Albert Speer (born Berthold
Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, pronounced ; March 19, 1905 –
September 1, 1981) was a German
architect who was, for part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War
Production for the Third Reich.
Speer was
Adolf Hitler's chief
architect before assuming ministerial office. As "the Nazi who said
sorry", he accepted responsibility at the
Nuremberg
trials
and in his memoirs for crimes of the Nazi
regime. His level of involvement in the persecution of the
Jews and his level of knowledge of
the
Holocaust remain matters of dispute.
Speer joined the
Nazi Party in 1931. His
architectural skills made him increasingly prominent within the
Party and he became a member of Hitler's inner circle.
The dictator
commissioned him to design and construct a number of structures,
including the Reich
Chancellery
and the
Zeppelinfeld
stadium in Nuremberg
where Party rallies were
held. Speer also made plans to
reconstruct Berlin on a grand scale,
with huge buildings, wide boulevards, and a reorganised
transportation system.
As Hitler's Minister of Armaments and War Production, Speer was so
successful that Germany's war production continued to increase
despite massive and devastating
Allied bombing. After the war, he was
tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role
in the Nazi regime, principally for the use of
forced labour.
He served
his full sentence, most of it at Spandau Prison
in West
Berlin.
Following his release from Spandau in 1966, Speer published two
bestselling autobiographical works,
Inside the Third Reich and
Spandau: The Secret
Diaries, detailing his often close personal relationship
with Hitler, and providing readers and historians with a unique
perspective within the workings of the Nazi regime.
He later wrote a third
book, Infiltration, about the SS
.
Speer died of natural causes in 1981 while on a visit to
London.
Early years
Speer was
born in Mannheim,
Germany
, into a wealthy middle class family. He was
the second of three sons of Albert and Luise Speer.
In 1918, the family
moved permanently to their summer home, Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg, in
Heidelberg
. According to
Henry
T. King, deputy prosecutor at
Nuremberg who later wrote a book about Speer, "Love and warmth were
lacking in the household of Speer's youth." Speer originally wanted
to become a mathematician, but his father said if Speer chose this
occupation he would "lead a life without money, without a position,
and without a future". Instead, Speer followed in the footsteps of
his father and grandfather and studied architecture.
Speer
began his architectural studies at the University of
Karlsruhe
instead of a more highly acclaimed institution
because the hyperinflation crisis of
1923 limited his parents' income. In 1924 when the
crisis had abated, he transferred to the "much more reputable"
Technical
University of Munich
. In 1925 he transferred again, this time to
the Technical University of
Berlin
where he studied under Heinrich Tessenow, whom Speer greatly
admired. After passing his exams in 1927, Speer became
Tessenow's assistant, a high honor for a man of 22. As Tessenow's
assistant, Speer taught some of his classes while continuing his
own postgraduate studies. In Munich, and continuing in Berlin,
Speer began a close friendship, ultimately spanning over 50 years,
with
Rudolf Wolters, who also studied
under Tessenow.
In the summer of 1922, Speer began to date Margarete (Margret)
Weber (1905–1987). The relationship was frowned upon by Speer's
class-conscious mother, who felt the Webers were socially inferior
(
Herr Weber was a successful craftsman who employed 50
workers). Despite this opposition, the two married in Berlin on
August 28, 1928, but seven years elapsed before Margarete Speer was
first invited to stay at her in-laws' home.
Nazi architect
Joining the Nazis (1930–1934)
Speer in 1933.
Speer stated he was apolitical when he was a young man, and that he
attended a Berlin Nazi rally in December 1930 at the urging of
some of his students.
He was surprised to find Hitler dressed in a
neat blue suit, rather than the brown uniform
seen on Nazi Party posters, and was greatly
impressed, not only with Hitler's proposals, but also with the man
himself. Several weeks later he attended another rally,
though this one was presided over by
Joseph Goebbels. Speer was disturbed by the
way Goebbels whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Despite this unease,
Speer could not shake the impression Hitler had made on him. On
March 1, 1931, he applied to join the Nazi Party and became member
number 474,481.
Speer's
first Nazi Party position was as head of the Party's motorist
association for the Berlin suburb of Wannsee
; he was in fact the only Nazi in the town with a
car. Speer reported to the Party's leader for the
West End of
Berlin
, Karl Hanke, who hired
Speer — without fee — to redecorate a villa he had just
rented. Hanke was enthusiastic about the resulting
work.
In 1931, Speer surrendered his position as Tessenow's assistant due
to pay cuts and moved to Mannheim, hoping to use his father's
connections to get commissions. He had little success, and his
father gave him a job as manager of the elder Speer's properties.
In July 1932, the Speers visited Berlin to help out the Party
prior to the
Reichstag elections. While they
were there, Hanke recommended the young architect to Goebbels to
help renovate the Party's Berlin headquarters. Speer, who had been
about to leave with his wife for a vacation in
East Prussia, agreed to do the work. When the
commission was completed, Speer returned to Mannheim and remained
there as Hitler
took office in
January 1933.
After the Nazis took control, Hanke recalled Speer to Berlin.
Goebbels,
the new Propaganda Minister, commissioned Speer to renovate
his Ministry's building on
Wilhelmplatz
. Speer also designed the 1933
May Day commemoration in Berlin. In
Inside the
Third Reich, he wrote that, on seeing the original design for
the Berlin rally on Hanke's desk, he remarked that the site would
resemble a
Schützenfest —
a rifle club meet. Hanke, now Goebbels'
State Secretary, challenged him
to create a better design. As Speer learned later, Hitler was
enthusiastic about Speer's design (which used giant flags), though
Goebbels took credit for it. Tessenow was dismissive: "Do you think
you have created something? It's showy, that's all."
The organizers of the 1933
Nuremberg
Nazi Party rally asked Speer to submit designs for the rally,
bringing him into contact with Hitler for the first time. Neither
the organizers nor
Rudolf Hess were
willing to decide whether to approve the plans, and Hess sent Speer
to Hitler's Munich apartment to seek his approval. When Speer
entered, the new
Chancellor was busy
cleaning a pistol, which he briefly laid aside to cast a short,
interested glance at the plans, approving them without even looking
at the young architect. This work won Speer his first national
post, as Nazi Party "Commissioner for the Artistic and Technical
Presentation of Party Rallies and Demonstrations".
Speer's next major assignment was as liaison to the Berlin building
trades for
Paul Troost's renovation of
the Chancellery. As Chancellor, Hitler had a residence in the
building and came by every day to be briefed by Speer and the
building supervisor on the progress of the renovations. After one
of these briefings, Hitler invited Speer to lunch, to the
architect's great excitement. Hitler evinced considerable interest
in Speer during the luncheon, and later told Speer that he had been
looking for a young architect capable of carrying out his
architectural dreams for the new Germany. Speer quickly became part
of Hitler's inner circle; he was expected to call on Hitler in the
morning for a walk or chat, to provide consultation on
architectural matters, and to discuss Hitler's ideas. Most days he
was invited to dinner.
The two men found much in common: Hitler spoke of Speer as a
"kindred spirit" for whom he had always maintained "the warmest
human feelings". The young, ambitious architect was dazzled by his
rapid rise and close proximity to Hitler, which guaranteed him a
flood of commissions from the government and from the very highest
ranks of the Party. Speer testified at Nuremberg, "I belonged to a
circle which consisted of other artists and his personal staff. If
Hitler had had any friends at all, I certainly would have been one
of his close friends."
First Architect of the Third Reich (1934–1939)
When Troost died on January 21, 1934, Speer effectively
replaced him as the Party's chief architect. Hitler appointed Speer
as head of the Chief Office for Construction, which placed him
nominally on Hess's staff.
One of
Speer's first commissions after Troost's death was the
Zeppelinfeld stadium—the Nuremberg parade grounds seen in Leni
Riefenstahl's propaganda masterpiece Triumph of the Will. This
huge work was capable of holding 340,000 people.
The tribune was influenced by the
Pergamon Altar in Anatolia
, but was magnified to an enormous scale.
Speer insisted that as many events as possible be held at night,
both to give greater prominence to his lighting effects and to hide
the individual Nazis, many of whom were overweight. Speer
surrounded the site with 130
anti-aircraft searchlights.
This created the effect of a "cathedral of light" or, as it was called
by British
Ambassador Sir Neville Henderson, a "cathedral of
ice". Speer described this as his most beautiful work, and
as the only one that has stood the test of time.
Nuremberg
was to be the site of many more official Nazi buildings, most of
which were never built; for example, the German
Stadium
would have accommodated 400,000 spectators, while
an even larger rally ground would have held half a million
Nazis. While planning these structures, Speer invented the
concept of "
ruin value": that major
buildings should be constructed in such a way that they would leave
aesthetically pleasing ruins for thousands of years into the
future. Such ruins would be a testament to the greatness of the
Third Reich, just as ancient
Greek or
Roman ruins were symbols of the
greatness of those civilizations. Hitler enthusiastically embraced
this concept, and ordered that all the Reich's important buildings
be constructed in accord with it.
Speer could not avoid seeing the brutal excesses of the Nazi
regime, although they had little effect on him. Shortly after the
Night of the Long Knives,
Hitler ordered Speer to take workmen and go to the building housing
the offices of
Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen to begin its conversion into
a security headquarters, even though it was still occupied by von
Papen's officials. Speer and his group entered the building, to be
confronted with a pool of blood, apparently from the body of
Herbert von Bose, von Papen's
secretary, who had been killed there. Speer related that the sight
had no effect on him, other than to cause him to avoid that
room.
When
Hitler deprecated Werner March's design
for the Olympic
Stadium
for the 1936 Summer
Olympics as too modernistic,
Speer modified the plans by adding a stone exterior. Speer
designed the German Pavilion for the
1937 international exposition in Paris.
The German and
Soviet
pavilion
sites were opposite each other. On learning (through
a clandestine look at the Soviet plans) that the Soviet design
included two
colossal figures
seemingly about to overrun the German site, Speer
modified his design to include a cubic mass which would check their
advance, with a huge eagle on top looking down on the Soviet
figures. Both pavilions were awarded gold medals for their
designs.
180px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_146III-373,_Modell_der_Neugestaltung_Berlins_("Germania").jpg"
style='width:180px' alt="" />
In 1937, Hitler appointed Speer as
General Building Inspector for the Reich
Capital with the rank of undersecretary of state in the Reich
government. The position carried with it extraordinary powers over
the Berlin city government and made Speer answerable to Hitler
alone. It also made Speer a member of the
Reichstag,
though the body by then
had little
effective power. Hitler ordered Speer to make plans to rebuild
Berlin. The plans centered around a three-mile long grand boulevard
running from north to south, which Speer called the
Prachtstrasse, or Street of Magnificence; he also referred
to it as the "North-South Axis".
At the north end of the boulevard, Speer
planned to build the Volkshalle
, a huge assembly hall with a dome which would
have been over high, with floor space for 180,000 people.
At the
southern end of the avenue would be a huge triumphal arch; it would
be almost high, and able to fit the Arc de Triomphe
inside its opening. The outbreak of
World War II in 1939 led to the postponement,
and eventual abandonment, of these plans. Part of the land for the
boulevard was to be obtained by consolidating Berlin's railway
system. Speer hired Wolters as part of his design team, with
special responsibility for the
Prachtstrasse. When Speer's
father saw the model for the new Berlin, he said to his son,
"You've all gone completely insane."
Caricature of Speer, 1939
In January 1938, Hitler asked Speer to build a new Reich
Chancellery on the same site as the existing structure, and said he
needed it for urgent foreign policy reasons no later than his next
New Year's reception for diplomats on January 10, 1939. This
was a huge undertaking, especially since the existing Chancellery
was in full operation. After consultation with his assistants,
Speer agreed. Although the site could not be cleared until April,
Speer was successful in building the large, impressive structure in
nine months.
The structure included the "Marble Gallery":
at 146 metres long, almost twice as long as the Hall of
Mirrors
in the Palace of Versailles
. Speer employed thousands of workers in two
shifts. Hitler, who had remained away from the project, was
overwhelmed when Speer turned it over, fully furnished, two days
early. Tessenow was less impressed, suggesting to Speer that he
should have taken nine years over the project.
The second
Chancellery was damaged by the Battle
of Berlin in 1945 and was eventually dismantled by the Soviets,
its stone used for a war
memorial
.
During the Chancellery project, the
pogrom of
Kristallnacht took place. Speer would
make no mention of it in the first draft of
Inside the Third
Reich, and it was only on the urgent advice of his publisher
that he added a mention of seeing the ruins of the Central
Synagogue in Berlin from his car.
Wartime architect (1939–1942)
Speer supported the
German
invasion of Poland and
subsequent
war, though he recognized that it would lead to the
postponement, at the least, of his architectural dreams. In his
later years, Speer, talking with his biographer-to-be
Gitta Sereny, explained how he felt in 1939:
"Of course I was perfectly aware that [Hitler] sought world
domination ... [A]t that time I asked for nothing better. That was
the whole point of my buildings. They would have looked grotesque
if Hitler had sat still in Germany. All I ''wanted'' was for this
great man to dominate the globe."{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=186.}}
Speer placed his department at the disposal of the
''[[Wehrmacht]]''. When Hitler remonstrated, and said it was not
for Speer to decide how his workers should be used, Speer simply
ignored him.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=111–12.}} Among Speer's
innovations were quick-reaction squads to construct roads or clear
away debris; before long, these units would be used to clear bomb
sites.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=115}} As the war progressed, initially
to great German success, Speer continued preliminary work on the
Berlin and Nuremberg plans, at Hitler's insistence, but failed to
convince him of the need to suspend peacetime construction
projects.{{Harvnb|Speer|1970|pp=176–78.}}{{Harvnb|Speer|1970|pp=180–81.}}
Speer also oversaw the construction of buildings for the
''Wehrmacht'' and ''[[Luftwaffe]]'', and developed a considerable
organization to deal with this work.{{Harvnb|Speer|1970|p=182.}} In
1940, [[Joseph Stalin]] proposed that Speer pay a visit to Moscow.
Stalin had been particularly impressed by Speer's work in Paris,
and wished to meet the "Architect of the Reich". Hitler,
alternating between amusement and anger, did not allow Speer to go,
fearing that Stalin would put Speer in a "rat hole" until a new
Moscow arose.{{Harvnb|Fest|2007|pp=66–67.}} When [[Operation
Barbarossa|Germany invaded the Soviet Union]] in 1941, Speer came
to doubt, despite Hitler's reassurances, that his projects for
Berlin would ever be completed.{{Harvnb|Fest|2007|p=69.}}
==Minister of Armaments== ===Appointment and increasing power=== On
February 8, 1942, Minister of Armaments [[Fritz Todt]] died in a
plane crash shortly after taking off from Hitler's eastern
headquarters at [[Kętrzyn|Rastenburg]]. Speer, who had arrived in
Rastenburg the previous evening, had accepted Todt's offer to fly
with him to Berlin, but had canceled some hours before takeoff
(Speer stated in his memoirs that the cancellation was due to
exhaustion from travel and a late-night meeting with Hitler). Later
that day, Hitler appointed Speer as Todt's successor to all of his
posts. In ''Inside the Third Reich'', Speer recounts his meeting
with Hitler and his reluctance to take ministerial office, only
doing so because Hitler commanded it. Speer also states that
[[Hermann Göring]] raced to Hitler's headquarters on hearing of
Todt's death, hoping to claim Todt's powers. Hitler instead
presented Göring with the ''fait accompli'' of Speer's appointment,
causing Göring to leave without even attending Todt's
funeral.{{Harvnb|Speer|1970|pp=193–96.}} At the time of Speer's
accession to the office, the German economy, unlike the British
one, was not fully geared for war production. Consumer goods were
still being produced at nearly as high a level as during peacetime.
No fewer than five "Supreme Authorities" had jurisdiction over
armament production — one of which, the Ministry of Economic
Affairs, had declared in November 1941 that conditions did not
permit an increase in armament production. Few women were employed
in the factories, which were running only one shift. One evening
soon after his appointment, Speer went to visit a Berlin armament
factory; he found no one on the
premises.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=139–41.}} [[Image:Bundesarchiv Bild
183-H28426, A. Speer, E. Milch, W.
Messerschmitt.jpg|left|200px|thumb|Speer with ''Luftwaffe'' Field
Marshal [[Erhard Milch]] and aircraft designer [[Willy
Messerschmidt]]]] Speer overcame these difficulties by centralizing
power over the war economy in himself. Factories were given
autonomy, or as Speer put it, "self-responsibility", and each
factory concentrated on a single
product.{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=295.}} Backed by Hitler's strong
support (the dictator stated, "Speer, I'll sign anything that comes
from you"{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=143.}}), he divided the armament
field according to weapon system, with experts rather than civil
servants overseeing each department. No department head could be
older than 55 — anyone older being susceptible to "routine and
arrogance"{{Harvnb|Fest|2007|p=76.}} — and no deputy older than 40.
Over these departments was a central planning committee headed by
Speer, which took increasing responsibility for war production, and
as time went by, for the German economy itself. According to the
minutes of a conference at ''Wehrmacht'' High Command in
March 1942, "It is only Speer's word that counts nowadays. He
can interfere in all departments. Already he overrides all
departments ... On the whole, Speer's attitude is to the
point."{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=142–44.}} Goebbels would note in his
diary in June 1943, "Speer is still tops with the ''Führer''. He is
truly a genius with organization."{{Harvnb|Schmidt|1984|p=75.}}
Speer was so successful in his position that by late 1943, he was
widely regarded among the Nazi elite as a possible successor to
Hitler.{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|pp=376–77.}} While Speer had tremendous
power, he was of course subordinate to Hitler. Nazi officials
sometimes went around Speer by seeking direct orders from the
dictator. When Speer ordered peacetime building work suspended, the
''[[Gauleiter]]s'' (Nazi Party district leaders) obtained an
exemption for their pet projects. When Speer sought the appointment
of Hanke as a labor czar to optimize the use of German labor,
Hitler, under the influence of [[Martin Bormann]], instead
appointed [[Fritz Sauckel]]. Rather than increasing female labor
and taking other steps to better organize German labor, as Speer
favored, Sauckel advocated importing labor from the occupied
nations — and did so, obtaining workers for (among other things)
Speer's armament factories, using the most brutal
methods.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=146–50.}} [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild
183-J14589, Albert Speer, Panzer T-34.jpg|thumb|200px|Speer
inspects a [[T-34]] tank.]] On December 10, 1943, Speer
visited the underground [[Mittelwerk]] [[V-2 rocket]] factory that
used [[concentration camp]] labor. Shocked by the conditions there
(5.7 percent of the work force died that month), and to ensure the
workers were in good enough shape to perform the labor,{{Harvnb|van
der Vat|1997|pp=175–76.}} Speer ordered improved conditions for the
workers and the construction of the above-ground
[[Mittelbau-Dora|Dora camp]]. In spite of these changes, half of
the workers at Mittelwerk eventually died. Speer later commented,
"[t]he conditions for these prisoners were in fact barbarous, and a
sense of profound involvement and personal guilt seizes me whenever
I think of them."{{Harvnb|Speer|1970|p=370.}} By 1943, the [[Allied
Powers|Allies]] had gained air superiority over Germany, and
bombings of German cities and industry had become commonplace.
However, the Allies in their [[Strategic bombing during World War
II|strategic bombing campaign]] did not concentrate on industry,
and Speer, with his improvisational skill, was able to overcome
bombing losses. In spite of these losses, German production of
tanks more than doubled in 1943, production of planes increased by
80 percent, and production time for [[submarine]]s was reduced from
one year to two months. Production would continue to increase until
the second half of 1944, by which time enough equipment to supply
270 army divisions was being produced—although the ''Wehrmacht''
had only 150 divisions in the field.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=168–70.}}
In January 1944, Speer fell ill with complications from an
inflamed knee, and was away from the office for three months.
During his absence, his political rivals mainly Göring, and
[[Martin Bormann]], attempted to have some of his powers
permanently transferred to them, while SS chief [[Heinrich
Himmler]] tried to have him physically isolated by placing him
under SS and [[Gestapo]] surveillance through an SS doctor. In
April, they succeeded in having him deprived of responsibility for
construction, and Speer promptly sent Hitler a bitter letter,
concluding with an offer of his resignation. Judging Speer
indispensable to the war effort, Field Marshal [[Erhard Milch]]
persuaded Hitler to try to get his minister to reconsider. Hitler
sent Milch to Speer with a message not addressing the dispute but
instead stating that he still regarded Speer as highly as ever.
According to Milch, upon hearing the message, Speer burst out, "The
''[[Führer]]'' can kiss my ass!"{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=210.}} After a
lengthy argument, Milch persuaded Speer to withdraw his offer of
resignation, on the condition his powers were
restored.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=207–12.}} On April 23, 1944,
Speer went to see Hitler who agreed that "everything [will] stay as
it was, [Speer will] remain the head of all German
construction".{{Harvnb|Speer|1981|pp=232–33.}} According to Speer,
while he was successful in this debate, Hitler had also won,
"because he wanted and needed me back in his corner, and he got
me".{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=429.}} === Fall of the Reich ===
[[Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1984-1206-511, Albert
Speer.jpg|thumb|''Reichsminister'' Speer rests on a doorstep.]]
Speer's name was included on the list of members of a post-Hitler
government drawn up by the conspirators behind the [[July 20
plot|July 1944 assassination plot]] to kill Hitler. However,
the list had a question mark and the annotation "to be won over" by
his name, which likely saved him from the extensive purges that
followed the scheme's failure.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=224–26.}} By
February 1945, Speer, who had long concluded that the war was
lost, was working to supply areas about to be occupied with food
and materials to get them through the hard times
ahead.{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=482.}} On March 19, 1945, Hitler
issued his [[Nero Decree]], ordering a [[scorched earth]] policy in
both Germany and the occupied
territories.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=250–51.}} Hitler's order, by its
terms, deprived Speer of any power to interfere with the decree,
and Speer went to confront Hitler, telling him the war was
lost.{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|pp=486–92.}} Hitler gave Speer 24 hours
to reconsider his position, and when the two met the following day,
Speer answered, "I stand unconditionally behind
you."{{Harvnb|Speer|1976|pp=4–6.}} However, he demanded the
exclusive power to implement the Nero Decree, and Hitler signed an
order to that effect. Using this order, Speer worked to persuade
generals and ''Gauleiters'' to evade the Nero Decree and avoid
needless sacrifice of personnel and destruction of industry that
would be needed after the war.{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|pp=498–504.}}
Speer managed to reach a relatively safe area near [[Hamburg]] as
the Nazi regime finally collapsed, but decided on a final, risky
visit to Berlin to see Hitler one more time. Speer stated at
Nuremberg, "I felt that it was my duty not to run away like a
coward, but to stand up to him again."{{Citation | title =Speer
cross-examination | publisher =[[University of Missouri]], Kansas
City | url
=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/Speer.html
| accessdate = 2008-10-18}} Speer visited the ''[[Führerbunker]]''
on April 22. Hitler seemed calm and somewhat distracted, and
the two had a long, disjointed conversation in which the dictator
defended his actions and informed Speer of his intent to commit
suicide and have his body burned. In the published edition of
''Inside the Third Reich'', Speer relates that he confessed to
Hitler that he had defied the Nero Decree, but then assured Hitler
of his personal loyalty, bringing tears to the dictator's eyes.
However, Speer biographer Gitta Sereny notes, "Psychologically, it
is possible that this is the way he remembered the occasion,
because it was how he would have liked to behave, and the way he
would have liked Hitler to react. But the fact is that none of it
happened; our witness to this is Speer
himself."{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=529.}} Sereny goes on to note that
Speer's original draft of his memoirs lacks the confession and
Hitler's tearful reaction, and contains an explicit denial that any
confession or emotional exchange took place, as had been alleged in
a French magazine article.{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|pp=528–531.}} The
following morning, Speer left the ''Führerbunker'', with Hitler
curtly bidding him farewell. Speer toured the damaged Chancellery
one last time before leaving Berlin to return to
Hamburg.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=263–70.}} On April 29, the day
before his suicide, Hitler prepared his [[Last will and testament
of Adolf Hitler|final political testament]]. That document excluded
Speer from the Cabinet and specified that Speer was to be replaced
by his subordinate, [[Karl Saur|Karl-Otto Saur]].{{Harvnb|van der
Vat|1997|p=234.}} ==Nuremberg trial== [[File:Bundesarchiv Bild
146-1985-079-31, Verhaftung von Dönitz, Speer und
Jodl.jpg|thumb|left|Leading members of the [[Flensburg Government]]
after their arrest. Speer (on the right) walks alongside [[Alfred
Jodl]] with [[Karl Dönitz]] ahead.]] After Hitler's death, Speer
offered his services to the so-called [[Flensburg
government|Flensburg Government]], headed by Hitler's successor,
[[Karl Dönitz]], and took a significant role in that short-lived
regime. On May 15, the Americans arrived and asked Speer if he
would be willing to provide information on the effects of the air
war. Speer agreed, and over the next several days, provided
information on a broad range of subjects. It was not until
May 23, weeks after the surrender of German troops, that the
Allies arrested the members of the Flensburg Government and brought
Nazi Germany to a formal end.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=273–81.}} Speer
was taken to several internment centers for Nazi officials and
interrogated. In September 1945, Speer was told that he would
be tried for [[war crime]]s, and several days later, he was taken
to Nuremberg and incarcerated there.{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=561.}}
Speer was [[indictment|indicted]] on all four possible counts:
first, participating in a common plan or [[conspiracy
(crime)|conspiracy]] for the accomplishment of [[crime against
peace]], second, planning, initiating and waging [[war of
aggression|wars of aggression]] and other crimes against peace,
third, war crimes, and lastly, [[Crime against humanity|crimes
against humanity]].{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=285.}} [[Image:Bundesarchiv
Bild 183-V01057-3, Nürnberger Prozess, Angeklagte.jpg|thumb|The
[[Nuremberg Trials|Nuremberg]] defendants listen to the proceedings
(Speer, top seated row, fifth from right).]] [[Supreme Court of the
United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] [[Associate Justice|Justice]]
[[Robert H. Jackson|Robert Jackson]], the chief U.S. prosecutor at
Nuremberg, alleged, "Speer joined in planning and executing the
program to dragoon [[POW|prisoners of war]] and [[foreign worker]]s
into German war industries, which waxed in output while the workers
waned in starvation."{{Citation | last = Conot | first = Robert |
author-link = | title = Justice at Nuremberg | place = New York |
publisher = Harper & Row | year = 1983 | page = 471 | isbn =
0881840327}} Speer's attorney, Dr. Hans Flächsner, presented Speer
as an artist thrust into political life, who had always remained a
non-ideologue and who had been promised by Hitler that he could
return to architecture after the
war.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=287–88.}} During his testimony, Speer
accepted responsibility for the Nazi regime's actions:
In political life, there is a responsibility for a
man's own sector. For that he is of course fully responsible. But
beyond that there is a collective responsibility when he has been
one of the leaders. Who else is to be held responsible for the
course of events, if not the closest associates around the Chief of
State?{{Harvnb|Speer|1970|p=516.}}
An observer at the trial, journalist and author [[William L.
Shirer]], wrote that, compared to his [[codefendant]]s, Speer “made
the most straightforward impression of all and ... during the long
trial spoke honestly and with no attempt to shirk his
responsibility and his guilt”.{{Citation | last = Shirer | first =
William | author-link = William L. Shirer | title = [[The Rise and
Fall of the Third Reich]] | place = [[New York]] | publisher =
[[Touchstone Books]] | edition = 30th anniversary (original
publication 1960) | year = 1990 | page = 1142–1143 | isbn =
0-671-72868}} Speer also testified that he had planned to kill
Hitler in early 1945 by dropping a canister of poison gas into the
bunker's air intake. He said his efforts were frustrated by a high
wall that had been built around the air
intake.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=245–46.}} Speer stated his motive was
despair at realizing that Hitler intended to take the German people
down with him.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=293–97.}} Speer's supposed
assassination plan subsequently met with some skepticism, with
Speer's architectural rival [[Hermann Giesler]] sneering, "the
second most powerful man in the state did not have a
ladder."{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=246.}} Speer was found guilty of war
crimes and crimes against humanity, though he was acquitted on the
other two counts. On October 1, 1946, he was sentenced to 20
years' imprisonment.{{Harvnb|van der Vat|1997|pp=281–82.}} While
three of the eight judges (two Soviet and [[Francis Biddle|one
American]]) initially advocated the death penalty for Speer, the
other judges did not, and a compromise sentence was reached "after
two days' discussion and some rather bitter
horse-trading".{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=29.}} The court's judgment
stated that:
... in the closing stages of the war [Speer] was one of
the few men who had the courage to tell Hitler that the war was
lost and to take steps to prevent the senseless destruction of
production facilities, both in occupied territories and in Germany.
He carried out his opposition to Hitler's scorched earth program
... by deliberately sabotaging it at considerable personal
risk.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=306.}}
Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death (including
Bormann, in absentia) and three acquitted; only seven of the
defendants were sentenced to imprisonment. They remained in the
cells at Nuremberg as the Allies debated where, and under what
conditions, they should be
incarcerated.{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=596.}} ==Imprisonment==
{{main|Spandau Prison}} On July 18, 1947, Speer and his six fellow
prisoners, all former high officials of the Nazi regime, were flown
from Nuremberg to Berlin under heavy
guard.{{Harvnb|Speer|1976|pp=65–67.}} The prisoners were taken to
Spandau Prison in the British Sector of what would become [[West
Berlin]], where they would be designated by number, with Speer
given Number Five.{{Harvnb|Speer|1976|pp=66–67.}} Initially, the
prisoners were kept in solitary confinement for all but half an
hour a day, and were not permitted to address each other or their
guards.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=309–10.}} As time passed, the strict
regimen was relaxed, especially during the three months in four
that the three Western powers were in control; the [[Allied Control
Council|four occupying powers]] took overall control on a monthly
rotation.{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=602.}} Speer considered himself an
outcast among his fellow prisoners for his acceptance of
responsibility at Nuremberg.{{Harvnb|Speer|1976|p=244.}} Speer made
a deliberate effort to make as productive a use of his time as
possible. He wrote, "I am obsessed with the idea of using this time
of confinement for writing a book of major importance ... That
could mean transforming prison cell into scholar's
den."{{Harvnb|Speer|1976|p=75.}} The prisoners were forbidden to
write memoirs, and mail was severely limited and censored. However,
due to an offer from a sympathetic orderly, Speer was able to have
his writings, which eventually amounted to 20,000 sheets, sent to
Wolters. By 1954, Speer had completed his memoirs, which became the
basis of ''Inside the Third Reich'', and which Wolters arranged to
have transcribed onto 1,100 typewritten
pages.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=316.}} He was also able to send letters
and financial instructions, and to obtain writing paper and letters
from the outside.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=310–11.}} His many letters
to his children, all secretly transmitted, eventually formed the
basis for ''Spandau: The Secret
Diaries''.{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=672.}} With the draft memoir
complete and clandestinely transmitted, Speer sought a new project.
He found one while taking his daily exercise, walking in circles
around the prison yard. Measuring the path's distance carefully,
Speer set out to walk the distance from Berlin to Heidelberg. He
then expanded his idea into a worldwide journey, visualizing the
places he was "traveling" through while walking the path around the
prison yard. Speer ordered guidebooks and other materials about the
nations through which he imagined he was passing, so as to envision
as accurate a picture as possible.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=316–17.}}
Meticulously calculating every meter traveled, and mapping
distances to the real-world geography, he began in northern
Germany, passed through Asia by a southern route before entering
Siberia, then crossed the [[Bering Strait]] and continued
southwards, finally ending his sentence 35 kilometers south of
[[Guadalajara, Jalisco|Guadalajara]],
Mexico.{{Harvnb|Speer|1976|p=447.}} Speer devoted much of his time
and energy to reading. Though the prisoners brought some books with
them in their personal property, Spandau Prison had no library so
books were sent from Spandau's municipal
library.{{Harvnb|Speer|1976|p=69.}} From 1952 the prisoners were
also able to order books from the Berlin central library in
[[Wilmersdorf]].{{Harvnb|Speer|1976|p=195.}} Speer was a voracious
reader and he completed well over 500 books in the first three
years at Spandau alone.{{Citation | last = Fishman | first = Jack |
year =1986 | title = Long Knives and Short Memories: The Spandau
Prison Story | publisher =Breakwater Books | page = 129 | isbn
=0-920911-00-5 }} He read classic novels, travelogues, books on
[[ancient Egypt]], and biographies of such figures as [[Lucas
Cranach the Elder|Lucas Cranach]], [[Friedrich Preller]], and
[[Genghis Khan]]. Speer took to the prison garden for enjoyment and
work, at first to do something constructive while afflicted with
writer's block.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=312.}} He was allowed to build
an ambitious garden, transforming what he initially described as a
"wilderness"{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=605.}} into what the American
commander at Spandau described as "Speer's [[Garden of
Eden]]".{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=654.}} Speer's supporters maintained
a continual call for his release. Among those who pledged support
for Speer's sentence to be commuted were [[Charles de
Gaulle]],{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=319.}} U.S. diplomat [[George Wildman
Ball|George Ball]], former U.S. High Commissioner [[John J.
McCloy]],{{Harvnb|Speer|1976|p=440.}} and former Nuremberg
prosecutor [[Hartley Shawcross, Baron Shawcross|Hartley
Shawcross]]. [[Willy Brandt]] was a strong advocate of Speer's,
supporting his release,{{Harvnb|van der Vat|1997|p=319.}} sending
flowers to [[Hilde Schramm|his daughter]] on the day of his
release,{{Harvnb|Speer|1976|p=448.}} and putting an end to the
de-Nazification proceedings against Speer,{{Harvnb|van der
Vat|1997|p=324.}} which could have caused his property to be
confiscated.{{Harvnb|van der Vat|1997|pp=299–300.}} A reduced
sentence required the consent of all four of the occupying powers,
and the Soviets adamantly opposed any such proposal. Speer served
his full sentence, and was released on the stroke of midnight as
October 1, 1966 began.{{Harvnb|van der Vat|1997|pp=324–25.}}
==Release and later life== Speer's release from prison was a
worldwide media event, as reporters and photographers crowded both
the street outside Spandau and the lobby of the Berlin hotel where
Speer spent his first hours of freedom in over 20
years.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=320–21.}} However, Speer said little,
reserving most comments for a major interview published in ''[[Der
Spiegel]]'' in November 1966, in which he again took personal
responsibility for crimes of the Nazi regime.{{Harvnb|van der
Vat|1997|pp=333–34.}} Abandoning plans to return to architecture
(two proposed partners died shortly before his
release),{{Harvnb|Speer|1976|p=441.}} he revised his Spandau
writings into two [[autobiography|autobiographical]] books, and
later researched and published a third work, about Himmler and the
SS. His books, most notably ''Inside the Third Reich'' (in German,
''Erinnerungen'', or ''Reminiscences''{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|p=5.}})
and ''Spandau: The Secret Diaries'', provide a unique and personal
look into the personalities of the Nazi era, and have become much
valued by historians. Speer was aided in shaping the works by
[[Joachim Fest]] and [[Wolf Jobst Siedler]] from the publishing
house Ullstein.{{Harvnb|van der Vat|1997|pp=329–30.}} Following the
publication of his bestselling books, he donated a considerable
amount of money to Jewish charities. According to Siedler, these
donations were as high as 80% of his royalties. Speer kept the
donations anonymous, both for fear of rejection, and for fear of
being called a hypocrite.{{Harvnb|van der Vat|1997|p=348.}} As
early as 1953, when Wolters strongly objected to Speer referring to
Hitler in the memoirs draft as a criminal, Speer had predicted that
were the writings to be published, he would lose a "good many
friends". This came to pass, as following the publication of
''Inside the Third Reich'', close friends, such as Wolters and
sculptor [[Arno Breker]], distanced themselves from him. [[Hans
Baur]], Hitler's personal pilot, suggested, "Speer must have taken
leave of his senses."{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=345–46.}} Wolters
wondered that Speer did not now "walk through life in a hair shirt,
distributing his fortune among the victims of National Socialism,
forswear all the vanities and pleasures of life and live on locusts
and wild honey".{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|pp=328–29.}} Speer made himself
widely available to historians and other enquirers.{{Harvnb|van der
Vat|1997|p=354.}} He did an extensive, in-depth interview for the
June 1971 issue of ''[[Playboy]]'' magazine, in which he stated,
"If I didn't see it, then it was because I didn't want to see
it."{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=329.}} In October 1973, Speer made his
first trip to Britain, flying to London under an assumed name to be
interviewed on the [[BBC]] ''Midweek'' programme by [[Ludovic
Kennedy]]. Upon arrival, he was detained for almost 8 hours at
[[London Heathrow Airport|Heathrow Airport]] when British
immigration authorities discovered his true identity. The [[Home
Secretary]], [[Robert Carr]], allowed Speer into the country for 48
hours.{{cite news |first=David |last=Leigh |authorlink= |coauthors=
|title=Delay, then Albert Speer is allowed in
|url=http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/185/973/13016515w16/purl=rc1_TTDA_0_CS67729752&dyn=25!xrn_41_0_CS67729752&hst_1?sw_aep=oxfshlib
|work=[[The Times]] |publisher= |date=October 24, 1973
|accessdate=2008-12-17}} While in London eight years later to
participate in another BBC programme, Speer suffered a [[stroke]]
and died on September 1, 1981. Even to the end of his life,
Speer continued to question his actions under Hitler. In his final
book, ''Infiltration'', he asks, "What would have happened if
Hitler had asked me to make decisions that required the utmost
hardness? ... How far would I have gone? ... If I had occupied a
different position, to what extent would I have ordered atrocities
if Hitler had told me to do so?"{{Harvnb|Speer|1981|p=12–13.}}
Speer leaves the questions unanswered. ==Legacy and controversy==
=== Architectural legacy=== [[Image:Berlin Treptow Ehrenmal
11.jpg|thumb|[[Soviet War Memorial (Treptower Park)|The Soviet War
Memorial]], constructed using marble from Speer's Chancellery]]
Little remains of Speer's personal architectural works, other than
the plans and photographs. No buildings designed by Speer in the
Nazi era remain in Berlin; a double row of lampposts along the
[[Straße des 17. Juni|Strasse des 17. Juni]] designed by Speer
still stands.{{Harvnb|van der Vat|1997|p=75.}} The tribune of the
''Zeppelinfeld'' stadium in Nuremberg, though partly demolished,
may also be seen.{{Citation | title = Official website of Nuremberg
City Museum | publisher=Museen der Stadt Nürnberg | url =
http://www.museen.nuernberg.de/english/english/reichsparteitag_e/index_reichsparteitag_e.html
| accessdate = 2008-10-17 }} A perhaps more important legacy was
the "Arbeitsstab Wiederaufbau zerstörter Städte" (Working group on
Reconstruction of destroyed cities), authorized by Speer in 1943 to
rebuild bombed German cities to make them more livable in the age
of the automobile.Träume in Trümmern, ("Dreams in rumbles") by
Werner Durth and Niels Gutschow, Vieweg Friedr. + Sohn Ver (1988)
ISBN 3528087064 Headed by Wolters, the working group actually took
a possible military defeat into their calculations. The
''Arbeitsstab'''s recommendations served as the basis of the
postwar redevelopment plans in many cities, and ''Arbeitsstab''
members became prominent in the rebuilding. ===Actions regarding
the Jews=== As General Building Inspector, Speer was responsible
for the Central Department for
Resettlement.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=116.}} From 1939 onwards, the
Department used the [[Nuremberg Laws]] to evict Jewish tenants of
non-Jewish landlords in Berlin, to make way for non-Jewish tenants
displaced by redevelopment or bombing. Eventually, 75,000 Jews were
displaced by these measures.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=120.}} Speer was
aware of these activities, and inquired as to their
progress.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=119.}} At least one original memo
from Speer so inquiring still exists, as does the ''Chronicle'' of
the Department's activities, kept by Wolters. Following his release
from Spandau, Speer presented to the [[German Federal Archives]] an
edited version of the ''Chronicle'', stripped by Wolters of any
mention of the Jews.{{Harvnb|van der Vat|1997|p=339-343.}} When
[[David Irving]] discovered discrepancies between the edited
''Chronicle'' and other documents, Wolters explained the situation
to Speer, who responded by suggesting to Wolters that the relevant
pages of the original ''Chronicle'' should "cease to
exist".{{Harvnb|Sereny|1995|pp=226–27.}} Wolters did not destroy
the ''Chronicle'', and, as his friendship with Speer deteriorated,
allowed access to the original ''Chronicle'' to doctoral student
[[:de:Matthias Schmidt|Matthias Schmidt]] (who, after obtaining his
doctorate, developed his thesis into a book, ''Albert Speer: The
End of a Myth'').{{Harvnb|van der Vat|1997|p=359–61.}} Speer
considered Wolters' actions to be a "betrayal" and a "stab in the
back".{{Harvnb|Fest|2007|p=196.}} The original ''Chronicle''
reached the Archives in 1983, after both Speer and Wolters had
died.{{Harvnb|Fest|1999|p=124.}} ===Knowledge of the Holocaust===
Speer maintained at Nuremberg and in his memoirs that he had no
actual knowledge of the Holocaust. In ''Inside the Third Reich'',
he wrote that in mid-1944, he was told by Hanke (by then
''Gauleiter'' of [[Lower Silesia]]) that the minister should never
accept an invitation to inspect a [[concentration camp]] in
neighboring [[Upper Silesia]], as "he had seen something there
which he was not permitted to describe and moreover could not
describe".{{Harvnb|Speer|1970|pp=375–76.}} Speer later concluded
that Hanke must have been speaking of [[Auschwitz concentration
camp|Auschwitz]], and blamed himself for not inquiring further of
Hanke or seeking information from Himmler or Hitler:
These seconds [when Hanke told Speer this, and Speer
did not inquire] were uppermost in my mind when I stated to the
international court at the Nuremberg Trial that, as an important
member of the leadership of the Reich, I had to share the total
responsibility for all that had happened. For from that moment on I
was inescapably contaminated morally; from fear of discovering
something which might have made me turn from my course, I had
closed my eyes ... Because I failed at that time, I still feel, to
this day, responsible for Auschwitz in a wholly personal
sense.
Much of the controversy over Speer's knowledge of the Holocaust has
centered on his presence at the Posen
Conference on October 6, 1943, at which Himmler gave a speech detailing the ongoing Holocaust
to Nazi leaders. Himmler said, "The grave decision had to be taken
to cause this people to vanish from the earth ... In the lands we
occupy, the Jewish question will be dealt with by the end of the
year." Speer is mentioned several times in the speech, and Himmler
seems to address him directly. In Inside the Third Reich,
Speer mentions his own address to the officials (which took place
earlier in the day) but does not mention Himmler's speech.
In 1971, American historian Erich Goldhagen published an article
arguing that Speer was present for Himmler's speech. According to
Fest in his biography of Speer, "Goldhagen's accusation certainly
would have been more convincing" had he not placed supposed
incriminating statements linking Speer with the Holocaust in
quotation marks, attributed to Himmler, which were in fact invented
by Goldhagen. In response, after considerable research in
the German Federal Archives in Koblenz
, Speer said he had left Posen around noon (long
before Himmler's speech) in order to journey to Hitler's
headquarters at Rastenburg. In Inside the Third
Reich, published before the Goldhagen article, Speer recalled
that on the evening after the conference, many Nazi officials were
so drunk that they needed help boarding the special train which was
to take them to a meeting with Hitler. One of his biographers,
Dan van der Vat, suggests this
necessarily implies he must have still been present at Posen then,
and must have heard Himmler's speech. In response to Goldhagen's
article, Speer had alleged that in writing Inside the Third
Reich, he erred in reporting an incident that happened at
another conference at Posen a year later, as happening in
1943.
In 2005, British newspaper The
Daily Telegraph reported that documents had surfaced
indicating that Speer had approved the allocation of materials for
the expansion of Auschwitz after two of his assistants toured the
facility on a day when almost a thousand Jews were murdered. The
documents supposedly bore annotations in Speer's own handwriting.
Speer biographer Gitta Sereny stated
that, due to his massive workload, Speer would not have been
personally aware of such activities.
The debate over Speer's knowledge of, or complicity in, the
Holocaust made him a symbol for people who were involved with the
Nazi regime yet did not have (or claimed not to have had) an active
part in the regime's atrocities. As film director Heinrich Breloer remarked, "[Speer
created] a market for people who said, 'Believe me, I didn't know
anything about [the Holocaust]. Just look at the Führer's
friend, he didn't know about it either.'"
Notes
- The title of a BBC2
documentary
References
- . Republished in paperback in 1997 by Simon & Schuster,
ISBN 978-0-684-82949-4
- (Original German edition: )
- (Original German edition: )
- (Original German edition: )
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