My Life With Albert Speer: Part Two
Martin Kitchen calls Speer's defense at the Nuremberg trials “masterly.” Some of it was pure fabrication, such as the shocking contention that Speer contemplated Hitler's assassination by injecting poison gas into the air intake vents of Hitler's Bunker. This had the added theatrical effect of bringing out arch Nazi Hermann Goering's rage at Speer for everyone to see. This served to separate Speer from the other Nazis. But Speer went further than this by being the only defendant present to admit some form of responsibility (but not “guilt”) for the crimes under which he was tried. Though this was definitely a calculated risk (any admission at all could bring a death sentence), it does not appear to be mere theatrics. Speer was battling depression at the time (a fact Kitchen implies was merely his nature and had little context with his specific actions or behavior – again, an unfair assessment in my opinion), struggling to accept that he, in fact, clearly aided