From The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials by Telford Taylor: Speer came to his trial exceedingly well prepared. Apart from his basic intelligence (though only middling on Dr Gilbert's IQ ladder) and fresh recollection of the previous three years, he had been interrogated almost unceasingly, not only by the prosecution, but also by a string of military, administrative, engineering, and other visitors greedy for full information on the nature and workings of the German war machine. For example, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, whose members included John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Nitze, and George Bell, could not get enough of Speer's opinions and disclosures. Thoughtful defendants can often profit from the questions and reactions of their interrogators, and in all probability this experience aided Speer in framing his strategy for the trial. That strategy went beyond Speer's plans for the nature of his own testimony.

Just as Goering sought to establish his leadership of the defendants and a united front to justify Hitler and Nazism, so did Speer take the lead in acknowledging the failure of Nazism, the evilness of Hitler, and the defendants' own responsibility for the debacle. In all probability, Speer had no desire to be a lone soldier and hoped that bringing other defendants to his side would improve his general standing with the Tribunal and the prosecution. To accomplish this, Speer sought to split some of the defendants away from the forceful Goering. In January, lamenting Goering's influence, Speer remarked to Gilbert: 'You know, it is not a very good idea to let the defendants eat and walk together. That is how Goering keeps whipping them into line.' A month later, Speer's remark bore fruit when the defendants' luncheon tables were separated, with Goering isolated . . . .

Speer had Kubuschok break the news [of Speer's assassination plot against Hitler] ahead of time in order to emphasize the cleft between himself and Goering. He certainly succeeded insofar as Goering, at the next intermission, accosted Speer very angrily, and a heated argument took place in the presence of the other defendants. That evening Speer told Gilbert that 'I spoiled his united front.' However, it appeared doubtful that Speer had won any new members for his side of the 'front.'

From Nuremberg Diary, by Gustave Gilbert: (In response to the presentation in court that day by France) Fritzsche and Speer showed that Goering's stealing of art treasures was really the damaging accusation in German eyes. "They didn't even mention the worst part of it," Fritzsche pointed out, "that he even sold the stuff he stole. But that Frenchman who presented the case did a really good job--much more effective than name calling, and he cleverly left the word for it up to the court to decide." "You see," said Speer, "how can there be any talk of a united front among the defendants when that man has disgraced himself like that?" Goering came over after lunch while I was reading the papers to some of the others, looking over my shoulder. He started to wisecrack about having a grudge against the brain-doctor. The others walked away to avoid the pretense of joking with him, and Goering expressed great interest in the day's news." (Gilbert)

From Janet Flanner's World by Janet Flanner: As the trial moved out of its preparatory period of massive, static documentation and entered its period of skirmishing and battle in the open, where the brains and personalities of the opponents were what counted, Jackson began to show inadequacies as the leading Allied man. Up to then his main contribution to this very special legal scene had been the high humanitarianism which marked his fine opening address in November. Beneath that humanitarianism there lies his burning private conviction that the Nazi prisoners are mere common criminals. This, too logically, led to his treating them in a blustering police court manner, which was successful with the craven small fry but disastrous for him in cross-examining that uncommon criminal, Goering, himself accustomed to blustering in a grander way. Even physically, Jackson cut a poor figure. He unbuttoned his coat, whisked it back over his hips, and, with his hands in his back pockets, spraddled and teetered like a country lawyer. Not only did he seem to lack the background and wisdom of our Justice Holmes tradition, but his prepared European foreground was full of holes, which he fell into en route to setting traps for Goering.

From Justice at Nuremberg by Robert E. Conot: Speer...had the quiet good looks that made women's hearts in the courtroom go out to him; before he had attained prominence, Leni Riefenstahl, the leading film producer of the Reich, had clipped his picture out of a newspaper with the idea of using him in one of her movies . . . . Speer decorated his cell walls with red and blue crayons; and when the duty officer objected, pointed out that Colonel Andrus' comprehensive regulations contained no prohibition against murals on the walls, thus winning his point.

From Nuremberg: A Nation on Trial by Werner Maser, translated by Richard Barry: Speer cut a figure not unlike the monumental buildings planned by the Fuehrer and constructed by him--designed for effect. Of his buildings, the design for which usually carried the note 'prepared in accordance with the Fuehrer's ideas,' he said after his release from Spandau that they had become more and more foreign to what he regarded as his style. The same could not be said of his appearances in Nuremberg, where he made no attempt to evade responsibility, so much so that members of his former staff and others referred to him as the 'Nuremberger' unable to divest himself of his 'hair shirt.' Speer was a success at Nuremberg; he showed obstinacy and arrogance only to the Russians; despite his almost embarrassing vanity he made a good impression on the Western lawyers and observers at the trial and this stood him in good stead at the end. Jackson described him as the best man in the witness box and his liking for Speer was at times so obvious that observers at the trial suspected some secret agreement between them. And in fact there was, as Jackson's personal papers showed and Speer himself once admitted. Jackson and Speer carried on a secret correspondence and reached agreements.

From The Nuremberg Trial by Ann and John Tusa: Jackson caught him off guard in a moment which perhaps revealed more about Speer than any other remark he made at Nuremberg. Jackson produced records of eighty steel whips used at Krupp's for disciplining workers. 'These are nothing but replacements for rubber truncheons,' expostulated Speer. 'We had no rubber and for that reason the guards probably had something like this,' adding quickly that like the nightsticks of American policemen, the whips or truncheons were not necessarily used. But his initial response is the significant one; was the use of the steel whip the kind of improvisation Speer had specialized in to overcome the lack of raw materials, the way he won the goodwill of his workers, produced an industrial miracle with an increased labor force of only 30 per cent? Fritzsche recorded the prophecy of other defendants that Speer would be found guilty but given the benefit of extenuating circumstances. Can a court weigh in the balance millions of German lives saved against those millions of slave laborers lost or damaged, and arithmetically reach a just sentence?