Editing Albert Speer (section)

===Armaments miracle===
[[File:Koeln 1945.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|right|The German city of [[Cologne]] in ruins at the end of the war]]
Speer was credited with an "armaments miracle". During the winter of 1941–42, in the light of Germany's disastrous defeat in the [[Battle of Moscow]], the German leadership including [[Friedrich Fromm]], [[Georg Thomas]] and [[Fritz Todt]] had come to the conclusion that the war could not be won.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=554}} The rational position to adopt was to seek a political solution that would end the war without defeat. Speer in response used his propaganda expertise to display a new dynamism of the war economy.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=554}} He produced spectacular statistics, claiming a sixfold increase in munitions production, a fourfold increase in artillery production, and he sent further propaganda to the newsreels of the country. He was able to curtail the discussion that the war should be ended.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=554}}

The armaments "miracle" was a myth; Speer had used statistical manipulation to support his claims.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=555}} The production of armaments did rise; however, this was due to the normal causes of reorganization before Speer came to office, the relentless mobilization of slave labor and a deliberate reduction in the quality of output to favor quantity. By July 1943 Speer's armaments propaganda became irrelevant because a catalogue of dramatic defeats on the battlefield meant the prospect of losing the war could no longer be hidden from the German public.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|pp=552–557}}