{"id":2001,"date":"2020-04-06T21:12:59","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T21:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/?p=2001"},"modified":"2020-04-26T00:54:33","modified_gmt":"2020-04-26T00:54:33","slug":"senior-thesis-profile-aidan-turek-examines-the-history-of-albert-speer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/2020\/04\/06\/senior-thesis-profile-aidan-turek-examines-the-history-of-albert-speer\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior Thesis Profile: Aidan Turek Examines Albert Speer and Nazi Apologists"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brendan W. Clark \u201921<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor; History Major<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Aidan Turek \u201920 is the President\u2019s Fellow in Political Science and a senior thesis writer in the History Department. History@Trinity<\/em>\u2019s Brendan Clark spoke with Aidan to ask him a few questions about his thesis and his experience with the History Department.<\/p>\n

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Albert Speer, Nazi Minister of Armaments and War Production, whose attempts to rewrite the Nazi atrocities are examined by Turek in his thesis. Courtesy of the German Federal Archive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

1. Describe your research topic in two minutes or less (let’s say 200 words or less). <\/strong><\/p>\n

My thesis is a study of Albert Speer, the famed Nazi architect, designer, and industrial genius who was Hitler\u2019s right-hand man and a possible successor. Specifically, I\u2019m examining his life and legacy through the lens of biographization\u2014how historical memory is constructed and deconstructed. Speer was intimately involved in the functioning of the Third Reich, and yet at Nuremberg he successfully presented himself as an apolitical technocrat, and in doing so escaped the executions that befell his colleagues. In his hugely influential autobiography, Speer basically set the tone for Nazi apologists, manipulating his own life and historical fact to prove his own innocence. While more recent biographies have gone back and seriously questioned his life, to this day Speer still guides the discourse surrounding him, and thus Nazism more generally. My goal is to reopen some of the areas neglected by Speer and his biographers, to explore interesting facets of his life that reveal the true extent of his moral culpability and the criminal nature of his actions. I think that researching Speer allows me to delve into fascinating ethical questions while also exploring and illuminating just how history gets constructed.
\n2. What specific aspects of your academic career at Trinity and your personal historical interests led you to select this topic?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This actually all started after watching a YouTube video about one of Speer\u2019s projects. I figured myself an amateurish expert in World War Two, but Speer\u2019s name had only come up in passing, and none of it dealt with his unique contributions to fascism. And then there\u2019s the fact that he died so recently\u2014in 1981\u2014which got me wondering how Nazis could stick around and have a say for that long. Personally I was drawn in by this muddle of philosophical and historical trends, but I gained quite a bit from Trinity as well. I have an avid interest in political science and German studies, and Albert Speer and his life have actually come up quite a bit. I\u2019ve encountered scholars in classes that discuss the direct historical background, like Weimar Germany\u2019s political culture, alongside literature on the authoritarian capacity of architecture. I was also fortunate enough to travel to Berlin with Trinity to get a hands-on look at what I\u2019ve been researching.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

3. How has the History Department assisted with your research and how have you conducted research personally or in conjunction with a faculty member?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been working with the academic giant of the Trinity History Department, Sam Kassow, and his contributions have been tremendous. It would take me a lifetime to get anywhere near his encyclopedic knowledge of the period, and he\u2019s been an asset par excellence for my project. Speaking more generally, though, I\u2019ve received a lot of support from other Professors in making my project a reality, particularly Professors Bayliss and Elukin. There was an amount of hesitancy on the part of the Department to let me go ahead, and with their support I was able to structure a really meaningful project.<\/p>\n

4. What challenges have you come across as you have commenced work on your thesis?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been very difficult to stay on task with this thesis, in the sense that I want to explore a thousand different things across a thousand different places. Especially with someone like Speer who\u2019s had a great amount written about him, it\u2019s hard not to explore interesting tidbits and tangents. So, I\u2019d say the biggest challenge is maintaining focus on the point of the project and not getting sidetracked with tens of pages on the design aesthetic of the Bauhaus, or theory on urban design.<\/p>\n

5. What else are you up to in the world of history?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m also writing work on history for the political science department\u2014though I\u2019ve had to camouflage it with mountains of theory. I\u2019m working on the French Revolution, in particular the Reign of Terror and theories of violence. Working with Professor Kete\u2019s helpful advice, I\u2019ve been trying to explain the tragic conclusion to the excitement and expectations that surrounded the Revolution in its early days. Like with Speer, there\u2019s far too much to talk about, and certain economies of time have to be maintained, but all in all it\u2019s a deeply rewarding field of research.<\/p>\n

6. What advice would you give prospective history majors?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s this perception that history is either boring or useless or both. So, my advice for a prospective history major would be to go into the field with the intention of carving out your own area of expertise. At Trinity, you\u2019re given a huge amount of freedom in terms of how you want to construct your history major, which let me bounce around from Chinese history to Germany and the Great War. And on top of that, there\u2019s the thesis, which lets you basically build your own class\u2014your topic, on your terms, with your book<\/em>s. Make your own history major\u2014it\u2019s a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

7. If you could be one figure from history, who would it be and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Theodore Roosevelt, hands down. He was President, Rough Rider Colonel, explorer, naturalist, cowboy, political revolutionary\u2014and most importantly, a historian<\/em>. You could write books about all the stuff he got up to, and people have. I recommend Edmund Morris\u2019 trilogy. It\u2019s some of the only history books you can read as an adventure as much as a work of non-fiction. He bounces around the Dakota Badlands, Yosemite, the interior of the Amazon, the heart of Africa, Washington D.C., San Juan Hill, etc., etc. The man did it all, and it\u2019s inspiring just to read about him. And on top of that he left us some powerful phrases you could get tattooed on yourself that are so insightful. So, if I could be anyone I\u2019d be the quiet man with the big stick.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brendan W. Clark \u201921 Editor; History Major Aidan Turek \u201920 is the President\u2019s Fellow in Political Science and a senior thesis writer in the History Department. History@Trinity\u2019s Brendan Clark spoke with Aidan to ask him a few questions about his thesis and his experience with the History Department. 1. Describe your research topic in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,17,39,31,13,25,36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2001"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2019,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions\/2019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/historyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}