About this title: A psychological portrait of Albert Speer, Hitler's Minister of Armaments and War Production. Speer oversaw operations in the munitions factories in which tens of thousands of slave laborers died. During the Nuremberg trials, Speer pleaded ignorance to the Holocaust and evaded capital punishment. In this work, the author investigates Speer's ...
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Description: Good. Dust Cover Missing. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 1995-09-19
ISBN-13:9780394529158ISBN:0394529154
Description: Good. Writing on page 1. Clean unmarked cover. Tear on dust jacket. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. SAVE Money on S and Handling, buy more than one book from us as a time! Items are from a smoke free and air conditioned environment. read more
Edition: Book of the Month Club Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House, New York
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780394529158ISBN:0394529154
Description: Near Fine in Near Fine jacket. 757 pg. biography of Hitler's architect and Minister of Armaments and Munitions. Book of the Month edition is the same quality as retail priced copies. Light shelfwear and a few scratches on back of dj. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: New York, NY, Vintage Books / Random House, 1996
Description: ISBN: 0679768122, Trade paperback, 1st paperback edition, Near Fine/pictorial wraps; trace of wear to covers and cover edges, 8vo., 757 pages., read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, Westminister, Maryland, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780394529158ISBN:0394529154
Description: Fine in Near FIne jacket. A stated first edition hardcover in fine condition, in a near fine jacket. This copy is bright and clean with no writing or marks of any kind. The unclipped jacket has some minor wear including one small tear, otherwise fine. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780394529158ISBN:0394529154
Description: Fine in fine dust jacket. Previous owner's name is written inside of cover. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 757 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A Knopf Inc, Westminister, Maryland, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780394529158ISBN:0394529154
Description: Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 0394529154. Stated first edition partial cloth hardcover and dust jacket. Book has name written on title page. Date is circled. No other flaws on book. Dust jacket is fine. Protective mylar cover. read more
Edition: 1st Edition 1st Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780394529158ISBN:0394529154
Description: 48 B/W Photos. VG+/Near Fine. W/Dust Jacket 757pgs(Index) Price clipped, owner name embossment on front endpaper, Half Title Page, small ink date stamp, word inside rear endpaper, O.w. clean, bright & tight. DJ not chipped, torn, etc. Rest of book in Fine condition. ISBN 0394529154. read more
"One of the best books I have ever read. I dip into it each year. Speer's battle with 'truth' is everyone's because Sereny is interested in very human question and goes after the answers with heart, intelligence and devastating patience."
"Albert Speer remains one of the most fascinating men involved in the National Socialist regime, not least because of the two excellent memoirs he published after his detainment in Spandau for war crimes. Speer was in demand during the sixties and seventies as a speaker, and was the only war criminal to create for himself a successful media career after the war. This was not least because, rather than denying the crimes of the regime, he accepted them, accepted society's judgment of them as crimes, and even provisionally accepted his own responsibility for them. By writing from a standpoint of moral decency, Speer seemed to speak for a generation of decent Germans who had been duped by a criminal regime because of patriotism and political naivete. Hitler should be blamed for the Holocaust, Speer seems to argue, and not the German people, who were by and large not privy to the truth which was hidden even from the Minister of Armaments and War Production.
Sereny's book, while to a large degree a sympathetic biography of a fascinating and likable man (she and Speer were friends until his death in 1981), nevertheless manages to challenge this standpoint. There is no doubt of Speer's direct involvement in the massive use of slave labor in the German war effort, and he is shown to have witnessed, more than once, the conditions under which these slaves worked. This is not to say that he was unaffected by it - a return from an inspection tour is directly linked to a sudden attack of illness that put Speer out of commission for several weeks and during which he claimed to have wished to die. However, this is far from a heroic stand against a criminal action, and can be seen more as an attempt to evade responsibility. Moreover, Sereny demonstrates that there is no real question of Speer being in complete ignorance of the mass exterminations in the East. He nearly certainly knew, but at the time did whatever he could not to think about it, and ultimately spent his life denying (not least to himself) that he had known.
The question of "the Jews" haunts the entire book, but does not dominate it. It manages to be the most complete biography of a man who spent the last 15 years of his life talking and writing about himself. Facts Speer was uncomfortable sharing about his childhood come to vivid life. His period of ascendency in the Third Reich is given much fuller treatment, including a fascinating time when Goebbels and Hitler appeared to be grooming him for succession as Fuehrer. His relations to his family and co-workers are examined through dozens, seemingly hundreds, of detailed interviews.
Sereny is a journalist by trade, and some aspects of her work will disappoint historians, although she does address issues such as the Historikerstreit and Daniel Goldhagen's revelations about Speer. Certainly her work could have been more focused if better informed by theory, and thereby several hundred pages shorter. Her use of citations is limited to a few notes at the back of the book, which do not specify the precise paragraphs being sourced, and one must check back and forth to confirm. Some assertions, and even quotes, have no citations at all. The book is not up to the research standards of a scholarly monograph, but it remains a useful account of a fascinating subject."
"Excellent account of Speer and his ilk from a tumultuous period of recent history. Informative, complex and wide-ranging historical work, Sereny researchs her subject well interviewing many of the key figures around the Nazi elite. Speer comes across as a complicated upper class German under the spell of Hitler's forceful personality. A flawed and ultimately repentant individual who escaped the death penalty at Nuremburg and thereafter embarks on a fasinating search for some form of reconciliation with his consience. Highly recommended."
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