Albert Speer - Escaping the Gallows

Secret Conversations with Hitler's Top Nazi

Adrian Greaves

$59.99

Hardback

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English

Pen and Sword
28 August 2021

Memoirs; History; Second World War

At the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, Albert Speer, Hitler's one-time number two, persuaded the judges that he 'knew nothing' of the Holocaust and related atrocities. Narrowly escaping execution, he was sentenced to twenty years in Spandau Prison, Berlin.

In 1961, the newly commissioned author, as the British Army Spandau Guard Commander, was befriended by Speer, who taught him German. Adrian Greaves' record of his conversations with Speer over a three year period make for fascinating reading. While the top Nazi admitted to Greaves his secret part in war crimes, after his 1966 release he determinedly denied any wrongdoing and became an intriguing and popular figure at home and abroad. Following Speer's death in 1981 evidence emerged of his complicity in Hitler's and the Nazi's atrocities.

In this uniquely revealing book the author skilfully blends his own personal experiences and relationship with Speer with a succinct history of the Nazi movement and the horrors of the 1930s and 1940s. In so doing new light is thrown on the character of one of the 20th century's most notorious characters.

AUTHOR: Dr Adrian Greaves FRGS, a former soldier and senior police officer, has devoted the last 20 years of his life to studying the Anglo-Zulu War. He is the founder of the Anglo Zulu War Historical Society, the author of numerous works including the bestselling Rorke's Drift ( ) to which this book is a worthy companion. His books, The Curling Letters of the Zulu War, Redcoats and Zulus, Sister Janet, Who's Who in the Anglo-Zulu War (2 volumes with Ian Knight) and David Rattray's Guidebook to the Anglo-Zulu War Battlefield (Editor) have all been published by Pen and Sword Books Ltd.

32 b/w illustrations

By: Adrian Greaves
Imprint: Pen and Sword
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781399009539
ISBN 10: 1399009532
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 28 August 2021
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Unspecified

In 1960 Adrian Greaves joined up as a Private soldier. A year later aged seventeen, he was selected for officer training and was commissioned into the Welch Regiment. Stationed in Berlin for three years he witnessed the Wall being built, undertook border patrols and once being taken hostage at gunpoint by East German Police. As this book reveals, Albert Speer, who befriended him, taught him German to interpreter level. He met international leaders including Kennedy and Khrushchev. After leaving the Army he joined Kent Police achieving high rank. His hobbies included mountaineering and he and two friends successfully climbed the Eiger north wall. In 1984 he led an armed police team to quell a violent mutiny on a tanker in the English Channel. A qualified clinical psychologist, he has over twenty published titles, many with Pen and Sword including Forgotten Battles of the Zulu War (shortly to be re-issued)