The author, Hitler's architect and later his armaments minister, was in the dictator's inner circle for almost 12 years. After the war, Speer used the enforced leisure of his 20 prison years as a war criminal to plan and write these memoirs. This is the most revealing document on the Hitler phenonmenon 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.
First published in 1985 to an acute and critical reception, Albert Speer: Architecture 1932-1942 is a lucid, wide-ranging study of an important neoclassical architect. Yet it is simultaneously much more: a philosophical rumination on art and politics, good and evil.
Inside the Third Reich (German: Erinnerungen) is a memoir written by Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Armaments from 1942 to 1945, serving as Adolf Hitler's main architect before this period. It is considered to be one of the most detailed descriptions of the inner workings and leadership of Nazi Germany but is controversial because of Speer's lack of discussion of Nazi atrocities and questions regarding his degree of awareness or involvement with them. First published in 1969, it appeared in English translation in 1970.Index:INTRODUCTION BY EUGENE DAVIDSONFOREWORDPART ONE 1. Origins and Youth Youth2. Profession and Vocation 3. Junction 4. My Catalyst5. Architectural Megalomania 6. The Greatest Assignment7. Obersalzberg8. The New Chancellery 9. A Day in the Chancellery 10. Our Empire Style11. The Globe12. The Descent Begins13. ExcessPART TWO 14. Start in My New Office 15. Organized Improvisation16. Sins of Omission17. Commander in Chief Hitler18. Intrigues19. Second Man in the State 20. Bombs 21. Hitler in the Autumn of 1943 22. Downhill PART THREE23. Illness 24. The War Thrice Lost 25. Blunders, Secret Weapons, and the SS 26. Operation Valkyrie 27. The Wave from the West 28. The Plunge 29. Doom 30. Hitler Ultimatum 31. The Thirteenth Hour 32. Annihilation EPILOGUE33. Stations of Imprisonment 34. Nuremberg 35. Conclusions AFTERWORD
Albert Speer - gifted architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Adolf Hitler's Third Reich - cannot forget. "At seventy-five, decades after the events. I am still haunted by the thought that I could have made decisions in a minute that would have improved the situation of the unfortunate inmates."Although not responsible for the concentration camps, Speer was in charge of the arms produced by the inmates, who were forced into factory work in hellish conditions. Speer set out to tell the story of German armaments in World War II and in his research stumbled across the records of the SS for the period. These included the documents of its chief, Heinrich Himmler, who was determined to infiltrate the war economy with his own people and build an SS industrial empire. Acting with Hitler's consent, Himmler would have made the SS independent of state and party.The insidiousness of the plot was well known to Speer, one of Himmler's targets However, the breadth of Himmler's machinations, the depth of his ruthlessness, the sheer mania of his last-ditch schemes to increase production became a book in themselves.Thus Infiltration is the only-book about the SS written by a high-ranking official within the Third Reich. It is also the most telling portrait of Heinrich Himmler ever written.
Excerpted from "Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal." Nuremberg, Germany: International Military Tribunal, 1947.
The author, Hitler's architect and later his armaments minister, was in the dictator's inner circle for almost 12 years. After the war, Speer used the enforced leisure of his 20 prison years as a war criminal to plan and write these memoirs. This is the most revealing document on the Hitler phenonmenon 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.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.