Since Albert Speer's release from Spandau Prison half a century ago, his writings have been surprisingly effective in shaping public views of Adolf Hitler's regime and of Speer's own role in it. Historians have been less susceptible to Speer's influence, and some have endeavored to correct the record. Martin Kitchen's book, a mixture of history and biography, is a historian's attempt to close the case against Speer. Kitchen hammers away at Speer's claims about his effectiveness as armaments minister, his aloofness from the regime's crimes, and his honesty in confronting his own past.

The straightforward chronological narrative draws together material from published works on Speer and on the armaments ministry he headed, modestly supplemented by primary sources from the ministry archives. A brief description of the young architect's comfortable bourgeois upbringing leads to an account of his work as Hitler's favorite architect, a role that drew Speer close to Hitler and, in Kitchen's account, also revealed his impressive ability to exploit and take credit for the talents of others. Kitchen credits Speer with only one significant architectural achievement: the use of spotlights to create a dramatic effect at the 1933 Nuremberg party rally. This section also makes clear that a basic part of Speer's work in redesigning Berlin involved the eviction of Jews from their homes.

The bulk of the book is devoted to Speer's work as armaments minister and as a bureaucratic infighter from 1942 to 1945. In these detailed chapters, Kitchen is a surefooted guide to the endless jurisdictional battles that occupied Speer and his rivals, including Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann, as well as lesser-known schemers such as Erhard Milch, Franz Xaver Dorsch, Hans Kehrl, Fritz Sauckel, and Karl-Otto Saur. The book thus contributes to our understanding of the chaotic governance at the pinnacle of the Third Reich. Kitchen reconstructs Speer's ultimately unsuccessful efforts to gain control over armaments across the entire German military and of all the requisite industrial and labor capacity. Speer formed alliances with major industrialists to promote “industrial self-determination” against what he saw as the misguided efforts of Nazi party leaders to build their own industrial fiefdoms.

By all accounts Speer was shocked to find himself on trial at Nuremberg and uncertain of his fate there. Kitchen pays respect to the brilliance of a deceitful defense strategy that saved the defendant's neck by letting others (notably Sauckel) take the blame for the exploitation of slave labor. Kitchen slows down his narrative to devote more attention to Speer's character only when he entered Spandau prison, as Speer himself began the long process of rehabilitating his public image. Kitchen judges Speer to have been a poor architect and a weak technical expert in his field of work, but a “consummate networker” (94) who was good at recognizing and employing talented subordinates. He minimizes Speer's much praised achievements in increasing industrial production while pointing out that Speer worked hard (if ineffectively) to keep the German war effort going as long as possible. Kitchen finds nothing credible in Speer's claim that he made a halfhearted attempt to assassinate Hitler in early 1945, but does acknowledge Speer's attempt to countermand Hitler's orders to destroy industry and infrastructure—adding, however, that Speer's efforts actually mattered little, since time and munitions were anyway insufficient to carry out a scorched-earth policy.

Kitchen offers evidence that Speer used his position to amass considerable wealth, even while cultivating a reputation for modesty. Above all, he repeatedly accuses Speer of dishonesty in trumpeting his achievements and in concealing his knowledge of and his active participation in the expulsion of Jews and the brutal exploitation of slave labor. In making his case, Kitchen effectively brings together material unearthed by earlier researchers. Although he incorporates more recent discoveries, his characterization of Speer resembles that of Matthias Schmidt's pioneering book, Albert Speer: Das Ende eines Mythos—Speers wahre Rolle im Dritten Reich (1982).

Kitchen remains resistant to Speer's charm and offers his book as a debunking of the Speer myth. He separates himself firmly from earlier biographers such as Joachim Fest (Speer: The Final Verdict [2002]) and Gitta Sereny (Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth [1995]), who knew Speer well. He faults Fest for having taken Speer at his word, even as his lies became apparent, and is completely dismissive of Sereny's psychological probing. Kitchen's Speer was a ruthless and amoral schemer to the end of his life in 1981, a “hollow being” (344) without any conscience worth the kind of scrutiny Sereny undertook. The emotional ties between Hitler and Speer that have captivated many observers are therefore not very important to Kitchen, who prefers to characterize Speer as a typical bourgeois Nazi who claimed to have had clean hands. Kitchen recognizes that much of the fascination with Speer can be traced to his respectable bourgeois background and self-presentation, a sharp contrast with the uncouth and socially marginal figures who otherwise dominated Hitler's inner circle. One of Speer's gravest offenses, in Kitchen's view, was the way his deceit allowed other supposedly decent Germans to proclaim their own innocence of Nazi crimes. In plotting Speer's path among the lesser-known men who kept the war machine humming, Kitchen concludes that Speer was not an exception: this man without scruples was “of the type that made National Socialism possible” (371).