On 20th November 1945 the world watched as 21 leading Nazis went on trial. Accused of the horrors and crimes of the Third Reich each faced the death penalty. One stood apart from the rest, the most enigmatic of all the accused, Hitler’s architect and armaments minister Albert Speer. Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial s1e1: Speer
This Nazi who said sorry still divides opinion. ibid.
Speer’s miracle of increasing production came at a cost: it was made possible only through the suffering of millions of forced labourers. ibid.
Speer gets his way and his so-called Cathedral of Light becomes an iconic image of Nazi propaganda. Hitler’s Circle of Evil s1e5: The Berghof Set, 2018
It’s early 1942 and Nazi Germany is now up against the industrial might of Russia and the United States. Hitler needs a man to revolutionise the German war machine but no-one expects the Fuhrer to choose his friend, Albert Speer. It’s a promotion that soon stirs up a rat’s nest of inner-circle jealousy and intrigue. Hitler’s Circle of Evil s1e8: The Rise of the Sycophants
For Adolf Hitler victory meant more than the opportunity of implementing his perverse racial view. European conquest and global domination would also enable him to redesign Germany and the occupied territories along the lines of his equally twisted archaeological ambitions. Nazi Victory: The Post-War Plan II: Nazi Megacities, 2018
Germania: the city was intended to be nothing less than the capital of the entire world. ibid.
Speer joined the Nazi party in 1931; a young gifted architect, Speer soon rose through the political ranks to become a prominent member of Hitler’s inner circle. ibid.
It was one of the largest projects in the history of mankind. The Third Reich’s bomb-proof factory ... Gigantic underground plants would have kept the supply chain running for the Wehrmacht. Armaments minister Albert Speer had devised the monstrous plan for his Fuhrer. Today only a few may set foot in the remnants of the mammoth project. Hundreds of thousands of slave-labourers hollowed out entire mountains essential to the war effort. The Reich Underground I: Terror From Below
Everywhere in the Third Reich the underground construction work was given the highest priority. ibid.
‘The interrogators were fascinated by him because Speer really seemed like one of us.’ Last Days of the Nazis II: Smoke, Blood and Mirrors, Robert jan van Pelt
Speer did nothing: those factories belonged to Speer’s associates. Last Days of the Nazis VI: End of the Reich
Tens of thousands die as He [Speer] tries to supply the Nazi war machine but it’s still not enough. So he decides to cook the books. Rise of the Nazis s2e2: Stalingrad, BBC 2022