Inside the Third Reich
Cover of the first edition
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| Author | Albert Speer |
|---|---|
| Original title | Erinnerungen |
| Translator | Richard and Clara Winston |
| Language | German |
| Subject |
Autobiography History |
| Publisher | Orion Books |
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Publication date
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1970, 1995 & 2003 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 832 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 87656 |
Inside the Third Reich (German: Erinnerungen) is a memoir written by Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Armaments from 1942 to 1945, serving as Adolf Hitler's main architect before this period. It is considered to be one of the most detailed descriptions of the inner workings and leadership of Nazi Germany but is controversial because of Speer's lack of discussion of Nazi atrocities and questions regarding his degree of awareness or involvement with them. First published in 1969, it appeared in English translation in 1970.
At the Nuremberg Trials, Speer was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his use of slave labor while Minister of Armaments. From 1946 to 1966, while serving the sentence in Spandau Prison, he penned more than 2,000 manuscript pages of personal memoirs. Because he was not allowed to write such memoirs while in prison, he smuggled these notes out and returned to them after his release. He was aided by Joachim Fest. The manuscript led to two books: first Erinnerungen ("Recollections") (Propyläen/Ullstein, 1969), which was translated into English and published by Macmillan in 1970 as Inside the Third Reich; then as Spandauer Tagebücher ("Spandau Diaries") (Propyläen/Ullstein, 1975), which was translated into English and published by Macmillan in 1976 as Spandau: The Secret Diaries.
Inside the Third Reich is written in a semiautobiographical style. While Speer begins with his childhood, he spends most of the memoirs describing his work in the Nazi hierarchy.
Speer, by his account, entered the Nazi hierarchy by an unusual chain of events. He said that he first joined after attending a rally at which Hitler spoke and that he joined at the behest of some of his students. Early on, Speer was used mainly as a driver because of his being the only member with a car in the Wannsee area. As an architect commissioned by the party, he achieved an excellent turnaround time on a building project, which attracted attention from senior leaders.
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