| Albert
Speer: A tribute to the great Architect |
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Albert Speer, the son of an architect, was born in Mannheim, Germany
19 March 1905. He grew up in the family residence in the picturesque
university town of Heidelberg under rather emotionally cold conditions.
Six years old
Like his father young Albert studied hard and became an architect,
though Speer himself actually had preferred a degree in mathematics.
He completed his architectural studies at the Institute of Technology
in Berlin-Charlottenburg and became assistant to Professor Heinrich
Tessenow, a champion of simple craftsmanship in architecture.
He met and fell in love with Margarete Weber, a lovely open minded
girl. After a period couple and after completing studies they
got married without the blessing of the Speer family as his fiancee
was not of the same class but later things sorted out anyway.
In 1931, Speer joined the NSDAP and soon was offered a succession
of commissions for the party. He felt fortunate to have been given
this opportunity to build and create in a world full of unemployment.
His talent and ability were quickly recognized and soon he came
to the attention of the leader of the party, Adolf Hitler.
Because of the same burning interest for architecture Speer became
one of Hitler's best friends. That in a different way than the
others around the Führer as Speer had no political intentions
or eager for power. In 1933 the nazi party won the elections getting
to rule Germany.
After proving his skills in a variety of small and large projects
Speer spent more and more time in the "inner circle"
at the Führer's side.
Hitler demanded buildings that could stand the test of times for
a thousand years! The skilled architect Speer was the man to give
him that.
Speer was asked to build the new Reich's chancellery and he accepted.
Hitler needed the building already one year later but Speer assured
him that it all would be ready in time!
A promise Speer probably hoped not to have given as it seemed
impossible to draw and construct the large official building in
that time. Hitler was amused as he wanted to see if the young
architect really could manage to do what he told.
Albert Speer employed an army of labour to work in shift. He planned
everything in detail, supervised it all and could take an impressed
Hitler for a tour before the date agreed upon. The Führer
expected to find workers on the site at least making last adjustments,
but the place was not a construction site - it was a huge impressively
Reich Chancellery ready to be used at that very moment! Through
this Speer proved that he was not only a talented architect but
also a great organizer.
Together Hitler and Speer made plans for the new Berlin, a capital
that was to be the finest and most important in, all of Europe.
All was set to be completed in the early 1950's but the work was
finally halted by the war.
When Doctor Fritz Todt, the genius behind the great autobahn project,
died in a plane crash Hitler chose Speer to succeed Todt as Reichs
minister of armaments and munition.
Speer was never interested in politics, never used a military
weapon and knew nothing of armaments but responded to the call
of duty and accepted. His genius proved adaptable and he soon
proved himself to be the right man for the job. He mobilized German
industry by introducing principles of mass production, "democratic"
economic leadership, improvisation, and a general anti-bureaucratic
approach that resulted in a dramatic boost in Germany production.
The result was that things ran smoother, better and faster. As
usual he acted without pretense and won the hearts and minds of
his colleagues and workers around Germany and even in some of
the occupied Western countries(!) Speer became a powerful man
despite (or thanks to) his unconventional methods. He was trying
to minimize bureaucracy and kept the working men and women in
mind.
At the end of the war he did his best to save the infrastructure
and even whole cities from destruction for the sake of the German
people. At great personal risk he disobeyed Hitler's orders calling
for the ruthless demolition of anything possible use to the enemy
on evacuated German territory. In addition, he actively enlisted
others to preserve resources for German reconstruction once the
war was over by using his position to countermand Hitler's orders.
He couldn't see how making the civilians suffer even more could
change a war that was already lost.
After Hitler's suicide, and in accord with his political testament,
Karl Dönitz, the commander of the Navy, was appointed the
new Führer.
As most of Germany was occupied by allied forces and Berlin was
lost, Dönitz, Speer and a few others where left with only
a small area of Germany and some occupied territories to the north
over which to rule. Dönitz ordered the end of the destruction
of resources in Germany and the remaining occupied territories.
He also tried to negotiate a peace treaty but in the end had to
surrender unconditionally.
The great architect and organizer Albert Speer passed away in
1981.
The Führer's Buildings
by Albert Speer
Heads of state have often
encouraged the arts, and in particular the building arts. The Rococo
princes of the eighteenth century built impressive palaces and gardens,
giving architects of that day the chance to exercise their creativity.
The Führer, too,
is a head of state who builds, but in an entirely different sense.
His major buildings that are beginning to appear in many cities
are an expression of the essence of the movement. They are intended
to endure for millennia and are part of the movement itself. The
Führer created this movement, came to power because of its
strength, and even today determines the smallest details of its
structure. He does not build in the manner of earlier heads of state
who were prosperous contract-givers or patrons; he must build as
a National Socialist. Just as he determines the will and nature
of the movement, so also he determines the simplicity and purity
of its buildings, their strength of expression, the clarity of the
thinking, the quality of the material, and most importantly, the
new inner meaning and content of his buildings.
Building is not merely
a way of passing time for the Führer, rather a serious way
of giving expression in stone to the will of the National Socialist
movement.
It is unique in German
history that at decisive moments the Führer concerned himself
not only with the larger questions relating to the world view and
politics of the new era, but simultaneously and with the knowledge
of an expert began to build monuments in stone that will express
his political will and cultural ability in the coming millennia.
After long centuries
of confusion, these buildings express a clarity and strength that
will result in an entirely new style of architecture.
From his youth, the Führer
was as interested in questions of architecture as of social policy,
as a passage he wrote in 1924 in "Mein Kampf" shows:
As my interest in social
issues developed, I began to study thoroughly. It was a new and
previously unknown world for me. It was natural that I also followed
my passion for architecture. Next to music, it seemed to me the
queen of the arts. Working to understand it was not "work"
for me, rather a great pleasure. I could read or draw until late
into the night without ever becoming weary. My faith increased that
after many years my dreams would become reality. I was firmly convinced
that I would win fame as a builder.
He explains in "Mein
Kampf" how important these impressions of his years in Vienna
were:
During this period I
developed a picture of the world and a world view that became the
granite foundation of my actions. I have needed to make only a few
additions to the views I formed then, but no changes.
The opposite, in fact.
I believe today that
the general outline of a person's thinking is determined in his
youth, as far as such thinking ever develops.
The Führer never
gave up his youthful love for the building arts. War and revolution,
however, so shook the governmental and national life of Germany
that Hitler, who had become increasingly concerned with political
questions as a soldier, decided to become a politician.
He said: "Would
it not be ridiculous to build houses under such circumstances?"
He was completely serious
about becoming a politician, but it was a difficult decision to
leave the architecture he loved. He remained true to it, and continued
thinking about it. Today, too, it remains his great love.
In the first exciting
years of his political struggle, he was as interested in the symbolic
expressions of the movement as in its structure. He developed the
swastika flag - and thereby the national flag of the German people.
He developed the party's eagle symbol - and thereby the symbol of
the Third Reich. He proposed the symbols of the SA and the SS, and
developed the original format of his numerous mass meetings. He
also laid out the ideas that today guide the construction of all
the buildings at the Reich Party Rally grounds in Nuremberg.
Through numerous discussions,
he laid out not only the broad outlines of the Party rallies, but
also spent hours developing the precise guidelines for the appearance
of the individual formations of the party, for the parades with
flags and the decorations of individual pillars. People in Nuremberg
even today preserve the Führer's sketches and drawings from
this period.
In times of tension when
he devotes his full energy to his great goals, time spent with the
arts is not "work," but "delight."
At the proper time, fate
introduced him to Paul Ludwig Troost, with whom a close friendship
soon developed. Professor Troost had an architectural impact on
him similar to the influence Dietrich Eckart had on his political
thinking.
The first building that
these two men worked on was also the first and still small building
of the movement, the "Brown House" on Brienner Street
in Munich. It was only a matter of remodeling, though as the Führer
often said later, it was a major endeavor for the party at the time.
One can already see here
the characteristics of the buildings that followed after the seizure
of power: austere and plain, but never monotonous. It was simple
and clear, with no false decoration. Decorations were few, but each
was in its proper place. The material, form, and lines were elegant.
The plans for the remodeling
came from the Professor Troost's same simple studio on a back street
in Munich, from which plans later came for the Königsplatz
in Munich, the Museum of German Art, and many of the Führer's
other buildings. The Führer never reviewed the plans for these
important buildings in his office.
For years he visited
Professor Troost in his free time. There, free from his political
duties, he was able to submerge himself fully in the plans. The
Führer was interested not only in the general plans, but also
in every detail, every material used, and much was improved as the
result of his suggestions. The Führer has often said that these
hours of common planning were his happiest hours and gave him the
deepest satisfaction. They gave him new strength for his other plans.
Here he had the chance to devote himself to his buildings in the
few free hours that his political duties left him.
In the years before the
takeover, Hitler discussed the buildings he planned to build with
Troost. During the winter of 1931/32, they discussed the future
work on Munich's Königsplatz, resulting in many beautiful proposals.
Before the takeover of power, the final layout of the square had
been decided.
The Glass Palace burned
down in Munich in 1932. In the midst of all his other concerns,
the Führer had to worry about the then government's bland proposal
to replace it, a plan that was begun before he took power. When
one compares the original model with that of Troost's current "Museum
of German Art," one sees more clearly than anywhere else how
the ideas of the Führer influence his buildings.
Until his death, Paul
Ludwig Troost was the Führer's irreplaceable architect. Troost
understood how to give his ideas the proper architectural form.
In his major speech at
the cultural session of the at the 1935 Reich Party Rally, the Führer
gave Professor Troost the highest praise a contemporary architect
could receive:
We should be filled
with pride that the greatest German architect since Schinkel has
built his first and unfortunately only monuments for the new Reich
and for Germany. They will stand as stone memorials of a noble and
truly Germanic architecture.
It gives the Führer
pleasure to see the plans for a building, but it is as great a joy
to see the buildings going up.
When he visits the site
of a building project, accompanied often by only a few aides, he
is a complete expert. His technical questions about the foundation,
the strength of the walls, and construction difficulties are clear
and always address the unsolved problems. After the experts have
doubted that a solution to a problem can be found, he often makes
a proposal, though unlike anything else, always proves a clear and
easy solution.
Each new step, each new
detail in a building wins his thorough attention and approval. In
all his pleasure in the details, he never forgets the overall characteristics
that all his buildings display.
The Führer's buildings
use hand-hewn natural stone. Natural stone and Nordic bricks are
our most durable building materials. Although they are more expensive
in the short term, in the long term they are the most economical.
Durability is always the most important principle. The buildings
of our Führer will speak of the greatness of our age to future
millennia. As the eternal buildings of the movement rise in the
various cities of Germany, they will be buildings of which people
can be proud. They will know that these buildings belong to everyone,
and therefore to each individual. The Führer's buildings will
determine a city's nature, not department stores, administrative
buildings, banks and corporations.
The Führer had this
to say about the cities of the past and future:
In the 19th century
our cities began to lose the character of cultural centers and became
simply human settlements.
When Munich was a city
of 60,000, it wanted to be one of the major German centers of culture.
Today nearly every industrial city claims this honor, usually without
being able to show any significant accomplishments of its own. They
are nothing more than collections of houses and apartment buildings.
How can such an insignificant place have any appeal? No one will
have particular loyalty to a city that lacks any individuality at
all, that avoids anything resembling art.
Even the big cities
are becoming poorer in real works of art even as they increase in
population.
The modern era has done
nothing to increase the cultural level of our big cities. All the
glory and treasures of our cities are the inheritance of the past.
Our big cities today
have no towering monuments that dominate the area and that are symbols
of their era. The cities of antiquity were different. Each has a
particular monument in which it took pride. The character of the
cities of antiquity came not from private buildings, rather from
the community's buildings which were constructed not for their age,
but for eternity. They reflected not the wealth of a single owner,
but the greatness and significance of the community.
The Germanic Middle
Ages exemplified the same principle, though in a different artistic
form. The Gothic cathedral fulfilled the same purpose as the Acropolis
or the Pantheon.
If Berlin were to suffer
the fate of Rome, posterity would think the characteristic expressions
of our culture to be the department stores of some Jews or the hotels
of some businessmen.
Our cities today lack
a towering symbol of the community, and one cannot therefore be
surprised that one's own city also lacks such a symbol.
One has to see the Führer's
major buildings at the Königsplatz, the Museum of German Art
in Munich, and the party rally buildings in Nuremberg from this
perspective. They are a beginning, but an important one. In the
housing projects of the Führer too, we are at the beginning
of new developments.
It is natural that one
first thinks of the big projects when one considers the Führer's
building projects.
But one must know that
these projects do not exhaust the Führer's activities.
The very opposite.
We know from his speeches
the importance Hitler puts on improving the social conditions of
every German such that they will be able to take pride in the community's
larger accomplishments. The Führer made clear the importance
of housing in "Mein Kampf." He wrote:
I learned quickly what
I had previously not understood: The nationalization of a people
requires the creation of healthy social conditions as a foundation
for the individual's education.
Official statistics show
the increase in new and remodeled dwellings in the Reich:
1932: 159,121
1933: 202,113
1934: 319,439
These figures show more
plainly than words the rise in good housing under the Führer's
government. This trend will continue and increase significantly
once "the projects necessary for our security have been completed,
buildings that are necessary and which cannot be postponed."
Then the monuments of
National Socialism will tower like the cathedrals of the Middle
Ages over healthy workers' apartments and new factories
The tasks before us are
immense, but the Führer gave us all courage though his words
at the cultural session of the Reich party rally:
Men will rise to such
great tasks. We have no right to doubt that if the Almighty gives
us the courage to strive for immortality, he will also give our
people the strength to create for eternity.
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