Word: todt
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Died. Fritz Todt, 50, German Minister of Munitions and Major General; "in an aircrash"; reportedly somewhere east of Germany. The Nazis' No. 1 builder, he was in charge of military reconstruction in the wake of the Army's advances through Europe. Other Todt jobs: the Siegfried Line, the new Chancellery in Berlin, the Autobahnen, network of superhighways...
When General Georg Thomas began in 1935 to form the War Economy Board, Dr. Todt was called in to plan the engineering side of the conquests to come. With Germanic thoroughness he improvised his Economic Mobile Units to salvage anything from an outhouse to a mine in the wake of the armies...
...Todt was given the rank of Major General and set to building the Siegfried Line. He commuted to Berlin for a personal job for his boss, building in short order the new Reich Chancellery. He is also supposed to have constructed the Führer's retreat at Berchtesgaden...
...months after the war started, Dr. Todt was tossed still another job. As Minister for Armaments and Munitions, he became straw boss for the whole German munitions industry...
Part of Dr. Todt's success is undoubtedly due to his diplomatic way with his Führer. When in 1938 he wanted to build the great Elbe bridge, he did not try to go ahead under his own steam to requisition materials from Germany's scant stocks of steel and iron. Instead he got quick action by suggesting that Hitler himself help to design...