Back to the full dot-point answer
NSWModern HistoryQuick questions
Section III (Personalities): Albert Speer, Hitler's Architect and Minister of Armaments
Quick questions on Speer and the Final Solution: HSC Modern History Personality
5short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is speer's postwar defence?Show answer
At the Nuremberg trial (1945 to 1946), Speer accepted general responsibility as a member of the regime but denied specific knowledge of the Final Solution. He claimed in Inside the Third Reich (1969) that he had been "an architect drawn into the war machinery by my Fuhrer" and that the extermination of the Jews had been hidden from him. The defence is the foundation of the "good Nazi" myth.
What is the Walters Letter, 1971?Show answer
Helen "Hettie" Walters, an Australian schoolteacher and a long-standing correspondent of Speer during his Spandau imprisonment, asked Speer directly whether he had known of the camps and the extermination. In a letter dated 23 December 1971, Speer wrote that he had been present at Himmler's Posen speech and had heard the references to extermination. The letter, in Walters' papers, was first cited in print by Adam Tooze in 2007.
What is q1?Show answer
Source A is the Walters Letter (1971). Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain Speer's relationship to the Final Solution. [5 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
Evaluate the extent to which Speer was complicit in the Final Solution. [25 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
Compare the views of Gitta Sereny and Magnus Brechtken on Speer's knowledge of the Holocaust. [10 marks]
Have a question we have not covered?
This dot-point answer is short enough that we have not extracted many short questions yet. Read the full dot-point answer or ask Mo, our study assistant, in the chat for follow ups.