I read Speer’s book once. He didn’t seem like a bad guy.
I did too, and got the same impression. However, I've since read articles about Speer written by historians who think otherwise. They say Speer admitted to just enough guilt to make himself look remorseful, but not enough to send him to the gallows.
That argument does make some sense.
Excellent book. Speer was one of many who advanced their careers by becoming party members, even though they had nothing to do with the Nazi atrocities -- but their reputation paid the price when the war ended. Conductor Herbert von Karajan comes to mind.
Speer was pretty bad. He knew all about the Holocaust, for one thing, though he lied and said he didn't. People who were less guilty than he was got the death penalty.
I remember. You said, “Speer, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!” :-)
“I read Speer’s book once. He didn’t seem like a bad guy.”
It’s the rare Nazi official (book author or not) who would admit to being “a bad guy.”
Even Hitler liked dogs.
And the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP in its German acronym, shortened to Nazi) did not come to power by promising to conquer the world, to administer the comeuppance the Allies deserved, or to eliminate “International Jewry.” They did it by promising goodness itself: to coordinate everything (waste and competition were seen as bad), to re-include all the alienated souls, commoners and nobles alike, who felt “left out” by the accelerating rush of modernity. Their good intentions could not be doubted.
And the Progressives used to sing their praises. Literally, when it came to the Fascism of Benito Mussolini, and the Communism of the Soviet Union.
American Liberals and Progressives elsewhere struggle mightily to forget all of it.
The rest of us had better not.
That was my impression, too. Speer’s my favorite Nazi. ;)
#3 He just used slave labor to build everything.
I read Speer’s book a couple of times, and recall his making himself available to journalists/historians until his death in 1981. He was the only high level NAZI that was featured on the BBC series the World at War (1973).
He was a charming guy, spoke English quite well and was the brightest NAZI there was at Nuremburg. He was a self promoter, the more detailed data that has come out of the economy of the 3rd Reich, the economic miracle that was Germany in WWII was the result of not only him but a lot of folks prior to his assuming the post. It was simply that a lot of the infrastructure being built up to maintain a long war in 1941 did not come on line until he was in charge. He also was definitely a liar, as he was present at the 1943 conference where Himmler laid out the death plan of the Jews to the Gualiters. He denial has been shown to be false, he knew no later than October of 1943.
He knew about the poor conditions of the forced laborers and his deputy who was responsible for their collection and housing was executed at Nuremburg. Speer played a very careful game to avoid having his neck stretched.
He also was not above lying about his opposition to Hitler. I very much doubt the story of his planning to poison the Berlin bunker.
For some time I thought him a sociopath, in as much as he seems to match some of the supposed characteristics, but as I have gotten older I am not so sure. Events in our recent history in foreign wars have convinced me that all folks have the ability to limit their empathy with folks not of their tribe and excuse the inexcusable when they see a threat to their own. Speer grew up in a period when the Germans saw themselves as victims, and eventually destroyed their nation because of that attitude. He may have just been a product of his time.
In any case we will never really know.