The author was a personal friend of Adolf Hitler for 12 years until he turned against him. This is an inside account of The Third Reich and the man who invented it.
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The author was a personal friend of Adolf Hitler for 12 years until he turned against him. This is an inside account of The Third Reich and the man who invented it.
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Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Publisher:
Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
Published:
1998
Alibris ID:
18017968352
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Seller's Description:
Good. 822 pages, wraps, illus., notes, index, some wear to covers, small stain on edge. Speer used his writings from the time of imprisonment as the basis for two autobiographical books, Inside the Third Reich and Spandau: The Secret Diaries. Speer's books were a success; the public was fascinated by an inside view of the Third Reich. Through his autobiographies and interviews, Speer carefully constructed an image of himself as a man who deeply regretted having failed to discover the crimes of the Third Reich. He continued to deny explicit knowledge of, and responsibility for, the Holocaust. This image dominated his historiography in the decades following the war, giving rise to the "Speer Myth": the perception of him as an apolitical technocrat responsible for revolutionizing the German war machine. The myth began to fall apart in the 1980s, when the armaments miracle was attributed to Nazi propaganda. Adam Tooze wrote in The Wages of Destruction that the idea that Speer was an apolitical technocrat was "absurd". Martin Kitchen, writing in Speer: Hitler's Architect, stated that much of the increase in Germany's arms production was actually due to systems instituted by Speer's predecessor (Fritz Todt) and that Speer was intimately aware of and involved in the "Final Solution", evidence of which has been conclusively shown in the decades following the Nuremberg Trials. Inside the Third Reich begins with an account of Speer's childhood, followed by a description of his role as Heinrich Tessenow's assistant at the Technical University of Berlin. Speer first heard Adolf Hitler speak during an address to the combined students and faculty of Berlin University and his institute. Speer states he became hopeful when Hitler explained how communism could be checked and Germany could recover economically. Speer joined the National Socialist Party in January 1931; he wrote "I was not choosing the NSDAP, but becoming a follower of Hitler, whose magnetic force had reached out to me the first time I saw him and had not, thereafter, released me." Speer described the personalities of many Nazi officials, including Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Rudolf Hess, Martin Bormann, and, of course, Hitler himself. Speer went on to quote Hitler as telling him privately after the remilitarization of the Rhineland, "We will create a great empire. All of the Germanic peoples will be included in it. It will begin in Norway and extend to northern Italy. I myself must carry this out." The main body of the book effectively ends when Speer, by this point having joined Karl Dönitz's government seated in Schleswig-Holstein, receives news of Hitler's death. This is followed by an epilogue dealing with the end of the war in Europe and the resulting Nuremberg trials, in which Speer was sentenced to a 20-year prison term for his actions during the war. In a 23 August 1970 review published in The New York Times, John Toland wrote that the book "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. I recommend this book without reservations. Speer's full length portrait of Hitler has unnerving reality. The Führer emerges as neither an incompetent nor a carpet gnawing madman but as an evil genius of warped concepts endowed with an ineffable personal magic." A review by Kirkus Reviews on 27 August 1970 stated, "Speer's portrayals of the Nazi leadership, of the constant intrigues and rivalries among Hitler's entourage, and of Hitler himself, his histrionic virulence, his banality, and his peculiar magic, are engrossing and revealing."
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Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
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Book is in good condition and may include underlining highlighting and minimal wear. The book can also include From the library of labels. May not contain miscellaneous items toys dvds etc. We offer 100% money back guarantee and 24 7 customer service.
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Good. Good condition. A copy that has been read but remains intact. May contain markings such as bookplates, stamps, limited notes and highlighting, or a few light stains.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Excellent brutally truthful biography: Who he was, what he did, why he did it. No excuses, he was guilty and he knew it, he admitted what he did. This is probably why he was sentenced to 20 years in Spandau prison instead of hanged like most of his co-defendants. Also a good description of what life in Germany was like under the Third Reich. Excellent photos, especially the ones of Hitler falling asleep in the car and while entertaining in his living room. One of his men said Hitler would have run the Reich from the chintz couch in his living room if he could.
Michael B
Mar 19, 2015
Teppich·fresser
The editorial review for this book says that Hitler was not a carpet-gnawing madman. This refers to the belief that Hitler used to sit in a corner and chew on the edge of a carpet square when he did not get his own way. But, in colloquial German, a Teppich·fresser (carpet-eater) is a person who undermines others on the quiet, the same as the insect which eats away carpets from the underside without being seen.
Bruno1953
Jun 12, 2010
Inside view of Hitler's Germany!
Many will either admire or hate Mr. Albert Speer. One of the very few of the inner circle of Hitler's regime that survived the war. Yet paid twenty years for it in Spandau. Intelligent, articulate and very informative, Speer describes in all details what it was like to serve under Hitler's command. Here we meet Goebbels, Goering, Himmler and others who helped Hitler to formulate his destructive policies. Many despise Speer, and think he "got away" from it. Maybe there is some truth in that charge. However one also sees the remorse he has suffered later on when all was over. Thanks to him we have an idea how Hitler made his decisions, and how there were carried out. We also meet Hitler's dream of transforming Berlin into a huge city full of ridiculously enormous buildings to make it a "new Rome". Hate him, or admire him, Mr. Speer's book is very helpful. Before reading something like "Hitler's Willing Executioners", read this first.
av0ca
Jun 27, 2009
Excellent Insight
If you are interested in the history of WW2, this book will certainly be of great value to you. We all know the time line with respect to events but the added value that this book gives is the emotional reactions and interpersonal relationships between the major players, both German and Allies. Given this knowledge, I keep asking myself "How could things have happened as they did?" It is an excellent read and reference.
BlackBear
Jul 31, 2008
Fascinating View of History
While Speer's account of his relationship to Hitler must be looked at with some critical scrutiny, this book is nonetheless unequalled in its importance for anyone who wants to know how and why the Third Reich came about. Speer's style is engaging and the book, while long, reads very quickly. Students of military history should be aware that Speer, as the architect and arms minister of the Reich has very little to say regarding military theory or strategy--this is more a book about Hitler's personality as told by one who knew him as well as anyone, and about the behind-the-scenes bureaucracies of the Reich.
