IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE of the Federal Republic of Germany no Nazi played a more prominent role than Albert Speer. A number of his fellow war criminals, like Hitler's successor Karl Dönitz or Hitler Youth leader and Vienna Gauleiter Baldur von Schirach, had been released from Spandau Prison, like Speer, and found their way into postwar German society. Like many other former pillars of the NS regime, they wrote their memoirs, but these had little impact. In contrast, Speer grew into a representative icon of a collective German memory culture in dealing with the Nazi past. The principal reason for Speer's distinction was the impact of his life writing. This included not just his sensationally successful memoirs, published in 1969, followed by the Spandau diaries in 1974 and his account of Himmler and the SS in 1981, which all were immediately translated for a worldwide audience. Arguably of similar importance was Speer's constant self-creation as the “remorseful” Nazi, which was apparent in his willingness to be interviewed by almost anyone seeking recollections from the Nazi period. For the best part of the last fifteen years of his life until his death in 1981, all of Speer's personal accounts were eagerly absorbed by the German public and by readers worldwide. The generally uncritical attitude toward Speer, amounting even to fascination among some members of the public, reflects in exemplary fashion how reluctantly major groups in German society addressed their personal and national past — particularly those in the traditional bourgeoisie who had managed to build successful careers both in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic. Millions of these middle-class supporters and functionaries of the Nazi state did not feel the need for remorse since they did not see themselves as responsible for the crimes of the Third Reich. Speer's narrative of the honorable man who more or less unconsciously became an instrument of the Nazis presented them with a tempting and successful opportunity to project themselves out of responsibility.

The effect of Speer's life writing also illustrates the limited impact of professional historiography over the decades. The public had little appetite for the growing body of detailed research.