Albert Speer

:For the son of Albert Speer, also an architect, see Albert Speer (the younger)

After the war

Nuremberg trials

At the Nuremberg trials after the war Speer was one of the few officials to express remorse and plead guilty, but was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment in Spandau Prison, West Berlin, largely for his use of slave labor. At the trials, the prosecution introduced as evidence a photograph of Speer visiting the Mauthausen concentration camp, where he is clearly shown surrounded by emaciated prisoners. The prosecution claimed this proved Speer was well aware of the Holocaust. However, Speer held that he was only given a "V.I.P." tour of the concentration camp, meaning he was never shown the more vile side of the camp's purpose.

Related Topics:
Spandau Prison - West Berlin - Mauthausen - Concentration camp - The Holocaust

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

According to interviews after his imprisonment, as well as his memoirs, Speer adopted a "see no evil" attitude towards the Nazi atrocities. For example, through one of his friends, Karl Hanke, he learned of Auschwitz and the large number of deaths taking place there. He then purposely avoided visiting the camp or trying to get more information on what was taking place. In his autobiography, he claims that he had no direct involvement or knowledge of the Holocaust, although he faults himself for blinding himself to its existence. He certainly was aware, at least, of harsh conditions for the slave labor and many critics believe that his books understate his role in the atrocities of the era. Newly released documents suggest that Speer knew a lot more about the atrocities than he was telling.

Related Topics:
Karl Hanke - Auschwitz

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Prison

:Main article: Spandau Prison

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

His time in prison, painstakingly documented in his secret prison diary and later released as The Spandau Diaries, was described as being mainly comprised of mind-numbing routine, petty personal rivalries and pretensions between the seven prisoners, a bloated prison bureaucracy, and many false hopes of premature release. Speer, and most of the others, had established secret lines of communication to the outside world via sympathetic prison staff, and Speer made full use of it by, amongst other things, writing innumerable letters to his family (which were restricted to one outgoing page per month under official regulation) and even ordering a friend to spend money on his behalf from a special bank account for a variety of benign purposes.

Related Topics:
The Spandau Diaries - Bureaucracy

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Speer, as recounted in his diary, made a deliberate effort to make productive use of his time in any way possible. In the first decade, this mainly comprised of doing what he described as his "duty" and writing the first draft of his memoirs, as Speer was the sole survivor of Hitler's inner circle and possessed knowledge and a degree of objectivity that no other had. As the prison directors both forbade the writing of a memoir and recorded each sheet of paper given to the prisoners, he wrote much of his memoirs on toilet paper, tobacco wrappings, and any other material he could get his hands on, and had the pages smuggled out to be typed up by his former secretary.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

All the while Speer devoted much of his energy and time towards reading books from the prison library, which was organized by fellow prisoner and ex-Grand Admiral Erich Raeder. Speer was, more so than the others, a voracious reader and he completed well over 500 books in the first three years alone.1 His tastes ranged from Greek drama to famous plays to architectural books and journals, partly from which he collected information for a book he intended to write on the history and function of windows in architecture.

Related Topics:
Grand Admiral - Erich Raeder - 1

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Later, Speer took to the prison garden for enjoyment and work. Heretofore the garden was divided up into small personal plots for each prisoner with the produce of the garden being used in the prison kitchen. When regulations began to slacken in this regard, Speer was allowed to build an ambitious garden, complete with a meandering path, rock garden, and a wide variety of flowers. The garden was even, humorously, centered around a "north-south axis", which was to be the core design element of Speer and Hitler's new Berlin. Speer then took up a "walking tour of the world" by ordering geography and travel books from the local library and walking laps in the prison garden visualizing his journey. Meticulously calculating every metre traveled, he began in northern Germany, went through the Balkans, Persia, India, and Siberia, then crossed the Bering Strait and continued southwards, finally ending his sentence in central Mexico.

Related Topics:
Rock garden - Balkans - Persia - India - Siberia - Bering Strait - Mexico

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Release

His release from prison in 1966 was a world-wide media event. He then revised and published the several semi-autobiographical books he had began in prison. His books, most notably Inside the Third Reich and The Spandau Diaries, which were secretly written during his incarceration and systematically smuggled out, provide a unique and personal look into the personalities of the Nazi era and have become much valued by historians. Speer died of a cerebral hemorrhage in London, England on September 1, 1981 — exactly 42 years after World War II began.

Related Topics:
1966 - Autobiographical - Inside the Third Reich - Cerebral hemorrhage - London - England - September 1 - 1981

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Speer's son, also named Albert, became a successful architect in his own right, and was responsible for the design of Expo 2000 (the world exposition that took place in Hanover in the year 2000), design of the Shanghai International Automobile City and the Bejing Olympic complex. His daughter Hilde Schramm became a noted left-wing parliamentarian.

Related Topics:
Architect - Expo 2000 - World exposition - Hanover - Shanghai - Hilde Schramm

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~