Born in Mannheim Germany on 19 March 1905, Albert followed his wealthy architect father into that profession. In March 1931he joined the Nazi Party, after hearing Hitler speak at a Berlin rally in late 1930. His big break came in 1933, when he was site manager on the renovation of the chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler visited the site daily, and was very impressed with Speer's polite manner and precise direct answers to his questions. Speer soon became a regular at the daily lunches that Hitler gave to his closest associates, and began to establish the nearest thing to a friendship Hitler ever had.
Hitler appointed Speer as head of Chief Office for Construction, his first task to design and supervise the building of a new chancellery, part of Hitler's dream of the entire rebuilding of Berlin. On 27 January 1938, Speer received plenipotentiary powers from Hitler to finish the new chancellery by 1 January 1939, also in that year [1938] Speer was awarded the Nazi party's Badge of Honour. Shortages of labour meant that construction workers had to work ten-to-twelve hour shifts. The SS built two concentration camps in 1938, and used the inmates to quarry stone for its construction, a brick factory was built near Oranienburg concentration camp on orders from Speer.The chancellery was completed in early January 1939, and was much praised by Hitler.
In 1942 Speer became Minister of Armaments and Munitions, a title amended the following year to Minister of Armaments and War Production, when he was charged not only with armanents production, and transportation, but also with final authority over raw materials and industrial production. In this powerful position Speer expanded a system of conscript and slave labour, supplied mainly from concentration camps, that maintained production of war material.
By the latter half of 1943, the retreat of German forces on the Eastern front gathered pace, as the Soviets advanced, and the Allied bombing intensified, Speer lost vital factories, raw materials, and oil supplies, by 1944, the war was obviously lost, and he was battling vainly to maintain output. Hitler now put his faith in “miracle weapons”, namely the V1 flying bomb and the V2 rocket, the factories to produce thse weapons were moved underground, to protect them from bombing raids. The main workforce in these factories was slave labour, under appalling conditions, living in tunnels, with no toilets, surrounded by their own filth, their clothes infested with lice. Working 72 hours a week on a daily diet of 1,100 calories, around 160 dropped dead every day, after a visit to the factory, Speer wrote to congratulate the manager, no mention was made regarding the plight of the workers.
As the war approached its end, Speer was directed by Hitler to destroy Nazi industrial installations, and infrastructure, an order he refused to obey. At the end of the war, Speer was detained by the Allies, and taken to several internment centres for Nazi officials. In September 1945, he was told that he would be tried for war crimes, a few days later he was moved to Nuremberg, and imprisoned. Speer was indicted on four counts, the main charges were, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. He accepted that he used war and concentration camp prisoners in arms factories, against their will, he also accepted the guilt of being part of the Nazi party machine that inhumanely massacred millions of Jews, however he claimed ignorance of the mass murder of Jews. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, he died of a stroke while visiting London in 1981.
Summing-up, for Speer to claim he knew nothing regarding the mass murder of Jews, is quite rediculous, the vast majority of Germans were aware of the killings, information was being received from the Eastern front, via relatives in the Wehremacht, and those serving in SS units, yet we are expected to believe that a staunch Nazi, very close to Hitler, knew nothing. But standing alone Speer's confession of guilt at the Nuremberg trial, should have been sufficient for a death sentence, yet smooth-tongued Speer, avoided the noose.
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