Editing Albert Speer (section)

===Berlin's General Building Inspector (1937–1942)===
[[File:Welthauptstadt germania 11.jpg|thumb|right|''Model of the Große Halle (also called Ruhmeshalle or Volkshalle) with the [[Reichstag building]] and the [[Brandenburg Gate]]'']]

On 30 January 1937, Hitler appointed Speer as General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital. This carried with it the rank of [[State Secretary]] in the Reich government and gave him extraordinary powers over the Berlin city government.{{sfn|Fest|1999|p=64}} He was to report directly to Hitler, and was independent of both the mayor and the [[Gauleiter]] of Berlin.{{sfn|Speer|1970|p=118}} Hitler ordered Speer to develop plans to [[Germania (city)|rebuild Berlin]]. These centered on a three-mile-long grand boulevard running from north to south, which Speer called the ''Prachtstrasse'', or Street of Magnificence;{{sfn|Sereny|1995|p=140}} he also referred to it as the "North–South Axis".{{sfn|Sereny|1995|p=141}} At the northern end of the boulevard, Speer planned to build the ''[[Volkshalle]]'', a huge domed assembly hall over {{convert|700|ft|m|-1|order=flip}} high, with floor space for 180,000 people. At the southern end of the avenue, a great triumphal arch, almost {{convert|400|ft|m|-1|order=flip}} high and able to fit the [[Arc de Triomphe]] inside its opening, was planned. The existing Berlin railroad termini were to be dismantled, and two large new stations built.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=65–70}} Speer hired Wolters as part of his design team, with special responsibility for the ''Prachtstrasse''.{{sfn|Sereny|1995|p=27}} The outbreak of World War II in 1939 led to the postponement, and later the abandonment, of these plans,{{sfn|Fest|1999|p=71}} which, after Nazi capitulation, Speer himself considered as “awful”.{{sfn|Sereny|1995|p=550}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146III-373, Modell der Neugestaltung Berlins ("Germania").jpg|thumb|upright|left|The Volkshalle's Great Dome can be seen at the top of this model of Hitler's plan for Berlin.]]

Plans to build a new Reich Chancellery had been underway since 1934. Land had been purchased by the end of 1934 and starting in March 1936 the first buildings were demolished to create space at [[Voßstraße]].{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=46–47}} Speer was involved virtually from the beginning. In the aftermath of the [[Night of the Long Knives]], he had been commissioned to renovate the [[Borsig Palace]] on the corner of Voßstraße and [[Wilhelmstraße]] as headquarters of the ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' (SA).{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=45}} He completed the preliminary work for the new chancellery by May 1936. In June 1936 he charged a personal honorarium of 30,000 Reichsmark and estimated the chancellery would be completed within three to four years. Detailed plans were completed in July 1937 and the first shell of the new chancellery was complete on 1 January 1938. On 27 January 1938, Speer received plenipotentiary powers from Hitler to finish the new chancellery by 1 January 1939. For propaganda Hitler claimed during the topping-out ceremony on 2 August 1938, that he had ordered Speer to complete the new chancellery that year.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=46–49}} Shortages of labor meant the construction workers had to work in ten-to-twelve-hour shifts.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=53–56}} The ''[[Schutzstaffel|SS]]'' built two [[Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany|concentration camps]] in 1938 and used the inmates to quarry stone for its construction. A brick factory was built near the [[Oranienburg concentration camp]] at Speer's behest; when someone commented on the poor conditions there, Speer stated, "The Yids got used to making bricks while in Egyptian captivity".{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=72}} The chancellery was completed in early January 1939.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=53–56}} The building itself was hailed by Hitler as the "crowning glory of the greater German political empire".{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=53–56}}

[[File:Adolf Hitler in Paris 1940.jpg|thumb|upright|Hitler in Paris in 1940 with Speer (left) and sculptor [[Arno Breker]]]]
During the Chancellery project, the [[pogrom]] of ''[[Kristallnacht]]'' took place. Speer made no mention of it in the first draft of ''Inside the Third Reich''. It was only on the urgent advice of his publisher that he added a mention of seeing the ruins of the Central Synagogue in Berlin from his car.{{sfn|Sereny|1995|p=164}} ''Kristallnacht'' accelerated Speer's ongoing efforts to dispossess Berlin's Jews from their homes. From 1939 on, Speer's Department used the [[Nuremberg Laws]] to evict Jewish tenants of non-Jewish landlords in Berlin, to make way for non-Jewish tenants displaced by redevelopment or bombing.{{sfn|Fest|1999|p=116}} Eventually, 75,000 Jews were displaced by these measures.{{sfn|Fest|1999|p=120}} Speer denied he knew they were being put on [[Holocaust trains]] and claimed that those displaced were, "Completely free and their families were still in their apartments".{{sfn|Schmidt|1984|p=189}} He also said: "&nbsp;... en route to my ministry on the city highway, I could see&nbsp;... crowds of people on the platform of nearby Nikolassee Railroad Station. I knew that these must be Berlin Jews who were being evacuated. I am sure that an oppressive feeling struck me as I drove past. I presumably had a sense of somber events."{{sfn|Schmidt|1984|p=189}} [[Matthias Schmidt]] said Speer had personally inspected concentration camps and described his comments as an "outright farce".{{sfn|Schmidt|1984|p=190}} Martin Kitchen described Speer's often repeated line that he knew nothing of the "dreadful things" as hollow—not only was he fully aware of the fate of the Jews, he actively participated in their persecution.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=322}}

As Germany started World War II in Europe, Speer instituted quick-reaction squads to construct roads or clear away debris; before long, these units would be used to clear bomb sites.{{sfn|Fest|1999|p=115}} Speer used forced Jewish labor on these projects, in addition to regular German workers.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=78}} Construction stopped on the Berlin and Nüremberg plans at the outbreak of war. Though stockpiling of materials and other work continued, this slowed to a halt as more resources were needed for the armament industry.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=39–40}} Speer's offices undertook building work for each branch of the military, and for the SS, using slave labor.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=78}} Speer's building work made him among the wealthiest of the Nazi elite.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=75–76}}