Quick questions on Speer's background and rise to prominence: HSC Modern History Personality

Speer began architectural studies at the Karlsruhe Technical University in 1923, during the hyperinflation crisis, when family finances were strained. He transferred to Munich in 1924 and to the Berlin Technical University (TH Berlin) in 1925. He graduated in 1928 with a thesis under Professor Heinrich Tessenow.

Through Karl Hanke, a fellow architect who became Joseph Goebbels' deputy at the Berlin Gau, Speer received small commissions in early 1933: the renovation of the NSDAP Berlin Gau headquarters; the renovation of Goebbels' new apartment at Wilhelmplatz. These were minor jobs, undertaken in haste and on small budgets, but they introduced Speer to the inner circle.

From 1934 Speer designed the annual Nuremberg Party rallies (Reichsparteitag) on the Zeppelin Field. Innovations included:

On 30 January 1937 Speer was appointed General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital (Generalbauinspektor fur die Reichshauptstadt, GBI). He was 31. The post placed Speer outside the Berlin city administration and gave him direct access to Hitler and to vast public funds.

Speer enjoyed a degree of personal access to Hitler that almost no other Nazi possessed. Sereny (Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth, 1995) records that Speer dined with Hitler several times a week through the late 1930s and was treated as a younger surrogate. The relationship was not founded on Speer's ideological zeal (he was famously inarticulate on doctrine) but on shared architectural taste and personal warmth.

Source A is an extract from Speer's Inside the Third Reich (1969) on his 1931 conversion. Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain Speer's entry into Nazi politics. [5 marks]

Evaluate the extent to which Speer's pre-1937 rise was a result of his architectural ability rather than political alignment. [25 marks]

Compare the views of Joachim Fest and Magnus Brechtken on the early Speer. [10 marks]