As Albert Speer is associated with Adolf Hitler, we usually think of him as the creator of the New German Capital. That seems a crazy idea, because the plans for the massive makeover of Berlin were made in the early 40s when any sane person would have sent all available resources to the front. Not so if your name was Hitler. He made big plans and he wanted those plans to be realized at once: a military world power, impressive arenas and gaudy buildings in all major German cities (but also in Linz, Austria) to impress the rest of the world, including the eradication of the Jews. Too much on one fork, one would say, but until his military debacle at Stalingrad (1943), Hitler got away with it.
Albert Speer was a sober man, businesslike and efficient, and after he had met Hitler, he started working on the designs for the new capital. Politics did not interest him, and a member of the Nazi party, he never was. In the entourage of Adolf Hitler, he was the outsider, and the Nazis of the first hour didn’t trust him for a penny. But Speer enjoyed the sympathy of the Fuehrer, and thus he was untouchable. Together they sat for hours bent over the plans to realize Hitler's dream, and Speer believed in it, perhaps party because he could already see his own name immortalized for future generations. He was vain and ambitious and he believed in a future for his fatherland, and imagine: a thousand years, not even the Romans had done that...
Less known is the fact that after several conflicts within the top of the Nazi party, Albert Speer was appointed minister of armaments by Hitler. In that capacity, he managed to centralize the armaments industry and to reduce the influence of the various army units, enabling a more efficient planning and production. Even the Luftwaffe, for long an independent fortress, had to give in, because as Adolf Hitler’s best friend, Speer soon became one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich and he was even regarded as thé most powerful figure after Adolf Hitler. That their friendship weakened in the last phase of the war, was due to political maneuvers and organizational disagreements. Albert Speer lamented the conflict greatly, and the records show that Adolf Hitler was not happy with the discord between them either. It was due to the fact that very early after his appointment, Albert Speer had proclaimed that the war was lost. Hitler obviously opposed the idea. According to author Joachim Fest, there was a certain gay erotic tension between the two men, with at one side the almost morbid idolatry of Speer for everything that had to do with Hitler, and on the other side, Hitler’s respect for the architect he never had become.
But Albert Speer was not only stubborn and determined, he often went against the intentions of Hitler as he thought that the wrong choices were made. Convinced that they were producing materials that were not a necessity, he shut down production units, even though Hitler had given opposite orders, and his entire working life Speer fought for the idea of a total war, by which more citizens would be available for the war industry and the military. Speer was frustrated when he saw that the production of consumer goods was barely reduced (because Hitler did not want to overly offend the population), while the war industry did not have enough laborers and the army had hardly enough recruits. He would only realize that goal at the end of his career, when all the leftovers were scraped together for a lost cause.
One question has never been answered: was Albert Speer aware of the systematic extermination of the Jews. It is a known fact that he visited a concentration camp at least once, but according to witnesses, a show was staged in order to cover up the atrocities. On the other hand, nobody believes that someone from the inner circle of Hitler could have been unaware of what was going on, because during the long winter evenings on the Obersalzberg, Hitler often spoke long and extensively of the race that was undermining the homeland and had to be wiped out. But never has anyone caught the minister of armaments on an offensive statement against the Jews. However, the fact that he was in Berlin to prevent the deportation of Jews, does not mean that he can be depicted as the Berlin Schindler, because Speer just wanted to be efficient and he realized that the removal of highly skilled Jewish workers, would have a negative impact on the planned production increases in the armament industry. Speer has never admitted that he knew what was happening in the concentration camps. Like many Germans, I had suspicions, was the farthest he ever wanted to go. That's strange, because he was the responsible authority for the logistics of the Third Reich and he knew about the trains that went to the camps. Has he ever wondered why they left full and returned empty? What did he think they did with the human cargo in the East? Later, the American officers who had questioned him, claimed that Speer had perfectly prepared his answers during his years with Hitler and taken the necessary precautions to avoid charges of participation in mass murder. Moreover, he had always distanced himself from the activities of the Gestapo and the SS and had avoided any cooperation.
At Nuremberg, Speer was on trial for crimes against humanity, along with the other leaders of the Nazi regime. During the preliminary investigations, he was the only one who cooperated seamlessly with the British and American interrogators, for which he was treated as a traitor by the rest of the accused. Of course he was held responsible for the crimes of the regime, but personally he could not be accused of criminal actions against Jews. For the raids against Jews in Berlin, he had indeed provided the necessary vehicles, but he had not personally participated in the brutal actions. What also played in his favor was the fact that at the end of the war, he had done the impossible to prevent the execution of Hitler's orders to destroy the German industrial complexes and infrastructure. Along with Rudolf Hess he escaped the death penalty and was sentenced by the court to 20 years of imprisonment.
Joachim Fest (1926-2006) is an authority on the Nazis and the Third Reich, and his biography of Adolf Hitler (1989) is a standard. That one day he would take a close look at Albert Speer, comes as no surprise. In his 500-page biography, Fest does not judge. He places available information about Speer beside his autobiographical writings (which the convict wrote during his imprisonment in Spandau), provides commentary, and if necessary, he compares his findings with earlier writings on Speers motives (often written down by Speer’s first English and American interrogators), but he never offers binding and/or decisive conclusions, as Speer has ensured that at least part of the truth about his person would never see the light of day.
Speer - The Final Verdict, published by Harcourt - ISBN: 0-15-100556-7