The astonishing (and 100% true) story of my mother and the Nazi war criminal

1943: Speer receives an award for his service
as Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production from Adolf Hitler

She was a 63-year-old widow from a Missouri farm town. He was Adolf Hitler’s principal architect, Reich Minister for Armaments and War Production and, by the time World War II ended, the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany. The odds were slim to none their paths would ever cross but not only did they cross, he invited her to his home for coffee and a chat. And amazingly, she went.

She was my mother, Ruby, who died last year at the age of 102. Ruby was a Methodist Sunday School teacher, a DAR and FDR Democrat who, at the time, had never lived in a town of more than 700 people.

He was Albert Speer whom, in the 1930s, Hitler personally picked to design a 400,000 seat stadium in Nuremberg, the Nazi party headquarters in Munich, and the reich chancellery in Berlin. In 1942, Hitler put him in charge of keeping the Nazi war machine well-supplied and running at full capacity, a position he held until he was arrested by the Allies in April, 1945 at the end of the war.

Thirty-one years later, in 1976, mom was visiting my brother, Jerry, an Army officer stationed in Heidelberg where he was living with his wife, Nancy, and their children. Jerry’s youngest daughter was a fifth grader at the base school.

His daughter's teacher, an American, told her class that her husband's grandfather had served as a judge during the Nuremberg Trials in which leading Nazis were tried for war crimes. Many of them, including Goring, von Ribbentrop and Streicher, were sentenced to death. Speer, the only defendant to admit his guilt, escaped the hangman's noose by claiming he knew nothing about Hitler’s final solution, a claim that, after his death, was disproven. He was sentenced to 20 years in Spandau prison, from which he was released in 1966.

Three years later, he published "Inside the Third Reich," a memoir in which he related his years as Hitler’s BFF and cabinet member. Speer hadn’t been allowed to have a writing pad in prison; he wrote the book based on notes he had penned in micro-handwriting on sheets of toilet paper a sympathetic guard smuggled out for him.

In 1975, he published his second book, "Spandau," detailing his 20 years in prison where, he estimated, his walks in the prison yard collectively covered the distance between Berlin and Guadalajara, Mexico.

My niece’s teacher told her class that she and her husband had actually met Speer, whose address they had looked up in the Heidelberg phone book. When they introduced themselves as the relatives of one of his judges, Speer told them he remembered the judge.

At the time of Mom's visit with Jerry and Nancy, "Spandau" was still atop the best-seller list. They told her about the teacher and her husband who had met Speer. Never dreaming it was within the realm of possibility, mom, an avid reader, history buff and book collector, announced, “I’d like to have him autograph a copy of his book.”

Nancy, who has always had more moxie than anyone else in our family, went to the phone book and, sure enough, there was his number. She called and was surprised when Speer himself answered, “Speer hier” (“Speer here”). When Nancy explained her mother-in-law was visiting and would like to have him autograph his book, Speer, who had learned perfect English from his British and American prison guards, invited them to come to his home at 11 a.m. the following Saturday.

When it came time to leave for Speer's house, Nancy couldn’t go – their six-year-old son, as six-year-olds sometimes do, was having a meltdown. Since Emily Post says it’s considered bad form to take an out-of-sorts child when calling upon Nazi war criminals, Jerry drove mom in his green Buick station wagon to Speer’s villa in the hills above Heidelberg Castle.

And that ... was about all I knew of the tale other than that mom always said she had committed a faux pas by asking Speer if he had ever visited her country. He said no. She later found out that American officials wouldn't allow him to set foot in the U.S.

Last night my wife and I were watching a documentary about how the Nazis looted Europe’s great art treasures during the war, and, naturally, Speer was mentioned. That got me to thinking that I should write this story down. So this morning I called my brother to get more details about his and mom’s visit.

Jerry said that when they arrived, Speer’s grandson, a boy about his son’s age, was in the yard with a large dog. Speer answered the door and showed them around his villa, a grand home that had fallen into disrepair – wallpaper was peeling off the walls and ceilings. The floor and furniture in one room were completely covered with scraps of toilet paper, the smuggled notes that became the basis for Speer’s books.

Speer served coffee in his parlor and they talked for a half hour or forty-five minutes. Understandably nervous, Jerry doesn’t recall specifics of what they discussed other than mom asking Speer if he had ever visited America. Speer autographed mom’s book, “To Ruby Dryden with best wishes.”

Jerry said mom took the book back to the states, gave it to him a few years later, then asked for it back. As we were going through mom’s collection of 700 plus books in 2012 after she had moved to an assisted living facility, Jerry pulled it off the shelf and took it home with him.

I’d have to guess the book is one of the few autographed copies in existence. Unlike most best-selling authors, Speer didn’t go on a book tour and certainly wasn’t invited to sign his book in any bookstores – none in Germany would allow him to promote it lest they appear to sanction his behavior. He remained by and large a recluse until his death in 1981.

So why, you ask, am I telling you this bizarre story?

I’m not telling it for you. I’m posting it for members of my family born in the last 40 years who have no clue their grandmother, great-grandmother, grandfather, uncle and great-uncle not only came face to face with one of the most notorious men of the twentieth century, they actually sipped coffee with him in his parlor. Many of my readers knew mom and know Jerry, two of the most unlikely Nazi sympathizers on earth, and will have trouble imagining them sitting in Albert Speer’s parlor making small talk, but it happened and, by God, I'm a storyteller and this is one story that needs to be told if for no other reason than to allow me to write the headline above.

I don’t know if mom would want me to tell it -- she probably wouldn't -- but Jerry, when I asked him, said to go ahead.

And I just did.