Literature
Nazi-era architecture and planning in Berlin, leadership of Germany's armaments ministry, and postwar autobiographies that shaped the contested “Speer myth.”
Albert Speer was a German architect who became a member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle and was appointed General Building Inspector for Berlin in 1937. The Central Department for Resettlement under his authority evicted Jewish tenants from their homes. As Minister of Armaments and War Production, he exploited slave labor for the German war effort. He was convicted at Nuremberg of war crimes and crimes against humanity and served 20 years in prison. His later autobiographies promoted an image of an apolitical technocrat that subsequent historical research discredited.
Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and rose through architectural commissions to become one of Hitler's close allies. After the war, he was convicted at Nuremberg of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He served a 20-year prison sentence and was released in 1966.
As General Building Inspector for Berlin, Speer was responsible for the Central Department for Resettlement, which evicted Jewish tenants from their homes in the city.
As armaments minister, Speer used misleading statistics to promote claims of an “armaments miracle.” Later research attributed much of the production increase to systems introduced by his predecessor, Fritz Todt.
Speer used writings from prison as the basis for Inside the Third Reich and Spandau: The Secret Diaries. Through these books and later interviews, he portrayed himself as a remorseful technocrat who had not known about the Nazi regime's crimes, while continuing to deny explicit knowledge of and responsibility for the Holocaust. Subsequent research undermined this account.
Berlin's Heavy Load-Bearing Body was commissioned as a test cylinder for the Germania planning program, which Speer directed as General Building Inspector.
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As Hitler’s General Building Inspector, he directed the Germania planning program for which the load-testing cylinder was commissioned.
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