INSIDE THE THIRD REICH

Rating:
Summary: somewhat dry recollection/reflections
Review: This is a very interesting read full of subtle observations on the Third Reich and the enigma behind it...the personality of Hitler and his inner circle.
Speer comes across as the ultimate "technician" as he relates his story within the dark, brutal,apocalyptic world of Nazi Germany.
However this IS a book about Speer,through Speer's eyes, so's some of this feels sanitized, a bit too clean.
Lots of stuff on architecture and armaments..perhaps abit more than I cared for, but hey,this is about Speer.
In retrospect the observations on Hitler and Co. are interesting,and it's amazing to hear about so much "disfunction" within this much ballyhooed Nazi inner-core.The trouble is that Speer lived within but mostly without this hardcore group of psychopaths... so the real grit seems to be lacking (unlike the chilling biography HITLER by John Toland which I am currently reading). Overall though a very enjoyable read, minus 1 star for tons of architecture minutia.It becomes apparent how Speer avoided certain grim realities by total immersion in his technical universe.

Rating:
Summary: An Insider's view of Nazi Germany
Review: Albert Speer's autobiography gives a really intriguing look into the inner workings of the Third Reich, a close look at Adolf Hitler, and reveals something about the reason why such a gifted individual fell under Hitler's power. I could not put the book down. All in all, it is a 'must-read' for students of Nazi Germany and World War Two History.

Rating:
Summary: A book about Speer, not about the Third Reich
Review: Speer's book was published in German in 1969 under the title Eurinnerugen by Verlag Ullistein Gmbh, and was translated by Richard and Clara Winston for MacMillan in 1970.

The introduction to the MacMillan English version was written by Eugene Davidson. After reading the introduction, I decided to check out Eugene Davidson because he seems quite sympathetic to Albert Speer who uncharacteristically pleaded guilty at Nuremberg. Eugene Davidson has published a number of books on the topic of Hitler's Germany, including one with the rather ponderous title "The Trial of the Germans: An Account of the Twenty-Two Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg." Davidson is rather sympathetic to the defendants, or at least felt that it was unfair to have trials of people who were simply fighting for their country. He seems to buy the defense that "I was only following orders."

Disregard the introduction by Davidson, and let Speer's words speak for themselves. There is an explanation for Speer's seemingly photographic memory. The book was written in less than ideal conditions while Speer was a prisoner at Spandau, and was smuggled from prison on scraps of paper, a little at a time. This suggests Speer had no access to a well stocked library while writing the original manuscript. However, the first edition was not published until 1969, three years after his release. So, Speer and his editors had three years to completely rewrite the book from the original manuscript.

The MacMillan English edition has 54 pages of footnotes. Some are very detailed. As a random example, Footnote 1 to Chapter 5 is reproduced below:

1. "Writing in 1787, Goethe suggested in Iphigenie on Tarus that even "the best man" finally "becomes accustomed to cruelty" and "in the end makes a law of that which he despises"; habit makes him "hard and almost unknowable."

Notes such as the above, along with the very specific wartime production figures cited in the book, suggests that a lot of work and revision went into Speer's book during the period 1966 to 1969.

I read the book with this in mind, and was constantly on the look out for attempts by Speer at self-aggrandizement, or at least, self-justification. Some of his statements put me in mind of the line from Hamlet: "The lady doth protest too much, Methinks." He freely admits guilt on fairly minor points, but claims complete lack of political influence on domestic affairs, or of the plight of the concentration camp prisoners. I think that Speer's claim to have fallen under the "spell of Hitler" may be disingenuous and self-serving.

We must not forget that Speer was an Architect first, and an Armaments Minister second, although he admits to being hooked on the power of being the #2 man in Germany for a while. There are places in the book where he takes credit for improving the conditions and saving the lives of slave laborers. He does seem conflicted on this point, however, because in other places he clams to have been indifferent to the plight of those in his armaments plants.

My final conclusion is that Mr. Speer attempted to place himself in the most favorable historical perspective possible. As he states, he would have been happier leaving great architectural monuments to posterity.

Rating:
Summary: Just what it claims to be--an insider's look at the Nazis
Review: Albert Speer was an architect by profession, who rose to become one of the most important figures in the Third Reich. He did this by more or less equal portions of intelligence, good chemistry with Adolf Hitler, and ambition. Speer was the Nazi Minister for War Production and Armaments, and most historians agree that he was extremely effective in this role--thus he shares responsibility for the horrors that the Nazis unleashed.

Speer overall comes across as a decent man who nevertheless let his ambition blind him to, or cause him to rationalize, the ugliness of the regime he served. Speer was very much under the spell of Adolf Hitler until he realized that the regime was doomed and the war was lost. Even as Speer wrote this book in prison it is plain that he still was proud of the esteem in which Hitler held him, despite the fact that by then he had seen Hitler for the monster he was. The one question that the book did not answer to my satisfaction was how much Speer knew about the concentration camp system and the genocide it perpetrated. He plainly knew a lot, because as War Production Minister he drafted camp inmates into German war industry. Did he know about the genocides and exterminations? Perhaps this is unknowable.

"Inside the Third Reich" is unusually revealing, both about the Nazi regime and the personality of Hitler the man. Speer truly was an insider, almost on a par with such figures as Goering or Goebbels. Many of Speer's observations are extremely insightful, and retain their relevance today. For example, Speer reveals that Hitler was very reluctant to ask the German people to accept sacrifices for war production because, in the final analysis, he knew that his regime did not derive its power from the will of the people. The Nazis accordingly lacked confidence in their own legitimacy and were reluctant to impose sacrifices on the public--even as Great Britain and the United States mobilized for total war and (Britain in particular) did require their citizens to make sacrifices. Speer thus exposes the myth that totalitarian states are more fitted for war than are liberal republican countries.

This book is a bit longer than it needs to be, no doubt as a function of the fact that Speer wrote most of it during his twenty-year Nuremberg-imposed prison sentence. He had lots of time to write. Despite its length, this is a fine book and those interested in what made the Nazi regime tick will find this book to be a valuable and worthwhile read.

Rating:
Summary: architect, minister and a politician
Review: Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and the minister of armaments in the last 2 years of the war has written a captivating but uneven autobiography. It is neither a personal or political history, but mostly an apology. Although the need of this is well understood psychologically, in my opinion this dilutes the otherwise unique message, and the book suffers greatly stylistically from that.

Biography is of roughly two main parts. First of a somewhat politically naïve, but ambitious architect who is given a chance of the lifetime - build a new capital for the world new empire - a glorious Germania. A splendid boulevard, 200 feet wide, crowned on one end by the biggest domed structure in the world (under its cupola 15 (fifteen!!) San Peters can stand), monstrous Triumphal Arc, towering 300 feet high over the old Brangenburg Gates, 2 grandious railroad stations for the center of the world, etc, so on, and on. All in the towering neoclassical style, with grandeur and fury. What a task! This part of book is very engaging, mostly due to architectural presentation and the rare insigts into Hitler's private life. At some point Speer is called furher's "unrequited love".

Quickly to the second part - a career of the most important civilian minister of the 3rd Reich. This is fascinating in its own right, but suffers from the lack of explanations on the mechanics of organization and bureaucracy in the 3rd Reich. I am constantly perplexed, annoyed and frustrated by description of countless intrigues whose rationale and logic (if any) is totally obscure. What we sense here is the dangerous evolution of the main character as he attains power, political acumen and ambition to even ... succeed Hitler. "Even Speer discovered politics" - says Hitler and we are left to wonder what is left untold.

All in all, well worth your time, if only for the first part.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book about a sad Topic
Review: This book is a must read for anyone interested in the History of WWII. An inside look at Hitler's Third Reich.
Not a white wash but a serious look at the evil surrounding Adolf Hitler. Albert Speer tells it like it is. He gives no excuses for himself, but realizes he did wrong. He once contemplated killing Hitler by throwing poison gas down the air duct to his bunker.

Rating:
Summary: An Intriguing Look At One Of The Nazi Elite!
Review: No figure emerged from the Second World War with greater controversy and attention than did Nazi architect and Hitler confidant Albert Speer. Sentenced to twenty years in the military prison in Spandau for war crimes, Speer was the only one of the principals tried at Nuremberg to admit his culpability in the horror that was the Third Reich. Many questioned his sincerity, for although he said all the right things, it was extremely self-serving to do so at the moment of final judgment, for his capitulation surely saved his life. Yet Speer served his twenty years and then was released to live out his life amidst even greater controversy, for Speer had kept a secret diary during his long confinement.

When published in 1969 in Germany, the diary, entitled "Recollections", caused a literal firestorm of controversy based on a range of observations and positions taken by Speer. Yet the book, released a year later in a translated version for the English-speaking world as "Inside The Third Reich" was a runaway best seller based primarily on the detailed and absolutely spellbinding descriptions Speer offered regarding the principals of the Nazi regime. His observations, tidbits, and anecdotes about Hitler himself were endlessly fascinating and occasioned a lot of dinner conversation all over the world. Likewise, his portrayal of the day to day life within the so-called Nazi elite gave reader s a graphic and telling account of what these people were like, and how it was possible that they could do so much of what they did.

It also established a pattern of denial of any real responsibility for what had happened on Speer's part. He claimed to have been only tangentially involved in what happened to the Jews, and that he never understood that the policy of deportation and relocation to 'work camps' was part of a conspiracy to systematically murder all of Europe's Jews. Yet careful readers find that his role as Chief Administrator Of Armament Production, which employed slave labor by both Jews and other subjugated prisoners of war certainly had a systematic policy of working these slave laborers to death. As in later works such as "Spandau", a continuation of the diaries from that prison, he claimed to be less involved in the politics of the Third Reich than in the day to oversight of functional management of its policies.

This is a fascinating book, and one cannot help but to come to admire this man and his struggles to maintain his balance and his sanity during the two decades he was held at Spandau. It provides a penetrating look both at his own mental processes as well as sharing his ruminations about various details and aspects of life within the whirlwind of excitement, agony, and horror that the years of Nazi reign in Germany represent. This is a book I can highly recommend. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Megalomania under the Magnifying Glass
Review: I found this book fascinating. I am sure that Speer's account was not 100% accurate, but whose is? And I am sure that some of his perceptions were deluded, but is there any account that could be totally objective? Speer's probably comes closer than most.

Speer gives us a look at the inner circle, and a close-up view of megalomania and its effects. He makes one keen observation after another: How leaders, unless they are very capable, will be surrounded by servile flatters -- the more powerful the leader, the greater the sycophancy. How powerful these leaders are, and how the followers compete for a word of praise. How they all strive to have more -- bigger, better -- like Goering and his mansion. How much it is simply a matter of ego. How no one dares to contradict.

Megalomania -- and the people who enable its existance -- are phenomena that continue today. It is not an easy thing, first of all, to recognize that something is wrong, or second, to be the one to stand up and say that it is wrong. How much more difficult it is when you are risking your life and the lives of your family!

Rating:
Summary: man in japan
Review: Do you want to see a portait of the man who led Germany and the world into the depths of hell? Speer paints a rarely seen portrait of the man who so many loved and hated, and he also gives the reader a clear portrayal of what the Third Reich looked like from the inside. Goerring, Goebbels, Borman, Eva and a host of others are here as well. I've never read a book on Hitler where I really felt I could see Hitler and the characters of his inner circle so close-up before. Whether you're interested in architecture, armaments production or Hitler's thoughts, and much more, there's something here for you. I do agree with the critics that Speer does a good job of glossing over his responsibilities concerning
the concentrations camps, but the book appears to be written quite accurately for the most part by someone (Speer) whom Hitler was more than a little fond of. A wonderful book regardless of how you personally feel about
Albert Speer.

Rating:
Summary: Good Historical Overview, Yet a Bit Dry
Review: This is one of the must reads in you are interested in Nazi Germany. The pre 1930's info about Speer did not interest me, I was not looking for his autobiography, but the "inside account" of his years in the inner circle is very interesting. I really enjoyed the detail of the personalities of the German leaders he dealt with. It is interesting to me that the building projects directed or proposed by Hitler were just as much an extension of his ego as was the military conquests. I think the book also gives you a correlated view of what Speer did at the trails, where he said yes what they did was wrong and he was sorry, yet in the book he does not fully take responsibility for the deaths of the thousands of slave labors he used to arm Germany. I felt that he was trying to use this book to further the remembrance of him as not one of the truly [bad] members of the leadership. The book is good but the writing could have been better.