Discussions on the personalities of the Wehrmacht and of the organizations not covered in the other sections. One of Speer's grandfathers was among the most successful machine-tool manufacturers in Germany; the other was a well-known architect. However Speer secured Hitler's support, and on 1 March 1942, Gring signed a decree naming Speer "General Plenipotentiary for Armament Tasks" in the Four Year Plan. - London, Anglia, 1981. szeptember 1.) Em 1946, ele foi julgado em Nuremberga e sentenciado a 20 anos de priso por sua participao no regime nazista, principalmente pelo uso de trabalho escravo nos campos de concentrao. [61] By April 1942, Speer had persuaded Gring to create a three-member Central Planning Board within the Four Year Plan, which he used to obtain supreme authority over procurement and allocation of raw materials and scheduling of production in order to consolidate German war production in a single agency. Sereny gained respect for his sincerity in his personal "battle with truth.". 4.10 avg rating 13,205 ratings published 1969 86 editions. This led to the development of Germany's first cyclotron. [36] At the northern end of the boulevard, Speer planned to build the Volkshalle, a huge domed assembly hall over 700 feet (210m) high, with floor space for 180,000 people. 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. [26], Speer also sought to portray himself as an opponent of Hitler's leadership. 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. Speer went on to quote Hitler as telling him privately after the remilitarization of the Rhineland, "We will create a great empire. [123] Wolters raised a total of DM158,000 for Speer over the final seventeen years of his sentence. [111] Speer provided information to the Allies, regarding the effects of the air war, and on a broad range of subjects, beginning on 10 May. In September 1945, he was told that he would be tried for war crimes, and several days later, he was moved to Nuremberg and incarcerated there. [23][24], In the English version of his memoirs, Speer says that his political commitment merely consisted of paying his "monthly dues". A brick factory was built near the Oranienburg concentration camp at Speer's behest; when someone commented on the poor conditions there, Speer stated, "The Yids got used to making bricks while in Egyptian captivity". Today: Still there. Its aim was to ensure the preservation and growth of fighter aircraft production. 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 . Speer, Jr., an eighty-two-year-old with a perennially serious expression and a fondness for energetic hand motions, is one of Germany's best-known urban planners. [22] Speer quickly became part of Hitler's inner circle; he was expected to call on him in the morning for a walk or chat, to provide consultation on architectural matters, and to discuss Hitler's ideas. He met Hitler and toured the damaged Chancellery before leaving Berlin to return to Hamburg. [120], On 18 July 1947, Speer was transferred to Spandau Prison in Berlin to serve his prison term. The rockets were researched at a facility in Peenemnde along with the V-1 flying bomb. [136] Speer served a full term and was released at midnight on 1 October 1966. [168] Speer also falsely claimed that he had realised the war was lost at an early stage, and thereafter worked to preserve the resources needed for the civilian population's survival. He has risen to the top of the . Most days he was invited to dinner. An architect by training, Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931. He was more forthright in an interview with William Hamsher in which he said he joined the party in order to save "Germany from Communism". He was acquitted on the other two counts. The Battle of Stalingrad was a brutal military campaign between Russian forces and those of Nazi Germany and the Axis powers during World War II. William. [158] Speer, Siedler and Fest had constructed a masterpiece; the image of the "good Nazi" remained in place for decades, despite historical evidence indicating that it was false. Albert Speer was a young architect initially seduced by the speeches and rhetoric of Hitler. [84] Production of German fighter aircraft more than doubled between 1943 and 1944. [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 was a close confidant of Hitler, and the Third Reich's most celebrated architect. [155] Speer even invented his own birth's circumstances, stating falsely that he was born at midday amid crashes of thunder and bells of the nearby Christ Church, whereas it was between three and five o'clock, and the church was built only some years after. [1] In 1944, Speer established a task force to increase production of fighter aircraft. Speer provided Hitler with a memorandum on 15 March, which detailed Germany's dire economic situation and sought approval to cease demolitions of infrastructure. [87], The Fighter Staff committee was instrumental in bringing about the increased exploitation of slave labor in the war economy. albert speers younger brother ernst was killed at Stalingrad This ignored military realities, as the German armed forces were unable to match the Allies' firepower and were facing total defeat. [155] In addition to the myth that he was an apolitical technocrat, he claimed he did not have full knowledge of the Holocaust or the persecution of the Jews. This miracle was brought to a halt in the summer of 1943 by, among other factors, the first sustained Allied bombing. Speer was formally arrested on May 23rd. [citation needed], At the Nuremberg Trials, Speer was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his use of prisoners in the armaments factories while Minister of Armaments. Until 2 September 1943 the position's official name was Reich Minister of Armaments and Munitions. [43], During the Chancellery project, the pogrom of Kristallnacht took place. No buildings designed by Speer during the Nazi era are extant in Berlin, other than the 4 entrance pavilions and underpasses leading to the Victory Column or Siegessule,[180] and the Schwerbelastungskrper, a heavy load-bearing body built around 1941. "[16] The historian Magnus Brechtken, discussing Speer, said he did not give anti-Jewish public speeches and that his anti-Semitism can best be understood through his actionswhich were anti-Semitic. Speer asked Wolters to destroy the material he had omitted from his donation but Wolters refused and retained an original copy. [155] Speer was photographed with slave laborers at Mauthausen concentration camp during a visit on 31 March 1943; he also visited Gusen concentration camp. [174], Speer did not deny being present at the Posen speeches to Nazi leaders at a conference in Posen (Pozna) on 6 October 1943, but claimed to have left the auditorium before Himmler said during his speech: "The grave decision had to be taken to cause this people to vanish from the earth",[175] and later, "The Jews must be exterminated". [117], Speer was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, principally for the use of slave labor and forced labor. Among those who pledged support for his sentence to be commuted were Charles de Gaulle and US diplomat George Wildman Ball. [119] While three of the eight judges (two Soviet and American Francis Biddle) advocated the death penalty for Speer, the other judges did not, and a compromise sentence was reached after two days of discussions. Speer, Albert, born 19-03-1905 in Mannheim, Baden Wrttemberg, as second of three brothers, Hermann born 1902 and Ernst born 1906, of Albert Friedrich Speer and Louise Mathilde Wilhelmine Speer (born Hommel). Progress was slow because fuel was rationed and Army Group A were given priority. by Durand 27 Jul 2005, 14:18, Post [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". For propaganda Hitler claimed during the topping-out ceremony on 2 August 1938, that he had ordered Speer to complete the new chancellery that year. [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. A dramatization of the life of Albert Speer (Rutger Hauer), Adolf Hitler's (Sir Derek Jacobi's) young architect and one-time confidant, and his meteoric rise into the Nazi hierarchy. [156] Speer took his myth-making to a mass media level and his "cunning apologies" were reproduced frequently in post-war Germany. [20], Shortly after Hitler came into power, he began to make plans to rebuild the chancellery. Before World War II, Speer helped propel the Nazi vision of grandeur and superiority. Oil production became so low that any possibility of offensive action became impossible and weaponry lay idle. 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. [45] Kristallnacht accelerated Speer's ongoing efforts to dispossess Berlin's Jews from their homes. German architect of the Nazi period (1933-45). [183], This article is about the Nazi minister. [138] He said little, reserving most comments for a major interview published in Der Spiegel in November 1966. Speer states he became hopeful when Hitler explained how communism could be checked and Germany could recover economically. His formal title was changed on 2 September 1943, to "Reich Minister for Armaments and War Production". Despite this opposition, the two married in Berlin on 28 August 1928; seven years elapsed before Margarete was invited to stay at her in-laws' home. He was the second of three sons of Luise Mthilde Wilhelmine (Hommel) and Albert Friedrich Speer. [5] Wolters and longtime Speer secretary Annemarie Kempf, while not permitted direct communication with Speer in Spandau, did what they could to help his family and carry out the requests Speer put in letters to his wifethe only written communication he was officially allowed. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office. During his life, he worked on redesigning city centers of . Albert Speer Jr. was born on July 29, 1934, one year after Hitler had consolidated power in Germany. [139] Although he stated he hoped to resume an architectural career, his sole project, a collaboration for a brewery, was unsuccessful. [89] To increase production, Speer introduced a system of punishments for his workforce. [40] Speer was involved virtually from the beginning. [15] Instead, he revised his Spandau writings into two autobiographical books, Inside the Third Reich (in German, Erinnerungen, or Reminiscences[140]) and Spandau: The Secret Diaries. As a Nazi Party member, she had greatly enjoyed dining with Hitler. Russia in the battle for Stalingrad. [5], Following his release from Spandau, Speer donated the Chronicle, his personal diary, to the German Federal Archives. Victoria married. [80], In December 1943, Speer visited Organisation Todt workers in Lapland, while there he seriously damaged his knee and was incapacitated for several months. In response, Hitler appointed Fritz Sauckel as a "manpower dictator" to obtain new workers. Reporters and photographers crowded both the street outside Spandau and the lobby of the Hotel Berlin where Speer spent the night. In February 1942, Speer was appointed as Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. It began in 1932 but had not supplied any weaponry. Initially, the funds were used only to support Speer's family, but increasingly the money was used for other purposes. Adam Tooze wrote in The Wages of Destruction that the idea that Speer was an apolitical technocrat was "absurd". Albert Speer, (born March 19, 1905, Mannheim, Baden, Germanydied September 1, 1981, London, England), German architect who was Adolf Hitler's chief architect (1933-45) and minister for armaments and war production (1942-45). Of the Wehrmacht and of the organizations not covered in the Wages of Destruction that the that. 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