For those who don’t know, Albert Speer was still fresh out of architect school when he was summoned by the newly “elected” Hitler to do some work. Hitler set incredibly tough deadlines for which Speer was to not only design buildings but also oversee their completion. In short, Hitler set nearly impossible goals and Speer, to the shock of everyone, was able to consistently hit these marks. Speer showed tremendous talents in organization. He became Hitlers #1 architect where he enjoyed a relationship with Hitler that very very few people had actually seen. Speer was design the major landmarks for which the 1,000 empire would be known for just like the Rome is known for today.

Of course the war took precedent eventually. Hitler had overstepped his bounds and got himself into a pickle. Eventually, Speer was chosen by Hitler to be head of armament for the Nazis. His job was to make sure that the country was most efficiently using it’s resources to produce as many bullets, rifles, bombs, and planes as possible.

Inside The Third Reich starts a little slow. This may be do to my lack of interest in architectural design. However, it doesn’t take long for a person interested in the second World War to immediately see the enormous value of what it is like for a real human being who knew Hitler as well as anyone to speak his mind on the issues of the times. For all practical purposes, Speer was not a demon. Far from it! Albert Speer was simply caught up in his own ambitions. He wanted nothing more to design impressive buildings. He had gotten the gig of the century. It just so happened that his boss, who had ideas that few people always agreed with, would go down as possibly being the single most evil human being to walk the face of the Earth. When Speer was assigned the role of Minister of Armament, he was shocked, but accepted it as a duty to his country. While Speer was aware that there were some sickening things going on in the Nazi world (which dominate our views of Nazis today) at the time, these things were seldom mentioned in Inside The Third Reich. I do not feel that Albert Speer was hiding anything. Quite the contrary! I think he was in a situation where he worked extremely hard at helping Germany win the war. It wasn’t his job to consider why Germany was in the war and it appeared more noble for him to use his talents to help his country win a struggle than it did to look for flaws in it.

Simply put, I don’t think Albert Speer was a bad guy. In fact, there are elements of this book that illustrate that he may have been one of the very few good people to become high ranking Nazis to actually have much character beyond the usual political power struggles. Maybe I’m lured into the spell of Speer. I don’t think so. This guy wasn’t tossing Jews into the fire and he wasn’t issuing orders for this sort of thing to happen either. (I still haven’t figured out which of these two is worse). He was simply a guy who ended up working on the wrong side.

Speer mentions Hitler many many times throughout the book. They probably ate lunch together 1,000 times or more. While they were close enough to share comfortable silences, there was always a distance between Speer and Hitler. Hitler always had this isolated way to him and Speer goes into great detail on the subject in a way that you simply don’t get from the usual biographies on Hitler. There is something about the first hand account of a person who worked directly under Hitler for 12 years that can not be paralleled.

I consider this book to be INCREDIBLE for anyone interested in World War 2.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

When I found the book, I was kind of desperate for something to read. I saw it was a film about movies and it looked like I may learn something, so I jumped on it. (I secretly have plans of getting into this whole movie thing in a very hardcore way once my lottery check comes in).

I didn’t realize that Mike Medavoy was the business / executive end to many movies that I love. I was expecting a book where some outside is talking out his ass, but it turns out that it doesn’t get as “insider” as this.

I quickly realized that this book was going to have more in store for me when I read that Mike Medavoy was once the agent for Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and a bajillion other robo actors and directors.

After reading this book, I must say that I have a further appreciation for just how tough it is to get the great movies out there. I always get pissed thinking about how all the movies are geared towards teen ages. (There aren’t nearly enough movies in the Pulp Fiction / Good Fellas genre). Well, it turns out that this book explains why and a whole lot more.

I’d highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to have a deeper understanding of the movie business.

Brandon

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The first book was entitled, “The Anatomy of Motive”. The book was co-written by John Douglas, who was the top profiler dude at the FBI. Scott Glenn’s character in Silence of the Lambs is supposed to be based on this dude.

The book is not exactly a literary masterpiece, but the content is AMAZING! Basically, John Douglas goes through various crimes that have been committed and goes on to explain how they went about catching them. This book deals mainly with the motive side of things, obviously, and illustrates how the FBI would go about using the understanding of motive to catch bad guys.

The way I’ve worded it, this book sounds like Andy Griffith…or is it Matlock. Well, that’s because I’m a crappy writer. I’d love to give you an example of the kind of crimes they solve, but that would let the cat out of the bag. Let’s just say that Matlock wouldn’t go near a few of these.

It’s AMAZING how they are able to catch criminals based on their background and the way the crimes were committed.

If you have any interest in psychology, murder, and the criminal mind than this is killer (ha ha) book.

Brandon

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.