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ALBERT SPEER
Final Script
INTRODUCTION – Chapter Heading
A young German architect Albert Speer attended a meeting in Berlin
addressed by Adolf Hitler, and was captivated by the magic of his oratory.
He joined the Nazi Party 3 months later, in early 1931. Speer’s brilliance
and opportunism led to a rapid advancement in his career, which saw him
become Hitler’s favoured architect and close friend. Later appointed
Minister of Armaments and Munitions, Speer was one of the most
influential men in the Third Reich. He was convicted of war crimes at the
Nuremberg Trials and sentenced to 20years imprisonment, but was able to
avoid the death penalty. So who was this man, who claimed total
ignorance of the excesses of the Nazi regime, including the horrors of the
concentration camps?
ALBERT SPEER: 1905 - 1981 – Main Title
To appreciate the impressive career of Albert Speer, it is important to
understand the political climate in Germany at the time.
THE RISE OF THE NAZI PARTY – Chapter Heading
After the failed Munich Putsch in 1921, Hitler was imprisoned for nine
months, during which time he wrote Mein Kampf. After his release, the Nazi
Party was reorganized, becoming a legitimate political party by 1928,
contesting unsuccessfully for seats in the Reichstag elections. Germany
was harshly affected by the Great Depression of 1929. In these difficult
times, many German people turned to the charismatic Hitler, with his
extreme views, as a solution to their problems. Hitler offered unity and
strong authoritarian leadership, which appealed to traditional German
values. His concept of unity would ultimately be reflected in the creation of
a one-party state. Albert Speer was one who was attracted to the Nazi
ideology.
In the 1932 Reichstag elections, the Nazis received thirty seven and a half
percent of the vote. They struck a deal with the Social Democrats and the
Center Party allocating a third of the seats to each party. In return, Hitler
would to named chancellor. General Von Hindenburg, president of the
Weimar Republic disliked Hitler but was pressured into agreement. Within a
day of becoming chancellor in1933, Hitler called for new elections.
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A fire in the Reichstag started by a young communist provided a
propaganda gift for Hitler, and eliminated the communists as political
opponents. Despite the propaganda and the advantage of the chancellor‘s
office behind the Nazis, they polled only 43% of the votes. Ignoring this
setback, Hitler pressed on. Using threats and political power, the Reichstag
passed the Enabling Act on March 23 1933. With this, Hitler took political
power away from the parliament, thus ending democracy. Hitler was
dictator, with federal and state power unified under a central government. A
decree in July made the Nazi Party the only legal political party in
Germany.
When Von Hindenburg died in July 1934, Hitler combined the offices of
President and Chancellor, making himself Fuhrer or leader. But to
consolidate his power, he needed the support of the army. He promised
leading generals and admirals he would restore military strength by
rearming, and increasing troop numbers. Hitler’s major obstacle was the 2
million members of the paramilitary SA or Storm Abteilung. On June 30
1934, Hitler used Heinrich Himmler’s SS to murder Ernst Rohm, leader of
the SA, and many other prominent officers and enemies of the Nazi Party
during ‘The Night of the Long Knives’. Close to 400 murders occurred
that night. In August that year, the army’s high command declared an
allegiance of unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler.
THE NAZI STATE 1933 - 1945 – Chapter Heading
Germany’s government under Hitler was chaotic. Frequently the
responsibilities of various departments overlapped, causing wastage and
confusion. It has been suggested this was Hitler’s divide and rule
strategy, encouraging those below him such as Himmler, Goering and
Bormann to be rivals, ensuring they would not unite to plot against him.
Josef Goebbels was the master of propaganda, depicting Hitler as the
man who had brought prosperity and national pride back to Germany. He
saw to it that all forms of popular culture conformed to Nazi ideology.
Motion Pictures conveyed the glory of German history, and provided a
means of conveying anti-Semitic ideas. Youngsters were recruited into the
Hitler Youth movement, indoctrinating them with Nazi ideals. The SS and
Gestapo established a system of terror to eliminate opponents and
discourage dissent.
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Nazi racial policy saw the establishment of anti-Semitic laws. The Jewish
minority lost their citizenship, businesses, professions, homes and
eventually their lives. Germany’s aggressive foreign policy led to its
withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933, and to challenge the terms
of the Treaty of Versailles in 1935. Hitler marched his troops into the
Rhineland, and supported Franco in the Spanish civil war. Germany and
Austria were unified and, at the Munich conference, the Sudetenland was
annexed to Germany. Czechoslovakia was subsequently seized and finally,
the invasion of Poland marked the beginning of World War II.
BACKGROUND – Chapter Heading
Albert Speer was born in the German industrial city of Mannheim in 1905.
His family was upper middle class, and both his father and grandfather
were architects. Speer was not close to his parents ‘who were virtually
strangers to him’. None of Speer’s immediate family saw action in World
War 1, but his most vivid memory of the time was of the starvation many
people faced, in the so called ‘turnip winter’ of 1916-17.
Speer excelled at mathematics at school. However, his parents expected
him to follow the family tradition of architecture, and so he began studying
at Karlsruhe near Heidelberg. He then moved to a more distinguished
technical university in Munich, and later completed his education in Berlin.
He graduated in 1928 at the age of 23, and gained a well-paid academic
appointment, enabling him to marry his long time sweetheart, Margarete
Webber.
Throughout his youth, open discussion of politics had been banned in his
parents’ home. Albert remained apolitical, untouched by developments of
the Weimar years. Speer’s father was a liberal, despising Hitler as a
‘criminal upstart’, while his mother’s opinion differed. A march by Storm
Troopers through Heidelberg in 1931 impressed her so much she secretly
joined the Nazi Party. Adolf Hitler addressed a crowd of students, including
Speer, in December 1930. The speech was calm and reasonable, tailored
to his audience of young, enthusiastic and educated listeners. Speer
declared he was ‘captivated by the magic of Hitler’s voice’, and applied for
membership of the Nazi Party. He was accepted on March 1 1931. Speer
later said he joined the Nazi Party out of the fear of communism as well as
a fascination for Hitler the man, though not for his political programme.
Speer, like many Germans, rejected the Treaty of Versailles, with its
imposition of guilt upon Germany for World War 1.
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RISE TO PROMINENCE – Chapter Heading
Speer’s first architectural commission for the Nazis was to renovate the
Berlin headquarters of the Propaganda Ministry in March1933. He then
designed the backdrop for the May Day Rally that year at Templehof
airfield in Berlin. Nazi standards, ten stories high were hung vertically as
part of his design, and the Fuhrer was delighted with the results. Speer was
then asked to organize the Nuremberg Nazi Party rally later that year,
where he met Hitler for the first time. Hitler, who had a passion for
architecture, began to forge a close relationship with Albert Speer who
renovated the chancellor’s residence. When Hitler’s favourite architect Paul
Troost died, Speer replaced him. His design for the 1934 Nuremberg rally
with its dramatic ‘Cathedral of Light’ effect brought him further credit.
Speer received accolades for his work on the Berlin Olympics and gained
first prize for his design of the German pavilion at the Paris World
Exhibition. Speer was a workaholic who had established himself as the
Nazi’s leading architect. As a result he neglected his large family.
In 1937, Speer had been appointed Inspector-General of Construction, the
highest level in the German civil service. He was handed the most
ambitious architectural project of his career, to rebuild Berlin, renamed
Germania, the new capital of the anticipated ‘thousand year Reich’. It was
to be filled with grandiose buildings, statues and fountains in the classical
style. The whole project was the brainchild of Hitler who, in subsequent
years, spent many hours going over the plans with Speer. To start the
project, tens of thousands of flats had to be demolished to make way for
one of many impressive avenues proposed for the new capital. This
involved the eviction of thousands of Jews, on Speer’s direct order. Despite
all this, the Germania project was never realized due to the war. Only
ornate street lights and the central avenue survived. During this period, he
was commissioned to build the new Reich Chancellery, agreeing to finish it
within twelve months. His ability as an organizer was clear, the deadline
was met, and Hitler was greatly pleased with the result, declaring Speer a
‘genius’.
Speer accumulated hundreds of trucks and barges to carry building
materials to Berlin. His enormous staff could also be quickly mobilized to
repair air raid damage.
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On February 8 1942, Fritz Todt, the Minister of Armaments and Munitions,
was killed in a plane crash and Speer was named his successor. He threw
himself enthusiastically into this new role. Speer developed a plan of
rationalization, tripling the production of armaments in three years though
efficient management, eliminating petty in-fighting, and inspiring others. For
example, in 1941, 2,900 tanks were built, with their number increasing to
17,300 within three years. All this was achieved despite the loss of millions
of workers to the armed forces. Speer sent a memorandum to Hitler, as
part of his demand for total mobilization, urging the use of more women in
the war effort, especially from the middle and upper classes. But this was
contrary to Nazi ideology. Eventually, fifty-two percent of the work force
was female, mostly from the working class. Speer found another means of
increasing the number of workers, using forced slave labour from
concentration camps, conquered nations and prisoners of war.
By 1944, Speer had 14 million workers under his direction, and was
responsible for the entire German war economy. He was able to maintain
high production output despite intensified Allied bombing of industrial
plants. Speer’s remarkable organization skills enabled the repair of
factories, communications and transportation infrastructure, preventing
Germany from coming to a standstill. It is estimated his efforts directly
enabled Germany to stay in the war for a least another year.
SIGNIFICANCE & EVALUATION – Chapter Heading
At the Nuremberg trials, Albert Speer was convicted of ‘crimes against
humanity’ and ‘war crimes’ primarily for his use of forced labour. His
expressions of regret and acceptance of responsibility allowed him to
escape the death penalty, receiving instead a sentence of twenty years
imprisonment. But, was he really the ‘good Nazi’? Speer claimed to be first
and foremost an architect and organizer; that he was disinterested in party
politics and ignorant of the excesses of the Nazi regime, particularly in
relation to the fate of the Jews.
Speer gave his reasons for joining the Nazi Party as ‘fear of communism’,
‘a fascination for Hitler’ and the ‘imposition of the terms of the Treaty
of Versailles’. Historians have been skeptical about this. Dan van der Vat
suggests ‘that it is only the committed who join a party long before it is
elected to office, as opposed to the ‘bandwagon effect’ the Nazis
experienced after January 1933’.
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Ian Kershaw points out ‘that the electoral success of September 1930 was
the political breakthrough that meant that many of the ‘respectable’ middle
class felt ready to join the party’. SPEER INTERVIEW
For Speer it was exhilarating, to have the most powerful man in Germany
as his close friend. Only Speer, Bormann and Goering were permitted to
have a house inside the three-kilometre inner security fence at the Berghof,
Hitler’s Bavarian residence. Historian Gitta Sereny wrote: ‘He was ecstatic
upon entering Hitler’s service…blinkered from the very beginning to Hitler’s
monstrous obsessions…oblivious to the suffering they would immediately
cause’.
It is Speer’s work on the Germania project that has led historians to
question his attitude toward the Jews. Thousands of Berliners were evicted
from flats earmarked for demolition, though alternate accommodation had
to be found for displaced non-Jews. This was accomplished, on Speer’s
orders, by evicting Jewish residents from their homes, often at only an
hour’s notice. The Jewish population was then forced into ghettos, and
eventually concentration camps and death. At the Nuremberg trials the
issue of the “Jews’ flats” was never investigated. All Speer conceded was
that he knew Jews were evacuated from Germany, while denying any
personal involvement. It could be argued that Speer‘s enthusiasm for the
design and significance of Germania, demonstrated that he was as much of
a megalomaniac as Hitler.
Speer’s success as Armaments Minister can be attributed to the use of
forced labour, the exploitation of foreign workers and prisoners of war.
Approximately five million men and women were exploited in this way
during the war. Most lived and worked in hellish conditions. At the Dora
camp in southern Germany, 40,000 toiled to build the V2 rockets. They
worked for eighteen hours a day, slept underground, had no heating,
ventilation or running water, and used half barrels for toilets. One in three
workers died here. The responsibility for the consignment of labour was
Speer’s deputy Fritz Sauckel. He was found guilty of ‘war crimes’ and
‘crimes against humanity’.
Sauckel, however, was only carrying out Speer’s orders. Speer had visited
the Dora missile factory and Mauthausen camp in Austria and witnessed
the deplorable conditions. Speer ordered improvements and insisted that
workers at least receive an adequate diet. But this was primarily to insure
greater productivity.
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This also undermines his claim that he knew little of conditions in the
camps. Germany’s war effort might have almost ground to a halt without his
organizational skills. It is how he achieved this is questionable.
Many historians doubt Speer’s ignorance of the anti-Semitic agenda of his
colleagues and the ‘Final Solution’ of the Jews. Evidence reveals he
attended a meeting in October 1943 in Posen, Poland, where Himmler
divulged the secret of the ‘Final Solution’ to a group of regional leaders.
Speer said he left the meeting before this information was given.
Researchers later examined the original Chronicle, which was the daily
account of Speer’s work from January 1941 to December 1944. It was
written by his assistant Rudolf Wolters, and suggests that Speer knew
about the key contents of Himmler’s meeting in Posen.
In his book “Inside the Third Reich” Speer describes a meeting with a
friend, Karl Hanke, which occurred nine months after the Posen meeting,
where Speer was advised: ‘…never to accept an invitation to inspect a
concentration camp in Upper Silesia (in Poland)…He had seen something
there which he was not permitted to describe and moreover could not
describe’. Speer wrote in reply: ‘I did not query him. I did not query
Himmler. I did not query Hitler. I did not speak with personal friends. I did
not investigate – for I did not want to know what was happening there’. It
could be argued that he had knowledge of, if not involvement in, what was
happening to the Jews.
Speer’s relationship with Hitler began to deteriorate when illness kept him
away from the Fuhrer’s headquarters in1944. Early the following year,
Speer was convinced the war was lost. He claimed at Nuremberg that at
one stage he planned to kill Hitler by introducing poison gas into the
Fuhrer’s bunker through a ventilation shaft. This apparently was thwarted
by increased security at the bunker, and limited access to the ventilation
system. Speer asserted that he defied Hitler’s ‘Scorched Earth’ policy
aimed at destroying the infrastructure of Germany, the Netherlands,
Czechoslovakia and Poland. His act of resistance saved thousands of
industrial plants, bridges and essential services, and was viewed
favourably at Nuremberg. However Speer’s motives are widely debated.
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Imprisoned at Spandau Prison outside of Berlin, Albert Speer occupied his
days with strolling in the gardens and tending the plants. He secretly wrote
his memoirs, and when released from prison in 1966, he published two
bestselling autobiographies: ‘Inside the Third Reich’ and ‘Spandau: The
Secret Diaries’. He died of natural causes in 1981, while visiting London.
Albert Speer has created much historical controversy. Some view him as a
high ranking Nazi official who ignored the atrocities of the regime, while
utilizing slave labour to maintain the war effort. To others, he was an
apolitical but ambitious man, ignorant of the genocide and cruelty around
him. Whatever the case, his convincing evidence at Nuremberg, enabled
him to avoid the hangman.
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