The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII
NOW THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE NUREMBERG

“The book is a page turner.”—NPR


In 1945, an improbable relationship between the fallen Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goering, and ambitious US Army physician, Douglas Kelley, becomes a hazardous quest into the nature of evil, amid the devastation of Europe at the end of World War II

In 1945, after his capture at the end of the Second World War, Hermann Göring arrived at an American-run detention center in war-torn Luxembourg, accompanied by sixteen suitcases and a red hatbox. Joining him in the detention center were fifty-one senior Nazis, of whom Göring was the dominant figure.

To ensure that the captives were fit for trial at Nuremberg, the US army sent an ambitious army psychiatrist, Captain Douglas M. Kelley, to supervise and evaluate them. To Kelley, it was the professional opportunity of a lifetime: to discover a distinguishing trait among these arch-criminals that would mark them as psychologically different from the rest of humanity. But Kelley’s quest would prove to be a dangerous one. The more he spoke with the Nazi captives, the more he began to understand and appreciate their perspective—and the more he would fall for their charms.
1114863820
The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII
NOW THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE NUREMBERG

“The book is a page turner.”—NPR


In 1945, an improbable relationship between the fallen Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goering, and ambitious US Army physician, Douglas Kelley, becomes a hazardous quest into the nature of evil, amid the devastation of Europe at the end of World War II

In 1945, after his capture at the end of the Second World War, Hermann Göring arrived at an American-run detention center in war-torn Luxembourg, accompanied by sixteen suitcases and a red hatbox. Joining him in the detention center were fifty-one senior Nazis, of whom Göring was the dominant figure.

To ensure that the captives were fit for trial at Nuremberg, the US army sent an ambitious army psychiatrist, Captain Douglas M. Kelley, to supervise and evaluate them. To Kelley, it was the professional opportunity of a lifetime: to discover a distinguishing trait among these arch-criminals that would mark them as psychologically different from the rest of humanity. But Kelley’s quest would prove to be a dangerous one. The more he spoke with the Nazi captives, the more he began to understand and appreciate their perspective—and the more he would fall for their charms.
11.99 In Stock
The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

by Jack El-Hai
The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

by Jack El-Hai

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Overview

NOW THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE NUREMBERG

“The book is a page turner.”—NPR


In 1945, an improbable relationship between the fallen Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goering, and ambitious US Army physician, Douglas Kelley, becomes a hazardous quest into the nature of evil, amid the devastation of Europe at the end of World War II

In 1945, after his capture at the end of the Second World War, Hermann Göring arrived at an American-run detention center in war-torn Luxembourg, accompanied by sixteen suitcases and a red hatbox. Joining him in the detention center were fifty-one senior Nazis, of whom Göring was the dominant figure.

To ensure that the captives were fit for trial at Nuremberg, the US army sent an ambitious army psychiatrist, Captain Douglas M. Kelley, to supervise and evaluate them. To Kelley, it was the professional opportunity of a lifetime: to discover a distinguishing trait among these arch-criminals that would mark them as psychologically different from the rest of humanity. But Kelley’s quest would prove to be a dangerous one. The more he spoke with the Nazi captives, the more he began to understand and appreciate their perspective—and the more he would fall for their charms.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781610391573
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Publication date: 09/10/2013
Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format: eBook
Pages: 304
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Jack El-Hai is an author and journalist who has written for The Atlantic, Smithsonian, GQ, Wired, Scientific American, Discover, and many other publications. His books, including The Lobotomist, The Lost Brothers, and Face in the Mirror, have been translated into twenty foreign languages. He often gives lectures and workshops on writing and medical history, and he publishes the Damn History newsletter for readers and writers of history.

Read an Excerpt

It was a plum assignment, a rendezvous with the men widely regarded as the worst criminals of the century. Kelley’s time as the supervisor of several psychiatric hospitals had taught him that aberrant behavior often had mysterious and fascinating sources, and he set his own goals for the time he would spend in this Nazi holding pen. Kelley arrived among the Nazi leaders eager to probe them for signs of a flaw common to all: the willingness to commit evil acts. Did they share a mental disorder or a psychiatric cause of their behavior? Was there a “Nazi personality” that accounted for their heinous misdeeds? Kelley intended to find out…

Kelley had formed quick impressions of Göring. From his meetings with the other Nazi prisoners, Kelley recognized that Göring “was undoubtedly the most outstanding personality in the jail because he was intelligent,” Kelley wrote in his medical notes. “He was well developed mentally—well rounded—a huge, powerful sort of body when he was covered up with his cape and you couldn’t see the fat jiggle as he walked, a good looking individual from a distance, a very powerful dynamic individual.” But having also lightly touched in their initial cell-bound conversations upon politics, the war, and the rise of Nazism, Kelley was not blind to Göring’s dark side. The ex-Reich Marshal flashed ruthlessness, narcissism, and a cold-hearted disregard for anyone beyond his close circle of family and friends. That very combination of characteristics present in Göring—the admirable and the sinister—heightened Kelley’s interest in the prisoner. Only such an attractive, capable, and smart man who had smashed and snuffed out the lives of so many people could point Kelley toward the regions of the human soul that he urgently wanted to explore.

Table of Contents

Principal Characters
Chapter 1: The House
Chapter 2: Mondorf-les-Bains
Chapter 3: The Psychiatrist
Chapter 4: Among the Ruins
Chapter 5: Inkblots
Chapter 6: Interloper
Chapter 7: The Palace of Justice
Chapter 8: The Nazi Mind
Chapter 9: Cyanide
Chapter 10: Post Mortem
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
[Possible Appendix/art of Rorschach blots]
Index
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