Speer, Albert (1905-1981), directed the production of weapons in Nazi Germany during World War II (1939-1945). He served as an adviser to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1945.

Speer was born in Mannheim, Germany. He became an architect and joined the Nazi Party in 1931. From 1933 to 1942, Speer designed monuments and decorations for rallies to promote the Nazi government. In 1942, Hitler put Speer in charge of arms production. Speer greatly increased weapons output. He used slave labour in German factories.

By March 1945, it was obvious Germany would lose the war. Hitler did not want enemy troops to use Germany's industries, and so he ordered Speer to have the German Army destroy the industries. But Speer knew the German people would need the industries after the war, and he refused to obey Hitler's order.

In 1945, after Germany surrendered, Speer was put on trial as a war criminal at Nuremberg, Germany. He admitted responsibility for using slave labour and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Speer completed his term in 1966. He wrote Inside the Third Reich (1969), an important book about Nazi leaders.

taken from the 1999 IBM World Book CD-Rom

Speer, Albert , 190581, German architect and National Socialist (Nazi) leader. A member of the Nazi party from 1931, he became its official architect after Hitler came to power. His grandiose but coldly eclectic designs include the stadium at Nuremberg (1934). A highly efficient organizer, Speer became (1942) minister for armaments, succeeding the engineer Fritz Todt. In 1943 he also took over part of Hermann Goering's responsibilities as planner of the German war economy. From Todt, Speer inherited the Organisation Todt (OT), an organization using forced labor for the construction of strategic roads and defenses. Under Speer's direction, economic production reached its peak in 1944, despite Allied bombardment. In the last months of the war Speer did much to thwart Hitler's scorched-earth policy, which would have devastated Germany. Largely because of the OT's wide use of slave labor, Speer was sentenced (1946) to imprisonment for 20 years by the Nuremberg war-crimes tribunal. He was released from Spandau war crimes prison in 1966.

See his memoirs, Inside the Third Reich (tr. 1970); biography by W. Hamsher (1970); G. Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (1995).

taken from Fact Monster - People

Hitler's architect; German minister of armaments from 1942 to 1945. In January 1931 Speer joined the National Socialist party. Shortly after the Nazis' rise to power, he was awarded his first large party contracts, redesigning Joseph Goebbels's official residence and planning the May 1 celebrations in Berlin. His work attracted Hitler's attention and he personally gave Speer assignments. While working together the two developed close ties of friendship. Hitler admitted Speer to his inner circle, opened up intoxicating new fields of action for him, and in the course of time allowed him a measure of freedom that no other member of Hitler's entourage ever enjoyed. Speer, in turn, gave Hitler outstanding service and complete loyalty.

Hitler's Architect

In 1934, Speer succeeded Paul Ludwig Troost, who had died early that year, as Hitler's architect. He was given two tasks to perform: to draw up a plan for Berlin, and to create a permanent installation for party conventions and party pageantry in Nuremberg. On both of these projects, Hitler and Speer jointly developed megalomanic building plans. In 1937, Speer was officially appointed inspector general of construction of the Reich's capital. This meant, among other things, that his department took charge of the apartments from which Berlin Jews were evicted in 1939. After deportations of Berlin's Jews to the east began in the fall of 1941, Speer's office had more apartments to allocate.

Minister of Armaments

When Fritz Todt was killed in an air accident in February 1942, Speer was appointed to succeed him as minister of armaments, and in September 1943 he was named minister of armaments and war production. In this capacity he was able, by using millions of forced laborers, to raise armaments production to a remarkable degree, at the very time that Allied air attacks were growing in intensity. Hitler's backing also helped Speer in his struggles with old - time party members and in the jungle of ill - defined spheres of authority that characterized the Nazi elite.

Speer's Relationship with Hitler Deteriorates

Toward the end of the war Speer's relations with Hitler deteriorated, but it was only in the final weeks that a real change took place. In violation of an explicit order by Hitler, Speer did not permit the destruction of industry and essential installations in the areas of Germany that were about to fall into Allied hands. He later claimed that he also planned Hitler's assassination, but it is unlikely that he really meant to carry it out.

The Nuremberg Trial

After the war, Speer was put on trial for war crimes by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, charged with employing forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners. Unusual in the trial was his admission of responsibility for the actions of the Nazi regime, including actions of which he claimed he had had no knowledge. He was found guilty on two counts, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment.

Speer's Release

Following his release, Speer published his memoirs, Inside the Third Reich (1970), which gained a great deal of attention. Many scholars dealing with the Nazi era have accepted the authenticity of this self - portrait. Some, like Hugh R. Trevor - Roper, have seen in Speer, the man who ignored the political implications of the regime and served it with absolute loyalty, "the real criminal of the Nazi regime." Others believe he was far more involved in the regime's actions than he admitted.

taken from "Encyclopedia of the Holocaust"

Speer, Albert

b. March 19, 1905, Mannheim, Baden, Ger.

d. Sept. 1, 1981, London

German architect who was Adolf Hitler's chief architect (1933-45) and minister for armaments and war production (1942-45).

Speer studied at the technical schools in Karlsruhe, Munich, and Berlin, and acquired an architectural license in 1927. After hearing Hitler speak at a Berlin rally in late 1930, he enthusiastically joined the Nazi Party (January 1931) and so impressed the Führer by his efficiency and talent that, soon after Hitler became chancellor, Speer became his personal architect. He was rewarded with many important commissions, including grandiose plans to rebuild the whole of Berlin (never accomplished) and the design of the parade grounds, searchlights, and banners of the spectacular Nürnberg party congress of 1934, filmed by Leni Riefenstahl in Triumph of the Will.

In 1942 Speer became minister of armaments and munitions, a title enlarged the following year to minister of armaments and war production, when he was charged not only with armaments production, transportation, and placement but also with final authority over raw materials and industrial production. With this authority, Speer expanded a system of conscript and slave labour, supplied primarily from concentration camps, that maintained production of war material for Nazi Germany.

Speer confessed his guilt at the Nürnberg trials in 1945-46 and served a 20-year sentence at Spandau prison in West Berlin. Following his release in 1966 he had a career as a writer. His published works include Erinnerungen (1969; Inside the Third Reich, 1970), Spandauer Tagebücher (1975; Spandau: The Secret Diaries, 1976), and Der Sklavenstaat (1981; Infiltrator, 1981).

taken from: Britannica.com

Minister Albert Speer

Univerally admitted to be the most able of Hitler's servants, Speer first joined his entourage as his personal architect, in which capacity he designed the Nuremberg stadium, but, after the death of Todt in an air accident, was appointed to fill his place as Armaments Minister. It was a brilliant appointment. Speer had both the technical and administrative skill and the personal self-confidence to impose correct solutions of the war supply problem on German industry as well as on Hitler himself. Despite the growing impact of Allied bombing from 1942 onwards he actually increased output on a rising curve until September 1944. Thereafter he became convinced that Germany must try to lose the war, as she was bound to do, with the least possible long-term damage to her economy and, when he became aware of Hitler's nihilistic intentions, did what he could to thwart them - towards the end with decreasing care for secrecy. Hitler probably became aware of Speer's disloyalty but allowed his long-standing affection for his only 'artisitic' subordinate to get the better of his (by then almost instinctive) vindictiveness. Speer's conversion came, however, too late for the Allies who insisted on noticing that he used slave-labour on some of his schemes and arraigned him at Nuremberg. He was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment. During his term he wrote what will undoubtedly remain the single most arresting account of life and politics within Hitler's entourage. The story of the life of the man himself, well-born, brilliant, charming and handsome, is itself the stuff of Faustian drama.

Speer Timeline 1905 - Born in Mannheim, Germany. 1927 - Acquires architectural license 1931 – Joins Nazi Party. 1933 – Becomes a member of the inner circle of Hitler’s associates. 1942 – Appointed Armaments Minister following the death of Fritz Todt. 1944 – Despite heavy bombing German armaments production reaches wartime peak. 1945 – Captured by American troops. 1946 – Stands trial at Nuremberg, sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. 1966 – Emerges from Spandau prison. 1969 – Publishes ‘Inside the Third Reich’. 1976 – Publishes ‘Spandau – Secret Diaries’. 1981 – Dies in London.