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Albert Speer: Conversations with Hitler's Architect

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In some ways this is more phycological than historical. While the facts are all there, at least all the fact that Speer allowed them to be told, it is the authors presentation of the facts that is so interesting. At every step of the unfolding drama of Speer's life, the author challenges the facts in an effort to get Speer to reveal more of his knowledge and, ultimately, his responsibility for the actions of the Third Reich. While it never really becomes clear what Speer knew and when he knew it, we do begin to understand where Speer is most sensitive to the author's probes and, as a consequence, where Speer could be hiding some detail. All in all it is a fascinating portrait of one of the key insiders to Hitler's Germany. We learn who he distrusted, who he thought stupid and who he admired. Speer was also not above gossip, particularly in his recounting of Hitler's relationship with Winifred Wagner. While this book is not a true biography of Speer, it is a fine phycological portrait of the man.

In my opinion, this book wanders about desperately trying to reveal some hidden fact about Speer that heretofore has not been discovered. This lack of a cohesive approach reduces the book to a disparate collection of re-visited issues and allegations that any student of Speer history already knows. Like an old blood hound with his head too close to familiar tracks, Herr Fest spends much time sniffing around for some new shred of evidence that will support his long held beliefs that Speer is not telling the whole story as Fest believes it to be. Unfortunately for him either Speer out foxes him at every turn or more likely he is simply, after all these decades, actually telling the truth.
After conversations with Speer, Herr Fest offers post conversation comments that many times are simply conjecture. An example on page 86....."As a minister, he must have liked to veer around like that(hot-tempered)with his people",....is evidence that Fest is so consumed to deliver new information that he often blurs his subjective projections for fact. Unfortuately, this obsession prevents the book from pursuing other legitimate and interesting avenues of inquiry.
For instance, how did Speer deal with the machinations regarding the plans to build Germania or the many other massive pre-war building projects? What sort of statement did Speer think his Great Hall truly made to the layman of that period or to subsequent generations? How did he come by his organizational genius as displayed in the construction of the Reichskanzlei or what was it like for him to see the crowd's reaction the first night of the Cathedral of Light at the Zeppelinfeld Stadium? Given Speer's modest nature we will never know about this aspect of his psyche or what his answers may have coincidentally revealed.
On the other hand, is it possible that Herr Fest's re-hash of the known past could simply be a trick that allows the author to assemble another tome that offers more to his and the publisher's bottom line than to the enlightenment of the reader?

For most of his life, Albert Speer must have been desperately lonely and unhappy. This was especially demonstrated in 1966, after he was released from his 20-year sentence at Spandau prison. He was unable to enjoy the family reunion that was staged for him and was really sorry he'd left confinement. In prison, he had a structure to his life he seemed to crave. And almost endless projects with which to occupy his mind and body. On the outside, he was restless and had few friends. These included his longtime secretary and aide, Anne-Marie Kempf. Frau Kempf had an attachment to Speer but was not a fawning admirer. She told him what she thought and he appreciated her frankness. Anne-Marie was perhaps his biggest asset in defending himself at Nuremberg as she smuggled documents into Speer's lawyer in her underwear. All the while she disguised herself as a member of the press.

The biggest question about Albert Speer remains: "What did he know and when did he know it?" To his dying day, September 1, 1981, he claimed innocence in knowing about the atrocities committed by the Nazis mostly against the Jews of Europe. Despite these claims, the author shows documentation of his knowledge. This includes a reprinted copy of an order he signed to evict Jews from their homes in Berlin to make way for road construction. Many former occupants of these homes would be shipped east to the Nazi death camps. Berlin's road building was part of the plan to turn the city into Germania--"capital of the world," in Hitler's imagination. Speer thirsted for fame and power and Hitler provided them.

Germania was perhaps Speer's greatest dream and it was never fulfilled. Space is devoted to how it would have looked based on photos of models Speer had constructed. These and virtually everything else were destroyed by the war. Only a few dozen street lamps remain today in Berlin from all of Speer's grandiose plans.

Speer's rise to prominence in the Nazi regime was bolstered by the deaths of two of Hitler's favorites. Some see in this part of a Faustian bargain Speer might have done with the devil. First, was the architect Paul Ludwig Troost in 1934. Speer was appointed Troost's replacement by Hitler soon afterwards. The second was Dr. Fritz Todt who died in a strange plane crash in February, 1942. With much fanfare and formality, Hitler then appointed Speer as his armaments minister, replacing Todt.

A memorable achievement by Speer, the architect and artist, was his "Dome of Light" used at the Nuremberg rally 1937. Speer invented the dome concept himself and was widely hailed for the achievement. 150 antiaircraft searchlights were used to stage the effect which equally impressed Germans and foreign visitors.

During Speer's imprisonment, he also got help from his fellow architect, Rudolf Wolters. Wolters arranged for Speer's notes to be smuggled out of prison so they might be kept in some logical order. Wolters also set up a trust fund to take care of Speer's family and repeatedly raised money for the fund among their friends and acquaintances. Despite this effort on behalf of Speer, Wolters became unhappy with Speer's "disloyalty" toward Hitler and the humiliation he felt it caused to Germans everywhere. The two men became estranged and Wolters even went to Speer's enemies with incriminating evidence against him. This may have hastened Speer's death, as he became obsessed in refuting what Wolters had done and even hired a lawyer to sue Wolters. Mr. Fest seems to imply that Speer was in the wrong, or at least his memory had failed him. Especially damning were diaries kept by Wolters under Speer's supervision during the war. Speer ordered incriminating passages deleted but Wolters kept the originals intact. These were found later in official archives.

The noted British historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper, had planned to write a biography of Speer but then lost interest. He said he'd become too old and needed a quiet life. So he turned the project over to Joachim Fest. Trevor-Roper saw Speer as the most fascinating of the old Nazi inner circle, as he stood aloof from the others and displayed rare intelligence and a willingness to speak. Among the public, fascination with Speer may also come from the desperation some might feel in working for a corrupt organization where little or nothing can be done by a just-minded person.

Speer could not adequately explain why he went to see Hitler twice in his Berlin bunker during the final days. Speer had recently gone around Germany countermanding the Fuhrer's scorched earth orders so it was almost suicidal to do this. Speer may indeed have had a death wish and admitted to Fest that he had grave premonitions of what awaited him after the war. Speer used his old tricks with Hitler, showing him building plans and recalling their past discussions. Speer described how old and disheveled the Fuhrer looked and how he was repelled by Hitler's bad breath. Not at all the erect, strutting dictator of a few years earlier.

In April, 1981, Speer was rather open to Joachim Fest about an affair he was carrying on with a German expatriate woman living in England. Fest acknowledged how the experience seemed to make Speer happy and so did not voice his disapproval. Still, Fest said he had to sympathize with Speer's long-suffering wife Margarete who was still living in Heidelberg.

In spring, 1981, Speer got word that a ABC was making plans to film his memoirs, "Inside the Third Reich." It's sad he wasn't alive to edit or critique the miniseries, since he might have corrected some things that got into the final production. Faults notwithstanding, we await the appearance of "Inside the Third Reich" on DVD.

This book is a stand-out in a crowded field of works about Nazis and the Nazi era. Fest's constant probes of Speer's history and character, his unwillingness to be satisfied with the first answer or an evasive answer, pay off immensely for those that, like him, are trying to reach an understanding. Speer, as a man and particularly as a Nazi, is a fascinating category-bender, and this book goes a long way toward showing why he is such a perplexing yet ultimately sympathetic sort of figure -- a man who could have done so much, and would have been so much better off, had he not been on the wrong side of the war. In short, he played his part in an evil regime but comes across as flawed and blinkered rather than evil himself. And yet he joined the Nazi party in 1931 and served within the SS. It is hard for someone that judges him severely or looks upon him with a generous heart -- either way -- to see how he 'adds up'.

Anyway, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is a pacy, easily digestible read, and yet I did not rush through it because I found myself imagining the scenes, thinking over the moral questions involved, and pondering Speer, his colleagues, and the difficulty of discovering what Speer really did and really thought about it. I was also very interested in the discussions between Fest and his colleague Siedler, who together tried to draw Speer out and get him to confront the nitty-gritty.

Absolutely fascinating.

Interesting, but mostly a quest to psycoanalyze Speer's connection to the Holocaust - never fully developed. As an Architect I have been interested in what I consider to be his true motivations - an ambition to have an all-powerful client - never fully described.