Albert Speer (1905 – 1981) was a German architect who was, for part of World
War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Hitler
commissioned Speer to design and construct a number of structures, including
the Reich Chancellery and the Zeppelinfeld stadium in Nuremberg where Party
rallies were held. Speer also made plans to reconstruct Berlin on a grand
scale, with huge buildings, wide boulevards, and a reorganized
transportation system. As Hitler's Minister of Armaments and War Production,
Speer's reforms were so successful that Germany's war production continued
to increase despite massive and devastating Allied bombing. As "the Nazi who
said sorry", he accepted responsibility at the Nuremberg trials. After the
war, he was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to twenty years in prison for
his role in the Nazi regime, principally for the use of forced labor. He
served most of his sentence at Spandau Prison in West Berlin. Following his
release from Spandau in 1966, Speer published two bestselling
autobiographical works, Inside the Third Reich and Spandau: The Secret
Diaries, detailing his often close personal relationship with Hitler, and
providing readers and historians with a unique perspective inside the
workings of the Nazi regime.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1545:
Counter-Reformation: The Council of Trent, an ecumenical council convoked by
Pope Paul III in response to the growth of Protestantism, opened in Trento,
Italy.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent)
1642:
Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European explorer to reach New
Zealand.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand)
1769:
Dartmouth College in present-day Hanover, New Hampshire, USA was established
by a Royal Charter from British King George III and became the last
university founded in the Thirteen Colonies before the American Revolution.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_College)
1862:
American Civil War: Union forces under Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside suffered
severe casualties against entrenched Confederate defenders at the Battle of
Fredericksburg in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fredericksburg)
1981:
Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland, suspended
Solidarity and imprisoned many union leaders.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojciech_Jaruzelski)
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
bibulously (adv) Drunkenly; as if intoxicated.
(
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bibulously)
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Where they burn books, they will also burn people.
--Heinrich Heine
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine)