Speer - Changing Views
Account for the changing views on Albert Speer and his role in the Nazi regime.
There are a number of factors that can be held accountable for the changing views on Albert Speer and his involvement in the Nazi regime. It was the combination of shifting contexts, values and insights, linked to Speer’s own personal story, which ultimately generated shifting understandings of Speer’s contribution to the Nazi regime. However, it is important to acknowledge that there were in fact, always different perspectives, whereby historians and social researchers have debated over the extent to Speer’s ‘innocence’. Initially most historians analysed WW2 in a broad sense. It was only in the later years that micro analysis of the war took place. This ultimately contributed to Speer’s reputation as the ‘Good Nazi’, being unhinged over time. Furthermore, the enigmatic nature of Speer’s role in the Nazi regime has contributed greatly to the varying views of many eminent historians.
One significant factor that can account for the initial perception of Speer was his performance at the Nuremburg Trials in 1946. This was the breeding ground for Speer’s ‘Good Nazi’ image which was to perpetuate throughout the world. Speer offered the world hope for explaining the atrocities: it validated the idea that not all Germans were ‘Nazis’ and malicious individuals. In the trial, he took an unprecedented line of argument that distinguished him from the other Nazi leaders. Speer admitted at the trial a ‘collective responsibility’ which he argued ‘can only apply to fundamental matters and not to the details’. He focused on the events that portrayed him favourably. Speer spoke at great length regarding how he consistently disobeyed Hitler at ‘great personal risk’. According to K.J. Mason’s book Republic to Reich, most of his accounts were accepted at Nuremburg as ‘there was no evidence to contradict it’.
The perception that Speer was the ‘Good Nazi’ prevailed, in British author Alan Bullock’s
There are a number of factors that can be held accountable for the changing views on Albert Speer and his involvement in the Nazi regime. It was the combination of shifting contexts, values and insights, linked to Speer’s own personal story, which ultimately generated shifting understandings of Speer’s contribution to the Nazi regime. However, it is important to acknowledge that there were in fact, always different perspectives, whereby historians and social researchers have debated over the extent to Speer’s ‘innocence’. Initially most historians analysed WW2 in a broad sense. It was only in the later years that micro analysis of the war took place. This ultimately contributed to Speer’s reputation as the ‘Good Nazi’, being unhinged over time. Furthermore, the enigmatic nature of Speer’s role in the Nazi regime has contributed greatly to the varying views of many eminent historians.
One significant factor that can account for the initial perception of Speer was his performance at the Nuremburg Trials in 1946. This was the breeding ground for Speer’s ‘Good Nazi’ image which was to perpetuate throughout the world. Speer offered the world hope for explaining the atrocities: it validated the idea that not all Germans were ‘Nazis’ and malicious individuals. In the trial, he took an unprecedented line of argument that distinguished him from the other Nazi leaders. Speer admitted at the trial a ‘collective responsibility’ which he argued ‘can only apply to fundamental matters and not to the details’. He focused on the events that portrayed him favourably. Speer spoke at great length regarding how he consistently disobeyed Hitler at ‘great personal risk’. According to K.J. Mason’s book Republic to Reich, most of his accounts were accepted at Nuremburg as ‘there was no evidence to contradict it’.
The perception that Speer was the ‘Good Nazi’ prevailed, in British author Alan Bullock’s