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Gitta Sereny first saw Albert Speer on trial at Nuremberg. Over the last years of his life she came to know him - through hundreds of hours of conversations - as no other biographer has known a Nazi leader. She interviewed as well the people around him - the celebrated, the notorious and the ordinary. Speer gave Sereny, for her use, a number of unpublished manuscripts, and after his death she obtained access to many of his papers. Out of her probings a huge, and hugely alive, portrait emerges.
Sereny takes us through the emotional desert of Speer's childhood and marriage, through his embrace (basically, she demonstrates, for nonideological reasons) of the Nazi Party and his service as Minister of Armaments and Munitions, during which his brutal use of slave labor extended a lost war. She superbly portrays the circles in which Speer functioned: the ambivalent General Staff and the infinitely peculiar and nightmarish upper echelons of Nazism.
We see Speer accused of war crimes at Nuremberg, and during his twenty years in Spandau prison, struggling to accept individual responsibility for his actions. Throughout, in person or in memory, Hitler is startlingly present, his friendship with Speer bordering on love.
Sereny shows us Speer as inveterate schemer, as spectacular planner and maneuverer. We see him also as unique among Hitler's men in the integrity of his battle with conscience. His progress from moral blindness through moral self-education to a torturous coming-to-terms with his own acts - this is the elemental matter at the heart of a book that stunningly illuminates the man, the war, the Third Reich, the Nazi mind and the complex comingling, in one person or society, of good and evil.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
Biography, Politics and government, Nazis, War criminals, National socialism, Germany, biography, Germany, history, 1933-1945, Germany, politics and government, 1933-1945, Biographies, Criminels de guerre, Politique et gouvernement, Biografie, New York Times reviewed, Albert SpeerPlaces
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1933-1945Showing 9 featured editions. View all 9 editions?
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Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth
December 1998, Diane Pub Co
Hardcover
in English
0788159186 9780788159183
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Albert Speer
June 17, 1997, Random House Value Publishing
Hardcover
in English
0517193094 9780517193099
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Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth
October 29, 1996, Vintage
Paperback
in English
0679768122 9780679768128
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Book Details
First Sentence
"DR. HANS FLACHSNER [defense counsel]: With the permission of the High Tribunal, I should like to call the defendant Speer to the witness box."
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- Created April 29, 2008
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August 6, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
April 16, 2010 | Edited by bgimpertBot | Added goodreads ID. |
April 14, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Linked existing covers to the edition. |
April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |