albert speer
"Hitler's architect, who became Minister of Armaments and War Production in World War II"
The New York Times, "Albert Speer Dies at 76", Sept. 2, 1981
The New York Times, "Albert Speer Dies at 76", Sept. 2, 1981
Nazi Member Number 474,481
"He joined the National Socialist Party in 1931" "Hitler was delivering an address to the students of Berlin University and the Institute of Technology. My students urged me to attend. Hitler entered and was tempestuously hailed by his numerous followers among students. This enthusiasm in itself made a great impression on me... He began a historical lecture rather than a speech. To me there was something engaging about it - all the more so since it ran counter to everything the propaganda of his opponents lead me to expect... He spoke urgently with hypnotic persuasiveness... The mood he cast was much deeper than the speech itself, most of which I did not remember for long... Hitler did not seem to be speaking to convince, rather, he seemed to feel that he was expressing what the audience, now transformed into a single mass, expected of him...Here, it seemed to me, was hope. Here were new ideals, a new understanding, new tasks...The peril of Communism, which seemed inexorably on its way could be checked, Hitler persuaded us, and instead of hopeless unemployment, Germany could move toward economic recovery. A few weeks after this speech... friends took me to a demonstration at the Sportpalast. Goebbels, the Gauleiter of Berlin, spoke. How different my impression was... I felt repelled; the positive effect Hitler had had upon me was diminished, though not extinguished. The following day I applied for membership in the National Socialist Party and in January 1931 became Member Number 474,481. It was an utterly undramatic decision... I was not choosing the NSDAP, but becoming a follower of Hitler, whose magnetic force had reached out to me the first time I saw him and had not, thereafter, released me." |
Hitler's Architect
"You attracted my notice during our rounds. I was looking for an architect to whom I could entrust my building plans. I wanted someone young; for as you know these plans extend far into the future. I need someone who will be able to continue after my death with the authority I have conferred on him. I saw you as that man."
- Adolf Hitler to Speer
Inside the Third Reich, 1970
Minister of Armaments
"In February 1942, when Fritz Todt, the Minister of Armaments, died in a plane crash, Hitler made Mr. Speer the successor. At 36, Mr. Speer was the youngest member of the Cabinet. The following year, Hitler also gave Mr. Speer authority over raw materials and industrial production, putting 80 percent of German wartime industry in his hands. Despite Allied air raids, Mr Speer kept war production going. Some experts said his effectiveness might have extended the war by two years." |
"...dedicated administrator who kept the war machine running with forced labor and incessant planning." |