Word: speers
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...Inside the Third Reich, Speer...
...Speer offers a special insight into Hitler's strength and weakness. He sees the man as a gifted amateur: "He arrived at the core of matters too easily and therefore could not understand them with real thoroughness." At the outset of the war, Hitler surprised his enemies with tactics they did not expect. But, Speer adds with a professional's disdain, "as soon as setbacks occurred he suffered shipwreck, like most untrained people." Speer became the miracle man of German war production simply by unifying a system fragmented by the conflicting demands made upon it by Hitler...
Beyond such details, Speer compels attention because the man does not avoid the question of personal guilt. At first, he writes, "political events did not concern me." As a good technocrat, he agreed to the use of forced labor in order to bolster armament production. After the plot to assassinate Hitler failed on July 20, 1944, Speer briefly toyed with ways to kill his Führer. But, he admits, "I could never have confronted Hitler pistol in hand. Face to face, his magnetic power over me was too great up to the very last...
...Apologies. That power persisted even when a trusted friend came to Speer in the summer of 1944 and spoke haltingly of a concentration camp in Upper Silesia, which he advised Speer never to visit. "I did not investigate," Speer recalls, "for I did not want to know what was happening there." The camp was Auschwitz. "Because I failed at that time," Speer writes, " Istill feel responsible for Auschwitz in a wholly personal sense." Speer does not defend himself by arguing that he did not know what was happening. "By entering Hitler's party, I had already, in essence, assumed...
Four years ago, Speer was released from Spandau, where only Rudolf Hess remains. Now 65, he lives in Heidelberg, a nearly forgotten figure who works as a management consultant and relaxes by walking in the country. When he writes that he will never be rid of his sin, he convinces, partly because he now has little to gain by such an admission. Speer is right when he says, "no apologies are possible...