Albert Speer - Inside the Third Reich

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

FOREWORD

PART ONE

1. Origins and Youth

YouthLife at homeSchoolingInflationAssistant to Tessenow Marriage

2. Profession and Vocation

Offer from AfghanistanArchitect without commissionsBoating toursThe election of September 14, 1930National Socialism and the Technical InstituteFirst Hitler rallyGoebbels in the SportpalastJoining the party

Junction

First party assignment in BerlinBack in MannheimHitler s Berlin demonstrationRenovating the party headquarters and the Propaganda MinistryDcor for the Party Rally, May 1933My client HitlerAt home with Hitler

My Catalyst

Hitler s guestMy client GoeringTraveling with HitlerHitler s thoughtHitler s views on artThe Old FightersAt Obersalzberg Mountain walks with Eva BraunCheers and obsessionsHitler the architect

Architectural Megalomania

The Roehm putschPapen expelled from his officeHindenburg s funeralFirst major assignmentTheory of ruin valueCathedral of lightCornerstone layingsPlans for NurembergArchitecture of a Great Power

The Greatest Assignment

8. The New Chancellery

You ve all gone completely crazyLaying out the grand avenue MegalomaniaDeadlinesCostsBoom in architectureHitler s sketchesAffairs in the Goebbels familyIncognito to ItalyHitler s fiftieth birthdayWith the Wagner family in BayreuthFrau Goebbels

11. The Globe

Hitler s power centerThe biggest building in the worldA Reichstag for one hundred forty million peopleHitler s palaceFear of uprisingsEmpire styleThe globe

12. T he Descent Begins

The PactNorthern lights over ObersalzbergBloodWar and peace partiesHitler goes to warAt headquartersArmistice

With Hitler in ParisWartime building program

Excess

Victory parades under the triumphal archHess s flight to England Hitler and Goering as art collectorsWar against the Soviet Union The pencil line along the UralsCaptured weapons for the grand avenueTrondheim and the EastMy last art tourDisaster in RussiaThe second man

PART TWO

Start in My New Office

Flight to DnepropetrovskVisit to headquartersTalks with Hitler and TodtDeath of TodtAudience with HitlerAppointment as MinisterGoering s sceneFirst official actsObstacles overcome

The Cabinet Room

Organized Improvisation

The new organizational schemeGoering s threat to resignArchitect and technologyIndustrial self-responsibilityOrganization of the MinistrySuccesses

Sins of Omission

The technological warEfforts at full mobilizationParty oppositionMore steel for the warTransportation crisisThe muffed atom bomb

Commander in Chief Hitler

Armaments conferences with HitlerMy systemHitler s knowledge of technologyDemonstrating weaponsVisits in southern Russia Ascent of Mount ElbrusHitler s situation conferencesThe Allied landing in North AfricaGoering and Stalingrad

. Intrigues

The new frontGoering s deceptionsThe Ruhr damsPinpoint bombing strategyThe raids on HamburgBall bearingsThe enemy s strategic mistakeThe bombing of BerlinHitler s mistakes Galland against GoeringThe flight from reality

. Hitler in the Autumn of 1943

The change in HitlerHis rigidity and exhaustionDaily routine

Hitler and his dogThe Prince of HesseMussolini freed and cheated

Downhill

Armaments work in occupied territoriesAgreement with the FrenchSauckel s reactionSpeech to the GauleitersHitler lies to his generalsTrip to LaplandInfantry programTrouble with SauckelGoering s birthday

PART THREE

Illness

Dangerous plotsConvalescenceThe Fighter Aircraft Staff Hitler s emotion and new estrangementCandidates for my office Thoughts of resignationBack at the BerghofHitler yields Praise in The Observer

The War Thrice Lost

Talks with the conspiratorsThe news reaches GoebbelsIn the center of the counterstrokeBendlerstrasseMeeting with Fromm Himmler calls on GoebbelsKaltenbrunner s visitOn the conspirators listsAftermathArrestsFilms of the executions

. The Wave from the West

Goebbels gains powerHitler loses authorityVisits to the front September 1944: military impotenceHitler s plans for destruction Outwitting his argumentsShortage of chromiumDeclining productionSecret weapons and propaganda

. The Plunge

Radio speechFinale of Gbtterddmmerung Roosevelt s deathLey invents death raysEva BraunPreparations for flightPlans for suicideHitler s last delusionsThe rebel speechCollaboration with HeinriciBerlin will not be defended

32. Annihilation

Hitlers conditionFear and pityLast birthdayGoering goes to BerchtesgadenMy flightIn the Hamburg radio bunkerLast visit to HitlerSituation conferenceFarewell to Magda Goebbels and Eva BraunLast words with HitlerHimmler and his notions DoenitzTearsResponsibility

EPILOGUE

Stations of Imprisonment

FlensburgMondorfVersaillesKransbergNuremberg

Nuremberg

InterrogationsCollective responsibilityCrossexamination

Conclusions

The judgmentThe sentenceMy own fateSkepticism

The unresolved questions of the period of national socialism remain with us. The enormity of the crimes committed, the huge scale of victory and defeat are subjects of continuous exploration and analysis. How could one of the chief centers of the civilized world have become a torture chamber for millions of people, a country ruled by criminals so effectively that it conquered most of Europe, moving out toward other continents, planting its swastika standards from Norway to the Caucasus and Africa before it was brought down at the cost of some thirty million lives? What had happened to the nation of thinkers and poets, the good Germans that the nineteenth century knew? And how did intelligent, well-intentioned, educated, principled people like Albert Speer become so caught up in the movement, so captivated by Hitler s magnetism that they could accept everythingthe secret police, the concentration camps, the nonsensical rhetoric of Aryan heroism and anti-Semitism, the slaughter of the Fuehrers warsand devote all their resources to keeping this regime in power? In these memoirs of the man who was very likely the most gifted member of the government hierarchy we have some of the answers to these riddles and as complete a view as we are ever likely to get of the inside of the Nazi state.