Reading

The never-ending project is finally, for all intents and purposes, done.  It remains to give the presentation, but that's put together, too.  In 32 years I've never given a presentation at work - always refused to.  I find that this time I really don't care enough to get nervous about it.  Most of the folks who would understand what I'll be talking about have retired...

I've been in a bit of a burned out and blank state - couldn't concentrate to read or watch T.V.  But my brain finally came back this weekend and I finished this:

Speer was Hitler's architect first, and then chief of armaments, where his organizational skills kept the German military going in spite of huge losses and Hitler's insane decisions.  A lot of the original manuscript was written while Speer served his 20 years in Spandau Prison after the Nuremberg trials.  He publicly took responsibility for what he had been involved with and that got him prison - those that tried to defend their actions as just following orders were sentenced to death.  I find it a bit strange - World War II seems so long ago, and yet I remember when Hess was the only prisoner left in Spandau.  I remember his suicide, and the prison being torn down so it couldn't become a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis.  I remember the disappointment of finding Mengela's bones - he died before he could be brought back for trial.

Speer was close to Hitler for a long time.  His memoirs show Hitler as multi-faceted, and a person who could, no matter how erratic he became, command personal loyalty.  My favorite line in the book goes something like "...at this time Hitler seemed a little unstable."  All I could think was "YA THINK?!"

In order to flesh things out a bit I've moved on to this:

 And then after that I'll probably need a lot of this:

Or anti-depressives.