Inside the Third Reich  (English, Paperback, Speer Albert)

Albert Speer takes readers Inside the Third Reich with this memoir from his time as the Nazi Minister of Armaments from 1942 to 1945.

Summary of the Book

During his incarceration after the Nuremberg Trials, Albert Speer spent his years in prison writing over 20,000 pages of memoirs. However, he wasn’t allowed to do so in the open, and he had to resort to smuggling these notes outside and publishing them after his release from prison. In doing so he gave the world a cold and unnervingly honest look at the functioning of the Nazi regime. After all, Albert Speer was no ordinary man. He had been pivotal in arming Germany even after Hitler’s fall. Semi-autobiographical in nature and largely written from memory, Speer reveals his contribution to Nazi Germany’s armament. He reveals how he was instrumental in bringing the long-established reforms of factory mobilization into Germany and how he encouraged the employment of a female workforce. He also takes a political stance, arguing that the only benefits of a dictatorship were long erased by the inevitable paranoia and corruption. He writes of his disillusionment with war, with Hitler and his ideals. Yet, he seeks no mercy, for no one but he could have known that no mercy awaits a man who aided and abetted genocide besides that of a grim prison in chainless clangour of the afterlife.

About Albert Speer

Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer was the Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich during a part of the Second World War. He was formerly Hitler’s Chief Architect and he is known for accepting moral responsibility at the Nuremberg Trials. He spent 20 years in prison and on his release he published two works, of which Spandau: The Secret Diaries is the second text. In it, he reveals much of his relationship with Hitler and the Third Reich. He also wrote a book on the SS a few years later, entitled Infiltration.

Media Note

This book has been adapted into a film directed by Marvin J. Chomsky. Rutger Hauer and John Gielgud portray Albert Speer.