Albert Speer distanced himself from the Nazis' atrocities at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal in October 1946, and, upon his release from prison, he carefully rebuilt his public image. In History revisits a 1970 BBC interview with Hitler's former friend.

On 16 October 1946, 10 Nazi officials were hanged after being convicted at the first international war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg. Some of those who faced trial for their roles in World War Two, such as the flamboyant and unrepentant Hermann Goering, were senior Nazi leaders with clear responsibility. Others were more junior, standing trial in place of more infamous figures such as Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels, who had taken their own lives. The 21 defendants were accused of committing mindboggling atrocities, including the newly defined crime of genocide.

One of those who lived to tell the tale was Albert Speer, the youthful and confident figure who served first as Adolf Hitler's architect and later as minister for war production. Rather than claiming at Nuremberg that he had only been obeying orders, Speer's careful survival strategy was to distance himself from Hitler, while accepting from the outset the collective responsibility of the defendants for their crimes. After serving 20 years in prison, he became a media darling whose bestselling memoir burnished his image as the "good Nazi". But was his acceptance of responsibility genuine remorse or just a manipulation to save his neck?

The choice of Nuremberg for the trials was significant. In their pomp a few years earlier, the Nazis had staged large-scale propaganda rallies in the city. At the heart of these sinister spectacles was Speer's Cathedral of Light, consisting of hundreds of searchlights piercing the night sky. According to the art critic Robert Hughes, Speer was "for a time, not only the most powerful architect in the world, but perhaps the most powerful one who has ever lived". In Hitler's vision, the Third Reich was going to last 1,000 years, and so must its buildings.

The ambitious architect was aged 25 when he joined the Nazi Party in 1931, two years before Hitler assumed power in Germany. Historian Heike Görtemaker observed: "Hitler saw himself as an artist, an architect. When he met Speer, he saw in this young man an alter ego; the architect he couldn't become." Hitler's patronage handed Speer the power to execute his vision.

Interviewed by the BBC's Michael Charlton in 1970, Speer said he now considered Hitler to be one of the most evil people in history. However, he recalled how his friend "had some charm, too" and was "quite a normal human being". He said: "I thought it's necessary to tell this because after the war, we had a period when Hitler was described as a carpet-biter and as somebody who was always raging from day to night. And this would be a danger for the future because if now a new Hitler would come somewhere and he isn't carpet-biting and he doesn't rage from day to night, one would say, 'That's no danger – he's not Hitler.' But Hitler, as a person, he had many different sides. He was a human being."

In History

In History is a series which uses the BBC's unique audio and video archive to explore historical events that still resonate today. Sign up to the accompanying weekly newsletter.

Speer was asked how, as "an intelligent man, a man of some........

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