[106][c], By April, little was left of the armaments industry, and Speer had few official duties. Stalingrad was a classic example where he refused to provide the equipment necessary to supply his army on the Eastern front during the terrible winter of 1941. Little remains of his personal architectural work. [99] During January and February, Speer claimed that his ministry would deliver "decisive weapons" and a large increase in armaments production which would "bring about a dramatic change on the battlefield". In July1932, the Speers visited Berlin to help out the Party before the Reichstag elections. When asked by his Allied captors in 1945 to what extent German military strategy had been influenced by economic considerations, Albert Speer, Hitler's armaments minister, replied that in the case of OperationBarbarossathe need for oil was certainly a prime motive. Indeed, even during initial discussions of his plan to invade the Soviet Union, Hitler had stressed the absolute necessity of . He had become one of the most powerful people in Nazi Germany. Included in the building works was material to build gas chambers, crematoria and morgues. Speer was to be replaced by his subordinate, Karl-Otto Saur. Labor to build the A4 rockets came from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Albert Speer Jr. was born on July 29, 1934, one year after Hitler had consolidated power in Germany. By Thomas Rogers 23 May 2017 46.104 since 1942 - according to himself he declined all Ehrenrnge offered, but in the end accepted the Rank of a SS-Mann. Speer went on to quote Hitler as telling him privately after the remilitarization of the Rhineland, "We will create a great empire. [29] Speer modified Werner March's design for the Olympic Stadium being built for the 1936 Summer Olympics. Then it was too late; Germany had been destroyed. In June 1936 he charged a personal honorarium of 30,000 Reichsmark and estimated the chancellery would be completed within three to four years. [67] With Hitler's full agreement, he decided to prioritize tank production, and he was given unrivaled power to ensure success. [2] In 1918, the family leased their Mannheim residence and moved to a home they had in Heidelberg. [179], Little remains of Speer's personal architectural works, other than the plans and photographs. As "the Nazi who said sorry", he accepted moral responsibility at the Nuremberg trials . Die Zelle. Schmidt authored the first book that was highly critical of Speer. [54], In 1941, Speer was elected to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 2 (Berlin-West). The film began a process of demystification and critical reappraisal. Hitler commissioned him to design and construct structures including the Reich Chancellery and the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg. He used his writings from the time of imprisonment as the basis for two autobiographical books, Inside the Third Reich and Spandau: The Secret Diaries. This carried with it the rank of State Secretary in the Reich government and gave him extraordinary powers over the Berlin city government. Among those who pledged support for his sentence to be commuted were Charles de Gaulle and US diplomat George Wildman Ball. Thanks! Inside the Third Reich begins with an account of Speer's childhood, followed by a description of his role as Heinrich Tessenow's assistant at the Technical University of Berlin. A groundbreaking 26-part documentary series narrated by the actor Laurence Olivier about the deadliest conflict in history, World War II. Inside the Third Reich. It will begin in Norway and extend to northern Italy. [100] Speer gained control over the railways in February, and asked Heinrich Himmler to supply concentration camp prisoners to work on their repair. Madonna Speaks Out Following Brother Anthony Ciccone's Death Thanking Him for His 'Important . Ultimately, when their emergence involved the ruin of all his work, Speer accepted the consequences and acted. [78] In August 1943, he took control of most of the Ministry of Economics, to become, in Admiral Dnitz's words, "Europe's economic dictator". [9] In 1925, he transferred again, this time to the Technical University of Berlin where he studied under Heinrich Tessenow, whom Speer greatly admired. This image dominated his historiography in the decades following the war, giving rise to the "Speer Myth": the perception of him as an apolitical technocrat responsible for revolutionizing the German war machine. He has risen to the top of the . Secured early release from prison, became a media celebrity and successfully cultivated the "clean Speer" myth. [26], The image of the good Nazi was supported by numerous Speer myths. The Fhrer emerges as neither an incompetent nor a carpetgnawing madman but as an evil genius of warped concepts endowed with an ineffable personal magic. [44] The chancellery was completed in early January 1939. I knew that these must be Berlin Jews who were being evacuated. like so many other Germans his [28], One of Speer's first commissions after Troost's death was the Zeppelinfeld stadium in Nuremberg. Speer arrived there the previous evening and accepted Todt's offer to fly with him to Berlin. Speer (Albert Speer's brother) and his life. [20], Shortly after Hitler came into power, he began to make plans to rebuild the chancellery. I presumably had a sense of somber events. by PanzerKavallerie 27 Jul 2005, 07:49, Post [30] Nuremberg was the site of many official Nazi buildings. Como Ministro do Armamento, Speer foi responsvel pela grande produtividade da Alemanha neste setor nos anos finais da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Startseite; Cytologie. It became instrumental in exploiting slave labor for the benefit of the German war effort. [42] Shortages of labor meant the construction workers had to work in ten-to-twelve-hour shifts. Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer ( Mannheim, 19. oujka 1905. Speer states that even if Germany concentrated all of its resources, it would have been 1947 before they could have had an atom bomb. [81], In response to the Allied Big Week, Adolf Hitler authorized the creation of a Fighter Staff committee. [59] Speer proved to be ambitious, unrelenting and ruthless. Reporters and photographers crowded both the street outside Spandau and the lobby of the Hotel Berlin where Speer spent the night. [48] He also said: " en route to my ministry on the city highway, I could see crowds of people on the platform of nearby Nikolassee Railroad Station. Stars Laurence Olivier Averell Harriman Albert Speer See production, box office & company info Search on Amazon search for Blu-ray and DVD Add to Watchlist 120 User reviews 5 Critic reviews Top rated TV #14 Yet each showed comparable increases in production despite not being under Speer's control. They paid for Toni Proost to go on holiday, and for bribes to those who might be able to secure Speer's release. [157] In return they were paid handsomely in royalties and other financial inducements. "[115] Speer's attorney, Hans Flchsner, successfully contrasted Speer from other defendants[116] and portrayed him as an artist thrust into political life who had always remained a non-ideologue. By the autumn of 1942 however, the estimated period for developing a weapon had increased to three to four years, much too long to affect the war. An architect by training, Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931. Albert Speer was a young architect initially seduced by the speeches and rhetoric of Hitler. Albert Speer Jr., one of the most important German architects and urban planners, died unexpectedly on September 15, 2017 in Frankfurt. At the end of 1933, he contracted Paul Troost to renovate the entire building. by punktlich02 29 Oct 2009, 11:35, Return to The Dieter Zinke Axis Biographical Research Section. [19] This work won Speer his first national post, as Nazi Party "Commissioner for the Artistic and Technical Presentation of Party Rallies and Demonstrations". by PanzerKavallerie 27 Jul 2005, 16:15, Post . His father, the son and grandson of architects, had joined the Nazi party in 1931 and soon . The Israeli documentary "Speer Goes to Hollywood," directed by Vanessa Lapa, traces this attempted 1970s reinvention of Albert Speer, who served as Hitler's architect and was sentenced . First Architect of the Third Reich. [177] The rational position to adopt was to seek a political solution that would end the war without defeat. He maintained Hitler was cool towards him for the remainder of his life after learning they had included him on a list of potential ministers. [92] The rockets were built at an underground factory at Mittelwerk. Martin Kitchen, a British historian, says that the choice was not surprising. Speer made no mention of it in the first draft of Inside the Third Reich. [56] Hitler appointed Speer in Todt's place. Three days later, he also proposed to Hitler that Germany's remaining military resources be concentrated along the Rhine and Vistula rivers in an attempt to prolong the fighting. [40] Speer was involved virtually from the beginning. Speer was appalled by this order, and persuaded several key military and political leaders to ignore it. Having served his full term, Speer was released in 1966. Po vlce byl bhem Norimberskho procesu odsouzen jako vlen zloinec ke 20 letm vzen. House Albert Speer (4) Location: Take the road in front of the Gutshof back uphill to the Berghof. The house had a studio were Hitler (see Hitler parents) often came to draw his . [12] In Munich Speer began a close friendship, ultimately spanning over 50 years, with Rudolf Wolters, who also studied under Tessenow. The exterior walls survived, but they were eventually dismantled by the Soviets. [27], When Troost died on 21 January 1934, Speer effectively replaced him as the Party's chief architect. After hearing Hitler speak at a Berlin . This article is about the book. Hitler became interested in Speer through his own interest in the arts. [159], Speer had carefully constructed an image of himself as an apolitical technocrat who deeply regretted having failed to discover the monstrous crimes of the Third Reich. Albert Speer, nemki arhitekt in politik, * 19. marec 1905, Mannheim, 1. september 1981, London, Zdrueno kraljestvo . letters that exist between ernst and the parents which he wrote and [70], Speer realized that with six million workers drafted into the armed forces, there was a labor shortage in the war economy, and not enough workers for his factories. As a Nazi Party member, she had greatly enjoyed dining with Hitler. Those who feigned illness, slacked off, sabotaged production or tried to escape were denied food or sent to concentration camps. By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Speer died of a stroke in 1981. [153] He was well-educated, middle class, and bourgeois, and could contrast himself with those who, in the popular mind, typified "bad Nazis". [108] On 29 April, the day before committing suicide, Hitler dictated a final political testament which dropped Speer from the successor government. These factories were death-traps; discipline was brutal, with regular executions. [137], Speer's release from prison was a worldwide media event. His sentence of twenty years amounted to 7,305 days, which only allotted one and a half days per book. [96] In January 1945, Speer told Goebbels that armaments production could be sustained for at least a year. 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. The family learned of this through some letters Ernst sent. [173] In 2005, The Daily Telegraph reported that documents had surfaced indicating that Speer had approved the allocation of materials for the expansion of Auschwitz concentration camp after two of his assistants inspected the facility on a day when almost a thousand Jews were massacred. His claim was revealed to be false in a private correspondence written in 1971 and publicly disclosed in 2007. Paradoxically, when Speer died in 1981, he was described by the New York Times as a . His first draft was written from March 1953 to 26 December 1954. [164] Even so, public perceptions of Speer did not change substantially until Heinrich Breloer aired a biographical film on TV in 2004. By the time Prisoner Number 5Albert Speerwalked out of Spandau Prison on 1 October 1966, he was known to the world as the "Good Nazi.". His mother died in 1952. Albert Speer (1905-1981) was a trained architect. [82] In mid-January 1944, Speer had a lung embolism and fell seriously ill. The battle is infamous as one of the largest . This miracle was brought to a halt in the summer of 1943 by, among other factors, the first sustained Allied bombing. Speer liked the scenario so much that he wrote it into his memoirs. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, he was convicted at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Progress was slow because fuel was rationed and Army Group A were given priority. [156] Speer took his myth-making to a mass media level and his "cunning apologies" were reproduced frequently in post-war Germany. There's a small road going to the right. [89] To increase production, Speer introduced a system of punishments for his workforce. Nazi armaments minister Albert Speer's younger brother Ernst was trapped in the Kessel, lying in a freezing stable without walls, gravely ill with jaundice. [49] Martin Kitchen described Speer's often repeated line that he knew nothing of the "dreadful things" as hollowbecause not only was he fully aware of the fate of the Jews he was actively participating in their persecution. Speer first heard Adolf Hitler speak during an address to the combined students and faculty of Berlin University and his institute. [87], The Fighter Staff committee was instrumental in bringing about the increased exploitation of slave labor in the war economy. [83] His political rivals used the opportunity to undermine his authority and damage his reputation with Hitler. In response, Hitler appointed Fritz Sauckel as a "manpower dictator" to obtain new workers. Speer believed his greatest work, the one that would truly stand the test of time was the Zeppelinfeld in Nrnberg, which held up to 340,000 people, and the Cathedral of Lights he orchestrated for nighttime Nazi rallies with 130 anti-aircraft searchlights placed around it. Inventing for Speer the post of General Inspector of Buildings, Hitler steadily promoted him to the point where other Nazi leaders and rivals believed that he might well become Hitler's successor. From 1939 on, Speer's 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. [1]:506,699701. After he failed to do so, his father gave him a part-time job as manager of his properties. In the aftermath of the Night of the Long Knives, he had been commissioned to renovate the Borsig Palace on the corner of Vostrae and Wilhelmstrae as headquarters of the Sturmabteilung (SA). [39], Plans to build a new Reich chancellery had been underway since 1934. All of the Germanic peoples will be included in it. [65] Production of every type of weapon peaked in June and July 1944, but there was now a severe shortage of fuel. "[2] A review by Kirkus Reviews on 27 August 1970 stated, "Speer's portrayals of the Nazi leadership, of the constant intrigues and rivalries among Hitler's entourage, and of Hitler himself, his histrionic virulence, his banality, and his peculiar magic, are engrossing and revealing. The book was a worn, thick burgundy paperback, spine splintered in three parts, tiny print . He took a role in that short-lived regime as Minister of Industry and Production. [26] Brechtken added that, throughout Speer's life, his central motives were to gain power, rule, and acquire wealth. Speer returned to London in 1981 to participate in the BBC Newsnight programme. For the television film based on the book, see, :55,71,7879,83,105,115116,138,188,651,674,696, Sarah Word from the British film magazine ", Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Inside_the_Third_Reich&oldid=1132240858, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 7 January 2023, at 23:15. Albert Speer, the Nazi architect who built a Cathedral of Light for Hitler and commanded millions of prisoners in the forced production of weaponry, had a comfortable second life. Initially, the funds were used only to support Speer's family, but increasingly the money was used for other purposes. "[142] He supported Hermann, his brother, financially after the war. For a treatise on this aspect of the war including Speer's involvement see: Randall, Hansen, Last edited on 17 February 2023, at 08:56, Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production, Reich Minister of Armaments and Munitions, "Trials of the War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Volume II: The Milch Case", "Wartime reports debunk Speer as the good Nazi", "Letter proves Speer knew of Holocaust plan", "Historiker ber Albert Speer: "Er tat alles fr den Endsieg", "Rechtfertigung und Entlastung. Speer, Albert (1905-81). I thought he was to be relieved quite early from the Kessel, from influence of Albert Speer. Hello. In February 1942, Speer was appointed as Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. Speer's own staff described the conditions there as "hell". His father, who died in 1947, despised the Nazis and was silent upon meeting Hitler. 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