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o 1996. During that time, Bagley's rendition of SpiderMan was used extensively for licensed material and merchandise.
Issues 361363 AprilJune 1992 introduced Carnage, a second symbiote nemesis for SpiderMan. The series' 30thanniversary issue, No. 365 Aug. 1992, was a doublesized, hologramcover issue with the cliffhanger ending of Peter Parker's parents, long thought dead, reappearing alive. It would be close to two years before they were revealed to be impostors, who are killed in No. 388 April 1994, scripter Michelinie's last issue. His 19871994 stint gave him the secondlongest run as writer on the title, behind Stan Lee.
Issue No. 375 was released with a gold foil cover. There was an error affecting some issues and which are missing the majority of the foil.
With No. 389, writer J. M. DeMatteis, whose SpiderMan credits included the 1987 "Kraven's Last Hunt" story arc and a 19911993 run on The Spectacular SpiderMan, took over the title. From October 1994 to June 1996, Amazing stopped running stories exclu
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sive to it, and ran installments of multipart stories that crossed over into all the SpiderMan books. One of the few selfcontained stories during this period was in No. 400 April 1995, which featured the death of Aunt May later revealed to have been faked although the death still stands in the MC2 continuity. The "Clone Saga" culminated with the revelation that the SpiderMan who had appeared in the previous 20 years of comics was a clone of the real SpiderMan. This plot twist was massively unpopular with many readers, and was later reversed in the "Revelations" story arc that crossed over the SpiderMan books in late 1996.
The Clone Saga tied into a publishing gap after No. 406 Oct. 1995, when the title was temporarily replaced by The Amazing Scarlet Spider 12 Nov.Dec. 1995, featuring Ben Reilly. The series picked up again with No. 407 Jan. 1996, with Tom DeFalco returning as writer. Bagley completed his 5year run by September 1996. A succession of artists, including Ron Garney, Steve Skroce, Joe Bennett, Ra
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fael Kayanan and John Byrne penciled the book until the final issue, No. 441 Nov. 1998, after which Marvel rebooted the title with vol. 2, No. 1 Jan. 1999.
Relaunch and the 2000s
Marvel began The Amazing SpiderMan relaunching the 'Amazing' comic book series with vol. 2 1 Jan. 1999. Howard Mackie wrote the first 29 issues. The relaunch included the Sandman being regressed to his criminal ways and the "death" of Mary Jane, which was ultimately reversed. Other elements included the introduction of a new SpiderWoman who was spun off into her own shortlived series and references to John Byrne's miniseries SpiderMan Chapter One, which was launched at the same time as the reboot. Byrne also penciled issues 118 from 1999 to 2000 and wrote 1314, John Romita Jr. took his place soon after in October 2000. Mackie's run ended with The Amazing SpiderMan Annual 2001, which saw the return of Mary Jane, who then left Parker upon reuniting with him.
With issue 30 June 2001, J. Michael Straczynski took over as writer and over
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saw additional storylines most notably his lengthy "SpiderTotem" arc, which raised the issue of whether SpiderMan's powers were magicbased, rather than as the result of a radioactive spider's bite. Additionally, Straczynski resurrected the plot point of Aunt May discovering her nephew was SpiderMan, and returned Mary Jane, with the couple reuniting in The Amazing SpiderMan vol. 2 50. Straczynski gave SpiderMan a new profession, having Parker teach at his former high school.
Issue 30 began a dual numbering system, with the original series numbering 471 returned and placed alongside the volume two number on the cover. Other longtime, rebooted Marvel Comics titles, including Fantastic Four, likewise were given the dual numbering around this time. After vol. 2 58 Nov. 2003, the title reverted completely to its original numbering for issue 500 Dec. 2003. Mike Deodato, Jr. penciled the series from mid2004 until 2006.
That year Peter Parker revealed his SpiderMan identity on live television in the companycrossove
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r storyline "Civil War", in which the superhero community is split over whether to conform to the federal government's new Superhuman Registration Act. This knowledge was erased from the world with the event of the fourpart, crossover story arc, "One More Day", written partially by J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Joe Quesada, running through The Amazing SpiderMan 544545 Nov.Dec. 2007, Friendly Neighborhood SpiderMan No. 24 Nov. 2007 and The Sensational SpiderMan No. 41 Dec. 2007, the final issues of those two titles. Here, the demon Mephisto makes a Faustian bargain with Parker and Mary Jane, offering to save Parker's dying Aunt May if the couple will allow their marriage to have never existed, rewriting that portion of their pasts. This story arc marked the end of Straczynski's work on the title.
Following this, Marvel made The Amazing SpiderMan the company's sole SpiderMan title, increasing its frequency of publication to three issues monthly, and inaugurating the series with a sequence of "back
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to basics" story arcs under the banner of "Brand New Day". Parker now exists in a changed world where he and Mary Jane had never married, and Parker has no memory of being married to her, with domino effect differences in their immediate world. The most notable of these revisions to SpiderMan continuity are the return of Harry Osborn, whose death in The Spectacular SpiderMan No. 200 May 1993 is erased; and the reestablishment of SpiderMan's secret identity, with no one except Mary Jane able to recall that Parker is SpiderMan although he soon reveals his secret identity to the New Avengers and the Fantastic Four. Under the banner of Brand New Day, Marvel tried to only use newly created villains instead of relying on older ones. Characters like Mister Negative and Overdrive both in Free Comic Book Day 2007 SpiderMan July 2007, Menace in No. 549 March 2008, Ana and Sasha Kravinoff in No. 565 September 2008 and No. 567 October 2008 respectively, and several more were introduced. The alternating regular writers
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were initially Dan Slott, Bob Gale, Marc Guggenheim, and Zeb Wells, joined by a rotation of artists that included Steve McNiven, Salvador Larroca, Phil Jimenez, Barry Kitson, Chris Bachalo, Mike McKone, Marcos Martn, and John Romita Jr. Joe Kelly, Mark Waid, Fred Van Lente and Roger Stern later joined the writing team and Paolo Rivera, Lee Weeks and Marco Checchetto the artist roster. Waid's work on the series included a meeting between SpiderMan and Stephen Colbert in The Amazing SpiderMan No. 573 Dec. 2008.
Issue No. 583 March 2009 included a backup story in which SpiderMan meets President Barack Obama.
2010s and temporary end of publication
Mark Waid scripted the opening of "The Gauntlet" storyline in issue No. 612 Jan. 2010. The Gauntlet story was concluded by Grim Hunt No. 634637 which saw the resurrection of longdead SpiderMan villain, Kraven the Hunter. The series became a twicemonthly title with Dan Slott as sole writer at issue No. 648 Jan. 2011, launching the Big Time storyline. Eight additional p
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ages were added per issue. Big Time saw major changes in SpiderManPeter Parker's life, Peter would start working at Horizon Labs and begin a relationship with Carlie Cooper his first serious relationship since his marriage to Mary Jane, Mac Gargan returned as Scorpion after spending the past few years as Venom, Phil Urich would take up the mantle of Hobgoblin, and the death of J. Jonah Jameson's wife, Marla Jameson. Issues 654 and 654.1 saw the birth of Agent Venom, Flash Thompson bonded with the Venom symbiote, which would lead to Venom getting his own series Venom volume 2. Starting in No. 659 and going to No. 655, the series builtup to the SpiderIsland event which officially started in No. 666 and ended in No. 673. Ends of the Earth was the next event that ran from No. 682 through No. 687. This publishing format lasted until issue No. 700, which concluded the "Dying Wish" storyline, in which Parker and Doctor Octopus swapped bodies, and the latter taking on the mantle of SpiderMan when Parker apparently di
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ed in Doctor Octopus' body. The Amazing SpiderMan ended with this issue, with the story continuing in the new series The Superior SpiderMan. Despite The Superior SpiderMan being considered a different series to The Amazing SpiderMan, the first 33 issue run goes towards the legacy numbering of The Amazing SpiderMan acting as issues 701733. In December 2013, the series returned for five issues, numbered 700.1 through 700.5, with the first two written by David Morrell and drawn by Klaus Janson.
2014 relaunch
In January 2014, Marvel confirmed that The Amazing SpiderMan would be relaunched on April 30, 2014, starting from issue No. 1, with Peter Parker as SpiderMan once again.
The first issue of this new version of The Amazing SpiderMan was, according to Diamond Comics Distributors, the "bestselling comic book... in over a decade."
Issues 16 were a story arc called "Lucky to be Alive", taking place immediately after "Goblin Nation", with issues No. 4 and No. 5 being a crossover with the Original Sin storyline. Is
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sue No. 4 introduced Silk, a new heroine who was bitten by the same spider as Peter Parker. Issues 78 featured a teamup between Ms. Marvel and SpiderMan, and had backup stories that tied into "Edge of SpiderVerse". The next major plot arc, titled "SpiderVerse", began in Issue No. 9 and ended in No. 15, features every SpiderMan from across the dimensions being hunted by Morlun, and a teamup to stop him, with Peter Parker of Earth616 in command of the SpiderMen's Alliance. The Amazing SpiderMan Annual No. 1 of the relaunched series was released in December 2014, featuring stories unrelated to "SpiderVerse".
The Amazing SpiderMan Renew Your Vows
In 2015, Marvel started the universe wide Secret Wars event where the core and several other Marvel universes were combined into one big planet called Battleworld. Battleworld was divided into sections with most of them being selfcontained universes. Marvel announced that several of these selfcontained universes would get their own tie in series and one of them was Amaz
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ing SpiderMan Renew Your Vows, an alternate universe where Peter Parker and Mary Jane are still married and give birth to their child Annie May Parker, written by Dan Slott. Despite the series being considered separate from the main Amazing SpiderMan series, the original 5 issue run is counted towards its legacy numbering acting as No. 752756.
2015 relaunch
Following the 2015 Secret Wars event, a number of SpiderManrelated titles were either relaunched or created as part of the "AllNew, AllDifferent Marvel" event. Among them, The Amazing SpiderMan was relaunched as well and primarily focuses on Peter Parker continuing to run Parker Industries, and becoming a successful businessman who is operating worldwide. It also tied with Civil War II involving an Inhuman who can predict possible future named Ulysses Cain, Dead No More where Ben Reilly the original Scarlet Spider revealed to be revived and as one of the antagonists instead, and Secret Empire during Hydra's reign led by a Hydra influenced Captain AmericaS
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teve Rogers, and the dismissal of Parker Industries by Peter Parker to stop Otto Octavius. Starting in September 2017, Marvel started the Marvel Legacy event which renumbered several Marvel series to their original numbering, The Amazing SpiderMan was put back to its original numbering for issue 789. Issues 789 through 791 focused on the aftermath of Peter destroying Parker Industries and his fall from grace. Issues 792 and 793 were part of the Venom Inc. story. Threat Level Red was the story for the next three issues which saw Norman Osborn obtain and bond with the Carnage symbiote. Go Down Swinging saw the results of the combination of Osborn's goblin serum and Carnage symbiote creating the Red Goblin. Issue 801 was Dan Slott's goodbye issue.
2018 relaunch
In March 2018, it was announced that writer Nick Spencer would be writing the main bimonthly The Amazing SpiderMan series beginning with a new No. 1, replacing longtime writer Dan Slott, as part of the Fresh Start relaunch that July.
The first fiveissue
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story arc was titled 'Back to Basics.' During the Back to Basics story, Kindred, a mysterious villain with some relation to Peter's past, was introduced. The first major story under Spencer was Hunted which ran through issues 16 through 23, the story also included four ".HU" issues for issues 16, 18, 19, and 20. The end of the story saw the death of longrunning SpiderMan villain Kraven the Hunter, being replaced by his clone son, The Last Son of Kraven.
2020s
Issue 45 kicked off the Sins Rising story which saw the resurrected SinEater carry out the plans of Kindred to cleanse the world of sin, particularly that of Norman Osborn. The story concluded with issue 49, issue 850 in legacy numbering, seeing SpiderMan and Green Goblin team up to defeat SinEater. Last Remains started in issue 50 and concluded in issue 55, the story saw Kindred's plans come to fruition as he tormented SpiderMan. The story has also saw five ".LR" for issues 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54 which focused on The Order of the Web, a new faction of
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SpiderPeople consisting of Julia Carpenter Madame Web, Miles Morales SpiderMan, Gwen Stacy GhostSpider, Cindy Moon Silk, Jessica Drew SpiderWoman, and Anya Corazon SpiderGirl . The story also revealed that Kindred is Harry Osborn. Last Remains also received two fallout issues called Last Remains PostMortem.
Nick Spencer concluded his run with the Sinister War story which wrapped up in Np. 74 legacy numbering 875. The story saw several retcons to the SpiderMan mythos including that Kindred was Gabriel and Sarah Stacy all along, the fact that the Stacy twins were actually genetically engineered beings using Norman Osborn and Gwen Stacy's DNA, that the Harry Osborn that returned in Brand New Day was actually a clone, and that Norman had made a deal with Mephisto where he sold Harry's soul to the demon. The story ended with the deaths of the Harry clone, Gabriel, and Sarah and the real Harry's soul being freed from Mephisto's grasp.
After Spencer left the book, Marvel announced the "Beyond" era of SpiderMan wh
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ich would start in No. 75. The book would be moving back to the format it had during Brand New Day where the it would have a rotating cast of writers including Kelly Thompson, Saladin Ahmed, Cody Ziglar, Patrick Gleason, and Zeb Wells. The book would also release three times a month. Beyond would focus on Ben Reilly taking up the mantle of SpiderMan once again, but backed by the Beyond corporation. Peter also falls ill and cannot be SpiderMan so he gives Ben his blessing to carry on as the main SpiderMan.
Collected editions
Blackandwhite
Essential SpiderMan Vol. 1 120, Annual 1; Amazing Fantasy 15
Essential SpiderMan Vol. 2 2143, Annual 23
Essential SpiderMan Vol. 3 4465, Annual 4
Essential SpiderMan Vol. 4 6689, Annual 5
Essential SpiderMan Vol. 5 90113
Essential SpiderMan Vol. 6 114137; GiantSize Super Heroes 1; GiantSize SpiderMan 12
Essential SpiderMan Vol. 7 138160, Annual 10; GiantSize SpiderMan 45
Essential SpiderMan Vol. 8 161185, Annual 11; GiantSize SpiderMan 6; Nova 12
Essential S
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piderMan Vol. 9 186210, Annual 1314; Peter Parker Spectacular SpiderMan Annual 1
Essential SpiderMan Vol. 10 211230, Annual 15
Essential SpiderMan Vol. 11 231248, Annual 1617
Major story arcsartist runs
Marvel Visionaries John Romita Sr. 3940, 42, 50, 108109, 365; Daredevil 1617; Untold Tales of SpiderMan 1
SpiderMan The Death of Captain Stacy 8890
SpiderMan The Death of Gwen Stacy 9698, 121122; Webspinners Tales of SpiderMan 1
SpiderMan Death of the Stacys 8892, 121122
A New Goblin 176180
SpiderMan vs. the Black Cat 194195, 204205, 226227
SpiderMan Origin of The Hobgoblin 238239, 244245, 249251, Spectacular SpiderMan vol. 1 85
SpiderMan Birth of Venom 252259, 298300, 315317, Annual 25; Fantastic Four 274; Secret Wars 8; Web of SpiderMan 1
The Amazing SpiderMan The Wedding 290292, Annual 2, Not Brand Echh 6
SpiderMan Kraven's Last Hunt 293294; Web of SpiderMan 3132; The Spectacular SpiderMan 131132
Visionaries Todd McFarlane 298305
Legends, Vol. 2 Todd McFarlane 306314; The Specta
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cular SpiderMan Annual 10
Legends, Vol. 3 Todd McFarlane 315323, 325, 328
SpiderMan Venom Returns 330333, 344347;Annual 25
SpiderMan Carnage 344345, 359363
Collections
Vol. 1 Coming Home 3035471476
Vol. 2 Revelations 3639477480
Vol. 3 Until the Stars Turn Cold 4045481486
Vol. 4 The Life and Death of Spiders 4650487491
Vol. 5 Unintended Consequences 5156492497
Vol. 6 Happy Birthday 5758,500502498502
Vol. 7 The Book of Ezekiel 503508
Vol. 8 Sins Past 509514
Vol. 9 Skin Deep 515518
Vol. 10 New Avengers 519524
SpiderMan The Other 525528; Friendly Neighborhood SpiderMan 14; Marvel Knights SpiderMan 1922
Civil War The Road to Civil War 529531; New Avengers Illuminati oneshot; Fantastic Four 536537
Vol. 11 Civil War 532538
Vol. 12 Back in Black 539543; Friendly Neighborhood SpiderMan 1723, Annual 1
SpiderMan One More Day 544545; Friendly Neighborhood SpiderMan 24; The Sensational SpiderMan 41; Marvel Spotlight SpiderMan One More DayBrand New Day
Brand New Day Vol. 1 546551; The
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Amazing SpiderMan Swing Shift Director's Cut; Venom SuperSpecial
Brand New Day Vol. 2 552558
Brand New Day Vol. 3 559563
Kraven's First Hunt 564567; The Amazing SpiderMan Extra! 1 story 2
New Ways to Die 568573; Marvel Spotlight SpiderMan Brand New Day
Crime and Punisher 574577; The Amazing SpiderMan Extra! 1 story 1
Death and Dating 578583, Annual 351
Election Day 584588; The Amazing SpiderMan Extra! 1 story 3, 3 story 1; The Amazing SpiderMan Presidents' Day Special
247 589594; The Amazing SpiderMan Extra! 2
American Son 595599; material from The Amazing SpiderMan Extra! 3
Died in Your Arms Tonight 600601, Annual 36; material from Amazing SpiderMan Family 7
RedHeaded Stranger 602605
Return of the Black Cat 606611; material from Web of SpiderMan vol. 2 1
The Gauntlet Book 1 Electro and Sandman 612616; Dark Reign The List The Amazing SpiderMan; Web of SpiderMan vol. 2 2 Electro story
The Gauntlet Book 2 Rhino and Mysterio 617621; Web of SpiderMan vol. 2 34
The Gauntlet Book 3
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Vulture and Morbius 622625; Web of SpiderMan vol. 2 2, 5 Vulture story
The Gauntlet Book 4 Juggernaut 229230, 626629
The Gauntlet Book 5 Lizard 629633; Web of SpiderMan vol. 2 6
SpiderMan Grim Hunt 634637; The Amazing SpiderMan Extra! 3; SpiderMan Grim Hunt The Kraven Saga; Web of SpiderMan vol. 2 7
One Moment in Time 638641
Origin of the Species 642647; SpiderMan Saga; Web of SpiderMan vol. 2 12
Big Time 648651
Matters of Life and Death 652657, 654.1
SpiderMan The Fantastic SpiderMan 658662
SpiderMan The Return Of AntiVenom 663665; Free Comic Book Day 2011 SpiderMan
SpiderMan SpiderIsland 666673; Venom 2011 68, SpiderIsland Deadly Foes; Infested prologues from 659660 and 662665
SpiderMan Flying Blind 674677; Daredevil 8
SpiderMan Trouble on the Horizon 678681, 679.1
SpiderMan Ends of the Earth 682687; Amazing SpiderMan Ends of the Earth 1; Avenging SpiderMan 8
SpiderMan Lizard No Turning Back 688691; Untold Tales of SpiderMan 9
SpiderMan Danger Zone 692697; Avenging SpiderMan
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11
SpiderMan Dying Wish 698700
The Amazing SpiderMan Omnibus Vol. 1 138, Annual 12; Amazing Fantasy 15; Strange Tales Annual 2; Fantastic Four Annual 1
The Amazing SpiderMan Omnibus Vol. 2 3967, Annual 35; Spectacular SpiderMan 12
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 1 110; Amazing Fantasy 15
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 2 1119, Annual 1
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 3 2030, Annual 2
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 4 3140
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 5 4150, Annual 3
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 6 5161, Annual 4
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 7 6267, Annual 5; The Spectacular SpiderMan 12 magazine
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 8 6877; Marvel Super Heroes 14
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 9 7887
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 10 8899
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 11 100109
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol
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. 12 110120
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 13 121131
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 14 132142; GiantSize SuperHeroes 1
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 15 143155; Marvel Special Edition Treasury 1
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 16 156168; Annual 10
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 17 169180; Annual 11; Nova 12; Marvel Treasury Edition 14
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 18 181192; Mighty Marvel Comics Calendar 1978; material From Annual 12
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 19 193202; Annual 13; Peter Parker, the Spectacular SpiderMan Annual 1
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 20 203212; Annual 14
Marvel Masterworks The Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 21 213223; Annual 15
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 1 The Parker Luck Vol. 3 1 6 e.g. legacy 732 737
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 2 SpiderVerse Prelude 7 8 e.g. legacy 738 739; Superior SpiderMan 32 33; Free Comic Book Day 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy 1
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Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 3 SpiderVerse 09 15 e.g. legacy 740 746
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 4 Graveyard Shift 16 18 e.g. legacy 747 749; Annual 2015
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 5 Spiral 16.120.1e.g. legacy 750 751
Amazing SpiderMan Renew Your Vows 1 5 e.g. legacy 752 756
Amazing SpiderMan Worldwide Vol. 1 Vol. 4 1 5
Amazing SpiderMan Worldwide Vol. 2 6 11
Amazing SpiderMan Worldwide Vol. 3 12 15
Amazing SpiderMan Worldwide Vol. 4 16 19
Amazing SpiderMan Worldwide Vol. 5 20 24, Annual 1
Amazing SpiderMan Worldwide Vol. 6 25 28
Amazing SpiderMan Worldwide Vol. 7 29 32 e.g. legacy 785 788, 789 791
Amazing SpiderMan Venom Inc. Venom Inc. Alpha, Venom Inc. Omega, 792 793, Venom 159 160
Amazing SpiderMan Worldwide Vol. 8 794796, Annual
Amazing SpiderMan Worldwide Vol. 9 797801
Amazing SpiderMan Red Goblin 794801
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 1 Back to Basics 15, FCBD 2018 Amazing SpiderMan
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 2 Friends and Foes 610
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 3 Lifetime Achievement 1115
Amazi
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ng SpiderMan Vol. 4 Hunted 1623, 16.1, 18.120.1
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 5 Behind the Scenes 2428
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 6 Absolute Carnage 2931
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 7 2099 3236
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 8 Threats Menaces 37 43 e.g. legacy 838 844
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 9 Sins Rising 4447, Amazing Spider Man Sins Rising 1
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 10 Green Goblin Returns 4849, Amazing SpiderMan The Sins of Norman Osborn 1, FCBD 2020 SpiderManVenom
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 11 Last Remains 5055
Amazing SpiderMan Last Remains Companion 50.154.1
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 12 Shattered Web 5660
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 13 King's Ransom 6165, Giant Size Amazing SpiderMan King's Ransom 1
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 14 Chameleon Conspiracy 6669, Giant Size Amazing SpiderMan Chameleon Conspiracy 1
Amazing SpiderMan Vol. 15 What Cost Victory? 7074
Amazing SpiderMan Beyond Vol. 1 7580
See also
References
External links
The Amazing SpiderMan comic book sales figures from 1966present at The Comics Chronicles
SpiderMan at
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Marvel Comics wikia
The Amazing SpiderMan cover gallery
Spiderman Videos
1963 comics debuts
Comics by Archie Goodwin comics
Comics by Dennis O'Neil
Comics by Gerry Conway
Comics by J. M. DeMatteis
Comics by J. Michael Straczynski
Comics by John Byrne comics
Comics by Len Wein
Comics by Mark Waid
Comics by Marv Wolfman
Comics by Stan Lee
Comics by Steve Ditko
SpiderMan titles
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AM may refer to
Arts and entertainment
Music
Skengdo AM, British rap duo
AM musician, American musician
A.M. musician, Canadian musician
DJ AM, American DJ and producer
AM Abraham Mateo album
A.M. Wilco album
A.M. Chris Young album
AM Arctic Monkeys album
Am, the A minor chord symbol
A minor, a minor scale in music
Armeemarschsammlung, Prussian Army March Collection Preuische Armeemarschsammlung
Television and radio
AM ABC Radio, Australian radio programme
American Morning, American television program
Am, Antes del Mediodia, Argentine television program
Other media
Allied Mastercomputer, the antagonist of the short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"
Education
Master of Arts, an academic degree
Arts et Mtiers ParisTech, a French engineering school
Active Minds, a mental health awareness charity
Science
Americium, a chemical element
Attometre, a unit of length
Adrenomedullin, a protein
Air mass astronomy
attomolar aM, a unit of molar concentration
Am, tropical monsoon cli
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mate in the Kppen climate classification
AM, a complexity class related to ArthurMerlin protocol
Technology
.am, Internet domain for Armenia
.am, a file extension associated with Automake software
Agile modeling, a software engineering methodology for modeling and documenting software systems
Amplitude modulation, an electronic communication technique
Additive Manufacturing, a process of making a threedimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model.
AM broadcasting, radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation
Antimateriel rifle
Automated Mathematician, an artificial intelligence program
Timekeeping
ante meridiem, Latin for "before midday"
Anno Mundi, a calendar era based on the biblical creation of the world
Anno Martyrum, a method of numbering years in the Coptic calendar
Transportation
A.M. automobile, a 1906 French car
Aeromxico IATA airline code AM
Arkansas and Missouri Railroad
Allmountain, a discipline of mountain biking
Military
AM, the United States Navy hul
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l classification symbol for "minesweeper"
Air marshal, a senior air officer rank used in Commonwealth countries
Antimateriel rifle
Aviation Structural Mechanic, a U.S. Navy occupational rating
Other uses
Am cuneiform, a written syllable
Member of the Order of Australia, postnominal letters which can be used by a Member of the Order
Assembly Member disambiguation, a political office
Member of the National Assembly for Wales
Member of the London Assembly
Amharic language ISO 6391 language code am
Armenia ISO country code AM
Attacking midfielder, a position in association football
First person singular present of the copula verb to be.
See also
Proam
am disambiguation
AM disambiguation
AM2 disambiguation
AMS disambiguation
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Antigua and Barbuda ; is a sovereign island country in the West Indies in the Americas, lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two major islands, Antigua and Barbuda separated by around , and smaller islands including Great Bird, Green, Guiana, Long, Maiden, Prickly Pear, York Islands, Redonda. The permanent population number is about 97,120 2019 est., with 97 residing on Antigua. The capital and largest port and city is St. John's on Antigua, with Codrington being the largest town on Barbuda. Lying near each other, Antigua and Barbuda are in the middle of the Leeward Islands, part of the Lesser Antilles, roughly at 17N of the equator.
The island of Antigua was explored by Christopher Columbus in 1493 and named for the Church of Santa Mara La Antigua. Antigua was colonized by Britain in 1632; Barbuda island was first colonised in 1678. Having been part of the Federal Colony of the Leeward Islands from 1871, Antigua and Barbuda joined the West Indies Federation in 1958. With t
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he breakup of the federation, it became one of the West Indies Associated States in 1967. Following selfgovernance in its internal affairs, independence was granted from the United Kingdom on 1 November 1981. Antigua and Barbuda is a member of the Commonwealth and Elizabeth II is the country's queen and head of state.
The economy of Antigua and Barbuda is particularly dependent on tourism, which accounts for 80 of GDP. Like other island nations, Antigua and Barbuda is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as sea level rise, and increased intensity of extreme weather like hurricanes, which have direct impacts on the island through coastal erosion, water scarcity, and other challenges. As of 2019, Antigua and Barbuda has a 0 individual income tax rate, as does neighboring St. Kitts and Nevis.
Etymology
is Spanish for 'ancient' and is Spanish for 'bearded'. The island of Antigua was originally called by Arawaks and is locally known by that name today; Caribs possibly called Barbuda
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. Christopher Columbus, while sailing by in 1493 may have named it , after an icon in the Spanish Seville Cathedral. The "bearded" of Barbuda is thought to refer either to the male inhabitants of the island, or the bearded fig trees present there.
History
Precolonial period
Antigua was first settled by archaic age huntergatherer Amerindians called the Ciboney. Carbon dating has established the earliest settlements started around 3100 BC. They were succeeded by the ceramic age preColumbian Arawakspeaking Saladoid people who migrated from the lower Orinoco River. They introduced agriculture, raising, among other crops, the famous Antigua black pineapple Ananas comosus, corn, sweet potatoes, chiles, guava, tobacco, and cotton. Later on the more bellicose Caribs also settled the island, possibly by force.
European arrival and settlement
Christopher Columbus was the first European to sight the islands in 1493. The Spanish did not colonise Antigua until after a combination of European and African diseases, maln
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utrition, and slavery eventually extirpated most of the native population; smallpox was probably the greatest killer.
The English settled on Antigua in 1632; Christopher Codrington settled on Barbuda in 1685. Tobacco and then sugar was grown, worked by a large population of slaves from West Africa who soon came to vastly outnumber the European settlers.
Colonial era
The English maintained control of the islands, repulsing an attempted French attack in 1666. The brutal conditions endured by the slaves led to revolts in 1701 and 1729 and a planned revolt in 1736, the last led by Prince Klaas, though it was discovered before it began and the ringleaders were executed. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, affecting the economy. This was exacerbated by natural disasters such as the 1843 earthquake and the 1847 hurricane. Mining occurred on the isle of Redonda, however, this ceased in 1929 and the island has since remained uninhabited.
Part of the Leeward Islands colony, Antigua and Barbuda becam
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e part of the shortlived West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962. Antigua and Barbuda subsequently became an associated state of the United Kingdom with full internal autonomy on 27 February 1967. The 1970s were dominated by discussions as to the islands' future and the rivalry between Vere Bird of the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party ABLP Premier from 1967 to 1971 and 1976 to 1981 and the Progressive Labour Movement PLM of George Walter Premier 19711976. Eventually, Antigua and Barbuda gained full independence on 1 November 1981; Vere Bird became Prime Minister of the new country. The country opted to remain within the Commonwealth, retaining Queen Elizabeth as head of state, with the last Governor, Sir Wilfred Jacobs, as GovernorGeneral.
Independence era
The first two decades of Antigua's independence were dominated politically by the Bird family and the ABLP, with Vere Bird ruling from 1981 to 1994, followed by his son Lester Bird from 1994 to 2004. Though providing a degree of political stability, and b
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oosting tourism to the country, the Bird governments were frequently accused of corruption, cronyism and financial malfeasance. Vere Bird Jr., the elder son, was forced to leave the cabinet in 1990 following a scandal in which he was accused of smuggling Israeli weapons to Colombian drugtraffickers. Another son, Ivor Bird, was convicted of selling cocaine in 1995.
In 1995, Hurricane Luis caused severe damage on Barbuda.
The ABLP's dominance of Antiguan politics ended with the 2004 Antiguan general election, which was won by Winston Baldwin Spencer's United Progressive Party UPP. Winston Baldwin Spencer was Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda from 2004 to 2014. However the UPP lost the 2014 Antiguan general election, with the ABLP returning to power under Gaston Browne. ABLP won 15 of the 17 seats in the 2018 snap election under the leadership of incumbent Prime Minister Gaston Browne.
Most of Barbuda was devastated in early September 2017 by Hurricane Irma, which brought winds with speeds reaching 295 km
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h 185 mph. The storm damaged or destroyed 95 of the island's buildings and infrastructure, leaving Barbuda "barely habitable" according to Prime Minister Gaston Browne. Nearly everyone on the island was evacuated to Antigua.
Amidst the following rebuilding efforts on Barbuda that were estimated to cost at least 100 million, the government announced plans to revoke a centuryold law of communal land ownership by allowing residents to buy land; a move that has been criticised as promoting "disaster capitalism".
Geography
Antigua and Barbuda both are generally lowlying islands whose terrain has been influenced more by limestone formations than volcanic activity. The highest point on Antigua and Barbuda is Boggy Peak, located in southwestern Antigua, which is the remnant of a volcanic crater rising .
The shorelines of both islands are greatly indented with beaches, lagoons, and natural harbours. The islands are rimmed by reefs and shoals. There are few streams as rainfall is slight. Both islands lack adequate a
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mounts of fresh groundwater.
About southwest of Antigua lies the small, rocky island of Redonda, which is uninhabited.
Cities and villages
The most populous cities in Antigua and Barbuda are mostly on Antigua, being Saint John's, All Saints, Piggotts, and Liberta. The most populous city on Barbuda is Codrington. It is estimated that 25 of the population lives in an Urban area, which is much lower than the international average of 55.
Islands
Antigua and Barbuda consists mostly of its two namesake islands, Antigua, and Barbuda, other than that, Antigua and Barbuda's biggest islands are Guiana Island and Long Island off the coast of Antigua, and Redonda island, which is far from both of the main islands.
Climate
Rainfall averages per year, with the amount varying widely from season to season. In general the wettest period is between September and November. The islands generally experience low humidity and recurrent droughts. Temperatures average , with a range from to in the winter to from to in t
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he summer and autumn. The coolest period is between December and February.
Hurricanes strike on an average of once a year, including the powerful Category 5 Hurricane Irma, on 6 September 2017, which damaged 95 of the structures on Barbuda. Some 1,800 people were evacuated to Antigua.
An estimate published by Time indicated that over 100 million would be required to rebuild homes and infrastructure. Philmore Mullin, Director of Barbuda's National Office of Disaster Services, said that "all critical infrastructure and utilities are nonexistent food supply, medicine, shelter, electricity, water, communications, waste management". He summarised the situation as follows "Public utilities need to be rebuilt in their entirety... It is optimistic to think anything can be rebuilt in six months ... In my 25 years in disaster management, I have never seen something like this."
Environmental issues
Demographics
Ethnic groups
Antigua has a population of , mostly made up of people of West African, British, and Madei
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ran descent. The ethnic distribution consists of 91 Black, 4.4 mixed race, 1.7 White, and 2.9 other primarily East Indian. Most Whites are of British descent. Christian Levantine Arabs and a small number of East Asians and Sephardic Jews make up the remainder of the population.
An increasingly large percentage of the population lives abroad, most notably in the United Kingdom Antiguan Britons, the United States and Canada. A minority of Antiguan residents are immigrants from other countries, particularly from Dominica, Guyana and Jamaica, and, increasingly, from the Dominican Republic, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Nigeria. An estimated 4,500 American citizens also make their home in Antigua and Barbuda, making their numbers one of the largest American populations in the Englishspeaking Eastern Caribbean.
Languages
English is the official language. The Barbudan accent is slightly different from the Antiguan.
In the years before Antigua and Barbuda's independence, Standard English was widely spoken in
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preference to Antiguan Creole. Generally, the upper and middle classes shun Antiguan Creole. The educational system dissuades the use of Antiguan Creole and instruction is done in Standard British English.
Many of the words used in the Antiguan dialect are derived from British as well as African languages. This can be easily seen in phrases such as "Ent it?" meaning "Ain't it?" which is itself dialectal and means "Isn't it?". Common island proverbs can often be traced to Africa.
Spanish is spoken by around 10,000 inhabitants.
Religion
A majority 77 of Antiguans are Christians, with the Anglicans 17.6 being the largest single denomination. Other Christian denominations present are Seventhday Adventist Church 12.4, Pentecostalism 12.2, Moravian Church 8.3, Roman Catholics
8.2, Methodist Church 5.6, Wesleyan Holiness Church 4.5, Church of God 4.1, Baptists 3.6, Mormonism 1.0, as well as Jehovah's Witnesses.
NonChristian religions practiced in the islands include the Rastafari, Islam, and Bah Faith.
Governa
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nce
Political system
The politics of Antigua and Barbuda take place within a framework of a unitary, parliamentary, representative democratic monarchy, in which the head of State is the monarch who appoints the GovernorGeneral as viceregal representative. Elizabeth II is the present Queen of Antigua and Barbuda, having served in that position since the islands' independence from the United Kingdom in 1981. The Queen is currently represented by GovernorGeneral Sir Rodney Williams. A council of ministers is appointed by the governorgeneral on the advice of the prime minister, currently Gaston Browne 2014. The prime minister is the head of government.
Executive power is exercised by the government while legislative power is vested in both the government and the two Chambers of Parliament. The bicameral Parliament consists of the Senate 17 members appointed by members of the government and the opposition party, and approved by the GovernorGeneral, and the House of Representatives 17 members elected by first pa
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st the post to serve fiveyear terms.
The current Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is the United Progressive Party Member of Parliament MP, the Honourable Baldwin Spencer.
Elections
The last election was held on 21 March 2018. The Antigua Barbuda Labour Party ABLP led by Prime Minister Gaston Browne won 15 of the 17 seats in the House of Representatives. The previous election was on 12 June 2014, during which the Antigua Labour Party won 14 seats, and the United Progressive Party 3 seats.
Since 1951, elections have been won by the populist Antigua Labour Party. However, in the Antigua and Barbuda legislative election of 2004 saw the defeat of the longestserving elected government in the Caribbean.
Vere Bird was Prime Minister from 1981 to 1994 and Chief Minister of Antigua from 1960 to 1981, except for the 19711976 period when the Progressive Labour Movement PLM defeated his party. Bird, the nation's first Prime Minister, is credited with having brought Antigua and Barbuda and the Caribbean into a
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new era of independence. Prime Minister Lester Bryant Bird succeeded the elder Bird in 1994.
Party elections
Gaston Browne defeated his predecessor Lester Bryant Bird at the Antigua Labour Party's biennial convention in November 2012 held to elect a political leader and other officers. The party then altered its name from the Antigua Labour Party ALP to the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party ABLP. This was done to officially include the party's presence on the sister island of Barbuda in its organisation, the only political party on the mainland to have a physical branch in Barbuda.
Judiciary
The Judicial branch is the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court based in Saint Lucia; one judge of the Supreme Court is a resident of the islands and presides over the High Court of Justice. Antigua is also a member of the Caribbean Court of Justice. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council serves as its Supreme Court of Appeal.
Foreign relations
Antigua and Barbuda is a member of the United Nations, the Bolivarian All
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iance for the Americas, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Caribbean Community, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, the Organization of American States, the World Trade Organization and the Eastern Caribbean's Regional Security System.
Antigua and Barbuda is also a member of the International Criminal Court with a Bilateral Immunity Agreement of Protection for the US military as covered under Article 98 of the Rome Statute.
In 2013, Antigua and Barbuda called for reparations for slavery at the United Nations. Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer said "We have recently seen a number of leaders apologising", and that they should now "match their words with concrete and material benefits."
Military
The Royal Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force has around 260 members dispersed between the line infantry regiment, service and support unit and coast guard. There is also the Antigua and Barbuda Cadet Corps made up of 200 teenagers between the ages of 12 to 18.
In 2018, Antigua and Barbuda signed the UN treaty on
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the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Administrative divisions
Antigua and Barbuda is divided into six parishes and two dependencies
Note Though Barbuda and Redonda are called dependencies they are integral parts of the state, making them essentially administrative divisions. Dependency is simply a title.
Human rights
Antigua and Barbuda does not allow discrimination in employment, child labor, human trafficking, and there are laws against domestic abuse and child abuse. Although it has not been enforced or a case brought to trial in many years, like other Caribbean islands, samesex sexual activity is illegal in Antigua and Barbuda and punishable by prison time. There are several current movements under way to repeal the buggery laws.
Economy
Tourism dominates the economy, accounting for more than half of the gross domestic product GDP. Antigua is famous for its many luxury resorts as an ultrahighend travel destination. Weakened tourist activity in the lower and middle market segments since early 2000 h
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as slowed the economy, however, and squeezed the government into a tight fiscal corner. Antigua and Barbuda has enacted policies to attract highnetworth citizens and residents, such as enacting a 0 personal income tax rate in 2019.
Investment banking and financial services also make up an important part of the economy. Major world banks with offices in Antigua include the Royal Bank of Canada RBC and Scotiabank. Financialservices corporations with offices in Antigua include PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has accused the Antiguabased Stanford International Bank, owned by Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, of orchestrating a huge fraud which may have bilked investors of some 8 billion.
The twinisland nation's agricultural production is focused on its domestic market and constrained by a limited water supply and a labour shortage stemming from the lure of higher wages in tourism and construction work.
Manufacturing is made up of enclavetype assembly for export, the major prod
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ucts being bedding, handicrafts and electronic components. Prospects for economic growth in the medium term will continue to depend on income growth in the industrialised world, especially in the United States, from which about onethird of all tourists come.
Access to biocapacity is lower than world average. In 2016, Antigua and Barbuda had 0.8 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016, Antigua and Barbuda used 4.3 global hectares of biocapacity per person their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use more biocapacity than Antigua and Barbuda contains. As a result, Antigua and Barbuda are running a biocapacity deficit.
Following the opening of the American University of Antigua College of Medicine by investor and attorney Neil Simon in 2003, a new source of revenue was established. The university employs many local Antiguans and the approximate 1000 students consume a large amount of the goods
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and services.
Antigua and Barbuda also uses an economic citizenship program to spur investment into the country.
Transport
Education
Culture
The culture is predominantly a mixture of West African and British cultural influences.
Cricket is the national sport. Other popular sports include football, boat racing and surfing. Antigua Sailing Week attracts locals and visitors from all over the world.
Music
Festivals
The national Carnival held each August commemorates the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies, although on some islands, Carnival may celebrate the coming of Lent. Its festive pageants, shows, contests and other activities are a major tourist attraction.
Cuisine
Media
There are three newspapers the Antigua Daily Observer, Antigua New Room and The Antiguan Times. The Antigua Observer is the only daily printed newspaper.
The local television channel ABS TV 10 is available it is the only station that shows exclusively local programs. There are also several local and regional radio s
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tations, such as V2CAM 620, ZDKAM 1100, VYBZFM 92.9, ZDKFM 97.1, Observer Radio 91.1 FM, DNECA Radio 90.1 FM, Second Advent Radio 101.5 FM, Abundant Life Radio 103.9 FM, Crusader Radio 107.3 FM, Nice FM 104.3.
Literature
Antiguan author Jamaica Kincaid has published over 20 works of literature.
Sports
The Antigua and Barbuda national cricket team represented the country at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, but Antiguan cricketers otherwise play for the Leeward Islands cricket team in domestic matches and the West Indies cricket team internationally. The 2007 Cricket World Cup was hosted in the West Indies from 11 March to 28 April 2007.
Antigua hosted eight matches at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, which was completed on 11 February 2007 and can hold up to 20,000 people.
Antigua is a Host of Stanford Twenty20 Twenty20 Cricket, a version started by Allen Stanford in 2006 as a regional cricket game with almost all Caribbean islands taking part.Sir Vivian Richards Stadium is set to host 2022 ICC Under19 Cricke
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t World Cup.
Rugby and Netball are popular as well.
Association football, or soccer, is also a very popular sport. Antigua has a national football team which entered World Cup qualification for the 1974 tournament and for 1986 and beyond. A professional team was formed in 2011, Antigua Barracuda FC, which played in the USL Pro, a lower professional league in the USA. The nation's team had a major achievement in 2012, getting out of its preliminary group for the 2014 World Cup, notably due to a victory over powerful Haiti. In its first game in the next CONCACAF group play on 8 June 2012 in Tampa, FL, Antigua and Barbuda, comprising 17 Barracuda players and 7 from the lower English professional leagues, scored a goal against the United States. However, the team lost 31 to the US.
Daniel Bailey had become the first Antiguan to reach a world indoor final, where he won a bronze medal at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships. He was also the first Antiguan to make a 100m final at the 2009 World Championships i
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n Athletics, and the first Antiguan to run under 10 seconds over 100m.
Brendan Christian won a gold medal in the 200m and bronze medal in the 100m at the 2007 Pan American Games. James Grayman won a bronze medal at the same games in the men's High Jump.
Miguel Francis is the first Antiguan to run sub 20 seconds in the 200m
Heather Samuel won a bronze medal at the 1995 Pan American Games over 100m.
400m Hurdles Olympian Gold Medalist Rai Benjamin previously represented Antigua and Barbuda before representing the United States. His Silver medal run at the 2020 Olympic Games made him the secondfastest person in history over 400m Hurdles with a time of 46.17.
Notable people
Symbols
The national bird is the frigate bird, and the national tree is the Bucida buceras Whitewood tree.
Clare Waight Keller included agave karatto to represent Antigua and Barbuda in Meghan Markle's wedding veil, which included the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country.
Despite being an introduced species, the European fal
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low deer Dama dama is the national animal.
In 1992, the government ran a national competition to design a new national dress for the country; this was won by artist Heather Doram.
See also
Geology of Antigua and Barbuda
Outline of Antigua and Barbuda
Index of Antigua and Barbudarelated articles
Transport in Antigua and Barbuda
References
Works cited
Further reading
Nicholson, Desmond V., Antigua, Barbuda, and Redonda A Historical Sketch, St. Johns, Antigua Antigua and Barbuda Museum, 1991.
Dyde, Brian, A History of Antigua The Unsuspected Isle, London Macmillan Caribbean, 2000.
Gaspar, David Barry Bondmen Rebels A Study of MasterSlave Relations in Antigua, with Implications for Colonial America.
Harris, David R. Plants, Animals, and Man in the Outer Leeward Islands, West Indies. An Ecological Study of Antigua, Barbuda, and Anguilla.
Henry, Paget Peripheral Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Antigua.
LazarusBlack, Mindie Legitimate Acts and Illegal Encounters Law and Society in Antigua and
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Barbuda.
Riley, J. H. Catalogue of a Collection of Birds from Barbuda and Antigua, British West Indies.
Rouse, Irving and Birgit Faber Morse Excavations at the Indian Creek Site, Antigua, West Indies.
Thomas Hearne. Southampton.
External links
Antigua and Barbuda, United States Library of Congress
Antigua and Barbuda. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
Antigua and Barbuda from UCB Libraries GovPubs
Antigua and Barbuda from the BBC News
World Bank's country data profile for Antigua and Barbuda
ArchaeologyAntigua.org 2010March13 source of archaeological information for Antigua and Barbuda
Countries in the Caribbean
Island countries
Commonwealth realms
Countries in North America
Englishspeaking countries and territories
Member states of the Caribbean Community
Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations
Member states of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States
Current member states of the United Nations
Small Island Developing States
British Leeward Islands
Former Briti
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sh colonies and protectorates in the Americas
Former colonies in North America
1630s establishments in the Caribbean
1632 establishments in the British Empire
1981 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
States and territories established in 1981
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Azincourt , historically known in English as Agincourt , is a commune in the PasdeCalais department in northern France. It is situated northwest of SaintPolsurTernoise on the D71 road between Hesdin and Fruges
The Late Medieval Battle of Agincourt between the English and the French took place in the commune in 1415.
Toponym
The name is attested as Aisincurt in 1175, derived from a Germanic masculine name Aizo, Aizino and the early Northern French word curt which meant a farm with a courtyard; derived from the Late Latin cortem. The name has no etymological link with Agincourt, MeurtheetMoselle attested as Egincourt 875, which is derived separately from another Germanic male name Ingin.
History
Azincourt is famous as being near the site of the battle fought on 25 October 1415 in which the army led by King Henry V of England defeated the forces led by Charles d'Albret on behalf of Charles VI of France, which has gone down in history as the Battle of Agincourt. According to M. Forrest, the French knights we
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re so encumbered by their armour that they were exhausted even before the start of the battle.
Later on, when he became king in 1509, Henry VIII is supposed to have commissioned an English translation of a Life of Henry V so that he could emulate him, on the grounds that he thought that launching a campaign against France would help him to impose himself on the European stage. In 1513, Henry VIII crossed the English Channel, stopping by at Azincourt.
The battle, as was the tradition, was named after a nearby castle called Azincourt. The castle has since disappeared and the settlement now known as Azincourt adopted the name in the seventeenth century.
John Cassell wrote in 1857 that "the village of Azincourt itself is now a group of dirty farmhouses and wretched cottages, but where the hottest of the battle raged, between that village and the commune of Tramecourt, there still remains a wood precisely corresponding with the one in which Henry placed his ambush; and there are yet existing the foundations of
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the castle of Azincourt, from which the king named the field."
Population
Sights
The original battlefield museum in the village featured model knights made out of Action Man figures. This has now been replaced by the Centre historique mdival d'Azincourt CHMa more professional museum, conference centre and exhibition space incorporating laser, video, slide shows, audio commentaries, and some interactive elements. The museum building is shaped like a longbow similar to those used at the battle by archers under King Henry.
Since 2004 a large medieval festival organised by the local community, the CHM, The Azincourt Alliance, and various other UK societies commemorating the battle, local history and medieval life, arts and crafts has been held in the village. Prior to this date the festival was held in October, but due to the inclement weather and local heavy clay soil like the battle making the festival difficult, it was moved to the last Sunday in July.
International relations
Azincourt is twinned with Mi
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ddleham, United Kingdom.
See also
Communes of the PasdeCalais department
The neighbourhood of Agincourt, Toronto, Canada, named for Azincourt, not Agincourt, MeurtheetMoselle
References
INSEE commune file
Communes of PasdeCalais
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Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer ; ; 19 March 1905 1 September 1981 was a German architect who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, he was convicted at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
An architect by training, Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931. His architectural skills made him increasingly prominent within the Party, and he became a member of Hitler's inner circle. Hitler commissioned him to design and construct structures including the Reich Chancellery and the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg. In 1937, Hitler appointed Speer as General Building Inspector for Berlin. In this capacity he was responsible for the Central Department for Resettlement that evicted Jewish tenants from their homes in Berlin. In February 1942, Speer was appointed as Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. Using misleading statistics, he promoted himself as having performed an "armaments miracle"
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that was widely credited with keeping Germany in the war. In 1944, Speer established a task force to increase production of fighter aircraft. It became instrumental in the exploitation of slave labor for the benefit of the German war effort.
After the war, Speer was among the 24 "major war criminals" arrested and charged with the crimes of the Nazi regime at the Nuremberg trials. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, principally for the use of slave labor, narrowly avoiding a death sentence. Having served his full term, Speer was released in 1966. He used his writings from the time of imprisonment as the basis for two autobiographical books, Inside the Third Reich and Spandau The Secret Diaries. Speer's books were a success; the public was fascinated by an inside view of the Third Reich. Speer died of a stroke in 1981. Little remains of his personal architectural work.
Through his autobiographies and interviews, Speer carefully constructed an image of himself as a man who deeply re
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gretted having failed to discover the monstrous crimes of the Third Reich. He continued to deny explicit knowledge of, and responsibility for the Holocaust. This image dominated his historiography in the decades following the war, giving rise to the "Speer Myth" the perception of him as an apolitical technocrat responsible for revolutionizing the German war machine. The myth began to fall apart in the 1980s, when the armaments miracle was attributed to Nazi propaganda. Adam Tooze wrote in The Wages of Destruction that the idea that Speer was an apolitical technocrat was "absurd". Martin Kitchen, writing in Speer Hitler's Architect, stated that much of the increase in Germany's arms production was actually due to systems instituted by Speer's predecessor Fritz Todt and furthermore that Speer was intimately involved in the "Final Solution".
Early years and personal life
Speer was born in Mannheim, into an uppermiddleclass family. He was the second of three sons of Luise Mthilde Wilhelmine Hommel and Albert Fri
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edrich Speer. In 1918, the family leased their Mannheim residence and moved to a home they had in Heidelberg. Henry T. King, deputy prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials who later wrote a book about Speer said, "Love and warmth were lacking in the household of Speer's youth." His brothers, Ernst and Hermann, bullied him throughout his childhood. Speer was active in sports, taking up skiing and mountaineering. He followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and studied architecture.
Speer began his architectural studies at the University of Karlsruhe instead of a more highly acclaimed institution because the hyperinflation crisis of 1923 limited his parents' income. In 1924, when the crisis had abated, he transferred to the "much more reputable" Technical University of Munich. In 1925, he transferred again, this time to the Technical University of Berlin where he studied under Heinrich Tessenow, whom Speer greatly admired. After passing his exams in 1927, Speer became Tessenow's assistant, a high hono
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r for a man of 22. As such, Speer taught some of his classes while continuing his own postgraduate studies. In Munich Speer began a close friendship, ultimately spanning over 50 years, with Rudolf Wolters, who also studied under Tessenow.
In mid1922, Speer began courting Margarete Margret Weber 19051987, the daughter of a successful craftsman who employed 50 workers. The relationship was frowned upon by Speer's classconscious mother, who felt the Webers were socially inferior. Despite this opposition, the two married in Berlin on 28 August 1928; seven years elapsed before Margarete was invited to stay at her inlaws' home. The couple would have six children together, but Albert Speer grew increasingly distant from his family after 1933. He remained so even after his release from imprisonment in 1966, despite their efforts to forge closer bonds.
Party architect and government functionary
Joining the Nazis 19311934
In January 1931, Speer applied for Nazi Party membership, and on 1 March 1931, he became membe
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r number 474,481. The same year, with stipends shrinking amid the Depression, Speer surrendered his position as Tessenow's assistant and moved to Mannheim, hoping to make a living as an architect. After he failed to do so, his father gave him a parttime job as manager of his properties. In July 1932, the Speers visited Berlin to help out the Party before the Reichstag elections. While they were there his friend, Nazi Party official Karl Hanke recommended the young architect to Joseph Goebbels to help renovate the Party's Berlin headquarters. When the commission was completed, Speer returned to Mannheim and remained there as Hitler took office in January 1933.
The organizers of the 1933 Nuremberg Rally asked Speer to submit designs for the rally, bringing him into contact with Hitler for the first time. Neither the organizers nor Rudolf Hess were willing to decide whether to approve the plans, and Hess sent Speer to Hitler's Munich apartment to seek his approval. This work won Speer his first national post, a
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s Nazi Party "Commissioner for the Artistic and Technical Presentation of Party Rallies and Demonstrations".
Shortly after Hitler came into power, he began to make plans to rebuild the chancellery. At the end of 1933, he contracted Paul Troost to renovate the entire building. Hitler appointed Speer, whose work for Goebbels had impressed him, to manage the building site for Troost. As Chancellor, Hitler had a residence in the building and came by every day to be briefed by Speer and the building supervisor on the progress of the renovations. After one of these briefings, Hitler invited Speer to lunch, to the architect's great excitement. Speer quickly became part of Hitler's inner circle; he was expected to call on him in the morning for a walk or chat, to provide consultation on architectural matters, and to discuss Hitler's ideas. Most days he was invited to dinner.
In the English version of his memoirs, Speer says that his political commitment merely consisted of paying his "monthly dues". He assumed his
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German readers would not be so gullible and told them the Nazi Party offered a "new mission". He was more forthright in an interview with William Hamsher in which he said he joined the party in order to save "Germany from Communism". After the war, he claimed to have had little interest in politics at all and had joined almost by chance. Like many of those in power in the Third Reich, he was not an ideologue, "nor was he anything more than an instinctive antiSemite." The historian Magnus Brechtken, discussing Speer, said he did not give antiJewish public speeches and that his antiSemitism can best be understood through his actionswhich were antiSemitic. Brechtken added that, throughout Speer's life, his central motives were to gain power, rule, and acquire wealth.
Nazi architect 19341937
When Troost died on 21 January 1934, Speer effectively replaced him as the Party's chief architect. Hitler appointed Speer as head of the Chief Office for Construction, which placed him nominally on Hess's staff.
One of Sp
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eer's first commissions after Troost's death was the Zeppelinfeld stadium in Nuremberg. It was used for Nazi propaganda rallies and can be seen in Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film Triumph of the Will. The building was able to hold 340,000 people. Speer insisted that as many events as possible be held at night, both to give greater prominence to his lighting effects and to hide the overweight Nazis. Nuremberg was the site of many official Nazi buildings. Many more buildings were planned. If built, the German Stadium would have accommodated 400,000 spectators. Speer modified Werner March's design for the Olympic Stadium being built for the 1936 Summer Olympics. He added a stone exterior that pleased Hitler. Speer designed the German Pavilion for the 1937 international exposition in Paris.
Berlin's General Building Inspector 19371942
On 30 January 1937, Hitler appointed Speer as General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital. This carried with it the rank of State Secretary in the Reich government and gave
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him extraordinary powers over the Berlin city government. He was to report directly to Hitler, and was independent of both the mayor and the Gauleiter of Berlin. Hitler ordered Speer to develop plans to rebuild Berlin. These centered on a threemilelong grand boulevard running from north to south, which Speer called the Prachtstrasse, or Street of Magnificence; he also referred to it as the "NorthSouth Axis". At the northern end of the boulevard, Speer planned to build the Volkshalle, a huge domed assembly hall over high, with floor space for 180,000 people. At the southern end of the avenue, a great triumphal arch, almost high and able to fit the Arc de Triomphe inside its opening, was planned. The existing Berlin railroad termini were to be dismantled, and two large new stations built. Speer hired Wolters as part of his design team, with special responsibility for the Prachtstrasse. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 led to the postponement, and later the abandonment, of these plans.
Plans to build a n
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ew Reich chancellery had been underway since 1934. Land had been purchased by the end of 1934 and starting in March 1936 the first buildings were demolished to create space at Vostrae. Speer was involved virtually from the beginning. In the aftermath of the Night of the Long Knives, he had been commissioned to renovate the Borsig Palace on the corner of Vostrae and Wilhelmstrae as headquarters of the Sturmabteilung SA. He completed the preliminary work for the new chancellery by May 1936. In June 1936 he charged a personal honorarium of 30,000 Reichsmark and estimated the chancellery would be completed within three to four years. Detailed plans were completed in July 1937 and the first shell of the new chancellery was complete on 1 January 1938. On 27 January 1938, Speer received plenipotentiary powers from Hitler to finish the new chancellery by 1 January 1939. For propaganda Hitler claimed during the toppingout ceremony on 2 August 1938, that he had ordered Speer to complete the new chancellery that year. S
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hortages of labor meant the construction workers had to work in tentotwelvehour shifts. The Schutzstaffel SS built two concentration camps in 1938 and used the inmates to quarry stone for its construction. A brick factory was built near the Oranienburg concentration camp at Speer's behest; when someone commented on the poor conditions there, Speer stated, "The Yids got used to making bricks while in Egyptian captivity". The chancellery was completed in early January 1939. The building itself was hailed by Hitler as the "crowning glory of the greater German political empire".
During the Chancellery project, the pogrom of Kristallnacht took place. Speer made no mention of it in the first draft of Inside the Third Reich. It was only on the urgent advice of his publisher that he added a mention of seeing the ruins of the Central Synagogue in Berlin from his car. Kristallnacht accelerated Speer's ongoing efforts to dispossess Berlin's Jews from their homes. From 1939 on, Speer's Department used the Nuremberg Laws
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to evict Jewish tenants of nonJewish landlords in Berlin, to make way for nonJewish tenants displaced by redevelopment or bombing. Eventually, 75,000 Jews were displaced by these measures. Speer denied he knew they were being put on Holocaust trains and claimed that those displaced were, "Completely free and their families were still in their apartments". He also said " ... en route to my ministry on the city highway, I could see ... crowds of people on the platform of nearby Nikolassee Railroad Station. I knew that these must be Berlin Jews who were being evacuated. I am sure that an oppressive feeling struck me as I drove past. I presumably had a sense of somber events." Matthias Schmidt said Speer had personally inspected concentration camps and described his comments as an "outright farce". Martin Kitchen described Speer's often repeated line that he knew nothing of the "dreadful things" as hollowbecause not only was he fully aware of the fate of the Jews he was actively participating in their persecutio
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n.
As Germany started World War II in Europe, Speer instituted quickreaction squads to construct roads or clear away debris; before long, these units would be used to clear bomb sites. Speer used forced Jewish labor on these projects, in addition to regular German workers. Construction stopped on the Berlin and Nremberg plans at the outbreak of war. Though stockpiling of materials and other work continued, this slowed to a halt as more resources were needed for the armament industry. Speer's offices undertook building work for each branch of the military, and for the SS, using slave labor. Speer's building work made him among the wealthiest of the Nazi elite.
Minister of Armaments
Appointment and increasing power
In 1941, Speer was elected to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 2 BerlinWest. On 8 February 1942, Reich Minister of Armaments and Munitions Fritz Todt died in a plane crash shortly after taking off from Hitler's eastern headquarters at Rastenburg. Speer arrived there the previous evening
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and accepted Todt's offer to fly with him to Berlin. Speer cancelled some hours before takeoff because the previous night he had been up late in a meeting with Hitler. Hitler appointed Speer in Todt's place. Martin Kitchen, a British historian, says that the choice was not surprising. Speer was loyal to Hitler, and his experience building prisoner of war camps and other structures for the military qualified him for the job. Speer succeeded Todt not only as Reich Minister but in all his other powerful positions, including Inspector General of German Roadways, Inspector General for Water and Energy and Head of the Nazi Party's Office of Technology. At the same time, Hitler also appointed Speer as head of the Organisation Todt, a massive, governmentcontrolled construction company. Characteristically Hitler did not give Speer any clear remit; he was left to fight his contemporaries in the regime for power and control. As an example, he wanted to be given power over all armaments issues under Hermann Gring's Four
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Year Plan. Gring was reluctant to grant this. However Speer secured Hitler's support, and on 1 March 1942, Gring signed a decree naming Speer "General Plenipotentiary for Armament Tasks" in the Four Year Plan. Speer proved to be ambitious, unrelenting and ruthless. Speer set out to gain control not just of armaments production in the army, but in the whole armed forces. It did not immediately dawn on his political rivals that his calls for rationalization and reorganization were hiding his desire to sideline them and take control. By April 1942, Speer had persuaded Gring to create a threemember Central Planning Board within the Four Year Plan, which he used to obtain supreme authority over procurement and allocation of raw materials and scheduling of production in order to consolidate German war production in a single agency.
Speer was fted at the time, and in the postwar era, for performing an "armaments miracle" in which German war production dramatically increased. This "miracle" was brought to a halt in
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the summer of 1943 by, among other factors, the first sustained Allied bombing. Other factors probably contributed to the increase more than Speer himself. Germany's armaments production had already begun to result in increases under his predecessor, Todt. Naval armaments were not under Speer's supervision until October 1943, nor the Luftwaffe's armaments until June of the following year. Yet each showed comparable increases in production despite not being under Speer's control. Another factor that produced the boom in ammunition was the policy of allocating more coal to the steel industry. Production of every type of weapon peaked in June and July 1944, but there was now a severe shortage of fuel. After August 1944, oil from the Romanian fields was no longer available. Oil production became so low that any possibility of offensive action became impossible and weaponry lay idle.
As Minister of Armaments, Speer was responsible for supplying weapons to the army. With Hitler's full agreement, he decided to prio
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ritize tank production, and he was given unrivaled power to ensure success. Hitler was closely involved with the design of the tanks, but kept changing his mind about the specifications. This delayed the program, and Speer was unable to remedy the situation. In consequence, despite tank production having the highest priority, relatively little of the armaments budget was spent on it. This led to a significant German Army failure at the Battle of Prokhorovka, a major turning point on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Red Army.
As head of Organisation Todt, Speer was directly involved in the construction and alteration of concentration camps. He agreed to expand Auschwitz and some other camps, allocating 13.7 million Reichsmarks for the work to be carried out. This allowed an extra 300 huts to be built at Auschwitz, increasing the total human capacity to 132,000. Included in the building works was material to build gas chambers, crematoria and morgues. The SS called this "Professor Speer's Special Programme
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".
Speer realized that with six million workers drafted into the armed forces, there was a labor shortage in the war economy, and not enough workers for his factories. In response, Hitler appointed Fritz Sauckel as a "manpower dictator" to obtain new workers. Speer and Sauckel cooperated closely to meet Speer's labor demands. Hitler gave Sauckel a free hand to obtain labor, something that delighted Speer, who had requested 1,000,000 "voluntary" laborers to meet the need for armament workers. Sauckel had whole villages in France, Holland and Belgium forcibly rounded up and shipped to Speer's factories. Sauckel obtained new workers often using the most brutal methods. In occupied areas of the Soviet Union, that had been subject to partisan action, civilian men and women were rounded up en masse and sent to work forcibly in Germany. By April 1943, Sauckel had supplied 1,568,801 "voluntary" laborers, forced laborers, prisoners of war and concentration camp prisoners to Speer for use in his armaments factories. I
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t was for the maltreatment of these people, that Speer was principally convicted at the Nuremberg Trials.
Consolidation of arms production
Following his appointment as Minister of Armaments, Speer was in control of armaments production solely for the Army. He coveted control of the production of armaments for the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine as well. He set about extending his power and influence with unexpected ambition. His close relationship with Hitler provided him with political protection, and he was able to outwit and outmaneuver his rivals in the regime. Hitler's cabinet was dismayed at his tactics, but, regardless, he was able to accumulate new responsibilities and more power. By July 1943, he had gained control of armaments production for the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. In August 1943, he took control of most of the Ministry of Economics, to become, in Admiral Dnitz's words, "Europe's economic dictator". His formal title was changed on 2 September 1943, to "Reich Minister for Armaments and War Produ
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ction". He had become one of the most powerful people in Nazi Germany.
Speer and his handpicked director of submarine construction Otto Merker believed that the shipbuilding industry was being held back by outdated methods, and revolutionary new approaches imposed by outsiders would dramatically improve output. This belief proved incorrect, and Speer and Merker's attempt to build the Kriegsmarines new generation of submarines, the Type XXI and Type XXIII, as prefabricated sections at different facilities rather than at single dockyards contributed to the failure of this strategically important program. The designs were rushed into production, and the completed submarines were crippled by flaws which resulted from the way they had been constructed. While dozens of submarines were built, few ever entered service.
In December 1943, Speer visited Organisation Todt workers in Lapland, while there he seriously damaged his knee and was incapacitated for several months. He was under the dubious care of Professor Ka
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rl Gebhardt at a medical clinic called Hohenlychen where patients "mysteriously failed to survive". In midJanuary 1944, Speer had a lung embolism and fell seriously ill. Concerned about retaining power, he did not appoint a deputy and continued to direct work of the Armaments Ministry from his bedside. Speer's illness coincided with the Allied "Big Week", a series of bombing raids on the German aircraft factories that were a devastating blow to aircraft production. His political rivals used the opportunity to undermine his authority and damage his reputation with Hitler. He lost Hitler's unconditional support and began to lose power.
In response to the Allied Big Week, Adolf Hitler authorized the creation of a Fighter Staff committee. Its aim was to ensure the preservation and growth of fighter aircraft production. The task force was established by 1 March 1944, orders of Speer, with support from Erhard Milch of the Reich Aviation Ministry. Production of German fighter aircraft more than doubled between 1943
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and 1944. The growth, however, consisted in large part of models that were becoming obsolescent and proved easy prey for Allied aircraft. On 1 August 1944, Speer merged the Fighter Staff into a newly formed Armament Staff committee.
The Fighter Staff committee was instrumental in bringing about the increased exploitation of slave labor in the war economy. The SS provided 64,000 prisoners for 20 separate projects from various concentration camps including MittelbauDora. Prisoners worked for Junkers, Messerschmitt, Henschel and BMW, among others. To increase production, Speer introduced a system of punishments for his workforce. Those who feigned illness, slacked off, sabotaged production or tried to escape were denied food or sent to concentration camps. In 1944, this became endemic; over half a million workers were arrested. By this time, 140,000 people were working in Speer's underground factories. These factories were deathtraps; discipline was brutal, with regular executions. There were so many corpses a
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t the Dora underground factory, for example, that the crematorium was overwhelmed. Speer's own staff described the conditions there as "hell".
The largest technological advance under Speer's command came through the rocket program. It began in 1932 but had not supplied any weaponry. Speer enthusiastically supported the program and in March 1942 made an order for A4 rockets, the predecessor of the world's first ballistic missile, the V2 rocket. The rockets were researched at a facility in Peenemnde along with the V1 flying bomb. The V2's first target was Paris on 8 September 1944. The program while advanced proved to be an impediment to the war economy. The large capital investment was not repaid in military effectiveness. The rockets were built at an underground factory at Mittelwerk. Labor to build the A4 rockets came from the MittelbauDora concentration camp. Of the 60,000 people who ended up at the camp 20,000 died, due to the appalling conditions.
On 14 April 1944, Speer lost control of Organisation Tod
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t to his Deputy, Franz Xaver Dorsch. He opposed the assassination attempt against Hitler on 20 July 1944. He was not involved in the plot, and played a minor role in the regime's efforts to regain control over Berlin after Hitler survived. After the plot Speer's rivals attacked some of his closest allies and his management system fell out of favor with radicals in the party. He lost yet more authority.
Defeat of Nazi Germany
Losses of territory and a dramatic expansion of the Allied strategic bombing campaign caused the collapse of the German economy from late 1944. Air attacks on the transport network were particularly effective, as they cut the main centres of production off from essential coal supplies. In January 1945, Speer told Goebbels that armaments production could be sustained for at least a year. However, he concluded that the war was lost after Soviet forces captured the important Silesian industrial region later that month. Nevertheless, Speer believed that Germany should continue the war for a
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s long as possible with the goal of winning better conditions from the Allies than the unconditional surrender they insisted upon. During January and February, Speer claimed that his ministry would deliver "decisive weapons" and a large increase in armaments production which would "bring about a dramatic change on the battlefield". Speer gained control over the railways in February, and asked Heinrich Himmler to supply concentration camp prisoners to work on their repair.
By midMarch, Speer had accepted that Germany's economy would collapse within the next eight weeks. While he sought to frustrate directives to destroy industrial facilities in areas at risk of capture, so that they could be used after the war, he still supported the war's continuation. Speer provided Hitler with a memorandum on 15 March, which detailed Germany's dire economic situation and sought approval to cease demolitions of infrastructure. Three days later, he also proposed to Hitler that Germany's remaining military resources be concen
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trated along the Rhine and Vistula rivers in an attempt to prolong the fighting. This ignored military realities, as the German armed forces were unable to match the Allies' firepower and were facing total defeat. Hitler rejected Speer's proposal to cease demolitions. Instead, he issued the "Nero Decree" on 19 March, which called for the destruction of all infrastructure as the army retreated. Speer was appalled by this order, and persuaded several key military and political leaders to ignore it. During a meeting with Speer on 2829 March, Hitler rescinded the decree and gave him authority over demolitions. Speer ended them, though the army continued to blow up bridges.
By April, little was left of the armaments industry, and Speer had few official duties. Speer visited the Fhrerbunker on 22 April for the last time. He met Hitler and toured the damaged Chancellery before leaving Berlin to return to Hamburg. On 29 April, the day before committing suicide, Hitler dictated a final political testament which dropp
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ed Speer from the successor government. Speer was to be replaced by his subordinate, KarlOtto Saur. Speer was disappointed that Hitler had not selected him as his successor. After Hitler's death, Speer offered his services to the socalled Flensburg Government, headed by Hitler's successor, Karl Dnitz. He took a role in that shortlived regime as Minister of Industry and Production. Speer provided information to the Allies, regarding the effects of the air war, and on a broad range of subjects, beginning on 10 May. On 23 May, two weeks after the surrender of German forces, British troops arrested the members of the Flensburg Government and brought Nazi Germany to a formal end.
Postwar
Nuremberg trial
Speer was taken to several internment centres for Nazi officials and interrogated. In September 1945, he was told that he would be tried for war crimes, and several days later, he was moved to Nuremberg and incarcerated there. Speer was indicted on four counts participating in a common plan or conspiracy for the
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accomplishment of crime against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace; war crimes; and crimes against humanity.
The chief United States prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, of the U.S. Supreme Court said, "Speer joined in planning and executing the program to dragoon prisoners of war and foreign workers into German war industries, which waxed in output while the workers waned in starvation." Speer's attorney, Hans Flchsner, presented Speer as an artist thrust into political life who had always remained a nonideologue.
Speer was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, principally for the use of slave labor and forced labor. He was acquitted on the other two counts. He had claimed that he was unaware of Nazi extermination plans, and the Allies had no proof that he was aware. His claim was revealed to be false in a private correspondence written in 1971 and publicly disclosed in 2007. On 1 October 1946, he was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. Wh
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ile three of the eight judges two Soviet and American Francis Biddle advocated the death penalty for Speer, the other judges did not, and a compromise sentence was reached after two days of discussions.
Imprisonment
On 18 July 1947, Speer was transferred to Spandau Prison in Berlin to serve his prison term. There he was known as Prisoner Number Five. Speer's parents died while he was incarcerated. His father, who died in 1947, despised the Nazis and was silent upon meeting Hitler. His mother died in 1952. As a Nazi Party member, she had greatly enjoyed dining with Hitler. Wolters and longtime Speer secretary Annemarie Kempf, while not permitted direct communication with Speer in Spandau, did what they could to help his family and carry out the requests Speer put in letters to his wifethe only written communication he was officially allowed. Beginning in 1948, Speer had the services of Toni Proost, a sympathetic Dutch orderly to smuggle mail and his writings.
In 1949, Wolters opened a bank account for Speer
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and began fundraising among those architects and industrialists who had benefited from Speer's activities during the war. Initially, the funds were used only to support Speer's family, but increasingly the money was used for other purposes. They paid for Toni Proost to go on holiday, and for bribes to those who might be able to secure Speer's release. Once Speer became aware of the existence of the fund, he sent detailed instructions about what to do with the money. Wolters raised a total of DM158,000 for Speer over the final seventeen years of his sentence.
The prisoners were forbidden to write memoirs. Speer was able to have his writings sent to Wolters, however, and they eventually amounted to 20,000 pages. He had completed his memoirs by November 1953, which became the basis of Inside the Third Reich. In Spandau Diaries, Speer aimed to present himself as a tragic hero who had made a Faustian bargain for which he endured a harsh prison sentence.
Much of Speer's energy was dedicated to keeping fit, both p
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hysically and mentally, during his long confinement. Spandau had a large enclosed yard where inmates were allocated plots of land for gardening. Speer created an elaborate garden complete with lawns, flower beds, shrubbery, and fruit trees. To make his daily walks around the garden more engaging Speer embarked on an imaginary trip around the globe. Carefully measuring distance travelled each day, he mapped distances to the realworld geography. He had walked more than , ending his sentence near Guadalajara, Mexico. Speer also read, studied architectural journals, and brushed up on English and French. In his writings, Speer claimed to have finished five thousand books while in prison, a gross exaggeration. His sentence amounted to 7,300 days, which only allotted one and a half days per book.
Speer's supporters maintained calls for his release. Among those who pledged support for his sentence to be commuted were Charles de Gaulle and US diplomat George Wildman Ball. Willy Brandt was an advocate of his release,
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putting an end to the deNazification proceedings against him, which could have caused his property to be confiscated. Speer's efforts for an early release came to naught. The Soviet Union, having demanded a death sentence at trial, was unwilling to entertain a reduced sentence. Speer served a full term and was released at midnight on 1 October 1966.
Release and later life
Speer's release from prison was a worldwide media event. Reporters and photographers crowded both the street outside Spandau and the lobby of the Hotel Berlin where Speer spent the night. He said little, reserving most comments for a major interview published in Der Spiegel in November 1966. Although he stated he hoped to resume an architectural career, his sole project, a collaboration for a brewery, was unsuccessful. Instead, he revised his Spandau writings into two autobiographical books, and later published a work about Himmler and the SS. His books included Inside the Third Reich in German, Erinnerungen, or Reminiscences and Spandau Th
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e Secret Diaries. Speer was aided in shaping the works by Joachim Fest and Wolf Jobst Siedler from the publishing house Ullstein. He found himself unable to reestablish a relationship with his children, even with his son Albert who had also become an architect. According to Speer's daughter Hilde Schramm, "One by one my sister and brothers gave up. There was no communication." He supported Hermann, his brother, financially after the war. However, his other brother Ernst had died in the Battle of Stalingrad, despite repeated requests from his parents for Speer to repatriate him.
Following his release from Spandau, Speer donated the Chronicle, his personal diary, to the German Federal Archives. It had been edited by Wolters and made no mention of the Jews. David Irving discovered discrepancies between the deceptively edited Chronicle and independent documents. Speer asked Wolters to destroy the material he had omitted from his donation but Wolters refused and retained an original copy. Wolters' friendship with
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Speer deteriorated and one year before Speer's death Wolters gave Matthias Schmidt access to the unedited Chronicle. Schmidt authored the first book that was highly critical of Speer.
Speer's memoirs were a phenomenal success. The public was fascinated by an inside view of the Third Reich and a major war criminal became a popular figure almost overnight. Importantly, he provided an alibi to older Germans who had been Nazis. If Speer, who had been so close to Hitler, had not known the full extent of the crimes of the Nazi regime and had just been "following orders", then they could tell themselves and others they too had done the same. So great was the need to believe this "Speer Myth" that Fest and Siedler were able to strengthen iteven in the face of mounting historical evidence to the contrary.
Death
Speer made himself widely available to historians and other enquirers. In October 1973, he made his first trip to Britain, flying to London to be interviewed on the BBC Midweek programme. In the same year,
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he appeared on the television programme The World at War. Speer returned to London in 1981 to participate in the BBC Newsnight programme. He suffered a stroke and died in London on 1 September.
He had remained married to his wife, but he had formed a relationship with a German woman living in London and was with her at the time of his death. His daughter, Margret Nissen, wrote in her 2005 memoirs that after his release from Spandau he spent all of his time constructing the "Speer Myth".
The Speer myth
The Good Nazi
After his release from Spandau, Speer portrayed himself as the "good Nazi". He was welleducated, middle class, and bourgeois, and could contrast himself with those who, in the popular mind, typified "bad Nazis". In his memoirs and interviews, he had distorted the truth and made so many major omissions that his lies became known as "myths". Speer took his mythmaking to a mass media level and his "cunning apologies" were reproduced countless times in postwar Germany. Isabell Trommer writes in her
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biography of Speer that Fest and Siedler were coauthors of Speer's memoirs and cocreators of his myths. In return they were paid handsomely in royalties and other financial inducements. Speer, Siedler and Fest had constructed a masterpiece; the image of the "good Nazi" remained in place for decades, despite historical evidence indicating that it was false.
Speer had carefully constructed an image of himself as an apolitical technocrat who deeply regretted having failed to discover the monstrous crimes of the Third Reich. This construction was accepted almost at face value by historian Hugh TrevorRoper when investigating the death of Adolf Hitler for British Intelligence and in writing The Last Days of Hitler. TrevorRoper frequently refers to Speer as "a technocrat who nourished a technocrat's philosophy", one who cared only for his building projects or his ministerial duties, and who thought that politics was irrelevant, at least until Hitler's Nero Decree which Speer, according to his own telling, worked a
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ssiduously to counter. TrevorRoper who calls Speer an administrative genius whose basic instincts were peaceful and constructive does take Speer to task, however, for his failure to recognize the immorality of Hitler and Nazism, calling him "the real criminal of Nazi Germany"
For ten years he sat at the very centre of political power; his keen intelligence diagnosed the nature and observed the mutations of Nazi government and policy; he saw and despised the personalities around him; he heard their outrageous orders and understood their fantastic ambitions; but he did nothing. Supposing politics to be irrelevant, he turned aside and built roads and bridges and factories, while the logical consequences of government by madmen emerged. Ultimately, when their emergence involved the ruin of all his work, Speer accepted the consequences and acted. Then it was too late; Germany had been destroyed.
After Speer's death, Matthias Schmidt published a book that demonstrated that Speer had ordered the eviction of J
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ews from their Berlin homes. By 1999, historians had amply demonstrated that he had lied extensively. Even so, public perceptions of Speer did not change substantially until Heinrich Breloer aired a biographical film on TV in 2004. The film began a process of demystification and critical reappraisal. Adam Tooze in his book The Wages of Destruction said Speer had manoeuvred himself through the ranks of the regime skillfully and ruthlessly and that the idea he was a technocrat blindly carrying out orders was "absurd". Trommer said he was not an apolitical technocrat; instead, he was one of the most powerful and unscrupulous leaders in the Nazi regime. Kitchen said he had deceived the Nuremberg Tribunal and postwar Germany. Brechtken said that if his extensive involvement in the Holocaust had been known at the time of his trial he would have been sentenced to death.
The image of the good Nazi was supported by numerous Speer myths. In addition to the myth that he was an apolitical technocrat, he claimed he did n
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ot have full knowledge of the Holocaust or the persecution of the Jews. Another myth posits that Speer revolutionized the German war machine after his appointment as Minister of Armaments. He was credited with a dramatic increase in the shipment of arms that was widely reported as keeping Germany in the war. Another myth centered around a faked plan to assassinate Hitler with poisonous gas. The idea for this myth came to him after he recalled the panic when car fumes came through an air ventilation system. He fabricated the additional details. Brechtken wrote that his most brazen lie was fabricated during an interview with a French journalist in 1952. The journalist described an invented scenario in which Speer had refused Hitler's orders and Hitler had left with tears in his eyes. Speer liked the scenario so much that he wrote it into his memoirs. The journalist had unwittingly collaborated in one of his myths.
Speer also sought to portray himself as an opponent of Hitler's leadership. Despite his oppositio
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n to the 20 July plot, he falsely claimed in his memoirs to have been sympathetic to the plotters. He maintained Hitler was cool towards him for the remainder of his life after learning they had included him on a list of potential ministers. This formed a key element of the myths Speer encouraged. Speer also falsely claimed that he had realised the war was lost at an early stage, and thereafter worked to preserve the resources needed for the civilian population's survival. In reality, he had sought to prolong the war until further resistance was impossible, thus contributing to the large number of deaths and the extensive destruction Germany suffered in the conflict's final months.
Denial of responsibility
Speer maintained at the Nuremberg trials and in his memoirs that he had no direct knowledge of the Holocaust. He admitted only to being uncomfortable around Jews in the published version of the Spandau Diaries. More broadly, Speer accepted responsibility for the Nazi regime's actions. Historian Martin Kit
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chen states that Speer was actually "fully aware of what had happened to the Jews" and was "intimately involved in the 'Final Solution'". Brechtken said Speer only admitted to a generalized responsibility for the Holocaust to hide his direct and actual responsibility. Speer was photographed with slave laborers at Mauthausen concentration camp during a visit on 31 March 1943; he also visited Gusen concentration camp. Although survivor Francisco Boix testified at the Nuremberg trials about Speer's visit, Taylor writes that, had the photo been available, he would have been hanged. In 2005, The Daily Telegraph reported that documents had surfaced indicating that Speer had approved the allocation of materials for the expansion of Auschwitz concentration camp after two of his assistants inspected the facility on a day when almost a thousand Jews were massacred. Heinrich Breloer, discussing the construction of Auschwitz, said Speer was not just a cog in the workhe was the "terror itself".
Speer did not deny being p
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resent at the Posen speeches to Nazi leaders at a conference in Posen Pozna on 6 October 1943, but claimed to have left the auditorium before Himmler said during his speech "The grave decision had to be taken to cause this people to vanish from the earth", and later, "The Jews must be exterminated". Speer is mentioned several times in the speech, and Himmler addresses him directly. In 2007, The Guardian reported that a letter from Speer dated 23 December 1971, had been found in a collection of his correspondence with Hlne Jeanty, the widow of a Belgian resistance fighter. In the letter, Speer says, "There is no doubtI was present as Himmler announced on October 6, 1943, that all Jews would be killed."
Armaments "miracle"
Speer was credited with an "armaments miracle". During the winter of 194142, in the light of Germany's disastrous defeat in the Battle of Moscow, the German leadership including Friedrich Fromm, Georg Thomas and Fritz Todt had come to the conclusion that the war could not be won. The ration
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al position to adopt was to seek a political solution that would end the war without defeat. Speer in response used his propaganda expertise to display a new dynamism of the war economy. He produced spectacular statistics, claiming a sixfold increase in munitions production, a fourfold increase in artillery production, and he sent further propaganda to the newsreels of the country. He was able to curtail the discussion that the war should be ended.
The armaments "miracle" was a myth; Speer had used statistical manipulation to support his claims. The production of armaments did go up; however, this was due to the normal causes of reorganization before Speer came to office, the relentless mobilization of slave labor and a deliberate reduction in the quality of output to favor quantity. By July 1943 Speer's armaments propaganda became irrelevant because a catalogue of dramatic defeats on the battlefield meant the prospect of losing the war could no longer be hidden from the German public. Brechtken writes that
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