German Leaders Of The Nazi Era/Speer
NOTE: This will be the last German "political" leader I cover. Next will be some high ranking German military leaders who served during the Nazi regime. Then I'll do some Allied political and military leaders. Again, if something in these articles interests you, please check out your local library for more detailed information than I have provided here.
"Albert Speer"
I chose to include Speer here because he was not what most people would think of as a "typical" Nazi. What do I mean by that? Well, I believe most people tend to think of the Nazis as being coarse thugs, rogues, and not particularly smart, or at least that they didn't use any of their intelligence to think much for themselves; and there is certainly some or much truth in those beliefs, depending upon the particular Nazi in question. Speer is pretty much the opposite of Nazi, Julius Streicher, the Gauleiter (a Nazi term for district leader) of the Nuremberg area. Streicher was also the publisher of the Nazi newspaper, "Der Stürmer" ("The Stormer," or "Attacker"), and he was so coarse and vile, even the other Nazis didn't like him and wanted him out. That tells you something! Streicher, however, had one important Nazi in his corner....Hitler, and in spite of protests by other Nazi leaders, Hitler kept him on. Streicher was particularly vicious in his treatment of German Jews. When put on trial at Nuremberg after the war, evaluators found his IQ to be just barely above moron status, although he may well have had a couple of lucky guesses in the IQ test. Anyway, Speer was virtually at the exact opposite of Streicher in mentality and personal behavior. That has been disturbing to many people; that a man so intelligent and well educated could serve a regime so indifferent, or even hostile, to such things.
Speer was from Mannheim, in southwestern Germany. He became an architect. He joined the Nazi Party just a year or two before Hitler was appointed chancellor, and his motives for this move have been in question. Did he join to advance his career? Did he really believe the core Nazi principles? I'd say he probably did join to help his career, and he may well have believed in the Nazi desire to restore German honor and the German economy (it was the time of the Depression). Did he believe the Nazi racial ideas, and the accompanying hatred? I'm not sure, but this is another reason I chose Speer; he is controversial.
After being introduced to a number of Nazi Party leaders, including Joseph Goebbels, Speer was given a number of architectural jobs, including the design for special effects used at the annual Nazi rallies in Nuremberg. This gave him access to Hitler himself. Hitler's previous background in architecture made the two very close, and Speer spent much time with Hitler in Berlin and at Hitler's villa in Berchtesgaden. Later, Hitler commissioned Speer to design and build a new Reichs Chancellery in Berlin, and he was also involved in the design and construction of the "Olympic Stadium" in Berlin, built for the 1936 Olympics held there. Over the years, Speer and Hitler designed models for a future central part of Berlin, with all sorts of spectacular buildings, and for a "new" Linz, the city where Hitler had lived for a time in his childhood, and which continued to retain Hitler's affection even all of those years later.
In early 1942, the Minister of Armaments, Fritz Todt, died in an airplane crash. Hitler appointed Speer to this very important position, and it was this assignment which involved Speer in criminality. Given tremendous power by Hitler, Speer transformed the German economy into an armaments producing dynamo. The thing was, with German manpower being drained into the military, the Nazis, along with Speer, turned to using prisoners-of-war, concentration camp inmates, and forced laborers from other countries to keep the gears of the German war economy operating. Many, if not most, of these forced workers were not given the best of treatment, as can be imagined. German war production continued to increase, even at the height of the Allied air attacks. Further, Speer's knowledge of the mass murder of Jews, Gypsies, and others is unclear. After the war, he denied direct knowledge, only admitting to having been given "hints" by one Nazi Gauleiter in particular, although he said he should have checked into the matter further on his own. There were some discrepancies in his stories, but there has never been overwhelming evidence against Speer in this matter. Speer's apologetic behavior after the war often diffused some of the controversy around him, fairly or unfairly.
Speer became increasingly disillusioned as the war turned against Germany, and when conspirators planning to kill Hitler considered potential participants in a government replacing the Nazis, they had Speer's name on that list, although he had not committed to the plot, and indeed, the conspirators were so uncertain of Speer, he was not made aware of the plans to kill Hitler. This undoubtedly saved Speer from execution when the bomb failed to kill Hitler, and intense investigations were carried out by the Nazis, along with many, many death sentences.
As Germany's enemies penetrated deeper in the country, Hitler issued an order to destroy much of the war-battered nation's infrastructure; which, if carried out, would have delayed or deprived the country from recovering after the war. Speer, for a moment, gained his voice and opposed the measure in a face-to-face meeting with Hitler. Shortly thereafter, he gave in, although he got Hitler's approval that granted him the power of "how" the policy was to be implemented. Speer used this power to circumvent Hitler's intent in many cases. Also by this time, Hitler had moved into his Berlin bunker, and Speer later said he contemplated injecting poison gas into the underground facility to kill Hitler and other Nazi leaders there. The bunker had to have fresh air, and it had a vent from the outside. Speer said he planned to get the gas into this ventilation system, but that after his initial planning, when he returned to the bunker complex, the vent had been moved from ground level to a much higher level, making it virtually impossible to reach without being observed by Hitler's numerous guards.
Speer returned to Berlin just a few days before Hitler's suicide. What happened between Speer and Hitler is controversial. Speer later recounted that he told Hitler he had not carried out his order to destroy Germany's infrastructure to the degree so ordered by Hitler, but that he remained personally loyal to Hitler, which supposedly moved the dictator to tears. Speer also said, upon departing, Hitler simply coldly said, "Auf Wiedersehen." With no witnesses to the meeting, some historians have questioned Speer's retelling of what actually happened. Shortly after this meeting, Hitler named a new government to take over upon his death, and Speer was to be replaced. This gives some credence to Speer's account, as Hitler would have been unlikely to favor anyone who disobeyed his orders. On the other hand, Speer later published his memoirs, and, from what I understand, his original notes did not contain any of this information.
Speer was arrested and put on trial at Nuremberg. He was convicted over the use of slave labor and prisoners-of-war. He was the only Nazi leader to convincingly (although not everyone agrees with that) take responsibility for his participation in the Nazi regime. He was given a twenty year prison sentence, which was seen by some as too lenient. He served the full 20 years, being released in the mid 1960s. He then published his memoirs (the English language title: "Inside the Third Reich") and another book or two about the Nazi regime and his participation in that regime. His memoirs' book was on the best seller list for quite a long time, as I recall. His assumption of responsibility during his trial, as well as the regard the anti-Nazi plotters had had for him, undoubtedly kept Speer from a life imprisonment sentence, or perhaps even a death sentence. His critics have acknowledged Speer's intelligence, but they have more or less said, he used that intelligence to conveniently concoct stories about plans to kill Hitler and about open defiance of Hitler in the last days, just to make a good case at a trial he most assuredly knew would be held for him. After his release from prison, Speer was frequently interviewed for news or talk show programs, and also contributed interviews for a number of documentaries during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. He died in 1981 while in England.
WORD HISTORY:
The-This common word has a complicated history, but I will keep it as simple as possible. It is often referred to as the definite article (also used as an adverb, but the same basic history),^ goes back to Indo European "se," a variant of Indo European "so," which meant "this/that." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "sa," with the same meaning. Variant forms developed in Germanic for different usages, which changed the beginning to what is essentially the "t" or "th" sounds. This gave Old English "the," a grammatically masculine form (English once used gender in grammar, too), which eventually overtook the use of Old English "se," and then even the feminine form "seo," and the neuter form "thaet." In those times it also meant "that." It is related to "this, that, these, those," in English, as well as to similar forms in the other Germanic languages: German has "der, die, das;" Dutch has "de, die," Low German has "de, dat (or 'det,' in some dialects);" West Frisian has "de, dy;" Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish have "den, det, de;" and Icelandic has "það, sa."
^ It is called "definite," because it refers to a specific object, unlike the "indefinite article," "a or an." Examples are easier to understand: "A Germanic language is related to English," doesn't tell us a specific Germanic language, but "THE German language is related to English," tells us specifically which Germanic language; thus making it "definite."
"Albert Speer"
I chose to include Speer here because he was not what most people would think of as a "typical" Nazi. What do I mean by that? Well, I believe most people tend to think of the Nazis as being coarse thugs, rogues, and not particularly smart, or at least that they didn't use any of their intelligence to think much for themselves; and there is certainly some or much truth in those beliefs, depending upon the particular Nazi in question. Speer is pretty much the opposite of Nazi, Julius Streicher, the Gauleiter (a Nazi term for district leader) of the Nuremberg area. Streicher was also the publisher of the Nazi newspaper, "Der Stürmer" ("The Stormer," or "Attacker"), and he was so coarse and vile, even the other Nazis didn't like him and wanted him out. That tells you something! Streicher, however, had one important Nazi in his corner....Hitler, and in spite of protests by other Nazi leaders, Hitler kept him on. Streicher was particularly vicious in his treatment of German Jews. When put on trial at Nuremberg after the war, evaluators found his IQ to be just barely above moron status, although he may well have had a couple of lucky guesses in the IQ test. Anyway, Speer was virtually at the exact opposite of Streicher in mentality and personal behavior. That has been disturbing to many people; that a man so intelligent and well educated could serve a regime so indifferent, or even hostile, to such things.
Speer was from Mannheim, in southwestern Germany. He became an architect. He joined the Nazi Party just a year or two before Hitler was appointed chancellor, and his motives for this move have been in question. Did he join to advance his career? Did he really believe the core Nazi principles? I'd say he probably did join to help his career, and he may well have believed in the Nazi desire to restore German honor and the German economy (it was the time of the Depression). Did he believe the Nazi racial ideas, and the accompanying hatred? I'm not sure, but this is another reason I chose Speer; he is controversial.
After being introduced to a number of Nazi Party leaders, including Joseph Goebbels, Speer was given a number of architectural jobs, including the design for special effects used at the annual Nazi rallies in Nuremberg. This gave him access to Hitler himself. Hitler's previous background in architecture made the two very close, and Speer spent much time with Hitler in Berlin and at Hitler's villa in Berchtesgaden. Later, Hitler commissioned Speer to design and build a new Reichs Chancellery in Berlin, and he was also involved in the design and construction of the "Olympic Stadium" in Berlin, built for the 1936 Olympics held there. Over the years, Speer and Hitler designed models for a future central part of Berlin, with all sorts of spectacular buildings, and for a "new" Linz, the city where Hitler had lived for a time in his childhood, and which continued to retain Hitler's affection even all of those years later.
In early 1942, the Minister of Armaments, Fritz Todt, died in an airplane crash. Hitler appointed Speer to this very important position, and it was this assignment which involved Speer in criminality. Given tremendous power by Hitler, Speer transformed the German economy into an armaments producing dynamo. The thing was, with German manpower being drained into the military, the Nazis, along with Speer, turned to using prisoners-of-war, concentration camp inmates, and forced laborers from other countries to keep the gears of the German war economy operating. Many, if not most, of these forced workers were not given the best of treatment, as can be imagined. German war production continued to increase, even at the height of the Allied air attacks. Further, Speer's knowledge of the mass murder of Jews, Gypsies, and others is unclear. After the war, he denied direct knowledge, only admitting to having been given "hints" by one Nazi Gauleiter in particular, although he said he should have checked into the matter further on his own. There were some discrepancies in his stories, but there has never been overwhelming evidence against Speer in this matter. Speer's apologetic behavior after the war often diffused some of the controversy around him, fairly or unfairly.
Speer became increasingly disillusioned as the war turned against Germany, and when conspirators planning to kill Hitler considered potential participants in a government replacing the Nazis, they had Speer's name on that list, although he had not committed to the plot, and indeed, the conspirators were so uncertain of Speer, he was not made aware of the plans to kill Hitler. This undoubtedly saved Speer from execution when the bomb failed to kill Hitler, and intense investigations were carried out by the Nazis, along with many, many death sentences.
As Germany's enemies penetrated deeper in the country, Hitler issued an order to destroy much of the war-battered nation's infrastructure; which, if carried out, would have delayed or deprived the country from recovering after the war. Speer, for a moment, gained his voice and opposed the measure in a face-to-face meeting with Hitler. Shortly thereafter, he gave in, although he got Hitler's approval that granted him the power of "how" the policy was to be implemented. Speer used this power to circumvent Hitler's intent in many cases. Also by this time, Hitler had moved into his Berlin bunker, and Speer later said he contemplated injecting poison gas into the underground facility to kill Hitler and other Nazi leaders there. The bunker had to have fresh air, and it had a vent from the outside. Speer said he planned to get the gas into this ventilation system, but that after his initial planning, when he returned to the bunker complex, the vent had been moved from ground level to a much higher level, making it virtually impossible to reach without being observed by Hitler's numerous guards.
Speer returned to Berlin just a few days before Hitler's suicide. What happened between Speer and Hitler is controversial. Speer later recounted that he told Hitler he had not carried out his order to destroy Germany's infrastructure to the degree so ordered by Hitler, but that he remained personally loyal to Hitler, which supposedly moved the dictator to tears. Speer also said, upon departing, Hitler simply coldly said, "Auf Wiedersehen." With no witnesses to the meeting, some historians have questioned Speer's retelling of what actually happened. Shortly after this meeting, Hitler named a new government to take over upon his death, and Speer was to be replaced. This gives some credence to Speer's account, as Hitler would have been unlikely to favor anyone who disobeyed his orders. On the other hand, Speer later published his memoirs, and, from what I understand, his original notes did not contain any of this information.
Speer was arrested and put on trial at Nuremberg. He was convicted over the use of slave labor and prisoners-of-war. He was the only Nazi leader to convincingly (although not everyone agrees with that) take responsibility for his participation in the Nazi regime. He was given a twenty year prison sentence, which was seen by some as too lenient. He served the full 20 years, being released in the mid 1960s. He then published his memoirs (the English language title: "Inside the Third Reich") and another book or two about the Nazi regime and his participation in that regime. His memoirs' book was on the best seller list for quite a long time, as I recall. His assumption of responsibility during his trial, as well as the regard the anti-Nazi plotters had had for him, undoubtedly kept Speer from a life imprisonment sentence, or perhaps even a death sentence. His critics have acknowledged Speer's intelligence, but they have more or less said, he used that intelligence to conveniently concoct stories about plans to kill Hitler and about open defiance of Hitler in the last days, just to make a good case at a trial he most assuredly knew would be held for him. After his release from prison, Speer was frequently interviewed for news or talk show programs, and also contributed interviews for a number of documentaries during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. He died in 1981 while in England.
WORD HISTORY:
The-This common word has a complicated history, but I will keep it as simple as possible. It is often referred to as the definite article (also used as an adverb, but the same basic history),^ goes back to Indo European "se," a variant of Indo European "so," which meant "this/that." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "sa," with the same meaning. Variant forms developed in Germanic for different usages, which changed the beginning to what is essentially the "t" or "th" sounds. This gave Old English "the," a grammatically masculine form (English once used gender in grammar, too), which eventually overtook the use of Old English "se," and then even the feminine form "seo," and the neuter form "thaet." In those times it also meant "that." It is related to "this, that, these, those," in English, as well as to similar forms in the other Germanic languages: German has "der, die, das;" Dutch has "de, die," Low German has "de, dat (or 'det,' in some dialects);" West Frisian has "de, dy;" Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish have "den, det, de;" and Icelandic has "það, sa."
^ It is called "definite," because it refers to a specific object, unlike the "indefinite article," "a or an." Examples are easier to understand: "A Germanic language is related to English," doesn't tell us a specific Germanic language, but "THE German language is related to English," tells us specifically which Germanic language; thus making it "definite."
Labels: Albert Speer, English, etymology, German History, German Jews, Germanic languages, Hitler, Julius Streicher, Nazi leaders
posted by Randy at 12:08 PM
3 Comments:
So what in your pontificating opinion did Speer believe about the Nazi racial ideas?
I saw a documentary about Speer awhile back (1990s?), and I think it noted he was in charge of renting or selling homes of Jews who had been sent to concentration camps.
First to Seth's comment: You have a good memory. Around the time of the outbreak of war, Speer held a position within the city of Berlin which had to do with housing inspection. Part of his job in this department dealt with placing Germans into housing formerly occupied by German Jews who had emigrated or been sent to concentration camps. There's no question Speer knew about all of this, but his level of complicity has been in question. If I remember right, he had some documents in this matter destroyed. I can't recall the whole situation, but the documents may have had his signature or intials on them, and I believe they concerned conviscation of Jewish property. Unknown to Speer, there was another copy of all or some of the documents, which later became public, although I believe it was after Speer had died.
As to Johnnie's question, which actually ties in with Seth's comment to an extent, Speer was very intelligent, and wily, and he tooks steps to cover his tracks and to avoid self incrimination. What he actually believed is almost irrelevant, in my opinion, because it was the results of his actions that mattered. Whether he believed the Nazi racial nonsense I don't really know, and it is possible Speer, like many Germans, chose to turn off his thought processes and act like a robot controlled by Hitler. I don't believe Speer was as "innocent" as he later claimed, but as I noted in the article, Speer's personality, intelligence, and willingness to accept a certain degree of responsiiblity (selectively) stood in stark contrast to many unrepentant Nazis, and made him look almost admirable, and it saved his life, or at least a life prison sentence. I don't remember the context, but at some point after the war, Speer wondered what he would have done had he been directly ordered by Hitler to have people killed.
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