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1. Definition
PART I
HISTORY OF THE OT
A. 1938 to D-Day
The OT has been variously defined "by the enemy. ' Hitler called i t
"an organisation entrusted with the execution of construction tasks
playing a decisive role in the war effort". Fritz TQDT, its founder,
proudly referring to it as "a task force", and deprecating the
gradual increase of administrative routine, said on one occasion:
"We are called Organisation Todt without ever having organised 11 .
The German Supreme Command, as early as 1940, stated officially
that members of the OT were to be regarded as "Miliz" (militia; for a
definition of the present military status of OT, see Table i) .
The Organisation in one of its circulars termed itself M a body
charged with military construction for defensive purposes"•
2. Fritz TCDT's Career to 1938
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In May 1938, the Army Itortress Engineers had been working on
the Sieved line, or West Wall as it is now called by the Germans,
for two years without any prospect of completing it in time to fit
into the Nazi military schedule. The General Inspektor fttr das
deutsche Strassenwesen (Inspector General of German Headways)
Dr. TOOT, was the man picked to take over the job from the Anqy.
Fritz TODT was born on 4th September 1891, in PFORZHEIM, Baden.
He obtained the decree of Dr. Ing. (Doctor of Engineering) from the
Munich Technical Institute and entered the imperial Army in 1914,
as Lieutenant of the Reserve. Be transferred to the Air Force,
was wounded in August 1918 in air combat, received the Iron Cross,
and the Order of the House of Hohenzollern, but stil l held the rank
of Leu tenant at the conclusion of World War I. Shortly after, he
entered the employ of the construction firm, Sager and Woe me r
at MUNICH, a concern specializing in road and tunnel construction,
and became its manager. He joined the Nazi Party as early as 1922,
soon won HITLER'S friendship and confidence, and was one of the
founders of the Nationalsozialistischer Bund deutscher Technik
(Nazi League of German Technicians) which then used the SS training
school at FLASSENBURG near KUIMB.ACH as a training and research
institute. (The school has since been appropriated by the OT as
an indoctrination centre for its ranking personnel). The League
was especially concerned with opening new industrial fields including
those of the armament industry, leading to the economic independence
of the Reich and to the solution of the unemployment problem.
TCIDT, for instance, wrote a paper about 1930 entitled, Proposals
and Financial Hans for the Qnployment of one Million Men.
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The project as outlined in substance was a plan for a Reich
highway system, incidentally, said to have been based on a similar
study issued by the German Ministry of Economics as early as 1923*
On 28th June 1933* & state-owned public corporation was established
by Cabinet decree under the title of Reiohsautobahnen (Reich Highway
System) and a permanent administrative office with the title of
General Inspektor f&r das deutsche Strassenwesen (inspectorate
General of German Roadways) was established simultaneously and put under
the direction of TQDT. The corporation was set up as a subsidiary
of the Reichsbahn (State Railways) which exercised parental control,
over it . The German Armed Forces, however, retained general powers
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