Will you state your full name, please?
ALBERT SPEER (Defendant): Albert Speer.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear by God—the Almighty and Omniscient—that I will speak the pure truth—and will withhold and add nothing.
[The defendant repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: Sit down.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: Herr Speer, will you please tell the Tribunal about your life up until the time you were appointed Minister?
SPEER: I was born on 19 March 1905. My grandfather and my father were successful architects. At first I wanted to study mathematics and physics; but then I took up architecture, more because of tradition than inclination. I attended the universities at Munich and Berlin; and in 1929 at the age of 24, I was the first assistant at the technical college in Berlin. At the age of 27, in 1932, I went into business for myself until 1942.
In 1934 Hitler noticed me for the first time. I became acquainted with him and from that period of time onward I exercised my architect’s profession with joy and enthusiasm, for Hitler was quite fanatical on the subject of architecture; and I received many important construction contracts from him. Along with putting up a new Reich Chancellery in Berlin and various buildings on the Party Rally grounds here in Nuremberg, I was entrusted with the replanning of the cities of Berlin and Nuremberg. I had sketched buildings which would have been among the largest in the world, and the carrying through of these plans would have cost no more than 2 months of Germany’s war expenditure. Through this predilection which Hitler had for architecture I had a close personal contact with him. I belonged to a circle which consisted of other artists and his personal staff. If Hitler had had any friends at all, I certainly would have been one of his close friends.
Despite the war, this peaceful construction work was carried on until December 1941, and only the winter catastrophe in Russia put an end to it. The German part of the manpower was furnished by me for the reconstruction of the destroyed railroad installations in Russia.
DR. FLÄCHSNER: The Prosecution, in Document 1435-PS, which is Exhibit USA-216, has quoted a remark from your first speech as a Minister, dated February 1942, in which you state that at that time you had placed 10,000 prisoners of war at the disposal of the armament industry.