Spandau: The Secret Diaries (English and German Edition) - Hardcover

Speer, Albert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0026995018 ISBN 13: 9780026995016

Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co, 1976

Synopsis

This is one of the most amazing books every written. After being convicted in the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, the prisoners were not allowed to have writing paper, were not allowed to write their memoirs and were allowed only limited visits from their relatives. However, they were allowed to have toilet paper. So, on thousands of squares of toilet paper, Albert Speer wrote his diary in tiny letters so small that they could hardly be seen, which he was then able to pass to his relatives when they visited him. By the time Speer was released on September 30, 1966, twenty years later, there were more than twenty thousand pages of secret diaries just waiting to be edited and published, but it took him another ten years before he could bear to look at them. Albert Speer was a brilliant writer and the world should be forever grateful to him for leaving us this work, that addresses and attempts to answer questions the world will always be asking, including: 1. How was Adolph Hitler, an obvious madman, totally insane, able to attain and keep such great power? 2. Why did the German people not recognize what was happening and do something about it long before the destructive end? 3. Most importantly: Can this happen again? Could and will another Hitler arise, perhaps not in Germany again? Perhaps in the United States of America? What assurance do we have that a lunatic madman could not enter the White House and do much worse than Hitler ever did?

About this title

About the Author

Albert Speer (March 19, 1905 – September 1, 1981) was a German architect who was, for part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office. As "the Nazi who said sorry", he accepted responsibility at the Nuremberg trials and in his memoirs for crimes of the Nazi regime. His level of involvement in the persecution of the Jews and his level of knowledge of the Holocaust remain matters of dispute. As Hitler's Minister of Armaments and War Production, Speer was so successful that Germany's war production continued to increase despite massive and devastating Allied bombing. After the war, he was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the Nazi regime, principally for the use of forced labour. He served his full sentence, most of it at Spandau Prison in West Berlin. Following his release from Spandau in 1966, Speer published two bestselling autobiographical works, Inside the Third Reich and Spandau: The Secret Diaries, detailing his often close personal relationship with Hitler, and providing readers and historians with a unique perspective within the workings of the Nazi regime. He later wrote a third book, Infiltration, about the SS. Speer died of natural causes in 1981 while on a visit to London.

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation)

Edition details

• Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co
• Publication date: 1976
• ISBN 10: 0026995018
• ISBN 13: 9780026995016
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English