Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth

My husband could tell when I had finished reading "Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth". I was completely silent for a good two-thirds of the lunch we had at Fuddruckers immediately after I had turned the last page. I couldn't speak for a long time, even if I'd wanted to - and I didn't want to. Speaking would have diminished the impact which this book continues to exercise upon me to this day, nearly a year after I finished my first reading (which was, ironically, March 19, 2005, what would have been Herr Speer's 100th birthday). Besides Speer himself (who wrote two marvelous books, one chronicling Nazi Germany, "Inside The Third Reich", and the other, "Spandau: The Secret Diaries", relating the story of Speer's 10-year prison sentence in Spandau Prison in Nuremburg), only Gitta Sereny could have approached Speer's life story with such objectivity and fairness. Ms. Sereny, a marvelous writer who has recorded the stories of some of the worst aspects of Nazi Germany throughout her career, including a biography of Treblinka commandant Franz Stangl, "Into That Darkness", is an honest and objective biographer of Speer. She never once allows her subject to get away with a half-truth as she interviews him. The reader is on her side; he/she, along with Ms. Sereny, wants Speer to face the truth and admit whatever needs admitting, no matter how difficult it might be for him. And yet, in reading the book, I found myself wanting the truth and rooting for Speer at the same time - his basic humanity overwhelms you and you grieve for the man he could have been, had he not made the fatal choice to throw his lot in with the Nazi party, and with Hitler in particular, thereby abandoning his architectural principles and hardening his heart and conscience to the evil that was being perpetuated all around him. He made a choice NOT to know about the camps or to know only a certain amount about them - compartmentalizing, like so many of us do, when confronted by something with which we cannot live. Sereny's empathy for Hitler's former architect is palpable and her professionalism as a scholar, researcher and interviewer of Speer's friends, former co-workers and family members is clear in every sentence. She does not make moral pronouncements about her subject; she merely offers a clear view of a flawed man, making Speer's personal courage as he faces his inner demons both admirable and heart-rending. This book is a study of how absolute power can corrupt absolutely - and it is a study of the human conscience, of what a man does (or does not do) when he confronts, at last, his moral errors and the "what if's" of his past. Could Speer have stopped Hitler? Doubtful - at least, not completely. But he could have done more than he did - and yet, he did more than most, challenging Hitler towards the end of the war and, by doing so, saving Germany from wholesale destruction in order to leave something behind for ordinary Germans who he knew would have to cope

I loved this book so much that I find it difficult even to review it. There is little I can add to what previous reviewers have said--Sereny's biography is meticulous, always intriguing, and sometimes breathtaking. The two most outstanding aspects of the book were Sereny's close contact with the older Speer and the completely fascinating subject, Speer himself. Sereny manages to do the impossible--get close enough to the subject to occasionally shock the reader, while retaining a sort of neutrality. Sereny, who actually lived in Speer's home over a period of several weeks and maintained a friendship with him for the last few years of his life, readily acknowledges that she liked Speer, and her vivid portrayal of Speer's charming, elusive personality and profoud intellect shows why. At the same time, she is utterly honest about confronting the darkest aspects of Speer's life and his involvement in the Holocaust. This is a biography that almost reads like a novel, particularly the scenes of interaction between Sereny and Speer, in which she gradually and tantalizingly brings him closer to admitting the truth. While it is true that Sereny occasionally goes off on tangents, I did not find this aspect of the book to be a negative, and certainly not enough to warrant anything less than a five star rating. While I primarily read the book to learn about Albert Speer, Sereny's writing and analysis are so good that I didn't mind seeing them applied to other aspects of a very compelling period of history. In many ways, this biography is something of a history of the Third Reich from the perspective of Albert Speer, particularly highlighting his important role. Sereny ultimately presents a portrait of a man whom the reader cannot help but empathize with; however, she is honest enough that the reader also cannot help but disapprove of him. She maintains a careful balance between these two aspects, and avoids falling into the same unfortunate trap as many Nazi biographers of glorifying the subject matter. At the same time, she avoids the temptation to take the easy way out and present an outright condemnation of one of the highest ranking Nazis in Germany. Sereny's Speer is neither godlike nor demonic; he is profoundly human, and her portrayal of his humanity is a magnificent achievement.

In the course of his interviews with Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer remarked that had she been a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, he would have hanged.How many biographers have had the opportunity to actively challenge their subjects' veracity? Not content to leave even the (seemingly) most minute details to chance, Sereny conducted exhaustive archival research and background interviews with Speer's family, friends, former associates, and enemies. This allows her to face Speer on equal footing -- and thus reveals new insights on the most enigmatic of Hitler's ministers.While the central theme of the book revolves around the question of what Speer knew about the Final Solution, and when he knew about it, the story of how one man could be almost wholly seduced by evil is also investigated. The reader will learn that Speer, unloved as a child, came under Hitler's influence in the way that many young men with lacunas in their souls will come to misidentify membership in a collective enterprise with their own self-worth. In fact, if, as William Manchester said, Speer's 'Inside the Third Reich' "takes us through the looking-glass," then Sereny's book represents the adventures in Wonderland itself. The history of Hitler's Germany is seen from the unique context of the Hitler-Speer relationship. Far from relying on one-dimensional oversimplification, though, Sereny explores just how masterfully the Nazi hierarchy came to power and prosecuted a war -- proving once again that evil is not always overt and monstrous, but subtle and palliative. Was Speer a dissembler? Was he sincere in his attempt to atone for his particpation in an evil regime? I will leave the reader to his own conclusions. However, it is worth noting Sereny's charitable conclusion about this truly historical figure: "It seemed to me it was some kind of victory that this man -- just this man -- weighed down by intolerable and unmanageable guilt, with the help of a Protestant chaplain, a Catholic monk, and a Jewish rabbi, tried to become a different man."This is perhaps the most fascinating one-volume account of Nazi Germany to appear in recent years, and will enrich our knowledge of that particularly dark time in history. Highly recommended.