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I do believe he was sort of sorry, and sort of not sorry in some kind of an denial, at the same time its possible he didn't quite understand what Himmler was doing with the Jews, or what was happening to them... He definitely needed to know, and he partially did so also for publicity reasons.
@@BlazeMaster His children (who were estranged from him at the time of his death) said he knew perfectly well what was happening to the Jews. Nobody as high up in the Nazi ranks could be that ignorant. He fooled the judges at Nuremberg because he put on a good act and was educated and well-spoken, unlike that toad Julius Streicher, who was so repulsive many Nazis couldn't stand him.
My favorite part of the entire story was when Speer showed his father the model of the future Germania capital, he looked over at his son and told him "You've all gone completely insane. You realize that, right?"
Speer was possibly the most clear eyed of the Nazis on trial at Nuremberg. He was able to read the tea leaves and knew there was not the slightest chance of getting off given the mountains of evidence. His aim was therefor fairly modest. He wanted to avoid dying prematurely from a broken neck. And the only way he had a chance of that was to effectively admit his guilt and throw himself on the mercy of the court. I think he was a great actor whose only real regret was that Germany lost the war. But it worked. He lived to die an old man after serving 20 years in prison. His principal assistant Fritz Sauckel was not as clever as his boss and was hanged.
WTF ? He denighed ever knowing about the death Camps. yet worked many thousands of Slave labourers to death, in most of the armament factorys, as the Nazis struggled to supply their dwindling troops, due to massive bombing of their Factories. HE, was in charge of it all, arselicking for Hitler.
@@hypercomms2001he didn't admit his guilt. He admitted responsibility because of his position. There's a difference there. But yes he or/and his lawyer was clever enough to contrast himself with some common sense. The other nazis were quite delusional and narcissistic.
Yes, this is essentially correct. In his book(s) he said his lawyer outlined his responsibility to his client, basically the lawyer told him that there were mountains of evidence to hang all his co-defendants. The new arguments, that they had surrendered to the Western Allies, the Treaty of Versailles, etc. were moot --they having being exhausted, in any event, too much evidence of war crime and the danger of being given to the Russians, considered a de facto death sentence, in any event. But, said the lawyer, there was a small chance he could save his life, if he admitted to the crimes he had committed, denied what there was no proof of, and claimed succor under Christian ethics-- a sharp contrast to what the Nazi's presented-- with a long apology. The lawyer gave him no choice. He refused to preside over a defense --which had as its outcome the death of his client-- which he saw as an automatic loss. It may have worked because it gave the tribunal a cudgel to beat harder the other defendants. Goring, at trial, called him a swine-- likely thinking along these lines.
The lady biographer was right: You can't look away from something without knowing what it is you're looking away from. Speer was fully aware of what was happening to Europe's Jewish population.
Speer was a crafty guy. He told Hitler what he wanted to hear and was his only friend; he told the Tribunal at Nuremberg what they wanted to hear and didn't hang...
But, you see, in many ways his appointed attorney was doing what he was supposed to do as a defense attorney. He followed the client's direction as to the direction of defense he wanted and it was up to the Courts as to whether to believe it or not. They chose to 'buy it' for whatever reason. I strongly believe the choice was far too high a price for people to pay but the choice was not mine to make.
Speer was not there...why dissect after he dat 20 yrs in jail a reason for what.with respect some of the stories told by the survivors you just cannot believe..and you know it's true....the one even met the pole that actually was killed in the camp at a party as few years after liberation...the one woman danced all the time..do you want to kill all the Germans now because of the Jews.now the Jews are infighting so much that they are open prey to those wanting to kill them....because they became so woke overnight
@@Isabella-nh5dm being the only one to admit partial guilt goes a long way in swaying judges when all other defendants deny that any crime had ever occured. Speer found the perfect balance between admitting collective responsibility while rejecting any person guilt. Dönitz, who was guilty of a lot less than Speer, could have probably been acquitted if he had employed a similar tactic, but he remained stubborn.
I lived a few doors away from him in the early 1970's. I was at an American university study abroad program. Up until a couple of years earlier, he would give talks to the students in the program. Friends who heard him really liked him....he was polite and friendly. He seemed to them truly to have repudiated Hitler. He said it was good for the world and good for Germany to have lost the war. It's strangely interesting to have such a close-at-hand experience with such a figure, to have such trusted friends share their views, and then hear others make what they can of him. Makes me suspicious of overly facile evaluations (good or bad) of notable people from too great a distance.
I knew a guy that knew him his name was Charles Schneider he had the last letter he ever wrote he died in Carolina he wrote a book mentioning him there is a picture of them together in the book he was in the air force in Vietnam.😃
@@georgemargaritis2392 When the allies knew the village of Dresden was filled with thousands of innocent fleeing civilians they didn't think twice about innocent lives being lost. The atrocities the Allies committed in India got quickly brushed under the carpet out of "convenience" & a bad habit of portraying themselves as the good guys. Let them rot in hell alongside Speer then.
it is very simple: Speer and the western allies made a deal, he provided them with a host of valuable inside information on how the Third Reich was organized, politically, economically & so on
I must agree. He made a devil's deal with his captors. I'll tell all of you how it was done, and you give me a decent deal on that. That's what he probably said. information the allies I'm sure wanted to glean and prevent an other world war. What were the steps, plans, outlines, expectations of work and life longevity of prisoners working under those conditions. Project size, enormous engineering speed in completing them. Nazi outlines and goal at what time period. Not only for history, but for possible use for the victors. Perhaps not all the victors, but you always will have countries just wanting to mine secrets and store them in a box in some warehouse for use many years later if needed.
The point of view of Mr Bennito carries more credibility than Speer's assertion that he knew nothing. Wernher von Braun, and the rest of the Paperclip brigade, also knew what was happening to the POWs and political prisoners, yet their brains kept their necks out of Mr Pierrpoint's noose. During his life and for some time after there were people still alive in the Channel Islands who knew more than they will ever say about what went on in the labour camps. The Holocaust will always be wrapped up in controversy, why it happened, who caused it to happen and what the result was supposed to be. Although there is so much information that appears to debunk many of the events, there is no possibility of denying that millions of people were captured, enslaved, brutally treated and worked to death. Many people considered not worthy of life or of no immediate use to the regime, were killed, some in sadistic ways. Anyone opposing it or appearing to be a threat to it were similarly treated. This was happening all over the world and still is. History is written by the victors, and the victors claim the spoils. The prizes of the Third Reich were not just physical treasures. There was a wealth of technological and intellectual property that would prove to be vital for the new world order that came about in the post war, post empire, post old world era. Ignorance is never an excuse for breaking the law. Nobody escapes justice though, he was clearly tortured by his own lies. This proves that he was not just a mindless thug or psychopath, he consciously and with forethought acted as though nothing was out of the ordinary. He was a true Nazi.
You know what, probably one of the best comments. He was not the only one either, thousands of German Nazis made deals with the West and with USSR. I guess we should be thankful in away that most of the best talent ended up with us, otherwise... the Soviets may have taken over Europe.
Bottom line: Speer, a young architect, was offered the intoxicating opportunity to design a new Rome (post-victory Berlin), and was blinded to the excesses of the regime. He got involved with Nazism because of a network of relationships which brought him close to Hitler, a man passionate about architecture and design. And then he got drawn in. I imagine he *was* remorseful, but like so many, he put personal aggrandizement and deluded dreams of personal glory ahead of his humanity.
I think quite so, at his worst, he was more like the guy that was not really interested in the holocaust but knew, but just did not care. Plenty enough of people with that mindset to be honest.
He was remorseless, he was very intelligent and manipulated the tribune's to gain sympathy never reviling his real face and his evil part in the final solution of so many Millon's soul's..,, I am sure he was responsible and did responds to God, since God Holds the truth in every thing we do
@David McConville David, your comment is so truthful ! I watched few documentaries about his big part with the death of thousand of prisoners working 24 hour's inside tunnel without food, water and rest, they died like fly's,,, What kind of humanity' he had?
My grandfather was a student of architecture at the Technical University of Berlin at the same time as Speer. They were both students of Heinrich Tessenow. He was therefor quite familiar with Speer. My grandfather hated the Nazis with a passion. He and my grandma hid two Jewish families and grandpa was put in a Gestapo prison. He always said about Speer: "Even back then he was a ruthless, smooth-talking brownnoser who would bow to the ones above him while kicking those below him. The allies should've hung him because there is no way he didn't know what was going on."
Gitta was a very talented historian, and her perspectives brought the truth out of this era when it was very often intended to be concealed and never revealed to the world. She is to be commended, and I hope she rests in peace, content that her great work accomplished much good both during and after her time here on earth.
The man got off too easily for all of the sufferings he was responsible for, but on the other hand he gave us an invaluable historical insight into the inner workings of the Third Reich.
Ah, so he said sorry. That's alright then. Speer was clever enough to accept responsibility for Nazi atrocities without admitting to his involvement in them. He claims to have been absent when Himmler delivered his infamous Posen speech, admitting to the destruction of the Jews, and to have initiated diet and hygiene improvements after touring Mauthausen's Dora rocket-works, but there can be no doubt that a man of his intelligence didn't know what was happening around him. He may have deliberately closed his eyes to slave labor and genocide , he may have labored away despite knowledge on patriotic grounds, but that hardly excuses him from posterity's tribunal, for what that's worth. Speer is an interesting historical figure but I find him to be more disturbing than the master he served. A Hitler or a Stalin are like typhoons or earthquakes, a terrible occasional phenomena, but the Speers are numerous among us, subservient to power, bloodless amoral technocrats, models of efficiency and pragmatism and results.
Goebbels was pretty well-educated too by Nazi standards (a PhD) but he's another case altogether. I think ambition seized hold of Speer and consumed him, like a 2Oth century Faust.
+Jeff Allcock *"He claims to have been absent when Himmler delivered his infamous Posen speech, admitting to the destruction of the Jews."* Yes he did. And no he wasn't! *"There is no doubt - I was present as Himmler announced on October 6th 1943 that all Jews would be killed. Who would believe me that I suppressed this?"* - Speer, Albert, letter to Hélène Jeanty, December 23rd, 1971, www.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/13/secondworldwar.kateconnolly Not such a 'good Nazi' after all, eh?
Jeff Alcock, just who did Albert Speers murder, imprison, persecute or ridicule. He was a genius designer and architect, not an executioner or torturer. He did not deserve to hang, people like you who profess to be judge and jury are the incriminators of this world who spout nonsense. Yes, you would be the pointing finger at those who are misjudged and executed. Of course he was guilty of being a nazi and of being complicit in certain areas but he probably broke less of the ten commandments that you or your friends may have? Judge yourself before others, you sad individual.
Albert Speer made millions on his "sorry". Books, interviews... he became a celebrity of post-war Germany and far beyond. The one thing is sure - he was an extremely intelligent and talented person who could even change failure into success. Logically he should be hanged as others but he not only defended himself from the death penalty but ended up as a celebrity and millionaire.
Thank you so much for all these great documentaries! I am amazed that there is always something to learn - even after years of books, videos etc.. Keep those uploads coming!
Meanwhile, his eldest son, also named Albert, had a very long and far more successful career as an architect with projects all over the world, renown for their cultural sensitivity. He wanted nothing to do with his father. He died two years ago at age 83.
Ivan Glamdryng I was a history major, but I my in-depth understanding is so much more now than then. So yes Thank You for from us who would love a great documentary over any inane tv 📺 show with a laugh track.
@nicholas carter They never said we should stoop to their level-only that if it turned out he wasn't well-fed in prison, who's really gonna be upset when you consider the torments the Nazis put concentration camp inmates through? Anyway, the food-amount and quality-would be far better in prison-and there were worse torments the people in concentration camps had to endure than the poor food they were getting.
@@alexandrebenois7962 No, probably not well fed in prison compared to what you or I eat in the comfort of our home. But faaar better than what the people in concentration camps were given.
Speer was truly ashamed by the crimes of the Nazi totalitarian regime. The Nazi leadership was judged and condemned to death or prison. The other totalitarian and criminal regime has never been judged or condemned. Even today there are Communists parties in many countries, which is outrageous. From a quite reliable source, the archives from the Soviet State and others, most researchers and historians had concluded that almost 50 million people were annihilated from the very beginning of the Soviet system with Lenin, through Stalin and even until the 1970s. These genocides were horrendous; and even were repeated by Mao in China (1940s to the cultural revolution) Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s. One day the civilized world should treat these monsters in the same way that were treated the Nazis
Nothing that Speer did was done without careful thought of how he could get the most out of his position. Even whe he counters the "scorched earth" directive. Conveniently, every single one of the infrastructures that he raced around to save belonged to friends of his. And only the ones belonging to friends and colleagues of his were saved. A man who has that much knowledge certainly knows where his slave labor is coming from and what happened to the. When theh could no longer work.
Mermur please learn real history you don’t have the slightest idea of what you are saying. My family left Austria because of the Nazis; later on, they suffered persecution in Soviet-occupied Europe and were murdered by the Red Army and the KGB.
Not to forget the COLD WAR BONUS many of those people became because of making themselves usefull on both sides of the IRON CURTAIN. The Soviet Propaganda had always claimed the true Nazis were all in the West. Yet the people organizing the Social Politcal and Military organisations in East Germany had been also a socalled " BROWN PAST " ( as in the Nazi Party Anathem - BLACKBROWN IS THE HAZLENUT AND BLACKBROWN SO ARE YOU ... ; referrring to the colour of the make believe uniform those people had sported )
@@jayo3074to avoid the fate of his less pragmatic colleagues earned when they either actively defended Nazism or sugar coated it. Speer did not give a single shit about the victims and only about his own life like a coward. Most nazis tend to be cowards when actually confronted. He only survived with basicly a slap on the wrist due to him being pragmatic.
@@jayo3074You sound ridiculous, the fact that he didn't say sorry because he didn't mean it is the very case in point! He wasn't sorry and actually lied right up to his death about what he knew. The OP is right, sociopath. He idolised Hitler just like Himmler and Goebbels did.
If you feel much sympathy for Speer, ask yourself this: what if the Third Reich had *won* the war? Do you think Speer would've spent the next 35 years apologizing and denying all knowledge and condemning his comrades? He didn't show the slightest dissatisfaction with the Nazi government or it's activities until it was obvious to everyone that they were going to lose and he was likely to face some accountability for the role he played.
I think it's incredibly interesting that he spent so much time after prison trying to show some remorse for his part in the atrocities. Going as far as working with Simon Wisenthal and even reaching out to victims of the holocaust. From this video he seemed to have genuine sorrow for his part, yet in the end, as was stated in the video, it seemed as though he wasn't so sorry after all. He was proud of how his life turned out.
Anyone in his position would have done that. Would you dare go against Fuhrer's orders and face execution or simply go with the flow? Speer was a wise and intelligent guy to accept some guilt and responsibilities.
Of course he knew. They all knew. How could any of them not have known? And there is such a thing as telling a lie so many times that you begin to believe it yourself.
@Steven Sloan , how can you be so sure? Only fools are certain. I'm not defending Albert Speer. What he did or didn't do, knew, or thought, is now lost to time. But don't presume, never presume. Assumptions can kill. Cheers.
@@lightwishatnight What? If it talks like duck, videos like duck and conspires and serves as duck...IT IS DUCK! Of course he knew and was guilty as all the rest. Sorry, he never said that? He was just the coward that survived!
Steve Sloan I think that one person in the film had it right. He knew but he was a proxy for all the German people who knew but turned a blind eye or pretended to have not known at all. They collectively convinced themselves that they were not one of the ones who knew.
He was smart and evil. He was a very clever liar. Even "if" he didn't know about the Holocaust (you are welcome to believe that, but I never will) he sure knew about the slave labor abuses. He was the original "Sorry not sorry" guy and it saved his neck. His deputy was thrown under the bus and hanged but Speer survived.
What do you know of the holocaust... even the pictures taken after the fact, and the destruction of evidence by Allied/Soviet forces of such atrocities that should have been kept? Curious, just how much do you know apart from the usual stuff you hear and see. On the other hand, what about german PoW's, tens of thousands who went missing/died under Allied jurisdiction... and under the Soviets? German's were not he only ones to use prisoners as labor, nor the only ones to abuse them. Yes, Speer knew fine well... like most of them, or all of them that were enlisted by Allied/Soviet government - including the famous Wernher Von Braun.
The Soviet Union practiced a system of slave labor for decades before the Nazi regime employed them during the war. It’s absurd to act all shocked about it when you’re sitting next to judges that represent a state that is doing what you are condemning someone else for openly.
@@thechosenone1533he worked as a propaganda tool for the Zionists to speak there bullshit and make everyone go like "holocaust happened, Hitler bad, Nazi bad."
Xandi Mars That doesn't make it any easier to swallow in which case he'd suicide without second thought. Once he was made aware of the mere implication, he didn't want to know, and with that always being hammered as a defense mechanism it becomes to "I didn't know.".
Xandi Mars didn't most people in germany know at that point? I mean it was one of hitlers earliest policies.. and being one of the top ranking nazi official's and close friend of hitler it was very obvious he knew..
The Jews were persecuted from the get go with the restoration of the civil service, along with women and non nazis but the holocaust or "final solution" only started at the wansee conference in 1941
+Xandi Mars Ofcourse he knew. The reason why he managed to convince others of his ignorance decades after WWII, was just because political correctness and emo-politics had already come into play. The masses love a crying man, it's so progressive,...
4:40 "He was 9 in 1914 - too young to feel the defeat. " 13 in 1918 . 15 when the country was on the bring of collapse. I think thats old enough. Im pretty sure hed have seen the misery in Germany during Weimar Hed have seen people with a bucket full of cash to buy a loaf of bread.
That's not right to say what sombody felt at 9 I myself remember everything I went thru at 9 while my girlfriend who is 2 days older than me dont even remember when she was 18.you remember the hard times in life alot more than you do the good times .but regard less he was guilty. What the hell could the man do about it tell them no I want kill Jews so they could kill him an his family.put yourselfin that means shoes an put your wife an children in that situation an youd probly done the samething.
Interesting company? More like monsterous. Speer manipulated the court to slip the hangman noose. He said what he knew the Allies wanted to hear & he used it to save his life. He knew what was going on there's no way he could have been ignorant of it. He was a master manipulator & con man, & he conned the court into letting him live. He should have been hanged with the rest of the Nazi murderers who were executed at Nuremberg.
@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 I mean you’re definitely not wrong to some extent. Some extent you are also not right. Speer was sort of what you called a weird frantical nazi.
His company were some of the most influential and intelligent people in history. The people snidely commenting on this video are nothing compared to the men who led Germany out of the mire of economic misery and subjugation.
I read his book, and I think he was brilliant and had a very good memory. He knew so much detail, so it is inconceivable that he did not know of the Jewish situation. He knew and was complicit, otherwise he would have been executed at Hitler's order. He did go against Hitler late in the war, but always playing it safe. I don't think any of his associates ever flatly stated that Speer spoke openly of his knowledge concerning the maltreatment of the Jews, but considering the intelligence at his disposal given his position, it's almost impossible that he could not have known.
He was in charge of armaments manufacturing, and it was he who insisted on more slave labour to meet his goals of keeping the German military machine running. It's inexplicable that this war criminal wasn't hung.
The most intelligent advise I have ever heard comes form Albert Speer. A young man asked him once, "What can I do to gain success in my life?" Albert Speers reply was, "Work on your carisma!"
@Old Soul Nonsense, Speer was a snake who deliberately pushed his subordinate Sauckel to the gallows in order to save himself. He admitted 'common responsibility' but was evasive when it came to his own personal responsibility - everything was either the fault of others or not as bad as the prosecution made out, while also concocting tales of bogus assassination attempts against Hitler. He also lied about his knowledge of the Holocaust and in the slave labour program.
He really did have a lot of good luck & fortune in his life. He had everything,then at the end of the Reich he escapes death,gets out 20 years later becomes a best selling author & finds a young wife. He knew but he looked the other way,that's all he would admit to but he was guilty of a whole lot more.
@peter9110: Attention, Speer didn't get all he want, he desperately tried to find peace with God, the Almighty. He didn't really repent and, so God couldn't help him by the prison clergy man, so he will definitely end up in hell! Speer got earthly fame & honour, that's vanity of vanities and will perish, but his soul will not vanish and have eternal pain.
@@alexm7627he didn't repent and there are interviews and documents proves that only was he not sorry, he was very proud of his work and that he was able to avoid getting killed for it. This is a man who accepted living in the world. This was a man completely empty of anything Jesus.
I'm going to add that simply admitting his involvement wasn't what saved him, because that would not have saved the likes of Himmler, Göring, or Höss. The court had its own motivation for sparing him.
Powerful quote by his publisher. His book sold out by exonerating Germans. "If even his right hand man didn't know and couldn't stop Hitler, how much less the common person, but proud of the work done."
Human psyche is much more complex than in Hollywood, you can literally fall in love with the Devil and not fully understand the atrocities he committed or where committed in his name.
Hitlers first priority was not the genocide of the Jews. It may be hard to imagine but it was 1) incidental/functional and 2) he mostly didnt like that they prioritised their ethnicity over the Reich (like the Roma) Plus every authoritarian regime needs a bogeyman. To focus the people. The Jews just happened to be top of hitlers (and lots of Germans...) list
This was a rollercoaster ride. I went back and forth between "pragmatic psychopath" and "ambitious youth who got caught up in the dazzling recognition from Hitler and his own hubris, but a person capable of introspection and near-remorse" (which is more than i can say for most people, let alone most Nazis). I think the truth lies somewhere uncomfortably and paradoxically in the middle.
Interesting video. Another aspect of Speer's story I'd like to provide. As an architect myself, I remember back in architecture school (Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY), that while Speer's work was given several pages of coverage in the history of architecture books we had to buy, it was never covered in the lectures (which were all quite intense). It's as if his work never existed. Completely ignored and skipped over. After years of learning about the Nazi atrocities while in public school, I don't think an hour or two looking at the architectural work of Speer would have been that terrible, especially if it was placed into proper context of the horrible regime it represented. It was, and still is, a significant example of megalomania architecture. I also am somewhat perplexed as to why Speer would want to be Armaments Minister, or what qualified him for the job (yes, I know he was supposedly an organizational wizard). I guess there was no real building or architectural work going on in Germany by the time he took up the position. Also, years ago (back around 1980 or so), ABC television (US), produced a mini-series on the life of Speer. I still remember watching it even though I was quite young back then. It went into detail how he presented his work to Hitler, how he developed the designs for the new Berlin, etc. I have never seen that tv mini-series again since then. after seeing this video, I wonder whatever happened to that 100 ft. long model of the new capital Germania......
Hello again, Jeffrey. The Germania model's fate is uncertain, although several Berlin museums now have exhibitions related to it with some reconstructions on display. I think Speer replaced Todt as armaments minister because, like Todt, he had the organisational skills and the vision to realise grandiose plans. Whether Speer was actually a good architect or not, I am not qualified to say. However, I have heard other experts describe his work as 'mundane' or 'too angular'. His great guiding light was the 'theory of ruins' (as you say, megalomania architecture) and we can be certain that his Rally Grounds at Nuremburg will be there for a very long time to come! Regards - Alan.
Speer objected when Hitler named him as Armaments Minister. He didn't think he was capable of doing the job either. He also admitted during his years as minister that there were others far more qualified for the position than himself, but he had the "nimbus" of Hitler at his back, and that made all the difference. Speer says that he thought Hitler appointed him because Hitler preferred amateurs to professionals in key positions. Hitler himself was an amateur.
***** If you review the video you can find it says that the Armaments Minister of Hitler was killed in an airplane, and it is not like Speer "wanted to be Armaments Minister", HItler wanted to give that position to Speer. Just imagine if he said no to Hitler.So that is why he got that job.
Speer wasn't that good as architect. Nürrnbergs Speer buildings are in pretty bad conditions because they are not that massive as it seems. He faked a lot and did a lot of mistakes. But he was good in pushing to work, organize ordered tasks. He was good in manipulation and forcing people within strict and brutal structures. During his "architects days" he developed also the masterplan how to deport jews, how to built KZ's and how to use them as slaves and sell that to his "Führer" as a well organized, profitable work. THAT was the argument for Hitler.
Georg Rusbeck Ah, very interesting. I don't doubt it. Anyone within the Fuhrer's inner circle were working toward the same goal, no matter what their supposed profession was....
It still astonishes me that Fritz Sauckel, merely the supplier of the labor, was hanged, yet Speer, who asked for the labor in the first place, was given a prison sentence. He's a strange man to understand, but I believe he was a born survivor, and had to use every bit of wit and guile to charm the prosecution and judges into not giving him the death sentence. He had a few things going for him. He was very good-looking, patrician, spoke English fairly decently. Sauckel was course, bull-headed, not well-educated...
@Nobody Knows He saved _thousands of Jews?_ That's a twisted justification for his using slave labor, which were to be worked to death, or otherwise killed when no longer useful. Speer lied about _everything_ especially about his knowledge and participation in the holocaust.
@@donsettie344 Speer, in his official capacity, also approved the physical expansion of Auschwitz. Additionally, he made certain the necessary construction materials were sent. He should have been hanged.
And at the end of all of that, all I can say is ; a sincere thanks to the historians and may God bless the Jews of the world...AND as every Brit like me (and my father served in both world wars ) knows or SHOULD know ; that were it not for the bravery, endurance and sacrifice of the Soviet people and their armies, we would all now be speaking german in a state of slavery.
It was fortunate for future generations, and those who lived through the war, that they did not execute Speer and Dönitz. If they had executed all the top ranking ones, there would have been no epilogue. Their later interviews were somehow valuable in this sense; they bring it all down to earth, to reality, as opposed to something we read about in books or watch in documentaries. I have no doubt Speer knew about the final solution and probably convinced himself to agree with it (just like he later convinced himself he didn't agree with it); but then so did many others who were involved at the time, high and low. For example, in all the occupied countries, you can find examples of authorities complying with the German requests to identify and arrest Jews. Even on the island of Jersey, the only part of British soil to be occupied by Germany in World War 2, the police cooperated with the Nazis in arresting and deporting Jews. For me this is the same thing as what Speer was doing. May be we should ask ourselves how we each would react in a similar situation, if we can imagine it...but I don't suppose we can. I'm sure we all prefer to believe we'd resist in some heroic way. However, I believe that if we were in a situation where we were faced with disenfranchisement (or worse) if we did not comply, and advancement if we did...I think many of us might choose to "ignore" some of the crimes the government may be committing.
You really believe that these vile war criminals had any remorse? What a sad reflection on life, when people are so easily duped. Tell people why the Nazis destroyed the gas chambers and crematoriums before the allies arrived.
I truly wish I COULD remember the name of Speers book '' Spandau diaries'' I think, that book was very insightful . I know a person can be fooled reading a book, but I truly felt he was sincere in what he wrote. The book is worth a read anyway ,as it is a study in the human struggle with ourselves, our desires, what fuels us to do the things we do. As in why do we keep silent at times when so many things around us ruffle our feathers run deep in our soil disturbing our comfort level of what we accept or choose to ignore.
That's a very balanced comment. Many here seriously doubt Speer's sincerity & there is a twinge of bitterness in many comments...understandably. However as we now head into another age of vicious authoritarianism far more encompassing, global & equally brutal most if not all of these people will bury their heads in the sand & ignore the evils around them branding any who try to warn them as conspiracy theorists. This also is a dishonest form of self preservation & the reason many evil people are highly successful. We are all guilty of being human for want of a better way of putting it. Adam & Eve ate the fruit but can any of us say in that situation we would not have done the same thing? A great many will answer they wouldn't but in practice most if not all would.
It's impossible to separate out genuine remorse from the premise of 'saving one's neck', since the first may well lead to the latter. A person would not be human if they did not wish to survive. In his defence, he did a lot of writings after his release which denounced the Nazis and worked to educate the world with inside knowledge of it, and did philanthropic work for the Jews. He did not have to do any of that, he could have retired on the wealth of his first book and stick two fingers up from some Tropical paradise, but he did not.
It was proven he didn't care. I'm surprised people are mentioning the documentary "world at war" from the 70s where they interviewed him. The journalist actually said how gross she felt because she had to pretend to agree with his white power master race views. But she was actually sick from talking to him. Letters, journal entries and other interviews also showed how much of a monster he was as well as other investigations showing how hands on he was with some of this horrific acts. It's so strange seeing people debate about whether he was good or bad especially with information spanning almost a 100 years available to study.
Very interesting, good questions. I read his memoires and had found him completely convincing at the time. This docu portrays him as fallible and very human in the way he twisted about his guilt while also leading a strategy for survival. I will not forget it.
After coming back from the Vietnam War Crime I re-framed the attitude toward Germans that was formed in my 1950's childhood. I saw that I was not exceptional as an American.
Malcolm Marzo, your comment touched me deeply, you have not pointed your finger, but owned the potential/reality of malevolence within all of us. What better place to witness this than wartime. Thank you for sharing arohanui from New Zealand.
Albert Speer is born in Mannheim, my home town - nothing to be proud of! The Nürnberg tribunal should have punished him like the other Nazis. He was better looking than the others, but he is even more involved in the crimes.
Speer is the reason there is a Western Europe. He took a risk with his life undoing Hitlers orders to "destroy every building and every animal". He deserved to live.
5 років тому+1
Thank you very much for this post. It is not only a look into one mans mind and heart who could not face with complete honesty the evil he committed or at very least tacitly participated either with some level of conviction or fear to disagree. But it is in the manner of how most people manage their everyday sins, smaller or larger; with denial or false justification for their words and deeds i.e. their existence.
RASHEED ===where you there ? you have no idea what a horrible time it was. my family went through two WW II and it almost destroyed them all. when you see what is going on right now and IT WILL NEVER BE THE GERMANS WHO EVER GOING TO have a WAR in their country or in EUROPE AGAIN. WHEN BUSH ASK GERMANY AND FRANCE ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR . GERMANY AND FRANCE SAID NO TO EVERYTHING.I SEEN HOW THEY TALK ABOUT IT, WE THE GERMANS WERE NAZI'S AGAIN, AND STUPID HOW IT SOUND, THEY DID NOT HAVE ANYMORE FRENCH FRIES BUT FREEDOM FRIES AND ANY THING THAT WAS FRENCH IT WAS CRUCIFIED. THAT WAS NOT TO LONG AGO
I find this zooming in on Speers knowing/not knowing of The Final Solution futile and almost dismissive of his guilt in his wholehearted involvement in a regime that waged a merciless war of aggression and wiped out humans on an industrial scale.
speer was a snake had endless conversations with hitler knew exactly what was going on when it was going on who was doing it were it was been done.And don,t mention the 100,s of thousands of people he used as slave labour
I was a lawyer before retirement. Speer's actions were brilliant, whether or not he was sincere or truthful in his stated regrets for his actions. When the evidence is overwhelming, all one accomplishes by maintaining a not guilty plea is insult the intelligence of the Court or show a lack of remorse.
paul morgan Which for him, was great timing. But then Germany has now gone off the deep end putting a 95 year old man in jail for being a military book keeper assigned to concentration camps. Men like him are lucky they don't have to see the level to which Germany now disgraces itself in the name of political correctness.
Not just wars. It is the same mecanism of lying to yourself and inhumanity that pervates all of our sociaty to day. Even the so called civilized countries are fundamentally based on the same kind of insanity that Speer seems to posses.
The fact he became a bestselling author and therefore profitted from all the atrocities is disgusting. He was so close to Hitler he KNEW and his own successxwas more important than his humanity.
If anyone hasn't read Speer's personal memoir, Inside the third Reich, i highly recommend they do. There are a lot of bigot and nonintellectual comments just condemning this man as a liar, or that hes in denial. He flat out admitted that he was guilty on these crimes for being a member of the government. It is a shared responsibility. He is literally the only person in the trial to do the right thing and admit guilt. He was honest and straight forward the whole time. People say he knew workers were mistreated? He visited factories and forging work camps, and observed that people we being treated adiquitly. After all, it was the factories and industrialists who were looking after most of the foreign labor. Why would they want their workers starving or killed? Speer admits they shouldn't it was wrong to force these people to work though. He tried harder to get more German men and women to work in industry but hitler refused and he was forced to use foreign labor. Speer prevented destruction of germany and many other countries by denying hitlers orders for total destruction, even going so far to travel to the front line and tell the generals directly to disobey that order. This was an architect thrust into a government position in the middle of the largest conflict in human history.What would you do in his situation? Seriously ask yourself, what would you do?
Well spoken Aszod, you are 100% correct, thank you for your sanity and pity these haters whose lack of knowledge and credibility afford them the right to hate anyone, because they have an opinion but seek to deny all others that privilege. Thank you
I've read it twice, once back in the seventies and again a couple of years ago. I recommend you take what he says with a grain of salt considering the primary source. Whether in his heart of hearts he believed he had done evil, I believe the main reason he admitted guilt was to save his own sorry ass. He was a very intelligent and ambitious man who used his considerable talent for organizing and navigating internal Nazi politics to achieve great personal power. In the process he exploited thousands of slave laborers who had to toil and die under deplorable conditions to achieve his impressive production stats. As far as what would I have done? I would hope I would have had the personal integrity and courage to refuse to cooperate with the evil that caused so much horrible suffering to so many innocent people. Unfortunately in Speer's case the greed for power overcame his conscience.
I didn't hear sorry from that man at any time only the last of the documentary so his spirit is still not at rest for everything he did I could never forgive him even if he said sorry
Whatever you think of Speer, his book is still very intriguing, particularly during the early years with Hitler in the 1930s, e.g. he definately captured how strange Hitler was as a person.
I've always detested that sentence..."The NAZI who said 'Sorry'....It's like..."Yes, since you've asked, I was indeed part of the genocide machine. Ooops, sorry 'bout that." The evil bastard was fully aware of the horrors that were happening to millions of innocents under the Third Reich. He was at the very core of the grovellers around Hitler. As Hitler's architect he designed factories and other buildings built and operated by 'expendable' prisoners. He should've gotten the rope at Nuremberg. Great documentary, cheers. Respect from Ireland.
I was in Willhelmshaven in 1979 for a town twinning and I vaguely remember meeting someone who I believe was Speer, as far as i can remember he introduced himself as such.
There's a huge difference between saying "sorry" and meaning it. Read "Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth", by Gitta Sereny, a phenomenal book in which she interviews him, his wife and others ............ then decide if he genuinely was sorry or was simply pleased to save his neck from the noose and serve 20 yrs in Spandau.
My grandfather is a WWII veteran. He already met him around 1975. My grandfather goals is to meet the High Ranking Nazis or German Veterans between early 1959s to 2019 ( his death). I met most of them when I was young because I want go with him to achieve his goals and listen their stories. I would sit for hours to listen their stories. I remembered some of the Nazis or German Veterans gave me most of the Nazis things like their uniforms, hats, metals, and etc. When they gave it to me they said ”Take good care of it and pass it down to new generations for me, please because my children will throw this away that is very valuable and it could not be forgotten.” I still have them I take good care of them😁
Nathan please, share some of the stories you have, and I hope you still taking amazing care of the relicts of the past. Also sorry for your grandfathers loss. May god bless you and your grandfather!
That is quite fascinating …and I’m sure you heard about some interesting adventures by the scoundrels that made up the Third Reich …. I would love to hear more about the whole thing.
He was an opportunist, -ambitious, unrelenting and ruthless. He said he had no idea of the mass killings but Speer was directly involved in the construction and alteration of concentration camps. He used his inteligence at Nurermberg to avoid getting a death sentence.
No. Germany coullld have never won the war. His action mostly prolonged it, but besides planning and production failures the reich ccollapsed around him.
Speer was never a "reasonably good person." He and the likes of him are always greedy, calculating narcissist! Sadly, there are countless contemporaries!
His wartime diaries & memoirs as published for public consumption are shown to be riddled with inaccuracies when compared with his actual diaries preserved in the German State Archives. Spear kept Germany fighting for years longer by being an efficient & ruthless arms production minister.
The more I studied about this war the more respect and compassion I get to the European Jews, Despite the middle east conflict, but imagine seeing someone like Speer evading conviction by the supposed allies despite the horrors he caused along with his boyfriend, and not exploding in anger about it
I read "Inside the 3rd Riech". Read a review, not the book. Unbelievable he needed millions for slave labour, but didn't know about the Holocaust. As a possible successor to Hitler, how could he not know; he could ask his buddy Hitler. He was a opportunist who didn't want to suffer in the resistance.
I think its fair to say most people given the opportunity to thrive in their field of expertise when previously had no opportunity to do so would do just what this man did. In an era that was stricken with severe depression, the likes non of us have experienced, its impossible to understand the reason to throw away any moral principle to thrive creatively and unchecked. And not only that but being loved by the most dangerous and powerful man in the world. I think its also fair to say people living comfortable lives today would be just as eager to throw moral principles out the window for a tiny ounce of power. One more thing, no one in power really cares about genocide or slavery. If they did they wouldn't publicly endorse nations who openly practice it.
I do not believe it is that simple. It takes a person with something missing in their consciousness to be able to take part in something so heinous, all for the sake of their career.
@@veronicamoody3981 you could have missed the great lessons from authoritarian regimes. It takes exactly that what is described above to allow atrocious events to unfold
Albert Speer's most substantial crime was that he had the misfortune of being on the side of the war losers. That they have condemned him, it is understandable given the circumstances, that his sentence has not been commuted was an enormous injustice. There were collaborators, in France and in other countries, who escaped. What about Katyn's criminals, their bosses and accomplices, who had state funerals?!
He wanted so much to be remembered as a great architect. He sold his soul to the devil just so he could build his buildings. And in the end the only thing left of those buildings is a couple guard towers turned in public toilets. I think that was worst punishment for him then those 20 years in prison.
Look up Niklas Frank, the son of Hans Frank, the governor of Poland. He has lots of interviews on UA-cam. Frank says his father didn't start out as an anti-Semite. But he was so ambitious and so corrupted by power that if Hitler had declared the Irish were the enemies of Germany and had to be exterminated, Hans Frank would have gladly murdered the Irish. Some of the Nazis truly believed in Hitler's stupid racial theories. And some of them simply went along out of blind ambition. The end result was the same - mass murder and excuses and rationalizations after the fact. And Speer's buildings were awful, cold monstrosities, IMO.
He never ever said sorry, he said he should have known about it. He did know about it, not only did he know, he took full advantage of his position to oversee the tragedy unfolding before him. The thing he wanted most was a pat on the back from hitler. That rubbish about trying to assassinate him was a joke, with nobody to verify anything he said.
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thx for this,i'm from africa -uganda ,few of us know about the holocaust ,
@@katocephas1069 HOW is that possible if you have internet access?
They made their own genocide. "He who does not know history is condemned to repeat it."
Thanks for the brave man last
@@ROOKTABULA my apologies my friend, I obviously can't read because I misread your question/comment. Again my humblest apologies
He knew how to suck up to important people. And he survived. I don't think that he was sorry. He was just a smart man taking care for himself.
I do believe he was sort of sorry, and sort of not sorry in some kind of an denial, at the same time its possible he didn't quite understand what Himmler was doing with the Jews, or what was happening to them... He definitely needed to know, and he partially did so also for publicity reasons.
@@BlazeMaster His children (who were estranged from him at the time of his death) said he knew perfectly well what was happening to the Jews. Nobody as high up in the Nazi ranks could be that ignorant. He fooled the judges at Nuremberg because he put on a good act and was educated and well-spoken, unlike that toad Julius Streicher, who was so repulsive many Nazis couldn't stand him.
Smart? Evil would be more accurate.
Great story and I am glad he survived so I could hear it. He was an architect for God's sake!!
If some of you fruit loops had read "Inside the third Rich" then you may have a different opinion of Speer. He was one of the more decent Germans.
My favorite part of the entire story was when Speer showed his father the model of the future Germania capital, he looked over at his son and told him "You've all gone completely insane. You realize that, right?"
@Dirk Diggler I think it's quoted from Speer's book, "Inside the Third Reich."
@Dirk Diggler I love the nick name👍
Why? It was nice design
his father was an architect too
How is it different to Paris?
Speer was possibly the most clear eyed of the Nazis on trial at Nuremberg. He was able to read the tea leaves and knew there was not the slightest chance of getting off given the mountains of evidence. His aim was therefor fairly modest. He wanted to avoid dying prematurely from a broken neck. And the only way he had a chance of that was to effectively admit his guilt and throw himself on the mercy of the court. I think he was a great actor whose only real regret was that Germany lost the war. But it worked. He lived to die an old man after serving 20 years in prison. His principal assistant Fritz Sauckel was not as clever as his boss and was hanged.
My view entirely.
WTF ? He denighed ever knowing about the death Camps. yet worked many thousands of Slave labourers to death, in most of the armament factorys, as the Nazis struggled to supply their dwindling troops, due to massive bombing of their Factories. HE, was in charge of it all, arselicking for Hitler.
Everyone was complicit.
@@hypercomms2001he didn't admit his guilt. He admitted responsibility because of his position. There's a difference there. But yes he or/and his lawyer was clever enough to contrast himself with some common sense. The other nazis were quite delusional and narcissistic.
Yes, this is essentially correct. In his book(s) he said his lawyer outlined his responsibility to his client, basically the lawyer told him that there were mountains of evidence to hang all his co-defendants. The new arguments, that they had surrendered to the Western Allies, the Treaty of Versailles, etc. were moot --they having being exhausted, in any event, too much evidence of war crime and the danger of being given to the Russians, considered a de facto death sentence, in any event. But, said the lawyer, there was a small chance he could save his life, if he admitted to the crimes he had committed, denied what there was no proof of, and claimed succor under Christian ethics-- a sharp contrast to what the Nazi's presented-- with a long apology. The lawyer gave him no choice. He refused to preside over a defense --which had as its outcome the death of his client-- which he saw as an automatic loss. It may have worked because it gave the tribunal a cudgel to beat harder the other defendants. Goring, at trial, called him a swine-- likely thinking along these lines.
The lady biographer was right: You can't look away from something without knowing what it is you're looking away from. Speer was fully aware of what was happening to Europe's Jewish population.
Speer was a crafty guy. He told Hitler what he wanted to hear and was his only friend; he told the Tribunal at Nuremberg what they wanted to hear and didn't hang...
+Anne Wolfe Having a clear understanding of the English language was very helpful to Herr Speer.
+GTown Dave Goering spoke English like Hess and a few others!
Hess was most fluent in English and Eqyptian too from what I understand. I knew the ReichsMarshal spoke English but I did know how astute.
He should have been in prison until he died just like Hess.
and tried to justify his actions through saying he was such a professional that he forgot humanity.
The lesson is that most people will go along to get along.
We may be doing that ourselves right now.
Glenn Howden Thats so well said, I needed that knowledge years ago, I am still doing that unfortunately,at 75yrs
That is crowd syndrome. That is dangerous. So people need their own point of view?
dong quan Oh yeah? Tel that to people in America who don’t go along with the official mainstream narrative and pc culture.
Then there's those of us who can't fathom that. I can't. We all know right from wrong. We are a product of out choices.
Im a free-thinking individual, don't let the 'e' numbers get you!
Speer. A man that always found a way to do what was best for Himself. Always.
But, you see, in many ways his appointed attorney was doing what he was supposed to do as a defense attorney. He followed the client's direction as to the direction of defense he wanted and it was up to the Courts as to whether to believe it or not. They chose to 'buy it' for whatever reason. I strongly believe the choice was far too high a price for people to pay but the choice was not mine to make.
Agreed. But self preservation is the 1st thing we learn outta the womb.🤔✌
Speer was not there...why dissect after he dat 20 yrs in jail a reason for what.with respect some of the stories told by the survivors you just cannot believe..and you know it's true....the one even met the pole that actually was killed in the camp at a party as few years after liberation...the one woman danced all the time..do you want to kill all the Germans now because of the Jews.now the Jews are infighting so much that they are open prey to those wanting to kill them....because they became so woke overnight
@@Isabella-nh5dm being the only one to admit partial guilt goes a long way in swaying judges when all other defendants deny that any crime had ever occured. Speer found the perfect balance between admitting collective responsibility while rejecting any person guilt. Dönitz, who was guilty of a lot less than Speer, could have probably been acquitted if he had employed a similar tactic, but he remained stubborn.
But isn't that everyone's goal in life?
I lived a few doors away from him in the early 1970's. I was at an American university study abroad program. Up until a couple of years earlier, he would give talks to the students in the program. Friends who heard him really liked him....he was polite and friendly. He seemed to them truly to have repudiated Hitler. He said it was good for the world and good for Germany to have lost the war. It's strangely interesting to have such a close-at-hand experience with such a figure, to have such trusted friends share their views, and then hear others make what they can of him. Makes me suspicious of overly facile evaluations (good or bad) of notable people from too great a distance.
This is true. As the saying goes, "Who am I to judge?"
I knew a guy that knew him his name was Charles Schneider he had the last letter he ever wrote he died in Carolina he wrote a book mentioning him there is a picture of them together in the book he was in the air force in Vietnam.😃
He is still a murderer of Jews. He has that tattooed on his soul.
He is as liable as the rest of the nazis.
He escaped with his life only because the truth was uncovered after his death.
Let him rot in hell
@@georgemargaritis2392 When the allies knew the village of Dresden was filled with thousands of innocent fleeing civilians they didn't think twice about innocent lives being lost. The atrocities the Allies committed in India got quickly brushed under the carpet out of "convenience" & a bad habit of portraying themselves as the good guys. Let them rot in hell alongside Speer then.
it is very simple: Speer and the western allies made a deal, he provided them with a host of valuable inside information on how the Third Reich was organized, politically, economically & so on
I must agree. He made a devil's deal with his captors. I'll tell all of you how it was done, and you give me a decent deal on that. That's what he probably said. information the allies I'm sure wanted to glean and prevent an other world war. What were the steps, plans, outlines, expectations of work and life longevity of prisoners working under those conditions. Project size, enormous engineering speed in completing them. Nazi outlines and goal at what time period. Not only for history, but for possible use for the victors. Perhaps not all the victors, but you always will have countries just wanting to mine secrets and store them in a box in some warehouse for use many years later if needed.
The point of view of Mr Bennito carries more credibility than Speer's assertion that he knew nothing. Wernher von Braun, and the rest of the Paperclip brigade, also knew what was happening to the POWs and political prisoners, yet their brains kept their necks out of Mr Pierrpoint's noose.
During his life and for some time after there were people still alive in the Channel Islands who knew more than they will ever say about what went on in the labour camps.
The Holocaust will always be wrapped up in controversy, why it happened, who caused it to happen and what the result was supposed to be. Although there is so much information that appears to debunk many of the events, there is no possibility of denying that millions of people were captured, enslaved, brutally treated and worked to death. Many people considered not worthy of life or of no immediate use to the regime, were killed, some in sadistic ways. Anyone opposing it or appearing to be a threat to it were similarly treated.
This was happening all over the world and still is.
History is written by the victors, and the victors claim the spoils. The prizes of the Third Reich were not just physical treasures. There was a wealth of technological and intellectual property that would prove to be vital for the new world order that came about in the post war, post empire, post old world era.
Ignorance is never an excuse for breaking the law. Nobody escapes justice though, he was clearly tortured by his own lies. This proves that he was not just a mindless thug or psychopath, he consciously and with forethought acted as though nothing was out of the ordinary. He was a true Nazi.
Stephen Brookes good point!
You know what, probably one of the best comments. He was not the only one either, thousands of German Nazis made deals with the West and with USSR. I guess we should be thankful in away that most of the best talent ended up with us, otherwise... the Soviets may have taken over Europe.
@@ronwhite7095 Yes, all of it.
Bottom line: Speer, a young architect, was offered the intoxicating opportunity to design a new Rome (post-victory Berlin), and was blinded to the excesses of the regime. He got involved with Nazism because of a network of relationships which brought him close to Hitler, a man passionate about architecture and design. And then he got drawn in. I imagine he *was* remorseful, but like so many, he put personal aggrandizement and deluded dreams of personal glory ahead of his humanity.
I think quite so, at his worst, he was more like the guy that was not really interested in the holocaust but knew, but just did not care. Plenty enough of people with that mindset to be honest.
That's about right. Typical ambitious suck up, just on a grand scale.
Speer joins the Nazi Party in 1931, more than a year before Hitler came to power.
He was remorseless, he was very intelligent and manipulated the tribune's to gain sympathy never reviling his real face and his evil part in the final solution of so many Millon's soul's..,, I am sure he was responsible and did responds to God, since God Holds the truth in every thing we do
@David McConville David, your comment is so truthful ! I watched few documentaries about his big part with the death of thousand of prisoners working 24 hour's inside tunnel without food, water and rest, they died like fly's,,, What kind of humanity' he had?
My grandfather was a student of architecture at the Technical University of Berlin at the same time as Speer. They were both students of Heinrich Tessenow. He was therefor quite familiar with Speer. My grandfather hated the Nazis with a passion. He and my grandma hid two Jewish families and grandpa was put in a Gestapo prison. He always said about Speer: "Even back then he was a ruthless, smooth-talking brownnoser who would bow to the ones above him while kicking those below him. The allies should've hung him because there is no way he didn't know what was going on."
Speer had a very good lawyer who separated him from the top Nazi's during the trial. It was a brilliant legal move that saved his life.
Speer was an engineer, he also knew how to engineer the trial situation to his advantage . To that end he succeeded
Gitta was a very talented historian, and her perspectives brought the truth out of this era when it was very often intended to be concealed and never revealed to the world. She is to be commended, and I hope she rests in peace, content that her great work accomplished much good both during and after her time here on earth.
The man got off too easily for all of the sufferings he was responsible for, but on the other hand he gave us an invaluable historical insight into the inner workings of the Third Reich.
Speer was a very smart man, and knew how to think through a problem. His entire defense line of "I'm sorry" was a smokescreen to save his own ass.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Primal
Exactly.
Ah, so he said sorry. That's alright then.
Speer was clever enough to accept responsibility for Nazi atrocities without admitting to his involvement in them. He claims to have been absent when Himmler delivered his infamous Posen speech, admitting to the destruction of the Jews, and to have initiated diet and hygiene improvements after touring Mauthausen's Dora rocket-works, but there can be no doubt that a man of his intelligence didn't know what was happening around him. He may have deliberately closed his eyes to slave labor and genocide , he may have labored away despite knowledge on patriotic grounds, but that hardly excuses him from posterity's tribunal, for what that's worth.
Speer is an interesting historical figure but I find him to be more disturbing than the master he served. A Hitler or a Stalin are like typhoons or earthquakes, a terrible occasional phenomena, but the Speers are numerous among us, subservient to power, bloodless amoral technocrats, models of efficiency and pragmatism and results.
Goebbels was pretty well-educated too by Nazi standards (a PhD) but he's another case altogether. I think ambition seized hold of Speer and consumed him, like a 2Oth century Faust.
Because going to university trains you to think what you're told by others
Great post
+Jeff Allcock *"He claims to have been absent when Himmler delivered his infamous Posen speech, admitting to the destruction of the Jews."* Yes he did. And no he wasn't!
*"There is no doubt - I was present as Himmler announced on October 6th 1943 that all Jews would be killed. Who would believe me that I suppressed this?"*
- Speer, Albert, letter to Hélène Jeanty, December 23rd, 1971, www.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/13/secondworldwar.kateconnolly
Not such a 'good Nazi' after all, eh?
Jeff Alcock, just who did Albert Speers murder, imprison, persecute or ridicule.
He was a genius designer and architect, not an executioner or torturer.
He did not deserve to hang, people like you who profess to be judge and jury are the incriminators of this world who spout nonsense.
Yes, you would be the pointing finger at those who are misjudged and executed.
Of course he was guilty of being a nazi and of being complicit in certain areas but he probably broke less of the ten commandments that you or your friends may have?
Judge yourself before others, you sad individual.
Albert Speer made millions on his "sorry". Books, interviews... he became a celebrity of post-war Germany and far beyond. The one thing is sure - he was an extremely intelligent and talented person who could even change failure into success. Logically he should be hanged as others but he not only defended himself from the death penalty but ended up as a celebrity and millionaire.
That's brilliant if you ask me...he was a weasel know doubt...but this weasel sure knew how to work a crowd.
@@aliciadavis8872 In the times of nuclear annihilation, the cockroaches are king.
Thank you so much for all these great documentaries! I am amazed that there is always something to learn - even after years of books, videos etc.. Keep those uploads coming!
I'll do my best, Mary! I still have many more waiting for the 'upload treatment'! Many thanks, and stay tuned.
Meanwhile, his eldest son, also named Albert, had a very long and far more successful career as an architect with projects all over the world, renown for their cultural sensitivity. He wanted nothing to do with his father. He died two years ago at age 83.
probably wanted nothing to do with him ,so he didn't ruin his own career
Fascinating. Thank you.
Interesting.
what in the world does being an architect have to do with cultural sensitivity?
@@DAKINS896 That's a fairly ignorant remark, said in a manner that suggests there could be no cultural sensitivity to architecture.
Thank you, Dr. Brown. I may be long from school but I still love history.
Ivan Glamdryng I was a history major, but I my in-depth understanding is so much more now than then.
So yes Thank You for from us who would love a great documentary over any inane tv 📺 show with a laugh track.
@@jodiemichellebatten5224 I Agree wholeheartedly
My sentiments also on a great piece of war documentation through media.
20 years imprisonment and being well fed seems pretty good treatment compared to concentration camp
He wasn't well fed.
@@alexandrebenois7962 If that's true, it's poetic justice. The victims of Hitler's regime weren't well-fed either.
Yes, water is wet. You want to be as evil as them, or the civilized person that brings JUSTICE, not PUNISHMENT, to them?
@nicholas carter They never said we should stoop to their level-only that if it turned out he wasn't well-fed in prison, who's really gonna be upset when you consider the torments the Nazis put concentration camp inmates through? Anyway, the food-amount and quality-would be far better in prison-and there were worse torments the people in concentration camps had to endure than the poor food they were getting.
@@alexandrebenois7962 No, probably not well fed in prison compared to what you or I eat in the comfort of our home. But faaar better than what the people in concentration camps were given.
Albert Speer: The opportunist who said sorry
And got to live! Prudent.
Speer was truly ashamed by the crimes of the Nazi totalitarian regime. The Nazi leadership was judged and condemned to death or prison. The other totalitarian and criminal regime has never been judged or condemned. Even today there are Communists parties in many countries, which is outrageous. From a quite reliable source, the archives from the Soviet State and others, most researchers and historians had concluded that almost 50 million people were annihilated from the very beginning of the Soviet system with Lenin, through Stalin and even until the 1970s. These genocides were horrendous; and even were repeated by Mao in China (1940s to the cultural revolution) Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s. One day the civilized world should treat these monsters in the same way that were treated the Nazis
Nothing that Speer did was done without careful thought of how he could get the most out of his position. Even whe he counters the "scorched earth" directive. Conveniently, every single one of the infrastructures that he raced around to save belonged to friends of his. And only the ones belonging to friends and colleagues of his were saved. A man who has that much knowledge certainly knows where his slave labor is coming from and what happened to the. When theh could no longer work.
Mermur please learn real history you don’t have the slightest idea of what you are saying. My family left Austria because of the Nazis; later on, they suffered persecution in Soviet-occupied Europe and were murdered by the Red Army and the KGB.
Talks cheap!
he was just a really good liar, with a good attorney, who asked for mercy and got it. he never should have taken part in that atrocity.
Not to forget the COLD WAR BONUS many of those people became because of making themselves usefull on both sides of the IRON CURTAIN.
The Soviet Propaganda had always claimed the true Nazis were all in the West. Yet the people organizing the Social Politcal and Military organisations in East Germany had been also a socalled " BROWN PAST " ( as in the Nazi Party Anathem - BLACKBROWN IS THE HAZLENUT AND BLACKBROWN SO ARE YOU ... ; referrring to the colour of the make believe uniform those people had sported )
He not only didn’t say sorry, he profited off of these atrocities. Sociopathy on full display with this character.
Why should he apologize if he doesn't mean it? You sound ridiculous
@@jayo3074to avoid the fate of his less pragmatic colleagues earned when they either actively defended Nazism or sugar coated it. Speer did not give a single shit about the victims and only about his own life like a coward. Most nazis tend to be cowards when actually confronted. He only survived with basicly a slap on the wrist due to him being pragmatic.
When he got out of jail, he didn’t sound very repentant!
@@jayo3074probably to save his neck but it didn’t work
@@jayo3074You sound ridiculous, the fact that he didn't say sorry because he didn't mean it is the very case in point! He wasn't sorry and actually lied right up to his death about what he knew. The OP is right, sociopath. He idolised Hitler just like Himmler and Goebbels did.
If you feel much sympathy for Speer, ask yourself this: what if the Third Reich had *won* the war? Do you think Speer would've spent the next 35 years apologizing and denying all knowledge and condemning his comrades? He didn't show the slightest dissatisfaction with the Nazi government or it's activities until it was obvious to everyone that they were going to lose and he was likely to face some accountability for the role he played.
Why would he have done that? Would you have done that in such a scenario?
I think it's incredibly interesting that he spent so much time after prison trying to show some remorse for his part in the atrocities. Going as far as working with Simon Wisenthal and even reaching out to victims of the holocaust. From this video he seemed to have genuine sorrow for his part, yet in the end, as was stated in the video, it seemed as though he wasn't so sorry after all. He was proud of how his life turned out.
Anyone in his position would have done that. Would you dare go against Fuhrer's orders and face execution or simply go with the flow? Speer was a wise and intelligent guy to accept some guilt and responsibilities.
@@marcusrios8517 he was a charming charismatic individual who was good at lying and fooling people
Of course he knew. They all knew. How could any of them not have known? And there is such a thing as telling a lie so many times that you begin to believe it yourself.
Steve Sloan Hitler himself said, “If you tell a lie enough times, it becomes truth.”
@Steven Sloan , how can you be so sure? Only fools are certain. I'm not defending Albert Speer. What he did or didn't do, knew, or thought, is now lost to time. But don't presume, never presume. Assumptions can kill. Cheers.
@@lightwishatnight What? If it talks like duck, videos like duck and conspires and serves as duck...IT IS DUCK! Of course he knew and was guilty as all the rest. Sorry, he never said that? He was just the coward that survived!
Steve Sloan
I think that one person in the film had it right. He knew but he was a proxy for all the German people who knew but turned a blind eye or pretended to have not known at all. They collectively convinced themselves that they were not one of the ones who knew.
He knew? He was one of the guys who orchestrated it.
He was smart and evil. He was a very clever liar. Even "if" he didn't know about the Holocaust (you are welcome to believe that, but I never will) he sure knew about the slave labor abuses. He was the original "Sorry not sorry" guy and it saved his neck. His deputy was thrown under the bus and hanged but Speer survived.
What do you know of the holocaust... even the pictures taken after the fact, and the destruction of evidence by Allied/Soviet forces of such atrocities that should have been kept? Curious, just how much do you know apart from the usual stuff you hear and see.
On the other hand, what about german PoW's, tens of thousands who went missing/died under Allied jurisdiction... and under the Soviets? German's were not he only ones to use prisoners as labor, nor the only ones to abuse them.
Yes, Speer knew fine well... like most of them, or all of them that were enlisted by Allied/Soviet government - including the famous Wernher Von Braun.
There's a good chance he gave up information about the nazi regime to save his own neck.
The Soviet Union practiced a system of slave labor for decades before the Nazi regime employed them during the war. It’s absurd to act all shocked about it when you’re sitting next to judges that represent a state that is doing what you are condemning someone else for openly.
@@thechosenone1533he worked as a propaganda tool for the Zionists to speak there bullshit and make everyone go like "holocaust happened, Hitler bad, Nazi bad."
NOTHING WAS KEPT SECRET FROM SPEER..HE KNEW
Xandi Mars That doesn't make it any easier to swallow in which case he'd suicide without second thought.
Once he was made aware of the mere implication, he didn't want to know, and with that always being hammered as a defense mechanism it becomes to "I didn't know.".
Xandi Mars didn't most people in germany know at that point? I mean it was one of hitlers earliest policies.. and being one of the top ranking nazi official's and close friend of hitler it was very obvious he knew..
I read several books on it ..and have an my thoughts on his actions. I wont dignify your words anymore
The Jews were persecuted from the get go with the restoration of the civil service, along with women and non nazis but the holocaust or "final solution" only started at the wansee conference in 1941
+Xandi Mars Ofcourse he knew. The reason why he managed to convince others of his ignorance decades after WWII, was just because political correctness and emo-politics had already come into play. The masses love a crying man, it's so progressive,...
4:40 "He was 9 in 1914 - too young to feel the defeat. "
13 in 1918 .
15 when the country was on the bring of collapse.
I think thats old enough.
Im pretty sure hed have seen the misery in Germany during Weimar
Hed have seen people with a bucket full of cash to buy a loaf of bread.
That's not right to say what sombody felt at 9 I myself remember everything I went thru at 9 while my girlfriend who is 2 days older than me dont even remember when she was 18.you remember the hard times in life alot more than you do the good times .but regard less he was guilty. What the hell could the man do about it tell them no I want kill Jews so they could kill him an his family.put yourselfin that means shoes an put your wife an children in that situation an youd probly done the samething.
A man is known by the company he keeps; and this guy really had some interesting company!
Interesting company? More like monsterous. Speer manipulated the court to slip the hangman noose. He said what he knew the Allies wanted to hear & he used it to save his life. He knew what was going on there's no way he could have been ignorant of it. He was a master manipulator & con man, & he conned the court into letting him live. He should have been hanged with the rest of the Nazi murderers who were executed at Nuremberg.
I keep almost no company am I a unknown man
@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 I mean you’re definitely not wrong to some extent. Some extent you are also not right. Speer was sort of what you called a weird frantical nazi.
@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 hangman's nose? Wink wink. I know you meant noose.
His company were some of the most influential and intelligent people in history. The people snidely commenting on this video are nothing compared to the men who led Germany out of the mire of economic misery and subjugation.
I read his book, and I think he was brilliant and had a very good memory. He knew so much detail, so it is inconceivable that he did not know of the Jewish situation. He knew and was complicit, otherwise he would have been executed at Hitler's order. He did go against Hitler late in the war, but always playing it safe. I don't think any of his associates ever flatly stated that Speer spoke openly of his knowledge concerning the maltreatment of the Jews, but considering the intelligence at his disposal given his position, it's almost impossible that he could not have known.
He was in charge of armaments manufacturing, and it was he who insisted on more slave labour to meet his goals of keeping the German military machine running. It's inexplicable that this war criminal wasn't hung.
In the end it was Speer that proved to be the smartest...
@ Micah Kerres, indeed
Speer and Von Braun were probably the smartest Nazis.
If being "the smartest" was being the rat then I guess he was.
@@mikepatrick5909 I wonder if God was impressed? Just kidding. I don't.
Dude spent 20 years in prison...that's not smart imo.
The most intelligent advise I have ever heard comes form Albert Speer. A young man asked him once, "What can I do to gain success in my life?"
Albert Speers reply was, "Work on your carisma!"
Speer was the type that smiles and smiles while he stabs you in the back.
How do you know?
@Old Soul Nonsense, Speer was a snake who deliberately pushed his subordinate Sauckel to the gallows in order to save himself. He admitted 'common responsibility' but was evasive when it came to his own personal responsibility - everything was either the fault of others or not as bad as the prosecution made out, while also concocting tales of bogus assassination attempts against Hitler.
He also lied about his knowledge of the Holocaust and in the slave labour program.
What it shows is he was smarter than the rest.
When did you meet him?
@Old Soul Bullshit. He killed thousands of slave laborers.
He really did have a lot of good luck & fortune in his life. He had everything,then at the end of the Reich he escapes death,gets out 20 years later becomes a best selling author & finds a young wife. He knew but he looked the other way,that's all he would admit to but he was guilty of a whole lot more.
Not a new wife; his wife was waiting after his prison release. He had the affair with the younger woman much later, according to this account.
All the civilians of Germany looked the other way so really they all should have been rounded up to face the courts
@peter9110: Attention, Speer didn't get all he want, he desperately tried to find peace with God, the Almighty. He didn't really repent and, so God couldn't help him by the prison clergy man, so he will definitely end up in hell! Speer got earthly fame & honour, that's vanity of vanities and will perish, but his soul will not vanish and have eternal pain.
There’s no remorse for anyone who commits such heinous acts, nor shall there be forgiveness.
There is if they truly repent, in Jesus Christ who died for the sins of mankind
@@alexm7627What if Jesus was never born? Killing for his stupid ideology wouldn’t have happened!!! What if??? Stupid statement!
@@alexm7627not really.
@@alexm7627he didn't repent and there are interviews and documents proves that only was he not sorry, he was very proud of his work and that he was able to avoid getting killed for it. This is a man who accepted living in the world. This was a man completely empty of anything Jesus.
@@alexm7627 Superstitious rubbish...
Saying "sorry" somehow seems a bit inadequate.
The victors let go most war criminals.
saying "sorry" is more then anyone else said
I'm going to add that simply admitting his involvement wasn't what saved him, because that would not have saved the likes of Himmler, Göring, or Höss. The court had its own motivation for sparing him.
this is one of the best documentaries i've ever seen.
Powerful quote by his publisher. His book sold out by exonerating Germans. "If even his right hand man didn't know and couldn't stop Hitler, how much less the common person, but proud of the work done."
Best friend of Adolf Hitler who doesn't know Hitler first priority !! I dont buy the idea.
Human psyche is much more complex than in Hollywood, you can literally fall in love with the Devil and not fully understand the atrocities he committed or where committed in his name.
What first priority would that be?
He was like Sergeant Shultz....I no nothing ...and it worked
Stanisław Giers very true. We are all half angel and half devil, and have an astounding ability to lie to ourselves to gratify our selfish desires.
Hitlers first priority was not the genocide of the Jews. It may be hard to imagine but it was 1) incidental/functional and 2) he mostly didnt like that they prioritised their ethnicity over the Reich (like the Roma)
Plus every authoritarian regime needs a bogeyman. To focus the people. The Jews just happened to be top of hitlers (and lots of Germans...) list
The real question is: Wouldn't you do the same to save yourself?
no
No.
Yes
Yes
Yes
This was a rollercoaster ride. I went back and forth between "pragmatic psychopath" and "ambitious youth who got caught up in the dazzling recognition from Hitler and his own hubris, but a person capable of introspection and near-remorse" (which is more than i can say for most people, let alone most Nazis). I think the truth lies somewhere uncomfortably and paradoxically in the middle.
Interesting video. Another aspect of Speer's story I'd like to provide. As an architect myself, I remember back in architecture school (Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY), that while Speer's work was given several pages of coverage in the history of architecture books we had to buy, it was never covered in the lectures (which were all quite intense). It's as if his work never existed. Completely ignored and skipped over. After years of learning about the Nazi atrocities while in public school, I don't think an hour or two looking at the architectural work of Speer would have been that terrible, especially if it was placed into proper context of the horrible regime it represented. It was, and still is, a significant example of megalomania architecture.
I also am somewhat perplexed as to why Speer would want to be Armaments Minister, or what qualified him for the job (yes, I know he was supposedly an organizational wizard). I guess there was no real building or architectural work going on in Germany by the time he took up the position.
Also, years ago (back around 1980 or so), ABC television (US), produced a mini-series on the life of Speer. I still remember watching it even though I was quite young back then. It went into detail how he presented his work to Hitler, how he developed the designs for the new Berlin, etc. I have never seen that tv mini-series again since then.
after seeing this video, I wonder whatever happened to that 100 ft. long model of the new capital Germania......
Hello again, Jeffrey. The Germania model's fate is uncertain, although several Berlin museums now have exhibitions related to it with some reconstructions on display. I think Speer replaced Todt as armaments minister because, like Todt, he had the organisational skills and the vision to realise grandiose plans. Whether Speer was actually a good architect or not, I am not qualified to say. However, I have heard other experts describe his work as 'mundane' or 'too angular'. His great guiding light was the 'theory of ruins' (as you say, megalomania architecture) and we can be certain that his Rally Grounds at Nuremburg will be there for a very long time to come! Regards - Alan.
Speer objected when Hitler named him as Armaments Minister. He didn't think he was capable of doing the job either. He also admitted during his years as minister that there were others far more qualified for the position than himself, but he had the "nimbus" of Hitler at his back, and that made all the difference. Speer says that he thought Hitler appointed him because Hitler preferred amateurs to professionals in key positions. Hitler himself was an amateur.
***** If you review the video you can find it says that the Armaments Minister of Hitler was killed in an airplane, and it is not like Speer "wanted to be Armaments Minister", HItler wanted to give that position to Speer. Just imagine if he said no to Hitler.So that is why he got that job.
Speer wasn't that good as architect. Nürrnbergs Speer buildings are in pretty bad conditions because they are not that massive as it seems. He faked a lot and did a lot of mistakes. But he was good in pushing to work, organize ordered tasks. He was good in manipulation and forcing people within strict and brutal structures. During his "architects days" he developed also the masterplan how to deport jews, how to built KZ's and how to use them as slaves and sell that to his "Führer" as a well organized, profitable work. THAT was the argument for Hitler.
Georg Rusbeck Ah, very interesting. I don't doubt it. Anyone within the Fuhrer's inner circle were working toward the same goal, no matter what their supposed profession was....
Totally unbelievable that Speer didn't know about the Final Solution. All the top brass knew about it after 1941.
It still astonishes me that Fritz Sauckel, merely the supplier of the labor, was hanged, yet Speer, who asked for the labor in the first place, was given a prison sentence. He's a strange man to understand, but I believe he was a born survivor, and had to use every bit of wit and guile to charm the prosecution and judges into not giving him the death sentence. He had a few things going for him. He was very good-looking, patrician, spoke English fairly decently. Sauckel was course, bull-headed, not well-educated...
@Nobody Knows He saved _thousands of Jews?_ That's a twisted justification for his using slave labor, which were to be worked to death, or otherwise killed when no longer useful.
Speer lied about _everything_ especially about his knowledge and participation in the holocaust.
Emanresuadeen. Speer was an architect and helped design the layout of the camps.
@@donsettie344 Speer, in his official capacity, also approved the physical expansion of Auschwitz. Additionally, he made certain the necessary construction materials were sent. He should have been hanged.
Speer claims he knew nothing about the holocaust????....wow!!...and I got some land east of Daytona Beach I want to sell u!!!
The history on Albert Speer is incredible! Thank you Dr.Brown!
And at the end of all of that, all I can say is ; a sincere thanks to the historians and may God bless the Jews of the world...AND as every Brit like me (and my father served in both world wars ) knows or SHOULD know ; that were it not for the bravery, endurance and sacrifice of the Soviet people and their armies, we would all now be speaking german in a state of slavery.
It was fortunate for future generations, and those who lived through the war, that they did not execute Speer and Dönitz. If they had executed all the top ranking ones, there would have been no epilogue. Their later interviews were somehow valuable in this sense; they bring it all down to earth, to reality, as opposed to something we read about in books or watch in documentaries.
I have no doubt Speer knew about the final solution and probably convinced himself to agree with it (just like he later convinced himself he didn't agree with it); but then so did many others who were involved at the time, high and low. For example, in all the occupied countries, you can find examples of authorities complying with the German requests to identify and arrest Jews. Even on the island of Jersey, the only part of British soil to be occupied by Germany in World War 2, the police cooperated with the Nazis in arresting and deporting Jews. For me this is the same thing as what Speer was doing.
May be we should ask ourselves how we each would react in a similar situation, if we can imagine it...but I don't suppose we can. I'm sure we all prefer to believe we'd resist in some heroic way. However, I believe that if we were in a situation where we were faced with disenfranchisement (or worse) if we did not comply, and advancement if we did...I think many of us might choose to "ignore" some of the crimes the government may be committing.
JasonJason210 I know this is old but it is a great comment
You really believe that these vile war criminals had any remorse? What a sad reflection on life, when people are so easily duped. Tell people why the Nazis destroyed the gas chambers and crematoriums before the allies arrived.
There were Jews in the Channel Islands? Only those brought there by the nazis. This Brit bashing really pisses me off.
After they lost and he was caught he says " sorry"...
Evil vile monster
Speer was no better than the other Nazis. He was merely more polite. He should have gotten life, no parole, just like Hess.
Alternative Title: Albert Speer, The Nazi who said sorry.....to literally save his neck.
I truly wish I COULD remember the name of Speers book '' Spandau diaries'' I think, that book was very insightful . I know a person can be fooled reading a book, but I truly felt he was sincere in what he wrote. The book is worth a read anyway ,as it is a study in the human struggle with ourselves, our desires, what fuels us to do the things we do. As in why do we keep silent at times when so many things around us ruffle our feathers run deep in our soil disturbing our comfort level of what we accept or choose to ignore.
That's a very balanced comment. Many here seriously doubt Speer's sincerity & there is a twinge of bitterness in many comments...understandably. However as we now head into another age of vicious authoritarianism far more encompassing, global & equally brutal most if not all of these people will bury their heads in the sand & ignore the evils around them branding any who try to warn them as conspiracy theorists. This also is a dishonest form of self preservation & the reason many evil people are highly successful. We are all guilty of being human for want of a better way of putting it. Adam & Eve ate the fruit but can any of us say in that situation we would not have done the same thing? A great many will answer they wouldn't but in practice most if not all would.
@@garydean777 Thank you for this thoughtful comment.
@@happyherbert1984 Most welcome.
It was called "Inside the Third Reich" (as it says in the documentary).
@@mikelheron20 no he's written several books. one of them is called "Spandau the Secret Diaries" which is primarily about his time in prison.
It's impossible to separate out genuine remorse from the premise of 'saving one's neck', since the first may well lead to the latter. A person would not be human if they did not wish to survive. In his defence, he did a lot of writings after his release which denounced the Nazis and worked to educate the world with inside knowledge of it, and did philanthropic work for the Jews. He did not have to do any of that, he could have retired on the wealth of his first book and stick two fingers up from some Tropical paradise, but he did not.
Agree 100%, well said. 🤔✌
It was proven he didn't care. I'm surprised people are mentioning the documentary "world at war" from the 70s where they interviewed him. The journalist actually said how gross she felt because she had to pretend to agree with his white power master race views.
But she was actually sick from talking to him.
Letters, journal entries and other interviews also showed how much of a monster he was as well as other investigations showing how hands on he was with some of this horrific acts.
It's so strange seeing people debate about whether he was good or bad especially with information spanning almost a 100 years available to study.
My question is whether he felt any remorse and feelings for the holocaust victims while he designing structures that helped in the mass murder.
Very interesting, good questions. I read his memoires and had found him completely convincing at the time. This docu portrays him as fallible and very human in the way he twisted about his guilt while also leading a strategy for survival. I will not forget it.
After coming back from the Vietnam War Crime I re-framed the attitude toward Germans that was formed in my 1950's childhood. I saw that I was not exceptional as an American.
Malcolm Marzo, your comment touched me deeply, you have not pointed your finger, but owned the potential/reality of malevolence within all of us. What better place to witness this than wartime. Thank you for sharing arohanui from New Zealand.
Finally, a real comment.
Gitta Sereny's book - Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth is one of THE greatest historical books on Nazism!
im thinking "uh......sorry...my bad" doesn't quite cut it in this instance
Albert Speer is born in Mannheim, my home town - nothing to be proud of!
The Nürnberg tribunal should have punished him like the other Nazis. He was better looking than the others, but he is even more involved in the crimes.
Speer is the reason there is a Western Europe. He took a risk with his life undoing Hitlers orders to "destroy every building and every animal". He deserved to live.
Thank you very much for this post.
It is not only a look into one mans mind and heart who could not face with complete honesty the evil he committed or at very least tacitly participated either with some level of conviction or fear to disagree.
But it is in the manner of how most people manage their everyday sins, smaller or larger; with denial or false justification for their words and deeds i.e. their existence.
This was fascinating! Thanks so much.
Simply, hypocrite.
Don't believe the words of such a man.
RASHEED ===where you there ? you have no idea what a horrible time it was. my family went through two WW II and it almost destroyed them all. when you see what is going on right now and IT WILL NEVER BE THE GERMANS WHO EVER GOING TO have a WAR in their country or in EUROPE AGAIN. WHEN BUSH ASK GERMANY AND FRANCE ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR . GERMANY AND FRANCE SAID NO TO EVERYTHING.I SEEN HOW THEY TALK ABOUT IT, WE THE GERMANS WERE NAZI'S AGAIN, AND STUPID HOW IT SOUND, THEY DID NOT HAVE ANYMORE FRENCH FRIES BUT FREEDOM FRIES AND ANY THING THAT WAS FRENCH IT WAS CRUCIFIED. THAT WAS NOT TO LONG AGO
I find this zooming in on Speers knowing/not knowing of The Final Solution futile and almost dismissive of his guilt in his wholehearted involvement in a regime that waged a merciless war of aggression and wiped out humans on an industrial scale.
It's amazing how people become apologetic when they have no other choice in order to save their skin.
An old saying!He'd get away with murder he would! He certainly did!What a creepy man he was in all those interviews.
speer was a snake had endless conversations with hitler knew exactly what was going on when it was going on who was doing it were it was been done.And don,t mention the 100,s of thousands of people he used as slave labour
I was a lawyer before retirement. Speer's actions were brilliant, whether or not he was sincere or truthful in his stated regrets for his actions. When the evidence is overwhelming, all one accomplishes by maintaining a not guilty plea is insult the intelligence of the Court or show a lack of remorse.
Robin Sattahip I agree with this comment. Speer absolutely owned up to the guilt- that he was- by association... just that.
+Robin Sattahip true to say he played a blinder..........why others didnt do it is amazing
+Robin Sattahip after his death his true guilt came to light
paul morgan Which for him, was great timing. But then Germany has now gone off the deep end putting a 95 year old man in jail for being a military book keeper assigned to concentration camps. Men like him are lucky they don't have to see the level to which Germany now disgraces itself in the name of political correctness.
oscar groning jailing is just plain wrong
He simply wanted to enjoy forty-five more years of Duetschen streussel.
I had no idea there was a recording of Himmler's speech. Hugely chilling.
Himmler has a weird voice tbh
We never learn from history, the killing continues until today, endless wars based on lies.
Not just wars. It is the same mecanism of lying to yourself and inhumanity that pervates all of our sociaty to day. Even the so called civilized countries are fundamentally based on the same kind of insanity that Speer seems to posses.
you don't know whats really going on do you, see comments above.
@@signe8321 Yes.
The fact he became a bestselling author and therefore profitted from all the atrocities is disgusting. He was so close to Hitler he KNEW and his own successxwas more important than his humanity.
Speer was the smartest liar of all, but a liar and mass murderer nonetheless.
Speer played dumb, apologized, and threw his fellow nazis under the bus. This was why he wasn't given a death sentence.
don't forget, he also offered the Americans his knowledge of German war industry and weaponry.
If anyone hasn't read Speer's personal memoir, Inside the third Reich, i highly recommend they do. There are a lot of bigot and nonintellectual comments just condemning this man as a liar, or that hes in denial. He flat out admitted that he was guilty on these crimes for being a member of the government. It is a shared responsibility. He is literally the only person in the trial to do the right thing and admit guilt. He was honest and straight forward the whole time. People say he knew workers were mistreated? He visited factories and forging work camps, and observed that people we being treated adiquitly. After all, it was the factories and industrialists who were looking after most of the foreign labor. Why would they want their workers starving or killed? Speer admits they shouldn't it was wrong to force these people to work though. He tried harder to get more German men and women to work in industry but hitler refused and he was forced to use foreign labor. Speer prevented destruction of germany and many other countries by denying hitlers orders for total destruction, even going so far to travel to the front line and tell the generals directly to disobey that order. This was an architect thrust into a government position in the middle of the largest conflict in human history.What would you do in his situation? Seriously ask yourself, what would you do?
Well spoken Aszod, you are 100% correct, thank you for your sanity and pity these haters whose lack of knowledge and credibility afford them the right to hate anyone, because they have an opinion but seek to deny all others that privilege. Thank you
Read it. Great book. Scary to. It reminded me that the Nazis were human.
I've read it twice, once back in the seventies and again a couple of years ago. I recommend you take what he says with a grain of salt considering the primary source. Whether in his heart of hearts he believed he had done evil, I believe the main reason he admitted guilt was to save his own sorry ass.
He was a very intelligent and ambitious man who used his considerable talent for organizing and navigating internal Nazi politics to achieve great personal power. In the process he exploited thousands of slave laborers who had to toil and die under deplorable conditions to achieve his impressive production stats.
As far as what would I have done? I would hope I would have had the personal integrity and courage to refuse to cooperate with the evil that caused so much horrible suffering to so many innocent people. Unfortunately in Speer's case the greed for power overcame his conscience.
@@ohio what information? Please share
Simply NOT TRUE. Nearly every single "fact" that Speer wrote in his bestseller books was a lie, or at least a gross misinterpretation.
I didn't hear sorry from that man at any time only the last of the documentary so his spirit is still not at rest for everything he did I could never forgive him even if he said sorry
Whatever you think of Speer, his book is still very intriguing, particularly during the early years with Hitler in the 1930s, e.g. he definately captured how strange Hitler was as a person.
A book full of lies
Lol the book is Speer’s own propaganda to make him look good.
Yet it never deterred him from befriending this strange man Hitler, and doing his murderous bidding.
I've always detested that sentence..."The NAZI who said 'Sorry'....It's like..."Yes, since you've asked, I was indeed part of the genocide machine. Ooops, sorry 'bout that." The evil bastard was fully aware of the horrors that were happening to millions of innocents under the Third Reich. He was at the very core of the grovellers around Hitler. As Hitler's architect he designed factories and other buildings built and operated by 'expendable' prisoners. He should've gotten the rope at Nuremberg. Great documentary, cheers. Respect from Ireland.
He must have known, intimately, what was going on. He wormed his way out of it.
Speer said sorry to save his head. Not only he succeeded but he also fooled couple of UA-camrs three generations later.
I was in Willhelmshaven in 1979 for a town twinning and I vaguely remember meeting someone who I believe was Speer, as far as i can remember he introduced himself as such.
Flattery will get you everywhere.
Another great documentary on this channel. What a fantastic UA-cam channel this is!
There's a huge difference between saying "sorry" and meaning it.
Read "Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth", by Gitta Sereny, a phenomenal book in which she interviews him, his wife and others ............ then decide if he genuinely was sorry or was simply pleased to save his neck from the noose and serve 20 yrs in Spandau.
He wasn't sorry of what he did, he was only sorry that he got caught and he was trying to escape the death penalty which he deserves.
My grandfather is a WWII veteran. He already met him around 1975. My grandfather goals is to meet the High Ranking Nazis or German Veterans between early 1959s to 2019 ( his death). I met most of them when I was young because I want go with him to achieve his goals and listen their stories. I would sit for hours to listen their stories. I remembered some of the Nazis or German Veterans gave me most of the Nazis things like their uniforms, hats, metals, and etc. When they gave it to me they said ”Take good care of it and pass it down to new generations for me, please because my children will throw this away that is very valuable and it could not be forgotten.” I still have them I take good care of them😁
yeah amazing memories...6 million murdered and thats interesting to you?
Nathan please, share some of the stories you have, and I hope you still taking amazing care of the relicts of the past. Also sorry for your grandfathers loss. May god bless you and your grandfather!
That is quite fascinating …and I’m sure you heard about some interesting adventures by the scoundrels that made up the Third Reich …. I would love to hear more about the whole thing.
I hope you recorded those interviews.
Well done. Fascinating interviews.
He was an opportunist, -ambitious, unrelenting and ruthless. He said he had no idea of the mass killings but Speer was directly involved in the construction and alteration of concentration camps.
He used his inteligence at Nurermberg to avoid getting a death sentence.
This documentary was narrated by Manuel of Fawlty Towers.
Speer was a brilliant man. Had he been running things from the beginning I suspect we’d all be speaking German.
No. Germany coullld have never won the war. His action mostly prolonged it, but besides planning and production failures the reich ccollapsed around him.
Nope not in California at least.
How easy for reasonably good people to get caught up in the madness.
Speer was never a "reasonably good person." He and the likes of him are always greedy, calculating narcissist! Sadly, there are countless contemporaries!
I don't understand how Speer could have got away with claiming he wasn't at the Posen speech.
His wartime diaries & memoirs as published for public consumption are shown to be riddled with inaccuracies when compared with his actual diaries preserved in the German State Archives. Spear kept Germany fighting for years longer by being an efficient & ruthless arms production minister.
At 31:35 they translate "ausrotten" as extermination, but the word follows "evacuation" so the exact meaning is blurred.
The more I studied about this war the more respect and compassion I get to the European Jews, Despite the middle east conflict, but imagine seeing someone like Speer evading conviction by the supposed allies despite the horrors he caused along with his boyfriend, and not exploding in anger about it
I read "Inside the 3rd Riech". Read a review, not the book. Unbelievable he needed millions for slave labour, but didn't know about the Holocaust. As a possible successor to Hitler, how could he not know; he could ask his buddy Hitler. He was a opportunist who didn't want to suffer in the resistance.
I think its fair to say most people given the opportunity to thrive in their field of expertise when previously had no opportunity to do so would do just what this man did. In an era that was stricken with severe depression, the likes non of us have experienced, its impossible to understand the reason to throw away any moral principle to thrive creatively and unchecked. And not only that but being loved by the most dangerous and powerful man in the world. I think its also fair to say people living comfortable lives today would be just as eager to throw moral principles out the window for a tiny ounce of power.
One more thing, no one in power really cares about genocide or slavery. If they did they wouldn't publicly endorse nations who openly practice it.
I do not believe it is that simple. It takes a person with something missing in their consciousness to be able to take part in something so heinous, all for the sake of their career.
@@veronicamoody3981 you could have missed the great lessons from authoritarian regimes. It takes exactly that what is described above to allow atrocious events to unfold
Albert Speer's most substantial crime was that he had the misfortune of being on the side of the war losers. That they have condemned him, it is understandable given the circumstances, that his sentence has not been commuted was an enormous injustice.
There were collaborators, in France and in other countries, who escaped. What about Katyn's criminals, their bosses and accomplices, who had state funerals?!
He wanted so much to be remembered as a great architect. He sold his soul to the devil just so he could build his buildings. And in the end the only thing left of those buildings is a couple guard towers turned in public toilets. I think that was worst punishment for him then those 20 years in prison.
Look up Niklas Frank, the son of Hans Frank, the governor of Poland. He has lots of interviews on UA-cam. Frank says his father didn't start out as an anti-Semite. But he was so ambitious and so corrupted by power that if Hitler had declared the Irish were the enemies of Germany and had to be exterminated, Hans Frank would have gladly murdered the Irish. Some of the Nazis truly believed in Hitler's stupid racial theories. And some of them simply went along out of blind ambition. The end result was the same - mass murder and excuses and rationalizations after the fact. And Speer's buildings were awful, cold monstrosities, IMO.
He never ever said sorry, he said he should have known about it. He did know about it, not only did he know, he took full advantage of his position to oversee the tragedy unfolding before him. The thing he wanted most was a pat on the back from hitler. That rubbish about trying to assassinate him was a joke, with nobody to verify anything he said.