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The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Doug… 

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Appreciation
8
Importance
8
Date Added
1.17.26
TLDR
Dr. Douglas Kelley is given the opportunity of a lifetime when he is assigned to evaluate the Nazi leaders before the Nuremberg trials. His access to the prisoners is not only unlimited but uniquely intimate: many of the Nazis are eager to speak with Kelley more openly than they ever did with interrogators, seeing him as someone who wants to listen and understand rather than accuse. Kelley initially sets out to discover what made these men different from ordinary people, what defect or pathology allowed them to commit such extraordinary evil. Instead, he leaves with a far more unsettling conviction: no single unifying trait exists, and ordinary people among us are capable of atrocity. A decade later, Kelley commits suicide in the same manner as Hermann Göring, the man he once studied, a choice that appears much more deliberate than convenient.
2 Cents
Fascinating insights into Göring–somehow you can see the incredibly human side of him. Throughout the first half of the book you understand his character, motivations, and charms pretty deeply. Kelley is able to get close enough with him that he continuously confides in him, entrusts his daughter to Kelley's care if he dies, and cries when Kelley announces he is leaving the prison. The first half of the book was great, the second half was dragged out.
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  • On Kelley's suicide (which is really well-written given the context from the rest of the book, e.g., he was a performing magician):

    Why did the doctor use cyanide? There were guns in his office. A self-administered gunshot would have been quicker, cleaner for the victim, at least, and more manly. If Kelley wanted melodrama that New Year’s Day, why not display a gun or knife to generate a frisson in his anguished audience instead of holding some substance, unknown to the onlookers, concealed in his hand like a palmed coin? As a physician well acquainted with criminal practices, Kelley knew that ingesting cyanide led to one of the most painful and unpleasant deaths we can inflict upon the human body.

    In the 1950 book The Psychology of Dictatorship, Gustave Gilbert had explained Göring’s plunge into Nazism by observing, “It was the zest of high and fast living, of heroic playacting, that appealed to him.” Kelley loved that same kind of high-emotion, fast-accelerating life journey before an awed audience, and their similarities probably account for the close bond that he and Göring formed. But in both cases, when their heroic rides approached their bitter, agonizing ends, they chose to bail out. It is no coincidence that cyanide, a poisonous agent with a uniquely dramatic effect on the body, was their selected means of escape.

  • On how close Göring and Kelley became, as well as Göring's human side (the only thing he ever complained about during his imprisonment was his family's treatment):

    On the back of this letter Göring added a postscript: “Major Dr. Kelley, who is bringing this letter to you, is really an extraordinary gentleman. First Lieutenant [Dolibois], who accompanies him, is very warm and human and I have known both gentlemen for several months. You can trust them completely.”

    Göring later wrote again to Emmy: “To see [Edda’s] beloved handwriting, to know that your dear hands have rested on this very paper—all that and the contents itself has moved me most deeply, and yet made me most happy…. Sometimes I think that my heart will break with love and longing for you. That would be a beautiful death.”

    ... [Göring] asked Kelley to take care of young Edda [(his daughter)] in the United States if both mother and father died.

I have many more quotes marked; will add soon.