The Nuremberg Interviews: An American Psychiatrist's Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses - Softcover

Goldensohn, Leon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1400030439 ISBN 13: 9781400030439

Publisher: Vintage, 2005

Synopsis

During the Nuremberg trials, Leon Goldensohn—a U.S. Army psychiatrist—monitored the mental health of two dozen Germans leaders charged with carrying out genocide. These recorded conversations went largely unexamined for more than fifty years, until Robert Gellately—one of the premier historians of Nazi Germany—made them available to the public in this remarkable collection. 

Here are interviews with the likes of Hans Frank, Hermann Goering, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Joachim von Ribbentrop—the highest ranking Nazi officials in the Nuremberg jails. Here too are interviews with lesser-known officials essential to the inner workings of the Third Reich. Candid and often shockingly truthful, The Nuremberg Interviews is a profound addition to our understanding of the Nazi mind and mission.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"The Nuremberg Interviews reveals the chilling innermost thoughts of the former Nazi officials under indictment at the famous postwar trial. The architects of one of history's greatest atrocities speak out about their lives, their careers in the Nazi Party, and their views on the Holocaust. Their reflections are recorded in a set of interviews conducted by a U.S. Army psychiatrist. Dr. Leon Goldensohn was entrusted with monitoring the mental health of the two dozen German leaders charged with carrying out genocide, as well as that of many of the defense and prosecution witnesses. These recorded conversations have gone largely unexamined for more than fifty years.
Now, Robert Gellately-one of the premier historians of Nazi Germany-has transcribed, edited, and annotated the interviews, and makes them available to the public for the first time in this volume.
Here are interviews with the highest-ranking Nazi officials in the Nuremberg jails, including Hans Frank, Hermann Goering, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Here, too, are interviews with the lesser-known officials who were, nonetheless, essential to the workings of the Third Reich. Goldensohn was a particularly astute interviewer, his training as a psychiatrist leading him to probe the motives, the rationales, and the skewing of morality that allowed these men to enact an unfathomable evil. Candid and often shockingly truthful, these interviews are deeply disturbing in their illumination of an ideology gone mad.
Each interview is annotated with biographical information that places the man and his actions in their historical context. These interviews are a profoundly important addition to our understandingof the Nazi mind and mission.

"From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author:

Dr. Leon Goldensohn was an American physician and psychiatrist who joined the U.S. Army in 1943 and was posted to France and Germany. He died in 1961.

Robert Gellately is the Earl Ray Beck Professor of History at Florida State University and recently was the Bertelsmann Visiting Professor of Twentieth Century Jewish Politics and History at Oxford University. He is the author of The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933—1945 and Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany. He was born in St. John's, Newfoundland and lives in Tallahassee, Florida.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1400030439
• ISBN 13: 9781400030439
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528
• Editor: Gellately Robert