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Modern History MODERN HISTORY Describe the rise to prominence of the twentieth century personality you have studied. Albert Speer was born on 19th March 1905 in Mannheim, a German industrial town on the river Rhine near the French border. His father, Albert Friedrich Speer, was an architect just like his father, Berthold Speer, had been. Speer’s first encounter with Hitler and the Nazi’s came on the 4th of December in 1930 when he attended a Nazi party rally in which Hitler was speaking. Speer found himself ‘captivated by the magic of Hitler’s voice’. He joined the Nazi party with membership to take effect on the 1st March 1931. The first major turning point in Speer’s architectural career came soon after Hitler’s appointment as Reich Chancellor on 30th January 1933 when Goebbels, the newly appointed minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, invited Speer to begin work refurbishing the ministry building. Goebbels also called upon Speer several months later when he needed an architect for an extension of his official residence. Speer promised to complete the job in two months and only just met the deadline. His ability to deliver results on time was beginning to earn him a note worthy reputation among other Nazi officials. Speer’s first major encounter with Hitler came when he was called upon to assist Paul Troost, Hitler’s personal architect, in the rebuilding of the Chancellor’s residence in Berlin. During the building process Hitler, with his passion for architecture, visited the residence at midday every day, it was as a result of these visits that Hitler began to take a shine to the young architect and casually invited him to lunch a few weeks later, Hitler and Speer’s relationship thrived at this time as they discussed Speer’s architectural career and influences. In January 1934, with the death of Troost, Speer became Hitler’s lead architect and was commissioned to design the Nuremberg rally site. Speer wanted to impress Hitler at every turn and so proposed the theory of Ruin value, in which, based on the idea that Hitler’s regime would go down as the golden age of mankind, all Nazi buildings were to be designed and built with the ability to decay for thousands of years and still hold their prominence as Roman and Egyptian architecture did. Hitler was greatly impressed by Speer’s theory and ordered that henceforth, all major structures were to be built according to this principle. On 30th January 1937, Hitler officially appointed Speer as Inspector General of Buildings for the renovation of the Federal Capital (GBI). It had long been Hitler’s dream to reconstruct Berlin into the first ‘world capital’, the new city, to be named Germania, was to be constructed by 1950 at a cost of 4-6 billion Reichsmarks. In his new position Speer was answerable only to the Fuhrer. No party or government bureaucracy was permitted to interfere with his anointed task and the GBI had special powers to override any city authority. Germania was to be Hitler’s greatest show of power and propaganda. Albert Speer was also commissioned to build the new Reich Chancellery for Hitler in January of 1938. Speer jumped on the chance to reaffirm his position as Hitler’s preferred architect, after a rival architect Herman Giesler emerged, and so took up the ambitious deadline. Speer completed the project 2 days before the deadline and was repeatedly referred to as a genius during Hitler’s banquet speech. In February 1942, following the death of Fritz Todt, Albert Speer was appointed armaments minister of Germany by Hitler. As a part of his new power, Speer foresaw the possibility of rivalry and challenges at his new power from other leading Nazi’s wanting to expand their own power base such as Goering and Himmler, so he gained a Fuehrer order in which Hitler guaranteed his unconditional support to Speer. Soon enough however, as Speer had predicted, Goering attempted to absorb the Armaments ministry into his own power base, a move depicted as a threat to Hitler’s own power, and so Hitler granted Speer new powers to issue imprisonment and even death to those who failed to cooperate with Speer’s efforts. Initially, Speer’s power extended no further than the army. His control was extended to the entire war economy. Speer immediately set out streamlining the armaments industry by removing unnecessary layers of bureaucracy and granting greater responsibility to fewer department heads. He restructured the entire armaments industry and after just 6 months, achieved a remarkable 60% increase in overall production. However, as the struggle dragged on German industry began to suffer from a massive labour shortage. To deal with this Speer introduced shift work into war industries, almost doubling total output. This was not en9ugh however and in response to the worsening labour shortage crisis, Speer forcibly employed, through Fritz Saukel, over 700,000 foreign workers into German war industry. This created issues of revolt and the creation of resistance groups in occupied countries, however, Speer solved this issue by moving the factories to the occupied territory instead of the workers to the factories, minimising resistance. It was Speer’s remarkable ability as a technocrat, efficiency, and ability to deliver that ultimately led him into the hands of Hitler, propelling his career as a Nazi official, to the First architect of the Reich and finally, the Reich for Armaments and War production. ‘History is about Winners’ How accurate is this statement in relation to the personality you have studied. At first glance, throughout the course of his life time, Albert Speer had the appearance of a winner. This was certainly the view of most Western allied historians and media following the Nuremberg trials, however in 1971, over 25 years after the trials, cracks begin to appear in Speer’s carefully constructed self-defence, challenging the idea that the ex-Nazi official and Minister of Armaments was the winner as he became known. The surfacing problem of attaching the winner label to Albert Speer is the desire of previous historians to legitimise the Nuremberg trials in proving the responsibility of the Nazi’s actions, in particular, crimes against humanity. A winner is, by definition, a person with a record of successes; a person with popularity and therefore, a winner is characterised by their reputation. Immediately, it seems that Albert Speer fits this criteria; he began his career as an architect working on small time refurbishments for Nazi officials, slowly building a reputation for his ability to deliver on time, soon finding himself ‘First architect of the Reich’ and eventually becoming Armaments minister with influence over the entire Nazi organisation. However, following the downfall of the Nazi party, the truth behind his penance has surfaced as historians began to cast doubt on his ignorance to Nazi war atrocities, including the ‘final solution’, forever tarnishing his legacy. Speer’s involvement in the Nazi party began as a young, reliant architect, but by 1934, he became readily known as the first architect of the Reich; following the death of Hitler’s personal architect, Paul Troost. Perhaps Speer’s most well represented achievement as an architect of the Reich, signifying his career success, was his design and construction of the new Reich Chancellery in 1939. The highest of quality materials were to be used in the design and under the direction of the Fuhrer the gallery was decorated in the finest of red marble available in Germany. A building of such elegance and stature stands as one of Speer’s greatest achievements, clearly defining Speer as a success, however, following Nazi surrender, during the allied occupation of Berlin, the Soviet occupational forces ordered the Chancellery to be destroyed as a sign of disrespect to the Nazi leadership and Speer. Also, the red marble found decorating the walls of the gallery was reused to decorate the Berlin Soviet war memorial to further insult the ex-Nazi. Furthermore, the Germania project proved to be a highly impressive architectural feat for Speer in terms of design, challenging the boundaries of construction and technology, however, in the initial stages of construction Speer is responsible for the relocation of 75 000 Jews as their homes were destroyed in preparation for the grand boulevard. Such a move is far from reflective of a winner, and although was met with no resistance from the German people, it is socially incorrect and reflects poorly on Speer’s reputation outside of Germany. Perhaps Speer’s greatest achievements came when he held the position of minister of armament and war production. Whilst in office he was able to achieve a remarkable sixty percent increase in overall armaments production in a mere six months. Speer set about streamlining the armaments industry and used tactics of fear and repression to carry out his orders; as he gained a decree for the protection of the armaments industry, by which he was given the full authority to imprison or even issue the death penalty to anyone providing misleading information about munitions requirements. Also, in response to the worsening labour shortage Speer sanctioned a major campaign to forcibly recruit foreign workers. By August 1942, over 700 000 workers had been deported to Germany, representing a massive 23 percent increase in German manpower. Although this is an impressive feat, the means by which it was achieved leaves Speer in a sour light as he destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and as a result prolonged the war for up to 2 years. In the view of those who lost relatives in the final years of the war through either fighting or through the inhumane conditions provided for forced foreign labourers, this man is not a winner.
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