Editing Albert Speer (section)

===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}}