A reading of strong necessity
The testimony of a psychiatrist, Jewish officer in the U.S. Army, whose mission was to meet with former leaders of Nazi Germany, tried for war crimes at Nuremberg, is crucial in understanding the evil. The humanity of the author is surprising when in face with the demons. This book is therefore moving and instructive. A necessary reading.
The Nuremberg Interviews
This book has been sitting on my shelf for about a year and I finally decided to dive into it. I wish I had read it sooner. `The Nuremberg Interviews' is a collection of interviews with a number of the most notorious Nuremberg defendants-as well as those designated witnesses-by American psychiatrist Leon Goldensohn. Much has been written about these individuals, but here we have the story of the Third Reich in the words of those who participated in it. From a historian's point of view, this is truly fascinating stuff. That Goldensohn was himself Jewish, only makes it more fascinating-and ironic-and the professional detachment is amazing. That is not to say that Goldensohn's comments-which are part of the interviews-are without bias. Of course this is completely understandable, but as editor Robert Gellately puts it in his compelling introduction, some of Goldensohn's assumptions color his interviews:
"He accepted the view that a vast conspiracy began more or less at the beginning of the Third Reich and continued into the war years. Few historians today would agree with such an `intentionalist' approach to the Third Reich, and most subscribe to the view that many policies, including the policy to murder all the Jews in Europe, were improvised and decided only well into the Second World War."
Some of the better known interviewees were Alfred Rosenberg, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Julius Streicher, Baldur von Schirach, Goering, Hess, and many others. There are 33 interviews in all. Most of the defendants were quite cordial, and almost all of them were adamant in their innocence. With the exception of a few, all the defendants repeated the "I was just following orders and I had no idea about the atrocities" line. Others admit to knowing about it, but say there was nothing they could have done to stop it. Two or three of them actually expressed genuine remorse. It is tempting to write them all off as murderers and liars, no doubt some of them were, but many of them come off as quite sincere when describing the events of the Third Reich, even if they tend to minimize their own part in it. Some of the conversations were fascinating, like when Admiral Doenitz says that most of the atrocities were carried out by "overly emotional Bavarians and Austrians" rather than Northern Germans who were more rational. Or when several defendants gave their candid assessment of Hitler, or bad mouthed their fellow defendants. On the other hand, some was inane small talk, like when a certain defendant goes on about how he would have liked to have been a simple gardener and complains about his health problems.
Without a doubt, the most disturbing-and probably the most honest-interview was with Rudolf Hoess, the former commandant of Auschwitz. Hoess freely admitted to directly overseeing the extermination program, and estimated that in his four years as commandant that he killed 2.5 million men, women, and children. This was chilling stuff. Overall, this is a chilling but fascinating read for anyone interested in the history of the Third Reich or WW2.
Worthy, even landmark, addition to Holocaust/Nazi history
After World War II the allies and occupied/liberated countries (e.g., Britain, France, Italy, Poland, Greece, the Soviet Union) tried tens of thousands of people (German POWs, Nazi officials, Nazi colloborators, etc.) for war crimes. The records of most of these trials (many of which were summary) are not available for one reason or another. The most notorious of these war crimes trials were the ones before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (scene of the spectacle of the Nazi party day celebrations) in which the U.S., Britain, France, and the USSR jointly prosecuted both organizations (e.g., the SS) and individuals (e.g., Martin Bormann, presumed to be the most powerful man in Germany after Hitler at the end of war, although he was tried "in absentia").
These trials were notorious for two reasons.
First, major players of the Third Reich then in captivity were on trial and attesting to events they were involved in (unlike in normal criminal trials in the U.S., in these trials the accused had no right against self-incrimination and could not refuse to testify or be cross-examined).
Second, documentation of the mass killings in concentration/extermination camps, which some had tried to downplay to that point as propaganda, was divulged to the world for all to see.
Dr. Goldensohn was a psychiatrist who interviewed defendants and witnesses in captivity at the Nuremberg trials on a regular basis. In so doing Dr. Goldensohn's purposes were several: He had to gauge the person's mental spirits (the prosecutors did not want to lose anyone to suicide) and medical well-being, as well as obtain a personal and family history, and prepare a psychological profile.
The results are nothing short of amazing, if not startling. With a few possible exceptions, all of the interviewees tried to distance themselves from the mass killings in one way or another and expressed remorse that they occurred. Their primary excuses were: (1) they knew nothing about them until the end of the war when the inmates in the camps were freed, and (2) they were just following orders, which if disobeyed meant their own death or imprisonment.
The extracts from Dr. Goldenson's contemporaneous interview notes are presented as separate chapters, one for each person. The interviews are primarily independent of each other (they are presented in the book in alphabetical order by defendants and then by witnesses). They can thus be easily read separately or out of order at a leisurely pace without losing the overall context of the book.
The interviews for a particular person vary from 1-2 pages (Rudolf Hess, Alfred Jodl, Albert Speer, Kurt Daluege) to over 20 pages (Walther Funk, Hermann Goering, Hjalmar Schacht, Ewald von Kleist) in length, most are about 10-15 pages. Many of the interviewees come off as bland and colorless, one exception is Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering who by turns is remonstrative and bombastic. Each chapter begins with the person's photo, along with a brief description of their positions and titles, and what ultimately happened to them (death, imprisonment, not guilty).
Dr. Goldensohn's work is particularly enchanced by the participation of historian Robert Gellately, who (1) provides as an introduction a 20-plus page insightful and balanced discussion of the background of the trials and interviews, (2) masterfully edits and abridges the interviews presented (they were still in an incomplete format when Dr. Goldensohn died in 1961, some were typed, some were handwritten, and contained errors in spelling and syntax, etc.), and (3) provides useful endnotes on many of the statements of the interviewees (the endnotes explain the context of some of the statements made, expose misstatements or outright falsehoods, and contain references for further reading).
There are a couple of minor shortcomings to the work: (1) Dr. Goldensohn was not fluent in German and had to rely on a translator for what most of the interviewees were saying: thus it is possible "something got lost in the translation"; (2) one must remember that all of the interviewees were on trial for their lives (10 of the 19 "defendants" were sentenced to death as, at subsequent trials, were 5 of the 14 "witnesses"; 7 of the defendants and 7 of the witnesses received jail terms) and probably suspected anything incriminatory they said would be used against them (indeed, there was no patient-doctor confidentiality in these interviews and any statements they made to Dr. Goldensohn could have been used against them although that apparently never happened). (In this regard, for what its worth, two of the most extensive interview notes in the book are those for Hans Fritsche, a minion who worked in the German Propaganda Ministry, and Hjalmar Schact, former president of the Reichsbank (to 1939) and minister without portfolio (to 1943), both of whom were found not guilty.)
Five Minutes Past the Thousand-Year Reich . . .
Learning that an America soldier, psychiatrist and MD had the opportunity to examine this Germanic rabble in 1946 was simply too intellectually enticing to ignore, and Robert Gellately's compilation of Dr. Leon Goldensohn's interviews with some major members of the Nazi tribe is just as fascinating and nauseating as I had expected. While `The Nuremburg Interviews' sometimes seems rather like notes from a sophomore psyche class, the book is - in its antiseptic purity - the nearest approximation to explaining the inexplicable, and the nearest to giving some understanding of the incomprehensible.
This lack of editorializing is the book's greatest value. The patients of Dr. Leon Goldensohn (19 of whom are on trial and 10 of whom are just 6 months shy of becoming strange fruit) seem every inch a gentleman . . . Hermann Göring is "friendly, eager to talk, and quite comfortable" while Wilhelm Keitel is "always in a good mood for talking" as Alfred Jodl bleats "you come to see the others but rarely to see me."
To read their interviews is to be struck dumb by their cordial banality. Perhaps most haunting of all is to come to the realization that these men are not monsters but men who acted monstrously in ways that would inspire the devil himself.
Stanley Milgram proved as much in his studies at Yale University and his book "Obedience to Authority." In it, Milgram demonstrated that we are truly a potentially twisted species; frightfully capable of astonishing cruelty when merely nudged in the wrong direction.
`The Nuremburg Interviews' is an ugly read, but an undeniably fascinating one.
The Nuremberg Interviews.
VERY GOOD DETAILS PERTAINING TO THE THOUGHT PROCESSES OF BOTH THE ACCUSED AND THE WITNESSES. WELL ORGANIZED AND WRITTEN IN A MANNER THAT IS EASY TO FOLLOW.
(18 reviews)
