Synopsis
Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Armaments and one of Adolf Hitler's closest friends, was the only member of Hitler's inner circle to escape the death penalty at the Nuremberg Trials, primarily due to his willingness to admit remorse and shame for his actions under Nazi Germany. Though he was obviously the most self-reflective and clear-eyed of the Nazis, his critics have continually challenged his claims that he was not aware of the full extent of the Holocaust, the death camps, and Hitler's "Final Solution." After his release from prison in 1966, Speer released his memoir INSIDE THE THIRD REICH, and it quickly became an international bestseller. The book showed how Speer, an ambitious architect, rose in the Nazi party to become the man some referred to as "Hitler's wife." The book also altered public perception of the Nazi power hierarchy, describing it not as an efficient machine, but as a squabbling, decadent, power-hungry court with everyone in it vying for Hitler's favor. Hitler himself comes across as charismatic, but lazy and out-of-touch with reality. Of all the many larger-than-life characters in the book--the loathsome Göring, the hateful Goebbels, the vicious Himmler--it is Speer himself who becomes the most fascinating and troubling. He writes with such profundity and insight about the seductiveness of evil that it is difficult to not feel empathy with him, even as he admits to being responsible for slave labor camps, and contributing--wasting--all his youthful intelligence and energy to help create one of the darkest chapters in modern history. INSIDE THE THIRD REICH stands alone in literature as a confession by an acknowledged monster, a mea culpa by a man with the blood of millions on his hands. By writing with such lucidity and feeling, Speer humanizes evil and provides a stark template for how ideology can lead to abomination. And instead of providing closure, INSIDE THE THIRD REICH seems to suggest that it is only a matter of time before such situations arise again.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1983-01-01 |
Publisher's Note
The author presents a detailed account of his fifteen-year association with the German Fuhrer.
Industry Reviews
"[This] is not only the most significant personal German account to come out of the war but the most revealing document on the Hitler phenomenon yet written. It takes the reader inside Nazi Germany on four different levels: Hitler's inner circle, National Socialism as a whole, the area of wartime production and the inner struggle of Albert Speer. The author does not try to make excuses, even by implication, and is as unrelenting toward himself as to his associates."
New York Times Book Review - John Toland (08/23/1970)
"The memoirs are by far the most perceptive and illuminating account we possess of the inner workings of the top Nazi leadership written by an insider."
Times Literary Supplement - Richard Evans (09/29/1995)
| See an error? Submit a change request |
All rights reserved.
