Responsibility

In Inside the Third Reich, Albert Speer insists with almost equal passion that 1) the political leaders of a state that has unleashed a barbaric war and practiced genocide must all face judgment, and 2) the civilian population, having no opportunity to disobey, must not be included in that collective guilt and made to suffer. During his postwar imprisonment and at the Nuremberg Trial he emphasizes this and is gratified that the prosecutors echo his feelings. He mocks fellow defendants who hide behind orders from above. He accepts that he is responsible for lengthening the war by excelling at his job of Minister of Armaments and Munitions and even for talking Hitler into dying in Berlin rather than the Bavarian Alps. The defense of the city would have collapsed more swiftly without the Fuehrer's impotent presence.

Speer skirts the question of Hitler's electoral victories in 1932-33, suggesting that with Communists...