Speer Controversy
This conference is the strongest evidence implicating Albert Speer with having knowledge of the Final Solution, something he had denied at the Nuremberg Trials. Speer was certainly at the conference, and addressed the attendees in a speech on armaments production in the morning. Himmler's speech came in the afternoon, and at one point, he addressed Speer directly in the context of his speech. Confronted with this accusation in 1971 by the historian Erich Goldhagen, who had discovered the text of the speech in the Federal German archives, Speer recollected that he had left the conference before Himmler's speech began. Erhard Milch and Walter Rohland both confirmed this, the latter declaring so under oath.
Nonetheless, most historians feel that even if Speer had not attended the speech, he would have been made aware of its content by his good friends that had been there, such as the Gauleiters Karl Hanke and Baldur von Schirach.
In 2007, however, correspondence between Speer and a Belgian resistance widow Hélène Jeanty, indicated that Speer had indeed been present for Himmler's presentation. In the letter to Jeanty, written on December 23, 1971, Speer wrote: "There is no doubt - I was present as Himmler announced on October 6, 1943 that all Jews would be killed...Who would believe me that I suppressed this, that it would have been easier to have written all of this in my memoirs?"
Read more about this topic: Posen Conference
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