What Speer did and what he did not?

There is a new game mod coming of which allows you to have Speer as Hitler successor, but this created a massive discussion between the community due the Speer myth, as it is described below:

32lbqjmorcu21.png


I watched his documentary made by the THC available on the youtube, and so I bring this question: What he was, and what he was not? The concept of him being the good guy, defector of decadence or the lesser evil is wrong, as it is very well proved that he was a open nazi, considered to be one of the future options for the sucessor of Hitler and participated on the holocaust. This recort from wikipedia however shows that even the idea that he was a genius is wrong and that the german economical miracle was a tool of propaganda. Can someone help me with this please?

Cheers
Gukpa.
 

Deleted member 1487

There is a new game mod coming of which allows you to have Speer as Hitler successor, but this created a massive discussion between the community due the Speer myth, as it is described below:

32lbqjmorcu21.png


I watched his documentary made by the THC available on the youtube, and so I bring this question: What he was, and what he was not? The concept of him being the good guy, defector of decadence or the lesser evil is wrong, as it is very well proved that he was a open nazi, considered to be one of the future options for the sucessor of Hitler and participated on the holocaust. This recort from wikipedia however shows that even the idea that he was a genius is wrong and that the german economical miracle was a tool of propaganda. Can someone help me with this please?

Cheers
Gukpa.
One thing to note is that for anyone interested in having a great career in Nazi Germany being an open Nazi was mandatory. What was truly in Speer's heart in terms of is politics is difficult to say, but one thing is certain from his behavior: he was interested in having a great career, which meant sucking up to Hitler as hard as possible and carrying out his bidding. His participation in the Holocaust was likely a function of his role in mobilizing labor and working with the SS, who controlled a large pool of it. Whether or not he was actually anti-semitic or wanted genocide is unknowable, but he didn't have a problem with even limited participation as it meant power. Everything, including morality, was secondary to his quest for power, which should be the most damning part of his legacy.

In terms of what he did for production, that is somewhat open for debate, as he did make changes that resulted in increased output, but he wasn't the 'magic seed' that revolutionized production. One of the biggest effects was that when he took over production he was made the sole 'czar' of production, rather than continuing the several competing bureaucracies that ran things before then. In the area with the biggest improvement, aircraft production, that was the doing of Erhard Milch, who took over production in 1941, months before Speer became minister for armaments; even after taking over he basically agreed to leave Milch in charge of that and got to take credit for the improvements.
Part of things were also the investments in increased capacity had come to fruition, some rationalization of production, and greater government oversight of industry, which had been illegally using allotted resources to make things for trade on the black market and to stock pile resources for a rainy day.

Speer was perhaps somewhat of a genius in marketing himself and juking stats, but his record doesn't really show any special skill in doing his job.
 
Speer was perhaps somewhat of a genius in marketing himself and juking stats, but his record doesn't really show any special skill in doing his job.

So he didn't had the technocratical skills that people usually thinks he had?
 
So he didn't had the technocratical skills that people usually thinks he had?
What is that? He took an infighting bureaucracy and managed to make it work in unison. In Milch he found a competent underling and let him do his job. In other areas with less competence already in place, he took more direct action and reorganized decision making. That is in essence what an efficient high level technocrat does. It’s not magical, but it looks that way, specifically in comparison to the chaos before him.
Morality wise, I only know that he did whatever was required by Hitler and to get things done in Nazi Germany.Cynical to the extreme, but regarding his own thoughts I don’t think we have any insight.
 

Deleted member 1487

So he didn't had the technocratical skills that people usually thinks he had?
His 'skill' was largely continuing the policies of his boss, the late Fritz Todt, who actually was an engineer and how innovated in production.

What is that? He took an infighting bureaucracy and managed to make it work in unison.
Not even his doing, Todt already got Hitler to agree to centralize the bureaucracy under him right before his death and when Speer was appointed his replacement he inherited that new organization. Granted he actually had to fight to make it a reality, which included convincing Goering that he wasn't threatening his position as nominal figurehead of production, so as not to disrupt the bribes Goering was receiving from industry (a critical victory; Fritz Todt might have died as a result of not placating Goering, as Todt died in a mysterious explosion on an airplane loaned to him by Goering right after convincing Hitler to give him total control over armaments).

Morality wise, I only know that he did whatever was required by Hitler and to get things done in Nazi Germany.Cynical to the extreme, but regarding his own thoughts I don’t think we have any insight.
Well, certainly no contemporary insights. We have his post-war justifications and apologies; perhaps all that was authentic, but it could just as well be covering his ass after the fact. One thing Speer was excellent at was reading the room and adjusting his persona to the demands of the situation; that and relentless self marketing.
 
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