Speer, Albert

I

Introduction

Speer, Albert (1905-1981), favoured architect of Adolf Hitler and director of the German war economy (1942-1945).

II

Hitler’s Architect

Speer was born on March 19, 1905, in Mannheim, in the German state of Baden (part of modern Baden-Württemberg), and followed his father in choosing architecture as his profession. He joined the Nazi Party and SA (Sturmabteilung) in January 1931 after being impressed by a speech given by Hitler at a meeting in Berlin, which he had attended the previous year. In 1933 Joseph Goebbels assigned to him the task of orchestrating Nazi mass demonstrations and his evident talent at this drew him to Hitler's attention. Hitler developed a strong attachment to the personable young man on to whom he appears to have projected his own thwarted ambitions to become a great architect. From 1934 onwards Speer became a member of Hitler's intimate circle. The Führer assigned to him the task of constructing the new Reichschancellery building and the massive complex of buildings linked to the Nazi party rallies at Nuremberg. In 1937, Speer was appointed general building inspector for the Reich capital, Berlin, with the task of completely reconstructing the centre of the city on the gigantic scale considered appropriate for the capital of a world power.

III

Minister for Armaments

Hitler was impressed with the efficiency with which Speer carried out his tasks, so, when the armaments minister, Fritz Todt, was killed in an air crash on February 9, 1942, Hitler appointed Speer to replace him as Reich minister for arms and ammunition (renamed Reich minister for armaments and war production in September 1943). Speer was also appointed general inspector for the road network and general inspector for water and energy. With Hitler's support Speer was able to assert his authority and complete the task of fully mobilizing the German economy for war, which his predecessor, Todt, had initiated but had been prevented from completing because of the numerous rival agencies, such as the Wehrmacht and the Four Year Plan organization under Hermann Göring. Speer's key initiatives were, first, to establish a central planning board to allocate raw materials and plan major projects; secondly, to transfer control over armaments production from the Wehrmacht to private businesses, which were given incentives to engage in more effective production by substituting the cost plus percentage profit with a fixed-price system of reward. The organization of the various firms into committees and “rings” embracing particular products, headed by representatives of the leading firms in the particular sectors, ensured the allocation of orders to the most efficient plants.

The result of these measures was a remarkable rise in the productivity of the German armaments industry between 1942 and 1944—despite the growing impact of Allied bombing on factories—thereby enabling Germany to continue the war. In his drive for increased production Speer showed no compunction about exploiting foreign labour seized from the occupied territories and was content to benefit from the housing vacancies created by the deportation of Jews to concentration camps, both for the resettlement of Germans bombed out of their homes by Allied raids and for the development of his own plans for new construction.

IV

Trial at Nuremberg

In the final weeks of the war Speer informed Hitler that an impending economic collapse meant that the war was effectively lost; he defiantly organized resistance to Hitler's “scorched earth” demands for the destruction of German industry and the nation's economic infrastructure. Tried at Nuremberg as a major war criminal, Speer was the only leading Nazi to confess his guilt and express remorse. He was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment, which the Soviet Union, whose judge had pressed for the death penalty, insisted that he served. He was released in October 1966 and published a series of memoirs that provide important insights into Hitler and his “court”. Speer died on September 1, 1981 in London.