page_title: Rudolf Wolters
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Rudolf Wolters / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Berlin-Charlottenburg, Technische Hochschule CharlottenburgEnglish: Technical University of Berlin, Berlin-Charlottenburg
context_page_description: Rudolf Wolters was a German architect and government official, known for his longtime association with fellow architect and Third Reich official Albert Speer. A friend and subordinate of Speer, Wolters received the many papers which were smuggled out of Spandau Prison for Speer while he was imprisoned there, and kept them for him until Speer was released in 1966. After Speer's release, the friendship slowly collapsed, Wolters objecting strongly to Speer's blaming of Hitler and other Nazis for the Holocaust and World War II, and they saw nothing of each other in the decade before Speer's death in 1981.
  Wolters, who was born to a Catholic middle-class family in the northern German town of Coesfeld, obtained his degree and doctorate in architecture from the Technical University of Berlin, forging a close friendship with Speer while a student. After receiving his doctorate, he had difficulty finding employment prior to the Nazi rise to power. From 1933 to 1937, he worked for the Reichsbahn. In 1937, Speer hired him as a department head, and Wolters soon took major responsibility for Hitler's plan for the large scale reconstruction of Berlin.
context_section_description: Wolters was born into a Catholic family in Coesfeld, Germany on August 3, 1903, the son of an architect who had married the daughter of a master carpenter in the shipbuilding trade.  In his privately published memoirs, Segments of a Life, Wolters described his father as "a serious, conscientious and diligent man, always concerned about the future".  Wolters regarded his mother as "a highly practical woman, full of zest for life, who in hard times thought nothing of serving a delicious roast without letting on it was horsemeat".  Wolters passed a generally happy childhood, punctuated by the chaos of the war years, and by a childhood illness that resulted in his being taught at home for a year by two priests.
  After passing his Abitur, or secondary school examination, he began his architectural studies at the Technical University of Munich in 1923.  Wolters noted the politicized atmosphere of his student days, stating, "My academic freedom began, one might say, to the sound of drums: the Hitler Putsch and its consequences to us students, most of whom were in agreement with it."  Wolters, by his own admission, was in broad sympathy with Nazi aims, though he never saw a need to join the Party.
  In 1924, Wolters met Albert Speer, who was a year behind him. Wolters transferred to the Technical University of Berlin later that year, followed by Speer in 1925.  Wolters sought to study under Professor Hans Poelzig, but there was no room in the course for the transfer student.  Instead, Wolters studied under Heinrich Tessenow, as did Speer.  Wolters obtained his degree in 1927, and earned his doctorate at the school two years later.  In class prize competition, Wolters generally finished second to Speer.
  Wolters' graduation coincided with the start of the Great Depression, and he had great difficulty finding a job, eventually settling for an unpaid position at Reichsbahn headquarters in Berlin in 1930.  Upon losing that position the following year, Wolters accepted a position with the Trans-Siberian Railway's urban planning division in Novosibirsk.
caption: The old northern front of the Technical University of Berlin, which was considerably damaged during the Second World War and replaced by a modern front in the 1960s
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