Jack El-Hai

Jack El-​Hai's book, "​​The Nazi and the Psychiatrist"​, tells the story of an Army Psychiatrist, Dr. Douglas Kelley, who interviewed ​Hermann Goering and ​the ​other ​top surviving Nazi leaders after World War II as they were preparing to face charges in the N​uremburg Trials. ​ His objective was to determine if there was a particular trait, characteristic, or psychiatric condition that caused or allowed those men to oversee so many atrocities to occur under their leadership. After numerous interviews and tests, Dr. Kelley came to conclude that there was nothing particularly abnormal about these men. The uncomfortable result of this conclusion is that the capability to perform similar atrocities was not unique to the Nazi Party or German people, but can exist anywhere. People can be incited to acts of cruelty by propaganda, scare tactics, repeated lies, and distrust of 'others', and when leaders exhibit these characteristics, it should be a red flag to all citizens capable of critical thinking and independent thought to beware.

After the Nuremberg Trials, Dr. Kelley returned to private life, and continued his practice and a lecturer, writer, psychiatrist, consultant, criminologist, teacher, and family man. Unfortunately for Dr. Ryan and his family, the stresses of his life brought out his darker side, and led to an unfortunate and unhappy life.

Two points st​uck with me upon completing Jack El-​Hai's book:
(1) that even highly regarded psychologists who spend their time helping others overcome their stresses and problems are not immune from suffering from similar afflictions; and
(2) the capability to inflict injury or death on others is a trait of homo sapiens which can surface in any of us unless guarded against.… (altro)

A fascinating biography of Dr. Douglas Kelley, a psychiatrist famed for evaluating the Nazi war criminals before their judgment at Nuremberg. The particular focus of this book was Kelley's strange relationship with Hermann Göring, Hitler's second-in-command. Kelley, like many other professionals in his day, believed that there was a "Nazi personality type" or a mental defect Nazis shared that could effectively explain how these men and women committed such heinous crimes. However, Kelley found that the men he spoke with in their Nuremberg cells were disturbingly "normal." Well ahead of his time in his understanding of the nature of evil, and decades before Zimbardo's Standford Prison Experiment, Kelley was alone in his opinion that Nazis were not mentally disturbed, and this intellectual isolation took a toll on his own mental health.

Highly recommended to WWII junkies and those interested in psychology.… (altro)

Following Germany's surrender at the end of World War II, American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley accepted a military assignment to become familiar with, study, and otherwise mentally examine the surviving high-ranking Nazi officials leading up to the Nuremberg Trials. His hope was to identify a common personality trait or defect which would assist in explaining their willing participation in the inhuman atrocities that took place.

Kelley's notes reveal fascinating and shocking insights into the psyches and motivations of these famous prisoners, including Göring, Hess, Rosenberg, Streicher, et al, in ways generally excluded from history textbooks. Several of the top officials, including Göring himself, admitted openly that they didn't even sincerely believe that Jews were inferior, but rather were merely a convenient means of inciting fear and anger among the rest of the German population.

A few passages of note, some chillingly relevant in today's political climate:

Kelley: "I was more than casually interested as a psychiatrist to find in Rosenberg an individual who had developed a system of thought differing greatly from known fact, who absolutely refused to amend his theories, and who, moreover, firmly believed in the magic of the words in which he had expressed them."

Hess had founded an alternative-medicine hospital that bore his name, "where the only requirement was that men practicing there could not be medical doctors," Kelley reported.

The anti-Semitism of the Nazis stuck Göring as useful bait for potential adherents with gripes more emotionally rooted than the mere imposition of an offensive peace treaty.

Kelley: "They are people who exist in every country of the world. Their personality patterns are not obscure. But they are people who have peculiar drives, people who want to be in power, and you say that they don't exist here, and I would say that I am quite certain that there are people even in America who would willingly climb over the corpses of half of the American public if they could gain control of the other half..."

Minnesota Book Award finalist, 2014

… (altro)