Editing Albert Speer (section)

==Post-war==
===Nuremberg trial===
{{Main|Nuremberg trials}}
[[File:Albert-Speer-72-929.jpg|thumb|Speer at the Nuremberg trial]]
Speer was taken to several internment centres for Nazi officials and interrogated. In September 1945, he was told that he would be tried for [[war crime]]s, and several days later, he was moved to Nuremberg and incarcerated there.{{sfn|Sereny|1995|p=561}} Speer was indicted on four counts: participating in a common plan or [[conspiracy (crime)|conspiracy]] for the accomplishment of [[crime against peace]]; planning, initiating and waging [[war of aggression|wars of aggression]] and other crimes against peace; war crimes; and [[crimes against humanity]].{{sfn|Fest|1999|p=285}}

The chief United States prosecutor, [[Robert H. Jackson]], of the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] said, "Speer joined in planning and executing the program to dragoon prisoners of war and foreign workers into German war industries, which waxed in output while the workers waned in starvation."{{sfn|Conot|1983|p=471}} Speer's attorney, Hans Flächsner, successfully contrasted Speer from other defendants{{sfn|Priemel|2016|pp=139–140}} and portrayed him as an artist thrust into political life who had always remained a non-ideologue.{{sfn|Fest|1999|pp=287–288}}

Speer was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, principally for the use of slave labor and forced labor. He was acquitted on the other two counts. He had claimed that he was unaware of Nazi extermination plans, and the Allies had no proof that he was aware. His claim was revealed to be false in a private correspondence written in 1971 and publicly disclosed in 2007.{{sfn|Connolly|2007}} On 1 October 1946, he was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=281–282}} While three of the eight judges (two Soviet and American [[Francis Biddle]]) advocated the death penalty for Speer, the other judges did not, and a compromise sentence was reached after two days of discussions.{{sfn|Sereny|1995|p=29}}

===Imprisonment===
On 18 July 1947, Speer was transferred to [[Spandau Prison]] in Berlin to serve his prison term.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|p=288}} There he was known as Prisoner Number Five.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=314–315}} Speer's parents died while he was incarcerated. His father, who died in 1947, despised the Nazis and was silent upon meeting Hitler. His mother died in 1952. As a Nazi Party member, she had greatly enjoyed dining with Hitler.{{sfn|Taylor|2010|p=124}} Wolters and longtime Speer secretary Annemarie Kempf, while not permitted direct communication with Speer in Spandau, did what they could to help his family and carry out the requests Speer put in letters to his wife—the only written communication he was officially allowed. Beginning in 1948, Speer had the services of Toni Proost, a sympathetic Dutch orderly, to smuggle mail and his writings.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=292–297}}
[[File:6th Inf Regt Spandau Prison 1951.jpg|thumb|left|Speer spent most of his sentence at [[Spandau Prison]].]]

In 1949, Wolters opened a bank account for Speer and began fundraising among those architects and industrialists who had benefited from Speer's activities during the war. Initially, the funds were used only to support Speer's family, particularly for the children's education. However, increasingly the money was used for other purposes, such as for payments to messengers including Proost and for bribes to those who might be able to secure Speer's release. Once Speer became aware of the existence of the fund, he sent detailed instructions about what to do with the money.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=292–297}}

The prisoners were forbidden to write memoirs. Speer was able to have his writings sent to Wolters, however, and they eventually amounted to 20,000 pages.{{sfn|Fest|1999|p=316}} He had completed his memoirs by November 1953, and they became the basis of ''Inside the Third Reich''.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=325}} In ''Spandau Diaries'', Speer aimed to present himself as a tragic hero who had made a [[Faustian bargain]] for which he endured a harsh prison sentence.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=321–322}}

Much of Speer's energy was dedicated to keeping fit, both physically and mentally, during his long confinement.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=323}} Spandau had a large enclosed yard where inmates were allocated plots of land for gardening. Speer created an elaborate garden complete with lawns, flower beds, shrubbery, and fruit trees.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=316}} To make his daily walks around the garden more engaging, Speer embarked on an imaginary trip around the globe. Speer started his “walk” from Berlin and went eastward across the entirety of Eurasia, crossed the Bering Strait into Alaska and then traveled south down the west coast of North America. Carefully measuring distance travelled each day, he mapped distances to real-world geography. He had walked more than {{convert|30,000|km}}, ending his sentence near [[Guadalajara]], Mexico.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=316, 325}} Speer also read, studied architectural journals, and brushed up on English and French. In his writings, Speer claimed to have finished five thousand books while in prison. His sentence of twenty years amounted to 7,305 days, which only allotted one and a half days per book.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=316–317}}

Speer's supporters maintained calls for his release. Among those who pledged support for his sentence to be commuted were [[Charles de Gaulle]] and US diplomat [[George Wildman Ball]].{{sfn|Fest|1999|p=319}} [[Willy Brandt]] was an advocate of his release,{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|p=319}} putting an end to the de-Nazification proceedings against him,{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|p=324}} which could have caused his property to be confiscated.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=299–300}} Speer's efforts for an early release came to naught. The Soviet Union, having demanded a death sentence at trial, was unwilling to entertain a reduced sentence.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=320–321}} Speer served a full term and was released at midnight on 1 October 1966.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=324–325}}

===Release and later life===
Speer's release from prison was a worldwide media event. Reporters and photographers crowded both the street outside Spandau and the lobby of the [[Hotel Berlin, Berlin|Hotel Berlin]] where Speer spent the night.{{sfn|Fest|1999|pp=320–321}} He said little, reserving most comments for a major interview published in ''[[Der Spiegel]]'' in November 1966.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=333–334}} Although he stated he hoped to resume an architectural career, his sole project, a collaboration for a brewery, was unsuccessful.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=327–328}} Instead, he revised his Spandau writings into two autobiographical books, ''[[Inside the Third Reich]]'' (in German, ''Erinnerungen'', or ''Reminiscences''{{sfn|Sereny|1995|p=5}}) and ''[[Spandau: The Secret Diaries]]''. He later published a work about Himmler and the SS, which has been published in English as ''The Slave State: Heinrich Himmler's Masterplan for SS Supremacy'' or ''Infiltration: How Heinrich Himmler Schemed to Build an SS Industrial Empire'' (in German, ''Der Sklavenstaat - Meine Auseinandersetzung mit der SS''). Speer was aided in shaping the works by [[Joachim Fest]] and [[Wolf Jobst Siedler]] from the publishing house [[Ullstein Verlag|Ullstein]].{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=329–330}} He found himself unable to re-establish a relationship with his children, even with his son [[Albert Speer (born 1934)|Albert]], who had also become an architect. According to Speer's daughter [[Hilde Schramm]], "One by one, my sister and brothers gave up. There was no communication."{{sfn|Sereny|1995|pp=664–665}} He provided financial support for his brother Hermann after the war. However, his other brother Ernst died at the [[Battle of Stalingrad]], despite repeated requests from his parents for Speer to repatriate him.{{sfn|Taylor|2010|p=124}}

Following his release from Spandau, Speer donated the ''Chronicle'', his personal diary, to the [[German Federal Archives]]. It had been edited by Wolters and made no mention of the Jews.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=339–343}} [[David Irving]] discovered discrepancies between the deceptively edited ''Chronicle'' and independent documents. Speer asked Wolters to destroy the material he had omitted from his donation but Wolters refused and retained an original copy.{{sfn|Sereny|1995|pp=226–227}} Wolters' friendship with Speer deteriorated, and one year before Speer's death, Wolters gave Matthias Schmidt access to the unedited ''Chronicle''. Schmidt authored the first book highly critical of Speer.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=359–361}}

Speer's memoirs were a phenomenal success. The public was fascinated by an inside view of the Third Reich and a major war criminal became a popular figure almost overnight. Importantly, he provided an alibi to older Germans who had been Nazis. If Speer, who had been so close to Hitler, had not known the full extent of the crimes of the Nazi regime and had just been "following orders", then they could tell themselves and others they too had done the same.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=335}} So great was the need to believe this "Speer myth" that Fest and Siedler were able to strengthen it—even in the face of mounting historical evidence to the contrary.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=366}}

===Death===
[[File:A speer grab-1.jpg|thumb|Speer's grave in [[Heidelberg]]]]
Speer made himself widely available to historians and other enquirers.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|p=354}} In October 1973, he made his first trip to Britain, flying to London to be interviewed on the BBC ''Midweek'' programme.{{sfn|Asher|2003}} In the same year, he appeared on the television programme ''[[The World at War]]''. Speer returned to London in 1981 to participate in the BBC ''[[Newsnight]]'' programme. He suffered a stroke and died in London on 1 September.{{sfn|Fest|1999|p=337}}

He had remained married to his wife, but he had formed a relationship with a German woman living in London and was with her at the time of his death.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=362–363}} His daughter, [[Margret Nissen]], wrote in her 2005 memoirs that after his release from Spandau he spent all of his time constructing the "Speer Myth".{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=343}}