Inside the Third Reich - Albert Speer

Inside the Third Reich - the definitive account of Nazi Germany - by Hitler's Armaments Minister, Albert Speer - 1971 Sphere Books - 822pp, index, black and white photograpgs -paperback shows shelf wear but still tight.

Albert Speer was unique in the Third Reich. An intellectual architect, he was befriended by Hitler in 1933 and for the next 12 years they maintained one of the most powerful and extraordinary relationships in the Nazi hierarchy. In 1942 Speer was appointed Armaments Minister and became second only to Hitler himself as a power on the home front. But in 1945, Speer defied Hitler's scorched earth policy and began to plan his assassination. At Nuremberg he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

From 1946 to 1966, while serving the prison sentence handed down from the Nuremburg War Crimes tribunal, Albert Speer penned 1,200 manuscript pages of personal memoirs. Titled Erinnerungen ("Recollections") upon their 1969 publication in German, Speer's critically acclaimed personal history was translated into English and published one year later as Inside the Third Reich. Long after their initial publication, Speer's memoir continues to provide one of the most detailed and fascinating portrayals of life within Hitler's inner circles, the rise and fall of the third German empire, and of Hitler himself.

Speer chronicles his entire life, but the majority of Inside the Third Reich focuses on the years between 1933 and 1945, when Speer figured prominently in Hitler's government and the German war effort as Inspector General of Buildings for the Renovation of the Federal Capital and later as Minister of Arms and Munitions. Speer's recollections of both duties foreground the impossibility of reconciling Hitler's idealistic, imperialistic ambitions with both architectural and military reality. Throughout, Inside the Third Reich remains true to its author's intentions. With compelling insight, Speer reveals many of the "premises which almost inevitably led to the disasters" of the Third Reich as well as "what comes from one man's holding unrestricted power in his hands."