Books: Mephistopheles Remembered

INSIDE THE THIRD REICH: MEMOIRS by Albert Speer. 596 pages. Macmillan. $12.50.

Like an ancient despot, Hitler meant to commemorate his schemes of grandeur with great avenues and overpowering buildings. In Berlin alone, he planned a three-mile-long street of splendor, with the centerpiece a domed hall that would hold 150,000 people. The man Hitler took into his intimate circle to create these edifices was a fledgling architect named Albert Speer.

At 28, Speer thought he saw in the Führer an alternative to the Weimar Republic's decadence. In Hitler's monumental designs, he hoped to...

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