01x04 - Albert Speer

[bunniefuu]

NARRATOR: They seem like
ordinary men.

Articulate, educated, civilised.

But they will turn into
depraved, twisted monsters.

They will commit acts
of unimaginable cruelty

for which they will feel
no shame or remorse.

Here is True Evil.

Albert Speer, the designer who
turns the Nazis into a brand.

He's the man behind the whole look
of the n*zi movement,

who designed Nazism.

He is one of Hitler's
closest friends.

He became, I don't think
it's an exaggeration to say,

devoted to Hitler.

He is the man who murders
millions of worker sl*ves

in the n*zi arms industry.

He's responsible
for the German w*r machine.

It can't function without him.

How could someone go from being
an idealistic architect

to someone who was complicit

in harnessing the sl*ve labour
of the n*zi regime?

It beggars belief.

The man who, at Nuremberg, lies about
his knowledge of the Holocaust.

The idea that such a senior member
of the n*zi high command

as Albert Speer really didn't know
what was going on

I think defies comprehension.

The cynical opportunist
who escapes justice,

then cashes in as a n*zi celebrity.

This is somebody who was
a committed National Socialist,

committed to Hitler's vision,
served Hitler loyally,

and then spent the rest of his life
lying about it.

Albert Speer is born in 1905

into a well-to-do,
upper-middle-class family

in Mannheim, south-west Germany.

Speer's father is an architect,

and the young Speer decides
to follow in his footsteps.

At the age of 20
he goes to Berlin to study.

Speer was a pupil
of Heinrich Tessenow

and was very much favoured
by Tessenow,

who was a great professor
of architecture

in Germany in the 1920s.

When Speer graduates, his professor
offers him a junior post,

assisting him at the university.

It is a modest, steady job,

and in 1928, Speer settles down
with his new wife.

Speer shows no interest in politics
until, in December 1930,

he attends a National Socialist event
at his university.

The speaker is Adolf Hitler.

When Speer hears Hitler speaking
for the first time, he's surprised

because he's expecting somebody
that he doesn't really take to.

He's expecting somebody
who's not going to interest him.

And what Speer finds is that

Hitler's words
actually appeal to him.

Hitler's talking about pride,

he's talking about the fact that
Germany must be ashamed of itself,

and Speer found himself
affected by this.

Heil Vaterland!

CROWD: Heil!

PHILPOTT: He was, like many other
people of course, taken in

by Hitler's oratorical skills
and indeed his charisma.

(CROWD CHEERS)

But for Speer, the appeal
of the Nazis goes beyond politics.

The Nazis have power.

They have just become the second
largest party in the Reichstag.

And they are talking about
constructing a new Germany,

about rebuilding Germany.

And that's music to the ears
of a young architect.

The Nazis are about to embark
on a giant public spending spree.

And like many others,
Speer wants a piece of the action.

Like many other young professionals,
Speer realises that the only way

he's going to get on
in the emerging n*zi Germany

is to be a member of the party.

If you're not a member,
you don't get the gig.

Speer joins the Nazis
and starts to network.

He is soon rewarded
with his first big job -

to renovate Joseph Goebbels'
Berlin headquarters.

Even as a very young architect

Speer gets a number
of important commissions,

including refurbishing
the propaganda ministry.

Goebbels is delighted
with the look of his new offices

and invites Speer to design
a decorative n*zi logo

for Party rallies.

The current n*zi symbol
is gothic and old-fashioned.

Speer turns into something modern
and arresting.

Hitler is delighted

both by the eagle and by the young,
eager architect who designed it.

Political power has given Hitler
access to public funds.

He wants to spend it,
to aggrandise the new n*zi State.

It is not enough for Germany
to be great again.

It must be SEEN to be great again,
in its cities and buildings

and monuments.

Hitler thinks Speer could be
the man for the job.

I think Hitler saw an opportunity
to have somebody young and new

who wasn't encumbered with a lot of
pre-existing architectural ideas.

And, you know,
there was a meeting of minds.

They get on with each other
on a personal level.

Speer regards Hitler as his friend,
actual friend.

Very few people regard Hitler
as a friend,

and it's this relationship
that becomes endlessly fascinating.

In 1934, Hitler appoints Albert Speer
the Nazis' chief architect.

GREEN: When Speer is promoted
to Hitler's chief architect,

it's a dream come true for him
because he's an architect

who actually had very little
practical experience

and now he was going to have the
opportunity to build these edifices

on a truly monumental scale.

PHILPOTT: Once Speer was in place
as the chief architect of the Nazis,

yeah, that was in a sense
the beginning of a new era.

But Speer's brief
goes beyond architecture.

His mission is nothing less than
to give the n*zi movement

a new, distinctive look and feel.

In the flags and symbols
of the Nazis,

Speer will introduce bold colours,
simple shapes and straight lines.

Speer is the man
who will design the Nazis.

Image even back then was important,

and in the early days
of the n*zi Party

its image was of troublemakers,
really.

The SA had this reputation
for being street fighters.

And if it was going to appeal more
widely it had to improve that image.

Hitler admires the style
of Italy's strutting, vain,

fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Mussolini is obsessed
with his image.

Hitler too is enormously preoccupied
with how the Nazis will look.

They have already started to
get their uniforms from Hugo Boss,

but it will be down to Albert Speer
to brand the Nazis,

to come up with the now familiar
n*zi look.

Speer has a brief that goes from
iconography

to what a flag might look like

to what the lighting
is going to look like.

He is a vital part of the whole look
of fascism in Germany.

(CROWD CHANTS)

Albert Speer certainly brought
a sense of style to the n*zi image.

He brought a sense of grandeur to
it, a sense of class to it, really.

(CROWD CHANTS)

Speer will launch the new look Nazis

at the 1934 Nuremberg
n*zi Party rally.

Hitler decided that he needed
something bigger and grander,

and that was when Speer got involved

in designing what became
the Zeppelin Field.

This was designed to hold
over 150,000 people

and to be a real focus for
dramatic party celebrations.

Speer was very concerned with
not just putting buildings up,

but how their use would contribute
to reinforcing n*zi ideology.

Speer's designs are meant to
reflect Aryan superiority.

But his inspiration
will come from America.

In Manhattan, the Empire State
Building has just gone up.

The effect of New York's
breathtaking new art-deco skyscrapers

is thrilling and exciting.

But the same style,
when adapted by Speer for the Nazis,

has a more sinister effect.

(HORN BLARES)

The Zeppelin Field parade ground
is not so much thrilling

as scary and intimidating.

Everything is huge and monolithic,

on a scale to make the individual
feel small and powerless.

Thanks to Speer, this is a look that
will forever be associated

with totalitarian government.

And of course,
this is how Nazism worked.

The individual counted for nothing.

It was all about the state,
it was all about the sort of person

that the state was going to build,
was going to create,

and one's individual quirks
really were unimportant.

If the building design
comes from New York,

the n*zi choreography and staging
comes straight out of Hollywood.

In the months
before Speer's Nuremberg rally,

five hit Busby Berkeley musicals
are released,

famous for their rows upon rows
of dancing chorus girls.

What Hollywood does with showgirls,

Speer reproduces with Stormtroopers.

The choreography perfectly reflects
the n*zi love of state control.

Regimented,
forced into ordered lines.

One people, one Reich, no dissent.

The massed raised arms of the
Hitler salute look so good,

special courts are set up
to punish citizens

who refuse to use the salute.

As the Nuremberg Rally moves
from day to night,

Speer gets to show off
his lighting design,

which again comes straight
out of Jewish Hollywood.

This is Speer's Cathedral of Light.

He took 130 searchlights
and he pointed them up into the sky,

and so they created
these pillars of light.

It's a building created out of light
but it's so dramatic, so theatrical,

so stylish,

that it creates a mood,
it creates an atmosphere,

an emotion in people

that simply wasn't there
before Speer came along.

REMY: The effect is very dramatic.

Anybody who was there must have been
astonished by what they were seeing.

PHILPOTT: As a piece
of choreography,

I think it's impossible to deny
that they were brilliantly done.

It's also important to remember
it's called the Cathedral of Light,

and 'cathedral' I think is probably
a very carefully chosen word here.

What he was able to do was to really
foster this quasi-religious sense,

this idea of Nazism
as a kind of religion.

The Nuremburg rally was designed
to impress, to overawe, to inspire.

It marks that shift from
the street-fighting Nazis

to the stylish Nazis, the Nazis
of the impressive uniforms,

the idea that, you know,

the Nazis are people
you actually want to emulate,

not people you want
to run away from,

or people that you're
necessarily scared of.

They're people you actually,
you know, might be inspired by.

The n*zi message is nothing more

than a contradictory mess of
backward-looking, hateful prejudice.

But Albert Speer's modern branding
and design makes National Socialism

look coherent
and a vision of the future.

One of the reasons why fascism
is so appealing to so many people

is that it actually has a look.

It's very hard to think of
"the look" of democracy.

But what fascism does is
it harnesses iconography, pageantry.

It's more than just
a political movement.

It's a kind of religious movement.

If you think of Christianity,

you have the cross
and you have a cathedral.

If you think of Nazism,
you have a cross -

it's called the Crooked Cross,
the Hakenkreuz, the Swastika.

And you have these bombastic,
huge, monumental buildings.

(LOUD INSTRUMENTAL FLOURISH)

ARCHIVED REPORT: The specially built
Olympic Stadium in Berlin

is filled to capacity
as Hitler arrives

to preside at the opening ceremony
of the 11th Modern Olympiad.

After the success of Nuremberg,
Hitler turns to Speer

to redesign Berlin's Olympic Stadium.

The 1936 Olympic Games represent a
fantastic opportunity for Nazism

to show itself to the world.

Hitler wants a pageant

to persuade the world that the Nazis
are more than just Jew-bashing th*gs.

(HITLER OPENS THE OLYMPIC GAMES)

(CROWD CHEERS)

PHILPOTT: The objectives that the
Nazis had were threefold, really.

Faultless organisation,

brilliant choreography,

and of course demonstrating
Aryan superiority.

The Nazis go all out to win medals.

They can't stop athletes
like Jesse Owens wiping the floor

with Hitler's supposedly genetically
superior Nordic master race.

Nevertheless,
with the world watching,

Speer makes Hitler and the Nazis
look good.

Speer is now a key member
of Hitler's inner circle.

He moves his family to a new home
close to Hitler's Berghof residence.

Speer's wife and Hitler's girlfriend
start hanging out.

He became devoted to Hitler.

Hitler obviously had
tremendous charisma.

I don't know whether there was
an element of Speer being the son

that Hitler never had,

and, in a way, Hitler being the
father that Speer wished he'd had.

Hitler has big plans for the German
state, which he shares with Speer.

The n*zi Third Reich will be a new
empire that will dominate the world.

Hitler's main inspiration
was the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire had had might,
it had grandeur.

Territorially, it spread across
much of Europe and Asia.

But more than anything
it was eternal

and it was that idea of eternity
that Hitler was most attracted to.

He wanted to forge a Reich that was
going to stand the test of time,

it was going to last
for a thousand years.

Hitler wants his own eternal city,
his own Rome.

He will replace Berlin with a new
capital befitting the eternal Reich.

It will called Germania.

And the man who will build it
will be his friend Albert Speer.

Hitler had a dream that in time,
and not a lot of time,

Berlin would be rebuilt
along his own personal lines.

Berlin is going to become not just
a capital of the Third Reich

but it's going to become
a capital of the world.

And if you are going to sit down and
design a capital of the world,

it's not going to be full
of little cottages.

You're gonna make it big.

Germania was the n*zi ethos
in architectural form.

Speer's architectural designs
are imposing, monolithic,

awe-inspiring monuments
to the all powerful Reich.

The Nazis believe in
total state control.

Speer's job is to translate

the supreme authority of state
into stone.

There's no doubt that Hitler,
Speer and the Nazis

used architecture
for political ends.

They wanted to make a statement
about the power of n*zi ideology,

the power of the n*zi State.

So the buildings
were on a big scale,

they were gaunt, they were imposing.

I think you could argue
they were intimidating.

For a young architect like Speer,
of course, it's a dream come true.

Unlimited public funds
and a more or less free hand.

Not just a building to design,
but an entire city.

The most important city ever.

Hitler had a lot of his own ideas

and they had a sort of
symbiotic relationship

and Speer definitely had the ability
to deliver what Hitler wanted.

Hitler spends his time
drawing sketches.

He imagines a gigantic victory arch

to mark the centre
of the new giant metropolis.

Albert Speer is more than willing
to indulge Hitler's

grandiose fantasies.

He would spend hours poring over
plans and mock-ups of Germania.

Speer was very to do his bidding
and very happy to plan out

this extraordinary, cold,
impersonal city.

Speer plans an enormous
three mile long boulevard

called the Prachtstrasse,
or Street of Magnificence,

to be lined with vast
new public buildings.

And at one end,
this big People's Hall

which would have had a dome
15 times the size

of the dome of St Peters in Rome.

The People's Hall, or Volkshalle,
will be truly gigantic,

reaching 300m high, taller
than most New York skyscrapers.

It will dwarf everything in Berlin.

And inside the Volkshalle
will stand a great gilded eagle...

...in front of which
Hitler can make his crazed speeches

to up to 180,000 people at a time.

And at the other end
a big triumphal arch,

very much modelled on
the Arc de Triomphe in Paris

but big enough to fit
the Arc de Triomphe inside it.

So it was all about, you know, size.

The scale of the project
is utterly astonishing.

It was going to completely dwarf
the individual.

WALTERS: It's a vision that is
kind of bigger than humanity.

It's a vision that almost suggests
something beyond people.

Albert Speer's father
was an architect

and when he took his father
to see the plans for Germania,

his father just looked at the plans
and said, "Have you all gone mad?"

Even Tessenow, Speer's old
architecture professor,

poured scorn on the over-inflated,
self-important grand designs

of his former pupil.

In his words,
"They're big. That's all."

And I suspect that was probably the
reaction of a lot of ordinary Germans,

that these things were just,
you know, on a scale

that was out of all proportion
to normal building of cities.

Speer sets to work immediately.

In just 12 months
and ahead of schedule,

he designs and builds
a new Reich Chancellery,

the centre of the n*zi government.

Whole areas of Berlin are demolished
to make way for new n*zi buildings.

Private properties are simply
confiscated and destroyed.

And in a disgusting irony,

Speer decides that this monument
to anti-Semitism

should be built
using Jewish sl*ve labour.

To build Germania, Speer drove
the Berlin Jews from their homes

and he liaised very closely
with the SS

to ensure that he had a
plenteous supply of sl*ve labour.

So imprisoned Jews
were forced to work

on these monumental
architectural projects.

But before Hitler can justify
his supersized victory arch,

he needs to win some victories.

On 1 September 1939, Hitler sends
the German army into Poland.

Hitler and the Nazis march into w*r
brimming with confidence.

After all,

they lead the world's greatest,
genetically superior warrior race.

They have also spent a fortune
on planes, tanks and g*ns.

LEVINE: Early on in the w*r,

the German w*r machine
is astonishingly successful.

I mean, beyond anything
anyone could really predict.

You'd had Poland, you'd had the low
countries, you'd had France.

You had these quick and,
in relative terms, easy victories.

In 1940, the Nazis march into Paris.

Hitler decides to visit the city.

Not to inspect the troops
with his generals,

but to look at the grand architecture

with his master architect,
Albert Speer.

PHILPOTT: There's no doubt that
right throughout the w*r

Hitler was still dreaming about
the rebuilding of cities.

But soon Hitler's and Speer's
elaborate plans

for victory arches and boulevards
come grinding to a halt.

Hitler has sent almost four million
soldiers to conquer Russia,

along with 17 divisions of Panzers
and most of the Luftwaffe.

The Wehrmacht plans to win
a lightning quick victory.

But within months, against stiff
resistance and the Russian winter,

the Germans are facing disaster.

The vast army in the east is using
its ammunition, arms and supplies

and losing its men
at an alarming rate.

There is so little fuel,

Germany's surface fleet
is confined to harbour.

Whereas the Soviets seem to have
an inexhaustible supply

of men, g*ns and tanks.

The Germans hopelessly
over-engineered uniforms,

r*fles, tanks, you name it,

whereas Soviet designers just
produced something quick, dirty,

that worked,

and of course that means you can
produce far more far more quickly.

The German armaments industry
is doing badly.

And in February 1942,
Hitler's Minister of Armaments

dies in a plane crash.

To replace him,

Hitler is expected to choose
another civil service bureaucrat.

But instead he appoints
his best friend, Albert Speer.

Choosing an architect
to run the n*zi arms industry

seems like a crazy idea,
but Hitler has total faith in Speer.

In a sense it was quite natural
that he would turn to Speer

who was one of the people he trusted
most to take over the organisation.

Albert Speer, the designer.

Speer, the head of choreography
for n*zi parades, is now, in effect,

running the entire n*zi w*r machine.

Up until February 1942 when Speer
becomes Minister of Armaments,

he is a friend of Hitler's,

he's really on the periphery
of the n*zi machine.

As soon as he becomes
Minister of Armaments

he's suddenly in a different field
altogether.

First of all,
he's privy to information

he would ever have been privy to
before.

But also he's got
an incredibly responsible job.

He's responsible
for the German w*r machine.

It can't function without him.

Speer discovers an arms industry
in chaos.

The once productive and efficient
private armaments firms

are now under the control
of n*zi officials.

Businessmen take their orders
from government committees

and civil service bureaucrats.

There are countless forms
and meetings, purchasing committees

and supervisory bodies
and accounting offices.

It is not the market
but civil servants

who decide how raw materials,
parts and labour should be allocated,

where and when and for what purpose.

Although Speer is a n*zi member,
he is no socialist.

He immediately sets out to cut
government bureaucracy to ribbons.

WALTERS: He's more than
just an architect,

he's more than just someone
who can design parades,

and cathedrals of light.

He is a man who can get things done.

As with his designs, Speer turns
to America for inspiration.

Hitler despises
American Jewish capitalism.

But Speer is in awe of
American w*r production,

which is vastly outstripping
that of Germany's.

ARCHIVED REPORT: A great day
for America.

The Wright company
can step up its production

to 1,000 motors a month.

Huge 2,000 horsepower motors,

capable of powering
a goodly proportion

of the great aerial armada
planned for the defence of America.

In America, private companies
like General Motors and Ford,

motivated by profit, have pioneered
new methods of mass production.

Forget n*zi socialist rhetoric.

Speer decides to open up German
industry to free market competition.

Companies will be rewarded for
success and punished for failure.

So what he did was to basically turn
it into a capitalist enterprise.

There's an element of competition
that comes in,

so each factory, each maker
actually wants to do better,

and this is wholly new,

and in fact in a way it's completely
against the whole n*zi ethos.

So it's revolutionary,
it's very clever.

One of Speer's first actions is to
demands that Reich tax officials

stop plundering the profits
of private companies.

Germany's w*r drive suddenly starts
to flicker back to life.

Speer's measures had
an almost immediate effect.

The output grew hugely
in a very short period of time.

He's bringing these new ideas,
and they work.

The reintroduction of free markets
has an astonishing effect.

Goebbels calls it
an "armaments miracle".

Germany's annual output of
military vehicles shoots up,

from 9,000 to 35,000.

Tank production rises
from 3,000 a year to 17,000.

One of the things
that astonished officials

was that industrial production
actually increases during the w*r,

including during
the most intense phase

of the strategic bombing campaign
against Germany.

This was absolutely astonishing.
How could this possibly be?

But as the w*r rages on, hundreds
of thousands of workers

are taken out of Speer's
armaments factories to fight.

Since they invaded Russia,
German soldiers have been dying

at a rate of 60,000 a month.

Hitler keeps demanding more troops,
so that by autumn 1941

almost all German men under
30 years old have been called up.

Speer has a simple solution. He will
replace them with sl*ve labour.

PHILPOTT: It was an absolutely
key part of the n*zi w*r economy,

which absolutely relied
on forced labour.

Albert Speer was effectively
running the production.

The Nazis are rightly known

for the millions they k*ll
in the extermination camps.

But Speer kills millions more

by working them to death
in n*zi factories and mines.

LEVINE: The conditions in Speer's
labour camps were horrific.

There was absolutely no care taken
of the people at all.

They were completely expendable

and what that meant was that

there was an almost limitless supply
of labour.

Workers sleep where they work.

They have almost no food, no
clean water to drink, no sanitation.

Workers deemed to be lazy are hanged.

When workers die,
their bodies are dumped in heaps

like wasted material.

Speer was able to build
his armaments

with this ready supply of people
who just didn't matter.

By 1944, the Nazis
have brought into Germany

more than seven million people
from occupied territories

to work as sl*ves.

The Nazis are prepared to k*ll
to achieve a racially pure Germany.

But their sl*ve labour program is
producing the exact opposite effect.

By the end of the w*r,

Germany will be the most
multicultural country in Europe.

Speer was utterly aware that
he was using sl*ve labour.

He went to the factories
where sl*ve labour was being used.

He saw the conditions
where these poor men and women

were being worked
literally to death.

He knew it entirely.

How could someone go from being
an idealistic architect

to someone who was complicit in
harnessing the sl*ve labour

of the n*zi regime?

It beggars belief.

The sl*ves are kept in camps
run by Himmler's SS.

As far as Himmler is concerned,

they will swiftly be worked
and starved to death.

The people in these labour camps
were kept on a starvation diet.

They were given just enough
to stay alive

but absolutely no more than that.

So many of them
did die of starvation,

they died of malnutrition, people
became ill, they didn't recover,

they died at their benches
where they were.

But the sl*ves are dying too quickly.
Speer appeals to Hitler.

Himmler's starvation rations
are damaging production.

REMY: He used his connection
to Hitler very effectively,

but he used it
in the service of the regime.

He used it in the service
of the German w*r effort.

Speer will later claim that
softening Himmler's starvation policy

saved at least some lives.

But there was cold logic
behind Speer's actions.

Dead sl*ves don't work.

Even on slightly better rations,
Speer's sl*ves make bad workers.

Untrained for the work they are
doing, exhausted, diseased, hateful.

Wherever possible,
they sabotage their own work.

Despite Speer's best efforts,
Germany cannot compete.

In America and Britain, free workers
are manning the factories,

and productivity is vastly higher.

ARCHIVED REPORT: Our w*r factories
work day and night.

Everybody was looking forward to the
day when our aircraft would smash

deep into Germany's w*r industries,

when our tanks would crash through
the n*zi Panzer divisions,

when Britain would attack!

The impact of this
vastly superior output

shows itself in the skies
over Germany.

Wave after wave of American,
British and Allied fighters

all but destroy the Luftwaffe
as an effective force.

Allied bombers are then free to
turn their sights on n*zi factories.

ARCHIVED REPORT: Home again,

the boys certainly seem satisfied
with their night's work,

and rightly so.

We certainly gave Cologne
a good pasting this time anyway.

I looked down at the target,
nothing but a sea of fire.

Never seen so many aircraft
in the air before.

I think the amount of aircraft
we sent over

and the amount of bombs dropped
and everything else

really completely
boxed their defences, etc.

Allied bombers target factories,
railway lines, dams,

ports and oil refineries.

Germany's armaments industry
is once more thrown into chaos.

Speer's armaments miracle
is snuffed out.

By 1943, it is obvious,
even to many senior Nazis,

that Germany cannot win the w*r.

So much for Hitler's victory arch.

So much for the
n*zi Megalopolis Germania.

So much for the supersized
Volkshalle,

and all the rest of Speer's
absurd grand designs.

Albert Speer helped the Nazis
look good.

But behind the smart uniforms
and the giant parades

was confusion, absolute moral
corruption and, ultimately, chaos.

ARCHIVED REPORT: As the Americans
march through Frankfurt,

there were scenes that are already
becoming familiar

in one German town after another.

The number of prisoners taken

is generally a token of the extent
of the enemy's defeat.

As Berlin is about to fall,
Hitler becomes paranoid, crazed

and vengeful.

In an act of pure malice, he orders
the destruction of Germany itself.

The so-called Nero Decree.

LEVINE: Hitler blamed
his own people.

They weren't strong enough;
they were too weak,

they had let him down.

They deserved to die.

So he what he decided was that
the Allies, as they moved forward,

they weren't going to get hold
of any supplies, any factories,

any munitions,
anything that could help them.

He was going to destroy
everything in their path.

So not only would the Allies get
nothing as they moved forward,

the German people
would get nothing either.

They were going to starve
where they were.

Hitler orders Albert Speer
to implement the Nero Decree,

to destroy Germany.

But Speer disobeys.

He knows the w*r will soon be over,
and Hitler will be dead.

Speer has brilliantly used the Nazis
for his own advancement.

Now, as the w*r comes to an end, he
is thinking of saving his own skin.

On 23 April, Speer returns to Berlin,

and to Hitler's bunker
for the last time.

The city is in ruins.

Speer sees his grand buildings
reduced to smouldering rubble.

He takes a final tour of what's left
of the Chancellery he built.

Then he flees Berlin.

(g*nf*re)

A week later, Hitler kills himself.

On 23 May, Albert Speer is arrested.

ARCHIVED REPORT: This was the scene
at Flensburg

after the arrest of the
so-called German Government.

Doenitz, Jodl and Speer,
in civilian clothes,

the Minister of Armaments
and Production.

They were now prisoners of w*r.

For Speer and the n*zi elite,
it's now time to face the music.

Their trials will be held
in the city of Nuremberg.

11 years earlier, the serried ranks
of the n*zi faithful

had worshipped here
in Speer's Cathedral of Light.

Now the city is just a shell.

On November 201945,
the trial begins.

Goering and the others
do not hide their contempt.

They are arrogant and shameless.

But not Speer.

Speer plays a blinder at Nuremberg.

MAN: Will you state your full name,
please?

Albert Speer.

When he's in the dock
he presents himself very differently

to the other Nazis around him.

I swear by God,
that I will speak the pure truth...

REMY: He doesn't fit the mould.

He's not tall and ferocious looking.

He doesn't look like a psychopath.

He doesn't act like a psychopath.

He seems contrite.

Film of the concentration camps
is shown as evidence.

As witnesses testify to the horrors
they endured

at the hands of the Nazis,

Speer looks deeply moved.

He has tears in his eyes.

He criticises Hitler.
The others don't do that.

He criticises the other Nazis.

He comes across as a far more
sophisticated, elegant,

remorseful figure, compared
to his old n*zi colleagues,

who still seem to project madness,
zeal, a lack of regret.

Whereas Speer is calm,
he's very apologetic.

It's quite clever, actually.

It's holding his hands up, it's
making himself look responsible,

making himself look humble,

making himself look as though
he's apologising,

but really,
he's apologising for nothing at all.

Two thirds of Europe's Jews
have been m*rder*d by the Nazis.

But Speer says he hadn't realised
what was happening.

He claimed that
he didn't really know that

huge amounts of sl*ve labour
from the concentration camps

are being deployed.

Speer says he was unaware of the
sl*ves used in his own factories.

He was unaware of the millions
of innocent people

who starved and died.

Unaware of the Final Solution,
unaware of the Holocaust.

He absolutely
knew about the Holocaust.

He attends a speech given by
Heinrich Himmler in October, 1943

in which Himmler discusses
the Final Solution quite openly.

Albert Speer was there,
Albert Speer heard it,

Albert Speer knew about it.

Speer heaps one lie upon the next.

He says was unaware
of n*zi brutality.

But now that he understands
that crimes were committed,

he deeply regrets his involvement.

Speer chose a very interesting
defence at Nuremburg.

This was not what anybody else did.
He was the only person to do this.

He sort of took on
a universal responsibility.

He said, "Yes, I'm responsible,
but not for anything specific."

He's responsible simply for being
part of the n*zi machine.

So in other words,
it's really a total cop-out.

He's not saying,
"I did anything wrong."

He's saying,
"I'm guilty by association."

"I should never have been involved."

"But I haven't really
done anything wrong"

"so you can't really come after me."

Speer then does what
so many guilty people in power do.

He blames a subordinate.

His fall guy is Fritz Sauckel,

the n*zi bureaucrat who supplied
Speer with labourers.

MAN: The sl*ve labour policy was the
responsibility of defendant Sauckel.

Forced labour often meant
brutal and degrading treatment,

which Sauckel himself suggested.

All the men must be fed sheltered
and treated in such a way

as to exploit them
to the highest possible extent

at the lowest possible expenditure.

The tribunal was invested
with power...

Incredibly, the judges decide
to accept Speer's story.

Speer is simply a delegator,
above the tawdry details.

Sauckel, who was under the command
of Speer, is sentenced to death.

The tribune sentences you
to death by hanging.

Speer escapes the gallows.

MAN: Speer is not guilty
on counts one and two

but is guilty
on the counts three and four.

Defendant Albert Speer,
the tribunal sentences you

to 20 years imprisonment.

Albert Speer, the butcher
who orchestrated the largest,

deadliest program of sl*very
in history,

doesn't even get a life sentence.

Somehow Speer has managed
to distance himself

from the inhuman barbarity
of National Socialism.

But how?

No-one is fooled
that Hitler's best friend,

the man who ran the n*zi w*r machine,
didn't know what was happening.

The Allies do not want Nuremberg
to look like a show trial.

If anyone is to be spared,
it will be Speer.

For the Nuremberg trials
to be seen as legitimate,

you know, some people did have to
escape the noose.

It may be that Speer was
the beneficiary of that need

for the Allies to show the world
that they weren't going to be

quite as keen on k*lling people
as the Nazis were.

Perhaps sparing Speer allows
the German people the same escape.

The German people identified
with the way that he behaved

and perhaps it provided some
sort of cathartic release for them.

It provided a model
for other Germans.

They could look at him and
they could say, "Here's someone",

"Hitler's closest confidante,
in effect,"

"and he didn't know
what was going on."

He was oblivious to the depth of the
horror behind some of those crimes.

They could say, "Well, that's like
us, that's like the German people."

REMY: Millions of ordinary Germans
could say the same thing.

Could admit that they were swept up
in nationalist enthusiasm.

So, in that way,
Speer was quite devious.

He was not only
talking about himself,

he is also talking about
other Germans, ordinary Germans.

Speer serves his sentence
in Spandau prison, West Berlin.

WALTERS: Despite the fact that

Speer's played an absolute blinder
at Nuremburg

and managed to hoodwink the Allies
that he is nowhere near as guilty

as his own deputy, which
when you think about it is farcical,

he doesn't manage
to hoodwink his family,

and his children slowly start to
drift away from him emotionally

while he's in Spandau.

He continues trying
to write to them,

and indeed his own son
becomes an architect.

Speer's battle in prison
is with his family.

Speer is freed in 1965.

He returns to his home in Heidelberg,

and to his wife,
who has stayed loyal.

But now, incredibly, instead of
hiding himself away in shame,

he courts publicity and cashes in.

German newspaper Der Spiegel
carries a major interview.

He appears on television
for huge sums of money.

Speer has become a n*zi celebrity.

He really spent what turned out to
be the final 15 years of his life

writing and touring the world's
television studios.

In a 1970 interview,

he says he worked for Hitler because
of his ambition to be an architect.

In his memoirs, Speer finally
confesses the truth.

He admits that at Nuremberg he lied.

But he shows little remorse.

REMY: Once you understand
how much Speer knew,

a different person appears,

and this is somebody who was
a committed National Socialist,

committed to Hitler's vision,
served Hitler loyally.

He said that he did what he did
in order to save Germany.

Albert Speer is a n*zi.

In 1981, Albert Speer is in London

to take part in yet another
television appearance.

He has a stroke, and at the age of
76 he dies peacefully in hospital.

Albert Speer,
the man who designed the Nazis,

showed the world how easy it is
to become truly evil.

He was not mad.
He was not a fanatic.

He was merely self-serving,
ambitious and vain.

Albert Speer showed that
when fame and success

are valued more highly
than basic human decency,

it is terrifying what sophisticated,
educated people will do.