Speer Albert: biography, photo, work. Albert Speer after the prison

The architect Speer Albert was the author of many colossal urban development projects in Nazi Germany. He was in the immediate circle of Adolf Hitler and enjoyed the rare confidence of the Fuhrer.

Carier start

Speer was born in the south-west of Germany, in Mannheim, on March 19, 1905. His father was an architect, and it was thanks to him that the tastes and interests of the boy were formed. Albert studied in Karlsruhe, Munich and Berlin. At age 22 he graduated from the Moscow School and became a certified architect.

Speer's career began with the fact that he became a teacher. As the architect himself stated, in his youth and youth he was deeply apolitical. However, it was at this time that Germany was in crisis after the crisis, because of which the radical Nazi party became popular. In 1930, Speer Albert joined her ranks after hearing Hitler's speech, which was extremely encouraging and left strong impressions.

Joining the Nazi Party

The young man became not just a member of the party. He was in the ranks of assault detachments (SA). Political activity did not prevent him from growing professionally. He settled in his native Mannheim and began to receive orders for making plans for buildings. Party leadership also did not bypass the young talent. The Nazis paid him for rebuilding the buildings in which the institutions of the NSDAP were stationed.

Reconstruction of the Propaganda Ministry building

Even then Speer Albert was directly acquainted with the party leadership. In 1933, Hitler finally came to power. At the same time, Goebbels gave Speer the most responsible task for him at the time - to rebuild the obsolete building in which the propaganda ministry was supposed to start working. It was a new structure created by the Nazis after coming to power. There were several departments in the ministry-the administrative department responsible for the press, propaganda, radio, literature, etc. The huge state institution included a staff of many thousands. He had to fit in the new building so that not only work successfully, but also quickly contact each other. All these tasks were put before the team, which was headed by Speer Albert. The work of an ambitious architect inspired confidence that he would cope with his mission. So it happened. During the project Albert Speer drew the attention of the Fuhrer. Hitler had his own architect - Paul Troost. Speer was appointed as his assistant.

Paul Troost's assistant

Paul Troost was famous for his works in Munich, where Hitler lived for many years. For example, this is the famous Brown House, where until the end of the war the Bavarian headquarters of the Nazi Party was located. In 1934, Troost died, shortly after Speer was appointed his assistant.

After this loss, Hitler made a young specialist his own personal architect, entrusting him with the most important projects. Speer Albert took up the restructuring of the Metropolitan Reich Chancellery. A year before the death of Troost, he was responsible for decorating the attributes of the party convention held in Nuremberg. Then for the first time all Germany saw a demonstration of a huge symbol of the Third Reich - a red canvas with the symbol of a black eagle. This congress was captured in the propaganda documentary film "The Victory of Faith". The inspirer of much of what was on the film was Albert Speer. The architect from that time was in the immediate circle of Adolf Hitler.

Despite his employment Speer Albert, whose personal life was extremely successful, did not forget about his family. He was married to Margaret Weber, they had 6 children.

The restructuring of Berlin

In 1937 Speer Albert received the post of Inspector General of the imperial capital, responsible for construction. The architect was commissioned to develop a project for the complete reconstruction of Berlin. The plan was completed in 1939.

According to the model, Berlin was to receive a new name - the Capital of the World Germany. This phrase completely reflected the propaganda and ideological basis of the restructuring of the city. The name used the Latin version of the word "Germany". In German, it denoted not the country (Deutschland), but its female image. It was a national allegory, which was popular in the 19th century, when there was no united Germany yet. Residents of numerous principalities considered this image as one for the entire German people, regardless of the territory of which state they lived.

The project of the new capital was directly worked by Adolf Hitler and his close Albert Speer. The architecture of the city had to be monumental, which would symbolize the center of the world. In his public speeches, Hitler more than once mentioned the new capital. According to his idea, this city should have been like Babylon or Rome during the existence of the ancient empire. Of course, London and Paris would seem like provincial towns compared to it.

Speer Albert transferred most of the ideas of the Fuehrer to paper. Photos of modern Berlin can also contain some of its realized ideas. For example, these are the famous lights that were installed next to the Charlottenburg Gate. The capital was to be permeated with two axes of roads that would allow you to quickly reach the ring road surrounding the city. In the very center would be the Reich Chancellery, on the reconstruction of which Albert Speer also worked. The architect's projects concerning the restructuring of Berlin were approved by the Führer.

In order for Speer as soon as possible to implement an ambitious plan, Hitler gave him unprecedented powers. The architect could not even take into account the opinion of the city authorities of Berlin, including the magistrate. This also speaks to the great degree of trust that Hitler had for his confidante.

Project implementation

The reconstruction of the city was to begin with the demolition of a large residential area, which was inhabited by about 150 thousand inhabitants. This led to the fact that there were a lot of homeless children in the capital. In order to resettle homeless people to new apartments, Berlin began repressions against Jews, who were expelled from their native apartments. Housing was given to internally displaced persons, whose quarters were demolished for reconstruction.

The project began on the eve of the Second World War and lasted until 1943, when numerous defeats on various fronts led to economic problems. The reconstruction was frozen until better times, but it never resumed because of the defeat of the Third Reich.

It is interesting that the restructuring affected not only the residential quarters. Cemeteries in different parts of the city were destroyed. During the reconstruction, about 15,000 corpses were reburied.

People's Hall

The People's Hall was one of the most significant ideas that were presented in the framework of the Berlin reconstruction project. This building was to appear in the north of the capital and become the most important symbol of the power of the German state. According to Speer's idea, the main hall could accommodate about 150 thousand visitors during the celebrations.

In May 1938, Hitler visited Rome. In the ancient capital, he visited many monuments of antiquity, including the Pantheon. It was this building that became the prototype of the People's Hall. The Berlin Pantheon was planned to be built from high-quality marble and granite. Hitler expected that the building would stay at least ten thousand years old. Like other important buildings of the new capital, the People's Hall was to be built by 1950, when Germany finally conquered Europe.

The dome of the structure was a dome, which, according to the project, was ten times the volume of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. According to experts, the construction of the Hall could cost the German treasury a billion Reichsmarks.

Member of the Reichstag

Since the onset of the war, most of Speer's professional activities were connected with the capital, he also began to participate in the organizational life of the city. From 1941 to 1945, the architect was a deputy of the Berlin Reichstag. He was elected in the western constituency of the city.

Reich Minister of Armaments and Ammunition

In 1942, the Reichsminister of Arms and Ammunition Fritz Todt died in an airplane accident near Rastenburg. Albert Speer was unexpectedly appointed to the vacated office. The biography of this man is an example of a biography of a disciplined member of the party, who diligently did his work, regardless of what position he held.

Speer was also responsible for the inspection of energy resources and roads in Germany. He regularly visited industrial enterprises of the country and did everything to ensure that they worked as long as possible at full capacity, supplying the army with everything necessary in conditions of total war. In this position, Speer cooperated with Heinrich Himmler, who supervised the concentration camps. The Reich ministers managed to create an economic system in which the welfare of the state was based on the servitude of prisoners. At this time, all the adult and healthy Germans fought at the front, so the industry had to be developed at the expense of other resources.

The Last Months of the War

The spring of 1944 was extremely difficult for Speer. He fell ill and could not work. Partly because of his absence, but mostly because of the plight of the economy at this time, German industry was on the verge of collapse. In the summer, an unsuccessful conspiracy was opened, the goal of which was the murder of Hitler. A correspondence of traitors was found in which they discussed the idea of making Speer Minister in the new government. The architect only miraculously managed to convince the Nazi top that he was not involved in the plot. Hitler's attachment to the Reichsminister also played a role.

In the last months of the war, Speer tried to convince the Fuhrer not to use the scorched earth tactics. Leaving the cities where the allies were approaching, the Germans, as a rule, destroyed all industry, in order to complicate the enemies of their lives on the way of the offensive. The Reich Minister understood that this tactic was disastrous not only for the Allies, but also for the Third Reich, where by the end of the war there was not a single stable enterprise. Roads and infrastructure were destroyed by shells and shelling. The carpet bombing of Germany's strategic sites has become a regular event, especially after the Americans joined the allies.

Arrest and sentence

Speer was arrested on May 23, 1945. He was one of the few who admitted his guilt at the Nuremberg trial. The architect also avoided the death penalty, unlike many of his colleagues in the Nazi government. The main accusation against the Reichsminister was the accusation of using the labor of prisoners in concentration camps. Speer used it at a time when he was in charge of Germany's industry. For his crimes, he was sentenced to 20 years in jail.

The prisoner was sent to Spandau. The local prison was controlled by four allied countries. He served his entire sentence and was released in 1966.

After liberation

In 1969, Albert Speer (after the prison) published the memoirs "Memoirs" written behind the bars. This book immediately became a bestseller in Europe and the United States. In the Soviet Union, the memoirs of the Reich Minister were not published. This happened after the collapse of the communist state.

In the 1990s, not only "Memoirs" were published in Russia, but also several other books by Speer. In them he not only described the situation in the higher echelons of power of the Third Reich, but also tried to explain his actions in various public positions. Albert Speer lived after prison in the free environment of bourgeois Europe. In 1981 he died during a visit to London.