Albert Speer - Differing Historical Interpretations :: essays research papers

They are many factors influencing the different historical interpretations of Albert Speer. The most authoritative was Speers own character construction of himself in his defence at the Nuremberg trials. This view was held by a majority of historians until Matthias Schmidt found holes in Speers story. A large blow was dealt to Speers own construction of his social occasion in national socialist Germany when the Walters chronicles were released containing various incriminating evidence. There are relieve a number of historians who prefer to view Albert Speer as the Good Nazi, so far though most historians now believe that the image created by Speer of himself was self-seeking and false. Speers well structured and thought out defence determine historical interpretation for years to come. At Nuremberg he presented himself as a pure technician and not involved in the politics or ideology of the variancey. He also claimed collective responsibility for crimes against Jews but also his ignorance of the Nazi intentions. As he stated at a later m I just stood aside and said to myself that as long as I did not personally participate it had nothing to do with me. My toleration for the anti Semitic campaign made me responsible for it. This admission of guilty conscience won a fair amount of sympathy from the court. The reasons he gave for universe with the Nazi party was that he was taken by Hitlers disposition and also realised that if he was to achieve his dream as an clothes designer he will have to sell his soul to the party. This image of Speer was to be accepted for a while by most historians and was given petty(a) attention. This was probably because Speer was a little less spectacular than Hitlers other henchmen. There were however some suspicions. John Galbraith, a member of the US team that debriefed Speer before the Nuremberg trial, said in Life magazine 1945 that Speers claims contained elements of fantasy. He also believed that Speers confessio n was a part of his well developed strategy of self vindication and survival.Most historians believed in Speers testimonies until Wolters Chronicles were released. W Shirer The Rise and Fall of the third gear Reich (1960), A confidential information Hitler a Study in Tyranny (1962), and Joachim Fest The Face on the Third Reich (1970) all portray Speer as the good Nazi, the apolitical technocrat and a bad German. Raul Hilberg, in The Destruction of the European Jews (1973) discusses in passing Speers booking in the Jewish affair but he does not moot in the matter.