: “If I can’t rule Germany, then there won’t be a Germany.”

Fortunately for Germany, one man—Albert Speer—finally broke ranks with his Fuhrer.

Albert Speer

Risking death, he refused to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. Even more important, he successfully blocked such destruction and persuaded influential military and civilian leaders to disobey the order as well.

As a result, those targets slated for destruction were spared.

* * * * *

Fast forward 75 years: Facing the end of his Presidency, Donald Trump desperately sought to remain in power. Having “joked” about being “President-for-Life,” he now fought to make that a reality. 

Unlike his 44 predecessors, he rejected the will of the voters and for almost three weeks denied his successor access to the resources he needed to launch a smooth transition.

Donald Trump

Even worse: Instead of showing concern for the country he claimed to love, Trump sought to relentlessly destroy those institutions that guarantee American freedom and safety:

• The Pentagon
• The CIA
• The FBI
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

His attitude clearly was: “If I can’t rule America, there won’t be an America.” 

Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans embraced his most outrageous lies—or refused to openly refute them—as the COVID-19 pandemic slaughtered about 1,000 Americans a day.

Even Republicans who privately admitted the Trump era was ending realized that 70 million hate-filled Americans voted for him in 2020. And eagerly awaited the coming of the next would-be Fuhrer.

They would also eagerly vote out of office any Republican who dared break with the man they worshiped like a cult leader. 

For Congressional Republicans, staying in office—and keeping their power and perks—was their top priority.

On November 25, 2019, CNN political correspondent Jake Tapper interviewed Representative Adam Schiff on Donald Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

What would it mean if Republicans uniformly oppose any articles of impeachment against Trump? asked Tapper.

“It will have very long-term consequences, if that’s where we end up,” replied Schiff.

“And if not today, I think Republican members in the future, to their children and their grandchildren, will have to explain why they did nothing in the face of this deeply unethical man who did such damage to the country.” 

In the end, only one of 53 Republican Senators—Mitt Romney—dared to vote for impeachment. And he became an instant pariah for it. 

On March 18, 1945, Albert Speer, opposing Hitler’s plans to destroy Germany’s infrastructure, addressed a memo to his Fuhrer, in which he wrote: “No one has the right to take the viewpoint that the fate of the German people is tied to his personal fate.”

The country is still waiting for a Republican Albert Speer to step forward and save America from the self-destructive intentions of its own would-be Fuhrer.