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A previous owner slipped a protective plastic sleeve over the dark brown hard covers of this book. It can easily be removed without damaging the 75 year old book, which is in nice used condition.

Fritz Todt became the first recipient of the newly created Deutscher Orden der NSDAP (German Order of the Nazi Party), the most important award that the Nazi Party could bestow on an individual for "duties of the highest order to the state and party". Albert Speer was his successor.

Fritz Todt gained great experience in civil engineering working for the famous construction firm of Sager & Woerner after his service as a flying observer in the German Air Force during World War I. Todt was an early National Socialist, and his energy and capacity caught the eye of Nazi Party Führer Adolf Hitler. In 1933, as Germany's 23rd Chancellor, Hitler put Todt in charge of all highway construction in Germany including that of the Reichsautobahn network, the world's first real freeway system. Later he also built the Westwall, a concrete defensive line of "dragon's teeth" along the western border of Germany and the Atlantikwall, concrete bunkers and gun emplacements along the English Channel. Todt also erected huge concrete "pens" for Kriegsmarine submarines near Lorient on the west coast of France and his OT men were involved in many construction projects on the East Front.

Holding a general's rank in the SA, Luftwaffe and SS, this human dynamo was killed at age 52 in an airplane crash on 8 February 1942, shortly after take-off from Rastenburg in East Prussia where he had held meetings with Hitler at his Wolf's Lair HQ. Hitler provided Dr. Ing. Fritz Todt with one of the largest and most impressive funeral services ever held in Germany at the New Reichschancellery in Berlin (see reference photo left). He was buried with full Nazi honors.

This 7-1/8 x 9-1/2 inch, 52-page book FRITZ TODT Requiem by pro-Nazi writer Hanns Johst was published by the Central Publishing House Franz Eher Nachfolger in Munich in 1943 to honor Fritz Todt. The end papers are illustrated with a Reichsautobahn scene and a huge concrete bunker under construction.

The requiem was given to "the deified soul of Fritz Todt through the hands of his wife, and the belief in Albert Speer.  Dedicated to the creative Brother of our Great Dead!"

This example of FRITZ TODT Requiem came from the library of the Weser Airplane Manufacturing Company in Bremen. "Weser"-Flugzeugbau GmbH was a subsidiary of Deschimag of Berlin, and during World War II it was Nazi Germany's fourth largest airplane manufacturing company.