For educational purposes
Speer gave shape to the ideology of the Brown Shirts in stone and concrete, placed art under the banner of the Swastika and recruited an entire population for the munitions industry.
A technocrat rather than military man, Hitler exploited the young architect's organisational talents and wealth of ideas for his own ends.
Exclusive new revelations prove that Albert Speer knew from early on about the murder of the European Jews.
As Minister of Armaments and Munitions and Inspector General of Berlin, he was responsible for the deportation and recruitment of all forced labour.
Documents from the Ministry of Armaments and Munitions which have been kept under lock and key until now show how Speer harnessed the whole of German industry and people for the total war effort.
Speer gave shape to the ideology of the Brown Shirts in stone and concrete, placed art under the banner of the Swastika and recruited an entire population for the munitions industry.
A technocrat rather than military man, Hitler exploited the young architect's organisational talents and wealth of ideas for his own ends.
Exclusive new revelations prove that Albert Speer knew from early on about the murder of the European Jews.
As Minister of Armaments and Munitions and Inspector General of Berlin, he was responsible for the deportation and recruitment of all forced labour.
Documents from the Ministry of Armaments and Munitions which have been kept under lock and key until now show how Speer harnessed the whole of German industry and people for the total war effort.
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LearningTranscript
00:00He wanted to erect buildings more splendid, more beautiful, and larger than any that had
00:13ever been built before.
00:16But he hadn't seen, or so he later said, the blood on the hands of his Führer.
00:29He wanted to produce weapons that were more powerful, more deadly, and more numerous than
00:34in any other war before.
00:37But he hadn't seen, or so he later said, the catastrophe his commander brought upon Germany
00:43and the whole world.
00:46He did it all for Adolf Hitler, who, so he later said, had but one friend, him, Albert
00:52Speer.
01:16Berlin, 1913.
01:40Albert Speer, aged 25, and his wife, Margaret, enjoying life in the metropolis.
01:48They were happy to have escaped the provincialism of their hometown of Mannheim.
01:59The technical university, Albert Speer studied architecture here, at the urging of his father,
02:06a wealthy Mannheim architect.
02:09His son would rather have been a mathematician.
02:14After graduating, Speer got a position as tutor at the university.
02:18He was lucky.
02:19Most of his fellow students joined the queues at the employment office.
02:22In the depths of the depression, the newly qualified stood no chance of finding work.
02:31In the atrium of the technical university, political rallies were an almost daily occurrence.
02:37The university was a stronghold of the National Socialists.
02:40In Speer's faculty, two-thirds of all the students voted for them.
02:47Early December 1930, Der Angriff, the newspaper of the Berlin National Socialists, announced
02:54that Hitler would address a rally for students.
03:01Demonstrations greeted the Nazi Führer on his arrival in Berlin.
03:08Colleagues took Speer along to the New World, a beer hall in the blue-collar district of
03:12Neukölln.
03:15Despite the demonstrations, Hitler turned up on the evening of December the 5th.
03:24Somewhere in the crowded hall sat Albert Speer.
03:27He listened to the speech.
03:28There was no ranting.
03:30When Hitler talked about art, his delivery was deceptively sweet.
03:34Later, Speer was to say that he had been captivated by the magic of Hitler's voice.
03:45Speer was excited.
03:47Hitler's words had struck a chord with him.
04:12Three months later, Albert Speer joined the National Socialists and started to work for
04:16them, but not as a bully boy of the SA.
04:20He was interested, or so he later said, in the new tasks that would come with Hitler.
04:27Speer knew the fanatical politician was also a frustrated architect.
04:39But it was Goebbels, the Gauleiter of Berlin, who, in 1932, gave him his first small job
04:45as an architect.
04:49Speer was asked to renovate the Gauhaus in Voss Street.
04:53His designs matched the fast-growing party's need for a grand headquarters for official
04:57occasions.
04:59Goebbels was satisfied.
05:04A unique photo of the opening ceremony, Speer, who later claimed that he was just going along
05:09with things at this stage, was already somebody in the Berlin Nazi party.
05:23Hitler had only been in power for a few weeks when Speer got his big chance.
05:28On May 1, 1933, thousands of people from all over Germany marched to the Tempelhof field
05:34in Berlin.
05:36At its first mass rally, the new regime wanted to demonstrate its power and intimidate its
05:42opponents.
05:46Goebbels had given Speer the job of designing the parade ground.
05:51His plans have survived.
05:54Somewhat embarrassed, the hitherto unknown architect explained the concept in his first
05:59radio interview.
06:00To
06:24make the Führer look particularly impressive.
06:28This mission now obsessed Speer, and Hitler was thrilled with Speer's ideas.
06:38Goebbels made the young architect official director of an artistic organisation of mass
06:42rallies.
06:43In other words, stage manager of the dictatorship.
06:55The building itself, however, was the domain of Professor Paul Ludwig Trost, Hitler's architect.
07:06Hitler admired Trost, but Trost regarded Hitler as a mere pupil.
07:10The Führer, however, wanted to be an architect himself.
07:17In the 20s, Hitler had sketched the monumental buildings of his future Reich.
07:22They were then castles in the air, but now he had a chance to turn them into reality.
07:36Hitler the great builder set to work.
07:45He needed a talented young architect, someone he could shape to his own goals.
07:50Someone like Speer.
07:52Speer was still in the background, but he didn't have long to wait.
08:05In January 1934, Trost died.
08:08Speer, who had not yet designed a single building, became the first architect of the Führer.
08:14A phenomenal rise to power.
08:19Speer's life was like the story of Faust.
08:21The young man of just 28 had found his Mephistopheles, the devil to whom he sold his soul, and who
08:27in return would bring all he desired within his grasp.
08:31And then, of course, you can't blame Speer if a young architect has big plans.
08:43Who doesn't have huge plans in their young years and wants to change the world?
08:47And there is a man of tremendous power, to whom the statesmen, I would like to point out
08:56the whole world, submissive pilgrims, and who was given the opportunity to fully exalt himself here.
09:08Money didn't matter at all, and he conceded everything to him.
09:16Speer's first major commission, Nuremberg, 1934, the rebuilding of the party rally grounds.
09:25The Führer sketched.
09:27Speer was the architect who executed his ideas.
09:30Only when Hitler said a building should be 100 metres long did Speer contradict, according
09:34to an eyewitness, and suggest at least 200 metres long, mein Führer.
09:44Speer's sense of scale, the Zeppelin field.
09:48He wrote, it is unique in history that a leader with superior technical understanding has
09:54created stone buildings that will, in thousands of years, still bear witness to their time
10:00as documentation of the political will.
10:07A few days before the party rally in 1936, Hitler inspecting the site.
10:16Hitler was reportedly overwhelmed when his architect demonstrated the effects of his
10:21new stage.
10:30The setting, night and searchlights.
10:34Speer, the master of ceremonies, could create every effect.
10:42Wagner.
10:45The Overture to Rienzi, Hitler's favourite opera.
10:50The high point was the Cathedral of Light.
10:53To the end of his days, Speer was to call it his masterpiece.
10:59Only an illusion, but it lit up the sky.
11:06That was just the beginning.
11:08Speer's greatest project in Nuremberg was the National Stadium.
11:12It was designed to hold 400,000 spectators and be home to the Olympic Games.
11:21In future, they would always take place in Germany.
11:24Or so Hitler said on the building site.
11:31Only the shell of the Congress Hall was finished before the beginning of the war.
11:35It was the only one of the Nuremberg buildings that Speer did not design himself, though
11:39he supervised its construction.
11:42It was built exclusively for Hitler's annual speech to the 50,000 delegates at the party
11:47rally.
11:50When the roof went on, the great builder declared...
11:54...the poets and singers may be fighters today, but there have always been builders who will
12:03make sure that the success of this fight will find its inevitable culmination in the document
12:09of a once great art.
12:11That is why these buildings should not be designed for the year 1940, nor for the year 2000,
12:18but for the years to come.
12:26Speer instituted a special construction process for the Nuremberg buildings, the Law of Ruins.
12:32The buildings were designed to look grand, even in a state of decay, like a temple of
12:38antiquity.
12:56Hitler liked to have his architect Speer with him on the Obersalzberg in Berchtesgaden as
13:00well.
13:06Speer and his wife Margret belonged to Hitler's private circle.
13:10They were regular visitors to the Berghof.
14:06Speer built himself a studio on the Obersalzberg.
14:30It was here that Hitler told him about the greatest commission of all time, comparable,
14:35he said, only with the building of Babylon and ancient Egypt.
14:46Speer was to build Germania, the world's greatest capital city.
14:51In early 1937, Hitler appointed Speer Inspector General of Buildings for the renovation of
14:56the Reich capital, and awarded him the title of Professor.
15:03Speer's first project in Berlin, the new Reich Chancellery.
15:07The order to start work was given in January 1938.
15:11It had to be finished within the year, because Hitler wanted to impress foreign ambassadors
15:15with the might of the new, greater German Reich at the next New Year's reception.
15:21Speer was put to the test.
15:23Now he had to show just what he could do.
15:50At the last stage, over 8,000 workers were on the site at the same time.
15:56Speer wanted to hand over his building to the Führer on time.
16:00Only the finest materials from all over Europe were used, and the best craftspeople in the
16:05Reich.
16:17Two days before the completion date, a tour of the rooms.
16:21Everything was ready.
16:22Hitler publicly called his architect a genius for the first time.
16:31The mosaic room, the long hall, Hitler's study.
16:43Speer designed the desk himself.
16:48Speer made a point of noting that all his plans had been based on the Führer's ideas.
16:58The Brandenburg Gate.
17:00Next to it, the new centre of the Reich was to have been built.
17:05This is how it would have looked.
17:13The great square, dominated by the great hall where 150,000 people could meet.
17:18The largest building in the world.
17:22Tiny, by comparison, the old Reichstag.
17:28The high command of the Wehrmacht.
17:36The Führer's palace, much larger than the new Reich Chancellery.
17:56Hitler wanted delegations from subjugated peoples to come once a year to see and marvel.
18:06The lunacy of Germania was to be ready by 1950.
18:13The beginning was ordinary enough.
18:15In June 1938, the master of Germania displayed himself in his favourite pose as the great
18:22builder.
18:23First, the Inspector General had to make space for the Führer's buildings.
18:4152,000 flats needed to be demolished.
18:44To the people who lost their dwellings, Speer could offer a replacement.
18:54Over 23,000 so-called Jews' flats were registered by Speer's officials and rented to Aryans
19:00once they became available.
19:06Speer, who later claimed he knew nothing of this, threatened the landlords.
19:15It is a punishable offence to let a Jew's flat without my permission.
19:23Even from the Obersalzberg, Speer sent messages inquiring about progress with the eviction
19:28of Jewish tenants from 1,000 apartments.
19:39House by house, the Gestapo and Speer's officials combed the city for flats.
19:49With German thoroughness, they drew up eviction lists and recorded the names and addresses
19:54of all Jewish tenants and the Aryans who were to take their place.
20:05On October 27, 1941, the Gestapo came to 53 Butzow Street.
20:12In a small flat lived the four members of the Jewish Krisch family.
20:42The Krisch family was
21:12deported to Poland.
21:13Werner Krisch never saw his parents or his brother again.
21:19The night before Hitler's 50th birthday in 1939, another show staged by Albert Speer.
21:25Speer made the deadline again.
21:49He even had a special present for the Führer.
21:54It was waiting in the Reich Chancellery.
21:56Hitler left the group of well-wishers.
21:58He was deeply moved.
22:00Here it was, a four metre high model of his Arch of Triumph.
22:07He'd sketched it 15 years earlier and now Speer wanted to build it for him.
22:19Speer is said to have spent half the night in front of this model.
22:24Indeed, there seemed to be no end to his triumphs.
22:30The 28th of June, 1940, Hitler the victor in Paris.
22:42He celebrated the moment of his greatest triumph with an early morning tour of the town in
22:47the company of his master builder.
22:55Hitler had thought of destroying Paris.
22:59Now he wanted to leave the vanquished city as it was, so it would look small and pitiful
23:06next to Speer's new Berlin.
23:09While he was in Paris, Hitler gave the order...
23:14Berlin must soon be a monument to our victory.
23:17I see that as my most important contribution to the final establishment of our victory.
23:26But the war went on, on more and more fronts.
23:41One person knew this war could no longer be won, Dr. Fritz Todt, one of the earliest
23:47members of the National Socialists and a devoted follower of Hitler.
23:53The Todt Organisation built Hitler his autobahns and the West Wall, known to the Allies as
23:59the Siegfried Line.
24:01From the beginning of the war, Todt was minister for armaments and munitions.
24:09Todt thought the war on two fronts against the Soviet Union and the Allies was disastrous.
24:14He urged Hitler to make peace before the tide turned against Germany.
24:18The Supreme Commander wouldn't hear of it.
24:25The 7th of February, 1942, the Fuhrer's headquarters at the Wolf's Lair.
24:31Again Todt tried to convince Hitler of the seriousness of the situation, but he knew
24:35his efforts had been in vain.
24:39The following morning, Todt boarded a plane for Berlin.
24:42The plane crashed shortly after take-off.
24:44The cause of the crash was never discovered.
24:54Speer's time had come again.
24:56Once more, it followed a death.
25:03The new armaments minister marched at the head of the funeral cortege.
25:15Speer and Hitler, a new chapter in their relationship.
25:19It started with a solemn oath.
25:46Paying his respects in his new role, Speer promised an armaments miracle.
25:52Hitler gave his minister free reign, just as he had to Speer as an architect.
26:03Meeting of the German armaments industry with the head of the Wehrmacht, Speer's first appearance
26:08as minister.
26:09His goal, to reorganize armaments production.
26:16The program he introduced was based on the self-responsibility of industry.
26:21He had no time for bureaucracy.
26:24Speer's new weapons were to be sent straight to the front.
26:29The minister requested and supported open discussion.
26:33Many of his colleagues were not even party members.
26:36He made just one demand, the immediate increase of armaments production.
26:46Speer's demand was met.
26:50After just six months in office, Hitler's dynamic new minister reviewed the figures
26:54before representatives of German industry.
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27:46Speer had shown what he could do.
27:48As a student, he had shown his father.
27:51Now, as a minister, he was showing the Führer.
27:58Speer enjoyed the power his association with Hitler brought him.
28:02He was intoxicated by power, as he later put it.
28:06Hitler promised him that once they'd won the war, they would just build.
28:10It was as an architect that Speer wanted to go down in history.
28:22But despite all Speer's efforts, the tide turned at the front.
28:26In the winter of 1942-43, the Wehrmacht suffered major defeats in Africa and Russia.
28:32Enormous quantities of arms and munitions were lost.
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28:48100,000 German soldiers fell in battle.
28:52At Stalingrad, an entire army was obliterated.
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29:01The Wehrmacht asked Speer for 700,000 factory workers as troops.
29:07Speer reacted with mobilisation of the labour force.
29:11The protected firms.
29:13Previously, anyone who worked here was in a reserved occupation.
29:17Now, skilled workers and engineers were conscripted into the army from key German armaments factories.
29:27Speer had to fill the gap, so women were sent to the armaments front.
29:31The party ideologues were opposed.
29:36German women were supposed to bear children.
29:39Hitler had another objection.
29:41The long-legged German woman, he explained to Speer, wasn't a workhorse like the stocky Russian woman.
29:49...
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29:54Hitler demanded deployment of concentration camp inmates, prisoners of war and forced labourers.
30:00Speer later protested that he'd had nothing to do with that, which we now know to be untrue.
30:06After inspecting a concentration camp, Speer, for whom Hitler's palaces could never be grand enough,
30:13wrote to his dear party comrade Himmler that the SS should use more primitive building methods
30:19because the hut struck him as overly generous.
30:30Back home, Speer drummed up support with his national comrades for the total war industry.
30:38His most important ally, propaganda minister Goebbels.
30:41The two of them began to peer together more and more.
31:12Hitler pinned all his hopes on Speer.
31:15In return, Speer got what he wanted most, the Führer's gratitude.
31:34Hitler now ended conversations with his armaments minister, Heil Speer,
31:39a likely successor.
31:43Ever Brown and Margaret Speer, the women left behind, hardly ever saw their menfolk.
31:49Lonely days spent on the idyllic Obersalzberg.
31:59The menfolk, inspecting new weapons.
32:02Speer was now an architect of armaments.
32:05The men pored over plans and construction models.
32:08It looked just like the old days.
32:13But there was one difference this time.
32:16Hitler had fought in the First World War, Speer hadn't.
32:19Hitler was giving all the orders now.
32:36A new tank had to be developed.
32:38The cannon had to be enlarged and extended.
32:41It had to be reacted to immediately.
32:44We were not allowed to lose time.
32:48When he was just an architect,
32:50he was on about the same level as Hitler.
32:56They could talk about a topic on the same level.
33:00The two of them found it interesting.
33:04Now he was a member of a cabinet.
33:12Hitler was the head of the cabinet.
33:15Speer received instructions from him that he wasn't used to.
33:23He complained that he was treated differently now than he used to.
33:33This hierarchical shift was to have one far-reaching consequence.
33:38German rockets had been tested at Peenemünde
33:41on the island of Usedom for several years.
33:44Speer favoured anti-aircraft rockets.
33:47They were small, cheap and were urgently needed
33:50to counter the Allied bombers,
33:52which were flying ever higher and ever faster.
33:57Hitler preferred the V-2 assault rocket,
34:00which was big and expensive.
34:05Speer was won over to Hitler's position.
34:08The psychological effect of the V-2
34:11fascinated the two comrades in art.
34:19The V-2 turned out to be extremely unreliable.
34:23It was Speer's greatest flop,
34:26as useless as the monumental buildings in Berlin and Nuremberg.
34:34Prisoners in the Dora Mittelbau concentration camp,
34:37a system of tunnels in the Harz Mountains
34:40was turned into a factory for miracle weapons.
34:44The Führer ordered Speer to use labour from the concentration camps.
34:54With 20 kilometres of tunnels,
34:56it was the largest underground factory in the world.
35:03From 1943 on, 60,000 slaves toiled in these dungeons
35:07for the final victory.
35:09One in three did not survive.
35:15Dora is now a memorial.
35:17The installations were dismantled
35:19and destroyed by the Americans and Russians.
35:22Still lie the rusty remains of old miracle weapons,
35:25like this V-1.
35:27The suffering of those days is barely imaginable now.
35:52The one who slept was also unable to sleep,
35:55because the other cried out,
35:57always 25 sticks, gum sticks.
36:02And the earthlings,
36:04Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
36:09And luckily I only managed to get seven sticks in all.
36:15But many got 25, or some got.
36:18At the end of 1943, Speer came for an inspection.
36:23Barbaric, he said. Inhuman conditions, he said.
36:28Later...
36:49If he couldn't do it, he was shot.
36:52The transports left again.
36:54Back to the other camps.
36:56They were killed there.
36:58And they called for new prisoners.
37:01I can't imagine what happened here.
37:04That's why I say, and it was like that,
37:07for me it was the worst camp.
37:10Because of work, the prisoners, the people, were destroyed.
37:18The Reich leaders and Gauleiters of the Nazi Party
37:21gathered here in Posen Castle on October 6th, 1943,
37:25a crisis meeting.
37:30Speer wanted to stop all civilian production at once,
37:33but the Gauleiters were afraid of a change of mood in Germany.
37:42Furious, Speer gave Hitler's old guard an ultimatum.
37:49I ask you to take one thing into account.
37:52The way in which individual Gauleiters
37:56have taken refuge,
37:58cannot and will not be the same anymore.
38:01I will therefore speak for the Gauleiters
38:05within 14 days of my request for refuge.
38:09And I can assure you that I am willing
38:13to enforce the authority of the Reich,
38:16whatever the cost.
38:18I have spoken with Reich Führer S. Himmler
38:21and I will treat those Gauleiters
38:24who do not carry out these measures accordingly.
38:29After Speer, it was Himmler's turn.
38:32His topic, the final solution of the Jewish question.
38:36Not one political leader of the Third Reich
38:39should have been able to say later that he hadn't known about it.
38:43Speer, however, later maintained he hadn't been present
38:46during Himmler's speech.
38:48He had left early to join Hitler.
38:55As if to flee from the awful truth about Hitler's regime
38:58and the nation's impending defeat,
39:00Speer threw himself into frantic travelling.
39:03The Junkers 52 became his second home.
39:07Unlike Hitler, Speer constantly travelled to the hot spots of the war.
39:12He listened to the soldiers
39:14and from them learned the real truth
39:16about how grim the situation was.
39:27Speer was fascinated by his toys, new weapons.
39:31All his energy went into their development.
39:34His six children practically never saw their father.
39:37They later said they'd grown up without a father.
39:54In 1944, in the middle of the war,
39:56the British paper The Observer wrote of Speer,
40:00He might have joined any other political party
40:03which gave him a job and a career.
40:06He rather symbolises a type
40:08which is becoming increasingly important in all belligerent countries,
40:12the pure technician.
40:20Back home, Speer was a man of few words.
40:24Back home, Speer spread optimism in the factories,
40:27although he knew the country's reserves had been used up.
40:34The conflict between what he thought and what he did made him ill.
40:39The SS clinic Hohenlüchen, north of Berlin,
40:42Speer's official residence from January 1944.
40:46A feverish inflammation of the knee
40:48led to his death.
40:51A feverish inflammation of the knee
40:53led to a pulmonary embolism.
40:55Hitler sent the best doctors of the Reich
40:57to save his henchman's life.
41:02But Speer was isolated from his master.
41:05His opponents spread rumours
41:07that Hitler blamed Speer for the reversals at the front
41:10and was even considering replacing him.
41:13From hospital, Speer lamented in a letter to Hitler,
41:17Mein Fuhrer, this is the first time you have been displeased
41:21with any achievements in my domain.
41:25Speer felt rejected and offered to resign.
41:31Hitler had a messenger sent to the hospital.
41:34Tell Speer he's very dear to me.
41:36In May 1944, Speer returned to office fully recovered.
41:43But his armament's empire was under dire threat.
41:47The Allies ruled the airspace over Germany.
41:53Almost unopposed, thousands of flying fortresses
41:56took off daily for Germany.
42:00The German airspace was in danger.
42:02The American 8th Air Force concentrated on destroying
42:05the German armaments industry.
42:07In May 1944, they were given a mission
42:09which had a decisive impact on the course of the war.
42:14Their target, the Leuner Works in Merseburg.
42:17Here, synthetic petrol was made from coal.
42:20After the loss of the oil fields in Romania,
42:23Leuner was the Wehrmacht's last major source of energy.
42:27The bombers of the American 8th Air Force
42:29attacked the German fuel plants almost continually.
42:32Finally, 90% of German aircraft fuel production was destroyed.
42:38Speer sent a memorandum to Hitler
42:40with an urgent plea for protection
42:42and rebuilding of the German airspace.
42:46The German airforce was forced to withdraw
42:48from the German airspace.
42:51The German airforce was forced to withdraw
42:53from the German airspace.
42:56With the destruction of the fuel plants,
42:58a shortage of aircraft fuel loomed
43:00with disastrous consequences for the Wehrmacht.
43:13But Hitler only wanted to hear good news.
43:16The Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions
43:18did his best as always
43:20and presented his commander with ever larger,
43:22ever more powerful weapons.
43:27In the middle of 1944,
43:30the minister was able to report
43:32a new peak in armaments production.
43:34Speer prolonged Hitler's war
43:36long since a lost cause by months.
43:42Wherever Speer surfaced in the last year of the war,
43:45he urged people to greater exertions,
43:48all long since pointless.
43:51Rallying cries about holding out to the end,
43:54which he later said were due to
43:56a particular type of sensory derangement.
44:25November 1944.
44:27The Americans crossed the German western front
44:29and took Aachen.
44:37The armaments factories along the Ruhr
44:39were now on the front and under threat.
44:54September 1944.
45:00Speer set off on one of his journeys of inspection
45:02in the winter of 1944-1945,
45:05journeys to the combat zone.
45:12Speer realised the war was lost.
45:14He started to make plans for the period after Hitler,
45:17playing a double game.
45:20Speer was not yet 40
45:22and intended to play a part after the war.
45:24Not wanting to face the victors empty-handed,
45:27he aimed to leave German industry
45:29as intact as possible.
45:38But at the front,
45:39everything was being blown up in the retreat.
45:42September 1944.
45:51Speer urged Hitler not to destroy the factories
45:53in the west above all,
45:55but just to cripple them temporarily.
46:13Or he agreed until March the 19th, 1945.
46:15In this teletype message,
46:17Hitler called for application
46:19of the Squadron.
46:21He said,
46:23if we don't do this,
46:25we'll never be able to
46:27get back to work.
46:33Or he agreed until March the 19th, 1945.
46:35In this teletype message,
46:37Hitler called for application
46:40of the Scorched Earth Principle.
46:42All industrial plant that could be of use
46:44to the enemy was to be destroyed.
46:48Speer's agitant saw his reaction
46:50at close quarters.
47:10Speer broke off his journey
47:12and raced back to Berlin.
47:14In his luggage was a handwritten letter
47:16to Hitler.
47:39I therefore beg you
47:41not to carry out this measure
47:43which will be so destructive to the people.
47:48May God protect Germany.
47:50Speer.
47:55A refusal to obey orders
47:57and an open criticism of Hitler.
47:59In those days, many thousands of people
48:01were killed for that.
48:04Speer, however,
48:06was received in the Reich Chancellery.
48:08He reaffirmed his loyalty to the Führer.
48:10It was the price he paid
48:12for the free hand Hitler gave him.
48:17It was Hitler's farewell
48:19from the man who would later say,
48:21if Hitler ever had a friend,
48:23it would have been me.
48:29Three weeks later,
48:31on April the 21st, 1945,
48:33Speer left Berlin and headed north.
48:35He thought his alliance with the man
48:37who had defined his life for 15 years
48:39was now over.
48:49In Mecklenburg, Speer wanted to prepare
48:51for the new tasks he hoped were in store
48:53for him in the period after Hitler.
49:02Two days later,
49:04on April the 23rd,
49:06events took a dramatic turn.
49:08On a Luftwaffe base in Mecklenburg,
49:10a light plane was made ready for takeoff.
49:17The passenger, Albert Speer.
49:19The destination of the Fieseler Storch,
49:21Berlin.
49:27Why did Speer fly back
49:29to the besieged city?
49:31On board with him was
49:33Adjutant von Poser.
49:35He now breaks his silence.
49:59Fear of being made Hitler's successor?
50:01Fear of being made Hitler's successor?
50:03Was it that which drove Speer back
50:05to Berlin?
50:31Back to the Reich Chancellery?
50:33To the place he later called
50:35the ruins of my life?
50:40To the thunder of artillery fire
50:42he made his way down into the Führer's bunker
50:44for the last time.
51:02After taking his leave of Hitler,
51:04Speer crept back through the catacombs
51:06of Berlin's government district
51:08to his aeroplane.
51:10His adventure paid off.
51:12Hitler left Dönitz, not Speer,
51:14the responsibility for the country
51:16he had led to ruin.
51:20Speer was not mentioned
51:22in Hitler's last will and testament.
51:27On May the 23rd,
51:29the man who believed
51:31he had been given a second chance
51:33addressed the nation
51:35from the Hamburg radio studio.
51:59We are not allowed
52:01to mourn
52:03and mourn the past
52:05at this very moment.
52:08Only through hard work
52:10can we carry on
52:12our cause.
52:17God protect Germany!
52:22One year later,
52:24Speer was the only defendant
52:26at the Nuremberg trial
52:28with collective responsibility
52:30for the deeds of the man
52:32to whom he had sold his soul.
52:36About the crimes of the regime, however,
52:38he claimed to the end of his life
52:40to have had no knowledge.
52:45The court sentenced him
52:47to 20 years imprisonment.
52:49He was released in 1966.
52:51Albert Speer died in London
52:53in 1981.
52:58Another 20 years later,
53:00he was arrested again
53:02for his crimes.
53:08In January 1980,
53:10he was sentenced
53:12to 14 years in prison.
53:16He was then sentenced
53:18to a three-year sentence
53:20and a two-year sentence
53:22for his crimes.
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