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Review Date: 8/17/2011
This is a huge book. Reading each evening it took me about six+ weeks to finish it. It was so large it was difficult to even hold the book. It's a scholarly work and the interviews for the book where done over a period of years. She must have interviewed Speer dozens of times, actually staying with him at his home in Heidelberg and his retreat in the Alps.
I have always been interested in Speer. He was the one high ranking Nazi who was truly sorry for the terror the Nazi's had caused not only the Jews and others who were put in concentration camps but the German people who also ended up devastated. The central question to the book is "Did Speer know about the magnitude of the killings of Jews and others in the concentration camps even tho at his trial in Nuremberg he said he did not. If he had admitted he knew he would have been hanged. I will not tell you the author's conclusion. You'll have to read the book yourself.
If you have an interested in WWII, in Speer, in Hitler or in the Holocaust, you'll probably find out interesting information in this book. I knew at the end that Hitler tested his poison out on his German Shepard, Blondie, but I did not know she'd just had puppies and those too were also killed. (all pointless in my opinion). Of course WWII was pointless so it's all fitting.
I have always been interested in Speer. He was the one high ranking Nazi who was truly sorry for the terror the Nazi's had caused not only the Jews and others who were put in concentration camps but the German people who also ended up devastated. The central question to the book is "Did Speer know about the magnitude of the killings of Jews and others in the concentration camps even tho at his trial in Nuremberg he said he did not. If he had admitted he knew he would have been hanged. I will not tell you the author's conclusion. You'll have to read the book yourself.
If you have an interested in WWII, in Speer, in Hitler or in the Holocaust, you'll probably find out interesting information in this book. I knew at the end that Hitler tested his poison out on his German Shepard, Blondie, but I did not know she'd just had puppies and those too were also killed. (all pointless in my opinion). Of course WWII was pointless so it's all fitting.
Review Date: 2/10/2013
I read Cleary's biography of her life thru HS graduation so was anxious to read about her adult life. Her relatives in California took her into their home for her Freshman year and she received free tuition at a California community college but then her relatives didn't invite her back for her sophomore year. I don't understand that and she never explained why that happened. As I am also a school librarian I of course found her jobs as a librarian very interesting. I would really recommend you read her book Girl From Yamihill first before this one if you can.
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