Albert Speer

Steeped in controversy and tainted by his legacy as Hitler's personal architect and close friend, Albert Speer is a difficult historical figure to portray and to pinpoint. Gitta Sereny explores the life and the mind of this complex man with brilliant insight, historical awareness, and sensitivity, as she examines the surprising moral conflicts that Speer faced later in his life, especially after the Nuremberg trials.

As the only member of Hitler's inner circle to be spared from the death penalty, Speer had ample time before his death in 1981 to reflect on his role in Nazi atrocities. Although Speer ostensibly never killed a soul, nor did he outwardly perform any act of violence or hatred, he nevertheless supported and loved the man who ordered the brutal deaths of millions of Jews as well as Catholics, gypsies, and homosexuals.

Fascinated by this period in history because of her first-hand experiences during the war as a Hungarian national, author Gitta Sereny satisfied her curiosity by attending the Nuremberg trials. It was there that she first saw the mysterious, behind-the-scenes figure of Albert Speer. It wasn't until years later that Sereny amassed the courage and material resources required to conduct a thorough investigation into this man's life and times. Sereny singled out Speer as a subject for this biography because of a combination of circumstance and the uniqueness of Speer's psychology.

As one of the only Nazi bigwigs to later question the morality of Hitler's mission and to accept personal responsibility for his complicity, Speer was deemed a traitor by many in the Nazi party during and after the Nuremberg trials. With Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth, Sereny shows that an investigation into one man's psyche can perhaps lend insight into how Nazism grew into such an overwhelming, indomitable force in Germany and how Hitler was able to charm, influence, and control an entire nation.

One of the strengths of the biography is the quality of its source material: the author did not conduct her research in the confines of musty libraries but rather was able to live periodically with the Speer family in the Bavarian Alps. Her relationship with Albert and his wife Margarete became nothing short of intimate, as the couple divulge secrets, stories, and confessions about their past.

Furthermore, over the course of an entire decade, Sereny obtained pertinent historical documents as well as personal anecdotes relevant to writing this 770-plus page tome. His Battle With Truth is filled with stories, documentary evidence, hard facts, and personal impressions that when pieced together form a fascinating mosaic of Albert Speer. Sereny humanizes Speer in a way that most authors could not do, given the atrocities of wartime Germany and the natural inclination to shy away from seeming sympathetic in any way.

Yet Sereny does not offer compassion or justification for Speer's role in Hitler's schemes. By humanizing Speer, Sereny enables her audience to view history more realistically, with more willingness to acknowledge that it was indeed human nature and human beings that comprised the Nazi party, and not alien men. To acknowledge that history can easily repeat itself without such an understanding, Sereny bravely delves into the nuances of Speer's humanity.

The size of the book reflects the complexity of Sereney's research: her stance is remarkably neutral; she denounces the mass murder and systematic slaughter of innocent Jews while she strives to know how Hitler was able to amass the manpower required to build the concentration camps. She criticizes the blind faith with which men like Speer followed the Furer but still manages to keep herself out of her writing; she does not buckle under the pressure of writing about utter evil.

The purpose of this biography is not to offer another historiography on Nazism, although the book does contribute to a fuller understanding of the times, the politics, and the repercussions. Sereny's principle purpose in penning this book was to truly, deeply understand the psyche of Albert Speer. This is no small task; as the title suggests, Speer underwent a battle for his own truth. Sereny asserts that Speer was unique among Hitler's cohorts in this respect, this willingness to brutally and bluntly examine his motives. Interestingly, Speer was avowedly un-political.

An architect by trade and nature, Speer joined the Nazi part yin 1931 as many Germans did, because the nation was in such social, political, and economic turmoil after the Versailles Treaty and the damaging results of World War One. Wanting to show some support for his nation, Speer registered with the Nazi party without even the slightest premonition that its charismatic leader would resort to the types of tactics that make up one of the most brutal genocides in human history.

However, Speer was "an instinctive anti-Semite," and like many Germans at the time, had no trouble sympathizing with Hitler's views on the Jews (91). As racism and specifically anti-Semitism slowly became state-sanctioned, the rise of Hitler's power happened gradually and smoothly enough to blind the Furer's followers. With Speer's example, Sereny shows that a deep moral void prompted many of Hitler's minions. Speer "felt no enmity...he felt nothing," (719).

Yet perhaps Speer was unique in this respect; the reason why he was accused of being a traitor to the party during and after the trials is precisely because he lacked the conviction that Hitler's methods were just. Speer was an architect who was swept away, as many ordinary citizens were, by Hitler's amazing charisma. The Furer's hypnotic hold over the nation was no excuse but it illustrates the power of personal charm in politics. In today's age of ethnic volatility and questionable wars, Sereney's work is particularly relevant.

The author can easily be accused of white-washing Speer's involvement in the Nazi party. When she challenges Speer's assertion of ignorance, for example, Sereny fails to fully flesh out the hypocrisy inherent in an educated man pretending to be unable to extricate himself from Nazi atrocities. Sereny does.