Preparing for the Miraculous

idge across the afterlife 157In January 1944 Speer had to be hospitalized for a seriousknee and lung infection. The moment was not opportune forhim because Göring, always covetous of more power, hadbeen intriguing against him, using the sinister Bormann tomanœuvre Speer into disfavour with Hitler. The medical institutionwhere Speer’s condition had grown critical was astate-of-the-art Party hospital at Hochenlychen, near Berlin,run by Dr Karl Gebhardt. This was an SS-Gruppenführerand the personal physician of Himmler, who, as Speer saidlater, had directed Gebhardt to eliminate him.In Inside the Third Reich, his memoirs, Speer wrote:“The doctors prepared my wife for the worst. But in contrastto this pessimism, I myself was feeling a remarkableeuphoria. The little room expanded into a magnificent hall.A plain wardrobe I had been staring at for three weeksturned into a richly carved display piece, inlaid with rarewoods. Hovering between living and dying, I had a senseof well-being such as I had only rarely experienced.”In Speer’s conversations with Gitta Sereny, however,we read what really happened: he, the very ambitious, verymaterialistic and very matter-of-fact architect, powerfulminister and top Nazi, had had a near-death experience! AsSereny reports the particular conversation: “‘I have neverbeen so happy in my life’, Speer said. He was ‘above’, hesaid, looking down at himself in the hospital bed. ‘I saweverything very clearly. The doctors and nurses hovering,and [his wife] Margaret looking sort of soft and slim, herface small and pale ... What Professor Koch and the nurseswere doing’, Speer continued, ‘looked like a silent dance tome. The room was so beautiful ...’ He smiled at the memory.‘I was not alone; there were many figures, all in white andlight grey, and there was music ... And then somebody said:“Not yet.” And I realized I had to go back and I said I didn’twant to. But I was told I had to – it was not yet my time.