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Modern History MODERN HISTORY Albert Speer Albert Speer became Minister of Armaments and Munitions of Nazi Germany in February 1942, following the death of his predecessor Fritz Todt. September 1943 saw the expansion of Speer’s role to Minister of Armaments and War Production, where he excelled, showing his genius at organisation and raising the output of German production by more than 300 per cent by 1944.1 It was in his work as a minister within Hitler’s organisation that Speer became involved with the system of conscript and slave labour, as well as developing an important seniority within the government responsible for some of the most heinous crimes ever committed. At the Nuremburg Trials to prosecute the surviving members of the Nazi regime in 1945-6, Speer was charged with plotting to wage an aggressive war, participating in war crimes, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity2. Of the four charges, Speer was convicted of the latter two and was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment, to be served in Spandau Prison in Berlin, with the seven other defendants condemned to imprisonment. By admitting guilt for his ignorance and showing contrite, but selecting his words carefully, Speer was able to avoid the death sentence, unlike twelve of the twenty-four Nazi leaders on trial.3 It was at this infamous trial that Speer would develop his persona as the “good Nazi”, later to be continued later in his memoirs, Inside the Third Reich. This “good Nazi” myth that Speer has created for himself in the years since Germany’s surrender in WWII is a carefully debated issue among historians. Proponents of this view, including US prosecutor Henry King4, and namely Speer himself, believe that he was simply completing his job within Hitler’s organisation and although culpable for some morally ambiguous decisions regarding the use of slave labour in his work as Minister for Armaments and War Production, he was essentially innocent within the Nazi regime due to his lack of knowledge.5 Opponents of Speer, however, argue convincingly, that it is clear that Speer, in his position of seniority within Hitler’s organisation, was aware of the atrocities being committed by his peers. This is further verified by his close relationship with the Fuehrer and inconsistencies within his recount of events. These opponents, including author of The Good Nazi – the Life and Lies of Albert Speer Dan van der Vat, friend Rudolf Wolters and historian Matthias Schmidt, insinuate that Speer deliberately fabricated an impression of himself as “the good Nazi” to avoid the death penalty at Nuremburg, and thus placing blame, or culpability, upon the ex-Minister for Armaments, with Schmidt referred to Speer’s memoirs as “the most cunning apologia by any leading figure of the Third Reich”.6 In his memoirs, Speer claimed to be completely apolitical in his work for the Nazi party7, focused entirely on his role as an architect, and later as Minister of Armaments. He claimed to have joined the party in 1931 without researching Nazi philosophy, and maintained that he had never read Mein Kampf.8 In a letter to Hitler in 1944, Speer wrote “The task I have to fulfil is an apolitical one. I have felt at ease in my work only so long as my person and my work were evaluated solely by the standard of practical achievements”9 Despite his close relationship with Hitler, Speer made clear in 1 K Howell, Albert Speer, Sydney, 2000, p.36 2 Crimes against humanity include murder, extermination, enslavement and persecution on political or racial grounds of any civilian population, before or during the war. 3 J Owens, Nuremburg: Evil on Trial, London, 2006, pp.347-358 4 K Howell, op. cit. p.10 5 A Woolf, Questioning History: Nazi Germany, London, 2004, p.47 6 M Schmidt, Albert Speer- The End of Myth, 1982, p204 7 K. Howell, op. cit., p. 26 8 J Owens, op. cit., p.283 9 A. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p112 Inside the Third Reich and in his defence at Nuremburg that he did not discuss politics with Hitler. By being non-political, Speer was able to back up his claim of ignorance of Nazi atrocities; that he knew nothing of the Final Solution until after the German surrender in 194510, thus renouncing any culpability of the crimes against humanity committed by Hitler’s organisation. When asked at Nuremburg by his defence lawyer, Dr Flaechsner, if he wished to limit his responsibility to the sphere of his work as a technical minister, he replied: “No; I should like to say something of fundamental importance here. The war has brought an inconceivable catastrophe upon the German people, and indeed started a world catastrophe. Therefore it is my unquestionable duty to assume my share of the responsibility for this disaster before German people. This is all the more my obligation, all the more my responsibility, since the head of government has avoided responsibility before the German people and before the world. I, as an important member of the leadership of the Reich, therefore, share in the total responsibility, beginning with 1942…” 11 He was the only defendant to plead guilty (he claimed to be guilty not because he knew about the Holocaust, but because he should have known), thus projecting an image of the “Nazi that said sorry” and, in the eyes of the Western prosectors and general international community, as deserving less blame, or being less culpable, than other prominent figures. His plea and defence relied heavily on his claim to ignorance of Nazi atrocities, a factor that is debated with the uncovering of new evidence by historians, such as Matthias Schmidt12, impacting on his level of culpability in the crimes for which he was tried at Nuremburg. Speer had a close, personal relationship with the Fuehrer, developed shortly after he joined the NSDAP and became a member of Hitler’s intimate circle.13 At the Nuremburg Trials he stated “I should have certainly have been one of Hitler’s close friends had he actually had any”.14 Combined with his seniority within the organisation of Hitler’s government, this intimacy with Hitler meant that Speer should have had a detailed understanding of Hitler’s plans and goals. Speer himself said “I had participated in a war which, as we of the intimate circle should never have doubted, was aimed at world domination… that for one who wanted to listen, had Hitler never concealed his intention to exterminate the Jewish people”.15 Speer, in the role he was appointed in 1942, as Minister of Armaments ran the munitions factories where slave labour was used, a fact Speer was clearly aware of. 16 Speer was also responsible for the Central Department for Resettlement, which eventually evicted 75,000 Jews in Berlin, in the rebuilding of Berlin, commenting in 1941.17 These Jews would be taken to concentration camps in Poland, and due to Speer’s involvement in this, he became guilty of crimes against humanity, playing an active role in the persecution of Jews in the period 1937 – 1945. These roles within the Nazi organisation, also coupled with his friendship with Hitler make it hard to believe that Speer had little knowledge of the other crimes, including the Final Solution. It would appear that Speer had simply ignored the more unpleasant events occurring, one such example occurring in 1944. Speer’s close friend, and Gauleiter of Lower Silesia, Karl Hanke, instructed Speer to never inspect a concentration camp in Upper Silesia (Auschwitz). Speer said “He had seen something there which he was not permitted to describe, and moreover could not describe. I did not query him”. 18 Historian Dan van der Vat writes of Speer’s ability to compartmentalise due to his emotionally crippled childhood. He was able to overlook the moral 10 A. Woolf, op. cit., p.47 11 Albert Speer, as quoted in J. Owens, Nuremburg: Evil on Trial, London, 2006, p.277 12 K Howell, op. cit., p.10 13 Ibid. pp. 17-25 14 Albert Speer, as quote in K Howell, op. cit., p. 4 15 Albert Speer, as quoted in J. Owens, Nuremburg: Evil on Trial, London, 2006, p. 345 16 Due to comments during interrogation at Nuremburg 17 K Howell, op. cit., p. 96 18 A Speer, op. cit. p.456 issues surrounding slave labour19 and became “morally extinguished”20, and thus establishing a level of culpability in the crimes committed against humanity by Hitler’s organisation. Speer was not the sole leader of the German war production effort and war economy.21 The Four Year Plan, led by Hermann Goering, launched in August 1936 was to ensure that “in four years the German army must be operational and the Germany economy fit for war”. 22 Fritz Sauckel, plenipotentiary of the Nazi slave labour program, appointed Commissioner for Labour Deployment in 1942, had the role of finding the labour Speer need by any means necessary23. The evidence against Speer relating to his crimes against humanity relates almost entirely to his participation in the slave labour programme, which was in fact administered by Sauckel, but it was Speer who transmitted to him estimates of the numbers of workers need, whom he knew would be supplied under compulsion. 24 Both Sauckel and Goering were sentenced to death at Nuremburg, and considering Speer’s similar role within the Nazi government, this suggests that Speer was just as culpable in Hitler’s organisation as these men. However, Speer’s guilty plea, claims of ignorance and apologia allowed him to created the idea of “the Nazi that said sorry”, saving his life at the Tribunal despite his obvious culpability.
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