Rating: 
Summary: An interesting look at Speer - the Nazi with a conscience.
Review: Sereny takes the reader on an interesting and unique trip into the heart and soul of one of the Third Reich's most interesting survivors. Written in the form of a biography, "Albert Speer - His Battle With Truth" details the life of one of Adolf Hitler's most able and competent followers,
Albert Speer. From a childhood devoid of love, to his first fateful meeting with his 'Fuhrer' until his eventual trial and rehabilitation back into society, Sereny has seen Speer as few others have been able to do. Sereny makes no excuses for Speer's short-comings and attempts to uncover the true feelings of this once powerful and complex man. A must book for historians of the Third Reich.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing Insight
Review: Sereny's insightful look into the life of Albert Speer raises more issues than she puts to rest. Given the subject matter, that might be the ultimate compliment. While when I picked up the book I was hoping for a complete admission of Speer's guilt for the Holucaust and for the other crimes of the Nazis, after finishing the book I realized that such insight was impossible. Moreover, the lack of a complete admission was understandable.Given Speer's position within Hitler's heirarchy, his contribution to the war effort, his role in the entrenched slavery that was part of the Third Reich and his intelligence he could have hardly not known about the crimes that he atleast enabled. However, for a person to hold himself responsible for these monsterous crimes and to still go on in any ordinary way would be next to impossible. The true are mutually exclusive. This is espically true given the fact that Speer was no monster. That he was not evil man, but only participated in evil acts. Sereny go along way toward explaining how Speer was able to live with accepting guilt for the Holoucaust but still not acknowleging that he knew about the Holocaust during his tenure with Hitler. While this is a subtle distinction it was one necessary for Speer's survival. There is no attempt to white wash Speer's role in supporting Hitler. Sereny is no apologist for Speer, but when necessary a harsh critic. The fact that Speer enabled Hitler to continue his campaign against humanity, and for so long shut his eyes to Nazi crimes, cannot be excused. However, since Speer was no Himmler or Gobbels, it can be understood. What is the center of the book and Speer's motavation is his relationship with Hitler. Sereny presents a Hitler, through Speer, that is kind to his close associates, a gentlement to the women around him, and who enjoyed being around their children. A Hitler that loved art and was able to converse with Speer for hours about architecture. That this doesn't jive with the author of the Final Solution is of course obvious. But this is the Hitler that Speer formed a close bond with. That Speer was unwilling to equate the Hitler that he knew with the Hitler of history becomes understandable when put into the above context. However, understanding does not equate with lack of responsibility. The book is well written and researched. Sereny writes nonfiction as if it was a novel and holds your attention throughout most of the book. This is an essential read for anyone who wishes to go beyond the surface of the Third Reich.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: The book Albert Speer: His Battle with Truthwell documented account of the man who was closest to Adolf Hitler. Speer comes close, but does not fully comprehend his role and actions during the Second World War. He tells Gitta Serney a very emotional account of his life and his own personal trials and tribulations. This fantastic account of Speer's life makes the reader feel as though: I have actually meet this man. But you know you have not. Although Speer is not hear to take questions about this book, Gitta Serney gives the man a sence of justice. Gitta uses basic question to stir and jog the memory of the aging Speer and her account of this interview is a wonderful insight to the man who was closest to Hitler.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Look At Albert Speer!
Review: The issue raging over the veracity and accuracy of Albert Speer's self-serving recollections of the infamous Third Reich and his participation therein have been going on and on for well over thirty years. yet, as anyone unfortunate enough to have experienced a bitter divorce can testify as to the degree to which two otherwise intelligent and perceptive human beings can violently disagree as to what the truth is regarding matters both witnessed and had been parties to. So it is with our continuing fascination and absolute incredulity regarding Albert Speer, an otherwise intelligent and perceptive soul, who just so happens to have been a willing participant in one of the most horrific administrations in the history of the 20th century, the Nazi Third Reich. In two quite absorbing but incredibly self-serving books, Speer argued that he never understood the full extent of the Nazi war crimes nor the degree to which his own actions were complicit with those horrific aims. He first argued this at the war trials in Nuremberg, but did so in such a way as to admit his own culpability based on his rank and his actions as Chief Of Armaments Production, during which he employed slave labor in service to the German war effort. By being the only defendant at Nuremberg to show any semblance of remorse, he saved himself by admitting his own guilt, though largely guilt by association. Careful readings of the trials transcripts show that he was, in fact, fairly forthcoming in his admissions, although he always contended that he lacked specifics regarding the so-called 'Final Solution' or even of the fact that the concentration camps in Poland and elsewhere were being used to systematically annihilate millions of Jews and Gypsies. In fact, he was an incredibly sophisticated human being who was expert in 'toadying up' to whomever he needed to. The fact that he was convincing enough to the Allies to escape the death sentence speaks volumes about his persuasiveness and ability to read into the possibilities any situation offered. It is the author's contention that Speer must be held accountable for having allowed a tyrant like Hitler to rise. Yet Hitler was well in place before Speer ever met him. Speer is a man of stunning contradictions, someone of education, culture, and breeding who succumbed to the siren call of power, fame, and riches. While he eventually became expert at fashioning a defense both for himself and his actions both during and after the war, the truth of the matter is that most of what he argued in his own defense was (and is) preposterous. No one could have walked in the circles he did, have acted in concert with the aims and goals of the Nazi regime with such success and energy, and yet have been as totally naive and ignorant as he always claimed he was. What he recalls more than anything is the old adage Hitler was said to have coined; 'Tell a man an outrageous lie often enough for long enough and even he will come to believe it' I think Speer proved the accuracy of that adage, believing in his own lie. This is an absorbing and provocative book, and one I can heartily recommend to the student of modern history. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: A look into the human soul
Review: This book is a historical, psychological and spiritual look into the human soul. Mr. Speer, a man with a very high moral code, has been part of one's of history's most horrific crimes. The book shows how he became entangled is the Nazi web and how he coped with the regime and it's aftermath. Unfortunately these crimes are still going on around the world. It gives us insight of what may be going on within these regimes and those involved in them.
Rating:
Summary: A scarier look inside the Third Reich than Speer wrote
Review: This book is an incredibly insightful look at the WWII leader Albert Speer. More than that however it is a haunting portrait of the entire generation that stood by. To me the most chilling portions of the book came not from Speer himself but rather from the many interviews the author conducts on her research. Time and again we hear from the many people, often high ranking, who had no idea that anything was amiss. The statements that these people make always concede how difficult life was for Jews, how Jews were denied their rights, denied their jobs, and eventually carted away 'to the east'. Speer himself is a man willing to assume responsibility for the actions of the regime but who simultaneously seems to have no actions of his own to regret. We are allowed to look into his life and meet the many people in whom he inspired great feelings of loyalty. By and large this becomes a long list of people that the charming Mr. Speer uses and discards at his conven! ience. From his college friends to his assistants during the war years, to his own family during the spandau years. But never fear the book does have a happy end, after a few more betrayals Albert is able to look back on his life with the satisfaction of knowing how he single handedly dragged the war on for months beyond when it should have lasted.
Rating:
Summary: A complex and human approach to a very difficult subject
Review: This book, along with Sereny's earlier "Into That Darkness," about Treblinka Commandant Franz Stangl, constitutes some of the most complex treatment of the Nazi genocide. Sereny relentlessly avoids oversimplification, and clearly attempts to come to terms with the character and the heart of Albert Speer. Many of the people she interviewed for the book were former Nazis, and Sereny always candidly describes her reaction to them now. Some seem to have genuinely repented, others leave her feeling quite uneasy. In the case of those who still seem to harbor many Nazi sentiments (particularly antisemitism) she generally lets their words speak for themselves. Though it is clear she is sympathetic to Speer (she admits as much in the first line of the book), she calls Speer on every contradiction, and does not simply accept his version of events. In the end, the reader is left to make up his own mind about Speer. I found this book to be simply overwhelming. It challenges the reader to get beyond simple emotional reactions to Nazi history and instead to delve into some of the most challenging questions about that era.
Rating: 
Summary: Sereny's still the prosecutor
Review: Unfortunately, Sereny has failed to enlighten us as to how
Speer finally discovered what was going on in the concentration
camps. It was near the end of the war when a staff officer took Speer aside and asked him if he knew about Auschwitz. Speer said
"Yes, it's a work camp. Why?" "Don't ever go there" the officer
replied. That drove Speer to investigate and find out about the
camp and the human exterminations. Later he showed up at Gen. Henrici's command post and showed him the pistol he planned to use to kill Hitler, having decided that poison gas into the intakes of the bunker wouldn't work - they had repositioned them too high in the air. He finally realized that he wasn't a killer and never carried out the plan. The Nuremberg trials could only convict Speer for using slave labor in the factories that he oversaw, but those laborers fared better under Speer than they would have elsewhere. He should never have been convicted of anything, along with several other defendents who were tried for
the "crime" of disliking Jews. A prosecutor might well try to convince a jury that Speer is not to be believed, but their are plenty of historical facts that contradict Sereny's claims. A history should be investigative in its orientation, not prosecutorial. Let the facts speak for themselves. This was Sereny's greatest blunder and unfortunately it infects all of the text. The author simply isn't an historian here; she remains the prosecutor, but without a defense attorney to check her more outlandish statements.
Rating:
Summary: STUNNING!
Review: What an incredible book! Sereny helps us to see what it was like to live in Nazi Germany, and explores how an individual was sucked in to the lies, intrigues, and politics of the time. Yet she never forgets that the subject is, regardless of what was done by him or around him, a human being. That's the overlooked factor in most explorations of the Nazi genocide. Much as we might hate to admit it, these things were done by people who started out just like you or I. It's less a history of Nazism or Speer than an exploration of his thoughts, hopes, and fears during that time, and the struggle he has faced in the ensuing years to reconcile what he believed then with the things he knows now. A stunning mix of history, psychology and confession, Sereny has written a towering, important book.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing
Review: While it is intriguing to speculate whether Speer knew or did not know about the extermination of the Jews, that is only the smallest part of this vast work of scholarship. Gitta Sereny came to the conclusion that Speer was neither moral nor immoral, but rather "morally extinguished". That is a somewhat ambiguous term, but from what I read in Speer's books and from what Sereny reveals in this one, I take it to mean something fairly simple: Speer was aware of people being imprisoned and killed, but really didn't pay much attention because he was too busy with his career. He noticed Jews being lined up at the Berlin train station to be taken somewhere; he didn't have the inclination or the time to find out why or where. He noticed that his boss had started a war; he was too busy to wonder whether the war was justified--he was an architect and any number of projects had to be attended to. His boss ordered him to assume leadership of armaments production for the war; refusing the order was not an option. He discovered that armaments production was accomplished largely by slaves, who died in great numbers at their work. Perhaps he heard of work areas where very little work was done and very, very large numbers of people died, of causes unrelated to work. Perhaps he did not. Sereny's book is largely a probe into whether he knew about the extermination camps or not. Of his repentance after the war there can be little doubt. He quarrels in Spandau with the other Nazis over whether they did anything wrong. He is mocked by one of his closest former Nazi friends for his "public mea culpas". He speaks with a chaplain in Spandau about his desire to make himself a "different man". He exchanges letters with Rabbi Robert Geis, a tremendously moving encounter--the Jew forgiving the Nazi. Just the fact that he would sit down for numerous interviews with Sereny, an author of books on death camps, speaks of his consciousness of the crimes he was associated with, and his desire to confront them. What I found most compelling was the glimpse Sereny's interviews afford us into a society that had gone completely over the edge, taking not just soldiers and guards and politicians, but also a great many children. It's easy to forget that many of these murderers had families. Speer had five children. Goebbels had six, all given names beginning with H. There is a photo in the book showing a number of these children arranged around Adolf Hitler on his birthday. Speer himself was a very young man when he first came under the spell of Hitler. In following the thread of her investigation into Speer, Sereny arrives at Posen Castle, October 6, 1943, where Himmler is addressing an assembly of gauleiters: "...think for a moment how many party comrades have addressed one of those petitions to us in which was written that of course all Jews are pigs, but so-and-so is a decent Jew who should be exempted...I daresay that according to the number of such petitions...there must have been more decent Jews in Germany than there were Jews altogether...each of you, in your own province, knows good respectable National Socialists, each of whom knows one decent Jew..." The irony is really remarkable if you stop to think about it: the minister in charge of genocide complaining that he is overwhelmed with requests from Nazis to spare Jews. He goes on to say how he made the difficult decision to kill not just the men, but also the women and children, and congratulates himself on his foresight: "I did not think I was justified in exterminating the men, but to leave their children to grow up and take revenge on our sons and grandchildren." The bland and practical tone is that of a civil engineer: I did not think I should put a sidewalk there because that would not leave enough space for the cars to park. He continues, slipping into the stilted and delusional diction that is more common to Nazi speech: "This order was the most difficult one we were ever given...I think I can say that it has been carried out without damaging the minds or spirits of our men. The danger was great and ever present." (Of what? Of damage to the spirit?) "...the difference between the two possibilities...to become cruel and heartless and no longer to respect human life, or to become soft and succumb to weakness and nervous breakdowns...the way between Scylla and Charybdis is appallingly narrow." One wonders if that would have been Himmler's defense had he survived to Nuremberg: "I exterminated the Jews in order to keep myself from having a nervous breakdown." Here is what is at the heart of my fascination with Albert Speer: unlike Himmler and Goebbels and the rest, he was not a lunatic. Sereny includes this passage from Posen Castle because there is an unresolved question as to whether Speer was present for Himmler's speech, and hence informed of the policy of genocide. But I don't think it matters. Speer was accessory to so many monstrous crimes that his knowledge or ignorance of the most monstrous one becomes moot. The more interesting question is how a man with the capacity for technical brilliance and decency and remorse, and a host of the other attributes that are best in mankind, could be a party to, and indeed a powerful engine of, one of the humanity's most ghastly episodes. This book doesn't entirely answer that question--no book could--but it is an absorbing and engrossing effort toward doing so.
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