Posted on 09/17/2017 3:03:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway
One of Germany's most prominent architects and urban planners of the post-war period, Albert Speer Jr., has died aged 83, local media reported on Sunday.
His death late Friday came after an operation on a broken hip sustained in a fall at his home in the western city of Frankfurt, Bild daily reported.
Speer was widely credited with honestly reckoning with the heavy historical burden left by his father and namesake - one of Adolf Hitler's closest confidants and the head of the vast Nazi armaments ministry.
Born in Berlin as the eldest of six children, Albert junior managed to emerge from his father's shadow to become known for ecologically sustainable public works projects across Europe, Asia and Africa.
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.de ...
Judge Judy’s advice for us oldsters is just two words, “Don’t fall.” Wobbliness will getcha.
Judge Judy’s advice for us oldsters is just two words, “Don’t fall.” Wobbliness will getcha.
Albert Speer, Sr. was alone among the top Nazis in taking moral responsibility for his actions. But he claimed to have no knowledge of the Holocaust, and only minimal knowledge of Germany’s use of slave labor.
So was he an honest man, or merely someone who tried to deflect guilt away from himself? I suspect that the latter is true.
He really outlived his ‘nice uncle’ (his description of Hitler).
Speer was lying. He attended Himmler’a Posen speech in October 1943. He knew all about it. I don’t think he should have hanged for it. 20 years in prison was about right.
That evil man (Hitler) sure seemed to have a hypnotic effect on some people. I think he had an especially powerful demon.
He was clever enough to realize that by admitting to some guilt (up to but not beyond the point of direct responsibility for mass murder) he could avoid the noose. But if anything his skill in keeping war production going and the use of slave labor killed more people than anyone besides maybe Himmler and Hitler himself. He also managed to keep hidden and after his release from prison millions of dollars worth of looted art treasures that he gradually sold off under false names. He was as bad or worse than any of them. Just smarter and more charming.
I don’t think he [Speer, Sr.] should have hanged for it. 20 years in prison was about right.
Well, a person gets 20 years for killing one person. Speer’s crimes were much greater than that. But he didn’t actually order anyone’s death. So I would have given him life, without the possibility of parole.
As an aside, it was a travesty that the sentences of so many Nazis were reduced. That didn’t happen to Speer. But it did happen to Walther Funk, Joachim Peiper, etc., etc. Those bastards should have been made to serve every second of their original sentence.
Albert Speer Sr. wrote his autobiography “Inside the Third Reich,” pulbished in 1969 and later “Spandau Diary” about his time in prison after the war.
https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Third-Reich-Albert-Speer/dp/0684829495
> He [Speer, Sr.] was as bad or worse than any of them. Just smarter and more charming. <
Agreed. And there are many like him in every society. Barack Obama comes to mind. But Obama was lazy. He preferred golf to changing the world. Speer, on the other hand, was not lazy. He served the Nazi regime with gusto.
One of AS Sr.’s famous quotes, was given in response to the question, “how could one like you work with one like Hitler? and Speer said, “One seldom recognizes the Devil when he places his hand upon your shoulder.”
I still think only two people knew about Hess’ mission to England, Hess and Hitler.
Their political system was taken over by an increasingly radical group after many years of economic difficulty and dislocation. That increasingly radical group turned psychotic, but the psychosis wasn't evident to the broad mass of the public until it was too late. At that point, for many if not most it was a matter of survival, go along to get along.
Did many get swept away and caught up in the madness of the crowd at that particular moment in time? Of course they did. They're practically all dead now, though. I don't particularly like the Germany of today, either, and I suspect a major contributing factor to the abysmal behavior of modern Germans is derived from Nazi guilt. The pendulum has swung far too far in the opposite direction.
There needs to come a time when they forgive themselves, and when the rest of the world gives it a rest. It may be too late for that, too, so we'll just have to see what sort of psychotic mess comes out of that star-crossed country this time.
> Hess what a nitwit, I don’t believe he deserved life either. <
Hess was in the dock because of his title, Deputy Führer. Some historians think his crazy behavior there is actually what saved him from the noose.
I’ve known several elderly people who went into a decline from which they never recovered after a fall and a broken hip. I don’t know of any who died from related surgery. However, there are always risks even for young, healthy people, from sedation to blood clots to infection.
Yes, and I’ve definitely heard of cases in the elderly where people go onto a negative course after something as serious as a broken hip and are never the same again. I hadn’t heard of someone dying from a hip operation, though, but with all the potential for blood loss in that area it is a very serious operation.
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