Spandau, The Secret Diaries

First UK printing of Albert Speer's remarkable prison diary

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First edition. Hardback in dustwrapper. 23.5 × 15cm, 463pp.

After being convicted in the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, the prisoners were not allowed to have writing paper, were not allowed to write their memoirs and were allowed only limited visits from their relatives. However, they were allowed to have toilet paper. So, on thousands of squares of toilet paper, Albert Speer wrote his diary in tiny letters so small that they could hardly be seen, which he was then able to pass to his relatives when they visited him. By the time Speer was released on September 30, 1966, twenty years later, there were more than twenty thousand pages of secret diaries just waiting to be edited and published, but it took him another ten years before he could bear to look at them.

The book principally deals with Speer's time while incarcerated but also contains much material on his role in the Third Reich and his relationship with Adolf Hitler.

Condition

The book itself is in very good condition. The dustwrapper is faded to the spine, a little chipped to the edges and has been price-clipped.