Editing Albert Speer (section)

===Release and later life===
Speer's release from prison was a worldwide media event. Reporters and photographers crowded both the street outside Spandau and the lobby of the [[Hotel Berlin, Berlin|Hotel Berlin]] where Speer spent the night.{{sfn|Fest|1999|pp=320–321}} He said little, reserving most comments for a major interview published in ''[[Der Spiegel]]'' in November 1966.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=333–334}} Although he stated he hoped to resume an architectural career, his sole project, a collaboration for a brewery, was unsuccessful.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|pp=327–328}} Instead, he revised his Spandau writings into two autobiographical books, ''[[Inside the Third Reich]]'' (in German, ''Erinnerungen'', or ''Reminiscences''{{sfn|Sereny|1995|p=5}}) and ''[[Spandau: The Secret Diaries]]''. He later published a work about Himmler and the SS, which has been published in English as ''The Slave State: Heinrich Himmler's Masterplan for SS Supremacy'' or ''Infiltration: How Heinrich Himmler Schemed to Build an SS Industrial Empire'' (in German, ''Der Sklavenstaat - Meine Auseinandersetzung mit der SS''). Speer was aided in shaping the works by [[Joachim Fest]] and [[Wolf Jobst Siedler]] from the publishing house [[Ullstein Verlag|Ullstein]].{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=329–330}} He found himself unable to re-establish a relationship with his children, even with his son [[Albert Speer (born 1934)|Albert]], who had also become an architect. According to Speer's daughter [[Hilde Schramm]], "One by one, my sister and brothers gave up. There was no communication."{{sfn|Sereny|1995|pp=664–665}} He provided financial support for his brother Hermann after the war. However, his other brother Ernst died at the [[Battle of Stalingrad]], despite repeated requests from his parents for Speer to repatriate him.{{sfn|Taylor|2010|p=124}}

Following his release from Spandau, Speer donated the ''Chronicle'', his personal diary, to the [[German Federal Archives]]. It had been edited by Wolters and made no mention of the Jews.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=339–343}} [[David Irving]] discovered discrepancies between the deceptively edited ''Chronicle'' and independent documents. Speer asked Wolters to destroy the material he had omitted from his donation but Wolters refused and retained an original copy.{{sfn|Sereny|1995|pp=226–227}} Wolters' friendship with Speer deteriorated, and one year before Speer's death, Wolters gave Matthias Schmidt access to the unedited ''Chronicle''. Schmidt authored the first book highly critical of Speer.{{sfn|van der Vat|1997|pp=359–361}}

Speer's memoirs were a phenomenal success. The public was fascinated by an inside view of the Third Reich and a major war criminal became a popular figure almost overnight. Importantly, he provided an alibi to older Germans who had been Nazis. If Speer, who had been so close to Hitler, had not known the full extent of the crimes of the Nazi regime and had just been "following orders", then they could tell themselves and others they too had done the same.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=335}} So great was the need to believe this "Speer myth" that Fest and Siedler were able to strengthen it—even in the face of mounting historical evidence to the contrary.{{sfn|Kitchen|2015|p=366}}