Albert Speer
Family Background and education
In his memoirs, “Inside the Third Reich”. Speer tells us he was born at 12:00 noon, on 19th March, in Mannheim, and was heralded into the world by thunder storms and the bells of the nearby Christ Church. Matthias Schmidt checked Speer’s birth certificate and found the he was born at 11:15am not midday, he checked meteorological records and discovered there was no thunder until 3:00pm and also found that Christ Church was not built until 1911, six years after Speer’s birth.
Speer’s family was solidly upper middle class, ‘haute bourgeoisie’. His family was well off and, throughout his life, Speer never wanted for things material.
In 1918, the family moved to Heidelberg and lived in a country villa built on one of several plots owned by Speer’s father. Speer greatly preferred living here to living in Mannheim.
Albert Senior was a very successful architect, he owned two cars and had invested wisely in land property to the point that hew was able to survive the hyper inflation of 1923 and continue to prosper. Speer’s mother Lina came from a very wealth Mainz family, she often companied that her marriage had forced her leave lively Mainz fro the grimy industrial backdrop of Mannheim. Lina Speer lived the sort of extravagant lifestyle that matched her ingrained upper middle class snobbery.
Albert Speer’s family life was not a warm and happy experience. His father was cold and distant while his mother was far more concerned with the activities of her social whirl that the concerns of her middle son. Although it was seem that this treatment was not typical
In his memoirs, “Inside the Third Reich”. Speer tells us he was born at 12:00 noon, on 19th March, in Mannheim, and was heralded into the world by thunder storms and the bells of the nearby Christ Church. Matthias Schmidt checked Speer’s birth certificate and found the he was born at 11:15am not midday, he checked meteorological records and discovered there was no thunder until 3:00pm and also found that Christ Church was not built until 1911, six years after Speer’s birth.
Speer’s family was solidly upper middle class, ‘haute bourgeoisie’. His family was well off and, throughout his life, Speer never wanted for things material.
In 1918, the family moved to Heidelberg and lived in a country villa built on one of several plots owned by Speer’s father. Speer greatly preferred living here to living in Mannheim.
Albert Senior was a very successful architect, he owned two cars and had invested wisely in land property to the point that hew was able to survive the hyper inflation of 1923 and continue to prosper. Speer’s mother Lina came from a very wealth Mainz family, she often companied that her marriage had forced her leave lively Mainz fro the grimy industrial backdrop of Mannheim. Lina Speer lived the sort of extravagant lifestyle that matched her ingrained upper middle class snobbery.
Albert Speer’s family life was not a warm and happy experience. His father was cold and distant while his mother was far more concerned with the activities of her social whirl that the concerns of her middle son. Although it was seem that this treatment was not typical