A member of the Nazi Party from 1932, Albert Speer came to prominence when he organised the spectacular Party Rally at Nuremberg in 1934. Lasting for an entire week, the rally took as its theme, the Triumph of the Will, a celebration of the victory of National Socialism, and the establishment of Hitler's Reich.

From this time onwards, Speer' s rise through the ranks of the Nazi hierarchy was assured. An architect by training, Speer went on to dominate the architectural climate of the Third Reich, working with Hitler on a range of huge and ostentatious projects, including plans for the complete rebuilding of Berlin. But of these schemes, few were ever to come to fruition, and of those that did fewer still were to survive the war.

1942 saw the transformation of Speer from Party Architect to Reich Minister of Munitions. In this capacity Speer demonstrated a most remarkable talent for organisation and administration.

Despite the accelerating pace of the Allied bombing offensive, Speer, through a policy of rationalisation and dispersal, was able to increase armaments production, consistently achieving higher figures for every month until September 1944.

From then until the end of the war, though output diminished, Speer became indispensable to the German war effort, producing essential arms in the teeth of immense disruption and dislocation.

One of the few genuinely intelligent Nazis, Albert Speer, at the end of the war was sentenced to twenty years in prison.

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