Editing Albert Speer (section)

===Defeat of Nazi Germany===
[[File:Nazi Personalities BU6713.jpg|thumb|Speer (left), [[Karl Dönitz]] and [[Alfred Jodl]] (right) after their arrest by the British Army in [[Flensburg]] in Northern Germany in May 1945]]
Losses of territory and a dramatic expansion of the Allied strategic bombing campaign caused the collapse of the German economy from late 1944. Air attacks on the transport network were particularly effective, as they cut the main centres of production off from essential coal supplies.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|pp=648–651}} In January 1945, Speer told Goebbels that armaments production could be sustained for at least a year.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|p=652}} However, he concluded that the war was lost after Soviet forces captured the important [[Silesia]]n industrial region later that month.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=259}} Nevertheless, Speer believed that Germany should continue the war for as long as possible with the goal of winning better conditions from the Allies than the [[unconditional surrender]] they insisted upon.{{sfn|Kershaw|2012|p=289}} During January and February, Speer claimed that his ministry would deliver "decisive weapons" and a large increase in armaments production which would "bring about a dramatic change on the battlefield".{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=254}} Speer gained control over the railways in February, and asked [[Heinrich Himmler]] to supply concentration camp prisoners to work on their repair.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=261–262}}

[[File:Überlebende KZ Mühldorf.jpg|thumb|upright|Survivors of the [[Mühldorf concentration camp complex|Mühldorf concentration camp]] upon liberation in 1945. Mühldorf supplied slave workers for the [[Weingut I]] project.]]

By mid-March, Speer had accepted that Germany's economy would collapse within the next eight weeks. While he sought to frustrate directives to destroy industrial facilities in areas at risk of capture, so that they could be used after the war, he still supported the war's continuation. Speer provided Hitler with a memorandum on 15 March, which detailed Germany's dire economic situation and sought approval to cease demolitions of infrastructure. Three days later, he also proposed to Hitler that Germany's remaining military resources be concentrated along the [[Rhine]] and [[Vistula]] rivers in an attempt to prolong the fighting. This ignored military realities, as the German armed forces were unable to match the Allies' firepower and were facing total defeat.{{sfn|Tooze|2006|pp=652–653}}{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=262–263}} Hitler rejected Speer's proposal to cease demolitions. Instead, he issued the "[[Nero Decree]]" on 19 March, which called for the destruction of all infrastructure as the army retreated. Speer was appalled by this order, and persuaded several key military and political leaders to ignore it.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=265–267}} During a meeting with Speer on 28/29 March, Hitler rescinded the decree and gave him authority over demolitions.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=269–270}} Speer ended them, though the army continued to blow up bridges.{{sfn|Kershaw|2012|p=291}}{{efn|For a treatise on this aspect of the war including Speer's involvement see: Randall, Hansen, ''Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance in the Last Year of WWII'', Faber & Faber, 2014, 1st edition, {{ISBN|978-0-571-28451-1}}.}}

By April, little was left of the armaments industry, and Speer had few official duties.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=275}} Speer visited the ''[[Führerbunker]]'' on 22 April for the last time. He met Hitler and toured the damaged Chancellery before leaving Berlin to return to Hamburg.{{sfn|Fest|1999|pp=263–270}} Speer would later claim in his memoirs that during this visit he "confessed to Hitler [...] that he was disobeying his 'scorched-earth' policy",{{sfn|Evans|1997|p=202}} an assertion which has been described as "pure invention"{{sfn|Evans|1997|p=202}} by historian [[Richard J. Evans]]. On 29 April, the day before committing suicide, Hitler dictated a [[Last will and testament of Adolf Hitler|final political testament]] which dropped Speer from the successor government. Speer was to be replaced by his subordinate, [[Karl Saur|Karl-Otto Saur]].{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|p=234}} Speer was disappointed that Hitler had not selected him as his successor.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=277}} After Hitler's death, Speer offered his services to Hitler's successor, [[Karl Dönitz]].{{sfn|Fest|1999|pp=273–281}} On 2 May, Dönitz asked [[Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk]] to form a new government, and discussions went on about the formation of the administration for the next few days. On May 5, Schwerin von Krosigk presented his cabinet (known as the [[Flensburg government]]) and Speer was named as Minister of Industry and Production.{{sfn|Jaskot|2002|pp=140–141}} Speer provided information to the Allies, regarding the effects of the air war, and on a broad range of subjects, beginning on 10 May. On 23 May, two weeks after the surrender of German forces, British troops arrested the members of the Flensburg Government and brought Nazi Germany to a formal end.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=288}}