The case of whether Speer was truly repentant over his involvement in the Nazi regime or an egoistic self-oriented character has been widely debated, with conjured evidence supporting both viewpoints.
In the early stages, Hitler and Speer bonded over a common interest for architecture. Upon noticing his work, Hitler developed a personal liking towards Speer; this is evident in the way Hitler treated Speer as a respected equal as opposed to the dominating attitude employed at his political associates. Speer likely seized the advantage of this opportunity to achieve prestige once having gained a place in Hitler’s inner most circle. The two remained firm friends until 1942 once Speer climbed the ranks, assuming the position of Minister of Armaments. From then forth, his relations to Hitler became impersonal and began to deteriorate. Hitler no longer relied on Speer as a trusted confider and sought other sources i.e. Karl Saur for updates and armament information. Speer’s hospitalisation resulted in temporary removal from Hitler’s inner circle. Despite Speer’s desperate attempts to maintain a close relationship to uphold a high profile, Hitler remained cold. Although Speer managed to renter Hitler’s inner circle, the relationship had suffered a crack and Speer’s devotion towards Hitler started to diminish. This is evident in Speer’s counter reaction to Hitler’s scorched earth policy. However, historians argue that the relationship did involve a deep emotional connection. Despite Speer’s disobedience to his orders, Hitler was surprisingly lenient and willing to give multiple chances. Furthermore, as the truth of the Nazi regime was publicly divulged, Speer still made an effort to visit Hitler during his dying days. However, it is unden...
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... factories to avoid the possible destruction was successful in ensuring that factories continued to churn out armaments despite Allied bombing raids. Speer’s ability to achieve this was due to his ruthless willingness to implement any measure to reach production goals. Historians alleged that Speer efforts prolonged the war for an additional two years.
At Nuremberg trials, Speer escaped the death penalty and only receives 20 years imprisonment. During the trials, Speer differentiated himself from other High Nazis by expressing remorse for his involvement in the regime and claiming ignorance of the Holocaust. This seemingly highly influenced the judge’s final verdict on Speer’s fate. After his release , Speer erected the image of a ‘Good Nazi’ by portraying himself as a mere apolitical technocrat swept along the Nazi regime in which he had minimal influence.
Speer’s well structured and thought out defence shaped historical interpretation for years to come. At Nuremberg he presented himself as a pure technician and not involved in the politics or ideology of the party. He also claimed collective responsibility for crimes against Jews but also his ignorance of the Nazi intentions. As he stated at a later time: “I just stood aside and said to myself that as long as I did not personally participate it had nothing to do with me. My toleration for the anti Semitic campaign made me responsible for it.” This admission of guilt won a fair amount of sympathy from the court. The reasons he gave for being with the Nazi party was that he was taken by Hitler’s personality and also realised that if he was to achieve his dream as an architect he will have to sell his soul to the party. This image of Speer was to be accepted for a while by most historians and was given little attention. This was probably because Speer was a little less ‘spectacular’ than Hitler’s other henchmen. There were however some suspicions. John Galbraith, a member of the US team that debriefed Speer before the Nuremberg trial, said in Life magazine 1945 that Speer’s claims contained “elements of fantasy”. He also believed that Speer’s confession was a part of his “well developed strategy of self vindication and survival.”
In Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower, he recounts his incidence of meeting a dying Nazi soldier who tells Simon that he was responsible for the death of his family. Upon telling Simon the details, Karl asks for his forgiveness for what he helped accomplish. Simon leaves Karl without giving him an answer. This paper will argue that, even though Karl admits to killing Simon’s family in the house, Simon is morally forbidden to forgive Karl because Karl does not seem to show genuine remorse for his committed crime and it is not up to Simon to be able to forgive Karl for his sins. This stand will be supported by the meaning of forgiveness, evidence from the memoir, quotes from the published responses to Simon’s moral question, and arguments from Thomas Brudholm, Charles Griswold, and Trudy Govier. The possibly raised objection, for this particular modified situation, of forgiveness being necessary to move on from Desmond Tutu will be countered with the logic of needing to eventually find an end somewhere.
As one of the few white men supportive of Hawaii’s monarchy, Claus Spreckels set a great example for others. His life started in Germany and took him to all over the United States. He formed many businesses and helped try to keep Hawaii a monarchy. He was close friends with King Kalakaua and Queen Liliuokalani and fought for them to remain Hawaii’s leaders. His legacy and influence live on to this day, yet most people don’t even know his name.
I think he felt that if he got your forgiveness then he could die in peace for all the bad he had done. A lot of Jewish people had died due to what Hitler ordered everyone in Germany army to do. Albert Speer was a high-ranking Nazi member and he was also Hitler’s minister and even though he knew he was going to jail no matter what was said at the Nuremberg trials he had confessed to all the things he had done. According to Speer “My moral guilt is not subject to the statute of limitations, it cannot be erased in my lifetime” (245). In making this comment, Speer knew that even though he was punished with twenty years of imprisonment that they only punished his legal guilt. Speer was haunted by the things he had done and he knew that he did not deserve anyone’s forgiveness. Even Speer, Hitler’s minister, knew that no one in the German army deserved anyone’s sympathy or
One notable assertion about Hitler's life made by Haffner is the fact that his success as a leader in rallying the populous is buttressed on either side by his failures as a young man on one end and his physical and political destruction of Germany on the other. Haffner argues that Hitler's life always lacked what most lives included. The absence of things like love, friendship, parenthood, an education and occupation lent to his one dimensionality. The resulting ignorance and immaturity was always present in Hitler, even at the peak of his political power. Haffner accounts the absence of any real love interest in Hitler's life along with the fact that he had no real friends in which to confide. In place of this void Hitler substituted politics and became a "nothing-but-politician."
The Holocaust was one of the greatest tragedies the world has ever known. There were many key people who participated in this outrageous genocide however some get more attention then others. Adolf Eichmann is a classic example. Eichmann was a self-proclaimed “Jewish Specialist” and head of the Gestapo Department. Eichmann was responsible for keeping every train rolling right into the stations of the concentration and death camps during the holocaust. Now we will take a look into Eichmann’s childhood, life experiences, and his later actions to see what shaped into a man of hatred towards the Jewish race.
As blatantly demonstrated in the past, Hitler had an undeniable hatred for the Jews. There were many forms of intentionalism displayed illustrating this hostility. These actions are believed to be in response to occurrences during World War I. In 1918, Hitler was stricken with mustard gas and partially blinded, while in the Hospital, Hitler was reached with the news of Germany’s withdrawal from the War. The armistice induced Hitler’s fury and lead to his Back Stabbing Theory. The Back Stabbing Myth was, to the anti-Semitic, a theory based on the belief that the German Army could have won World War I, but the civilians (Jews) called off the war; embarrassing the German Military. Soon followed was Hitler’s involvement in politics, h...
Approximately six million Jews died during the holocaust, which was two-thirds of the Jewish population at the time of World War Two. This catastrophe is considered to be one of the most deplorable events caused by the human race itself and will live on for eternity. Often people hear the miraculous stories about survival and escape. However, it is unlikely for one to hear a story of rescue due to the high security surrounding the camps. Many prisoners had no hope of finding refuge and were often destined for the gas chambers. However, one man was able to save nearly two thousand Jews by simply knowing how to play both sides properly. His name is Rudolf Kastner. On the surface Rudolf Kastner appears to be a selfless man who devoted many years of his life aiding Jews before and during the Holocaust. While Kastner portrays a good-natured journalist on the surface, he is highly controversial in the Jewish community based on his bias towards Jews that could afford to pay him the large sums of money for their freedom. His inability to think of others prior to himself adds to his repertoire of poor personality traits and greedy decisions. Rudolf Kastner exemplifies all of the characteristics of an insufficient leader due to his selfish tendencies, lack of concern for others, and arrogant personality.
Susan Campbell Bartoletti’s historical drama story, “The Boy Who Dared,” takes place in Germany -- a time where Hitler started ruling. Helmuth Guddat Hübener, a young boy, desired to fight for the “fatherland.” He believed the Nazis were beings of good but later finds out that the government, including Hitler, were spewing lies and executing innocent bystanders. Germany is split between supporting Hitler openly, or secretly denying him, whilst Helmuth is stuck between duty to his country, or fighting for what is right. One lesson that the story suggests is that the lie is sometimes better than the truth, even if it is wrong.
If you have been in a History class you have probably heard of an event that happened after World War Two called the Nuremberg Trials. These trials were conducted by the United States. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson was appointed to lead the trials (Berenbaum). During these trials they charged with Crimes against the Peace, War crimes and Crimes against Humanity (Berenbaum). Many major Nazi leaders committed suicide before officials could hang them or before even being caught. The famous Doctor Goebbels killed his children then him and his wife committed suicide (Berenbaum). Only twelve out of the twenty-two who stood trial were hanged, twelve, while the rest just got prison time. Besides major Nazi officials, Physicians were put on trial, the people who were part of the mobile killing squads, Concentration camp officials, Judges and Executives who sold concentration camps Zyklon B. You can expect that they had many excuses, but m...
Synopsis – Hitler’s Willing Executioners is a work that may change our understanding of the Holocaust and of Germany during the Nazi period. Daniel Goldhagen has revisited a question that history has come to treat as settled, and his researches have led him to the inescapable conclusion that none of the established answers holds true. Drawing on materials either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars, Goldhagen presents new evidence to show that many beliefs about the killers are fallacies. They were not primarily SS men or Nazi Party members, but perfectly ordinary Germans from all walks of life, men who brutalized and murdered Jews both willingly and zealously. “They acted as they did because of a widespread, profound, unquestioned, and virulent anti-Semitism that led them to regard the Jews as a demonic enemy whose extermination was not only necessary but also just.”1 The author proposes to show that the phenomenon of German anti-Semitism was already deep-rooted and pervasive in German society before Hitler came to power, and that there was a widely shared view that the Jews ought to be eliminated in some way from German society. When Hitler chose mass extermination as the only final solution, he was easily able to enlist vast numbers of Germans to carry it out.
To this day it remains incomprehensible to justify a sensible account for the uprising of the Nazi Movement. It goes without saying that the unexpectedness of a mass genocide carried out for that long must have advanced through brilliant tactics implemented by a strategic leader, with a promising policy. Adolf Hitler, a soldier in the First World War himself represents the intolerant dictator of the Nazi movement, and gains his triumph by arousing Germany from its devastated state following the negative ramifications of the war. Germany, “foolishly gambled away” by communists and Jews according to Hitler in his chronicle Mein Kampf, praises the Nazi Party due to its pact to provide order, racial purity, education, economic stability, and further benefits for the state (Hitler, 2.6). Albert Speer, who worked closely under Hitler reveals in his memoir Inside the Third Reich that the Führer “was tempestuously hailed by his numerous followers,” highlighting the appreciation from the German population in response to his project of rejuvenating their state (Speer, 15). The effectiveness of Hitler’s propaganda clearly served its purpose in distracting the public from suspecting the genuine intentions behind his plan, supported by Albert Camus’ insight in The Plague that the “townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences”(Camus, 37). In this sense “humanists” represent those who perceive all people with virtue and pureness, but the anti-humanist expression in the metaphor shows the blind-sidedness of such German citizens in identifying cruel things in the world, or Hitler. When the corruption within Nazism does receive notice, Hitler at that point given h...
Ordinary men have the capacity to commit extraordinary crimes and on April 11, 1961, Adolf Eichmann an ordinary looking man faced trial for the murder of five million Jews. Adolf Eichmann served in the Nazi party as their expert on Jewish matters. During the Nuremberg trials that took place years before Eichmann’s trial, many witnesses testified to the control Eichmann had over the implementation of the final solution. SS Captain Wisliceny worked under Eichmann in Hungary in 1944 and he proclaimed that Eichmann said, “he would jump into his grave laughing, because of the feeling that he had five million people on his conscience, gave him extraordinary satisfaction’” (48). Also, Eichmann worked with the members of Jewish councils, and they claimed in earlier trials that he had a direct hand in the “Jewish Question” (49). With a heavy list of witness accounts and facts to proof that Eichmann committed the crimes, he did not face his day in court till many years later and that appeared to be fine with most
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage, 1997. Print.
The Nuremberg Trials was unethically run and violated the rights of the Nazi leaders who were convicted of committing crimes against humanity. Primarily because the Allies sought to use the trials as a way to remind the Germans, who won the war ‘again’. Thus making it similar to the Treaty of Versailles in (19- ), through implying this notion of “Victors’ Justice”. Nevertheless, the Allies did to an extent ‘try’ to make the tribunal as ethical as possible,