PsycCRITIQUES

February 17, 2014, Vol. 59, No. 7, Article 4

© 2014 American Psychological Association

The Top Nazi Criminal at Nuremberg,

the Psychiatrist, and the Rorschach
Test

A Review of

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
New York, NY: Public Affairs Books, 2013. 281 pp. ISBN
978-1-61039-156-6. $27.99

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035627

Reviewed by

Victor A. Colotla

At the end of World War II a novel kind of world court—the International Military Tribunal at
Nuremberg—was formed by the Allied powers, headed by the United States, to try to
convict senior German politicians and high-ranking military individuals for their involvement
in a series of criminal actions. Specifically, and for the first time, individuals were being
charged for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes against peace. A panel of
eight judges, two named by each of the Allied powers, formed the tribunal that eventually
sentenced 12 defendants to death and four to several prison terms and acquitted three of
the defendants (Gallegos, 2013). One of the defendants sentenced to death by hanging was
Hermann Göring, second in command to Adolf Hitler, but he eluded the rope at the last
minute by committing suicide with a cyanide capsule that he had apparently kept hidden
during his captivity.

Jack El-Hai, a journalist with particular interests in history, medicine, and science, has
written the book under review, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas
M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII, providing a detailed description
of one of the mental health professionals involved in the Nuremberg prison, Douglas M.
Kelley, and his interaction with Göring.

The Psychiatrist

Kelley was the first psychiatrist assigned with the responsibility of looking after the mental
health of the Nuremberg defendants and of assessing them to determine whether they were
fit to stand trial. He remained in Nuremberg from August 1945 to January 1946, when Leon
Goldensohn arrived to replace him. Goldensohn would remain there until July 1946, close to
the end of the defense hearings (Gellately, 2004).
El-Hai seems to have been fascinated by Kelley. He is certainly the main focus of the book,
and, indeed, Kelley appears to have been a most interesting individual. When describing
Kelley’s life, El-Hai devotes a great deal of space to Kelley’s maternal family and provides
detailed information on Kelley’s interest and eventual mastery of illusionistic magical tricks
that started in his teen years, were nursed through young adulthood, and were eventually
incorporated in the treatment of psychiatric patients as a new form of occupational therapy.
Another novel treatment that Kelley introduced for “combat exhaustion” was based on rest
induced by high doses of insulin, narcohypnosis (a state of relaxation induced by drugs such
as sodium amytal to allow for the soldier’s recall of traumatic memories), and group
psychotherapy.

Apparently, this last treatment approach was quite successful and likely influenced Kelley’s
promotion to the rank of major in May 1944 and his eventual appointment as psychiatrist at
Nuremberg. Also described at length is Kelley’s postwar career in criminology, teaching
psychiatric techniques to members of his local police force and helping solve criminal cases.

Kelley was one of Lewis Terman’s participants in his study of geniuses and maintained
contact with the Stanford psychologist throughout his career. Apparently, because of his
recognition of the importance of high intelligence and his identification as a highly intelligent
individual, Kelley attempted to raise his children, particularly his oldest child, Doug, to
maximize their intellectual potential.

Kelley comes across as an authoritarian, egocentric man who would reign at his home from
the kitchen to the basement. Indeed, according to El-Hai, Kelley assumed the custom of
cooking for the family on a daily basis.

Hermann Göring

Kelley examined the Nuremberg prisoners through interviews and testing, and El-Hai
describes the psychiatrist’s interactions with many of them. None of them affected Kelley as
much as his interactions with Göring.

At the time of his capture at the closing of World War II, Göring was a tall, overweight
individual who had been spending the last few weeks of the war in hiding, aware that there
was an order from Martin Bormann for him to be killed. He was transported initially to a
temporary prison in a previously luxurious hotel in Luxembourg, in Mondorf-les-Bains; from
there he was taken to the Nuremberg jail. At that time he was the highest ranking Nazi
prisoner, having held many titles (surpassed only by Hitler), including president of the
Reichstag, prime minister of Prussia, field marshal, and Reichsmarschall. El-Hai describes
the Nazi’s struggles with narcotic addiction from the early 1920s until his imprisonment in
Nuremberg.

A great portion of the book is devoted to Göring’s life and role within the Nazi party, as well
as his impressions and expectations of the future at the time of his interviews with
Kelley—at first he thought he was going to be released soon.
The Rorschach Test

Of particular interest to psychologists is the author’s description of administration of the

Rorschach Inkblot Test and the Thematic Apperception Test to the Nuremberg defendants,
in an attempt to determine whether there was a “Nazi personality”—but there wasn’t one.
The prison psychologist, Gustave M. Gilbert, also administered the Wechsler scale and other
tests to the defendants and found the top Nazis to be well above average in intellectual
functioning. Reportedly, Kelley was one of the first psychiatrists who became familiar with
the Rorschach test being used in America, even authoring one of the first books on the test
with Bruno Klopfer, and he was an ardent admirer and believer in the clinical usefulness of
the test. Kelley introduced as well the technique of administering sodium amytal to the
examinee, to break down resistance and have the person more willingly respond to the
Rorschach cards.

According to El-Hai, Kelley had to surmount some difficulties when administering the
Rorschach because he did not speak German and thus had to rely on interpreters. El-Hai
says that Kelley’s data on the Rorschach test from the Nazi defendants were never
published, even after being scored and interpreted by different experts.

Assessing the Book

With no preface or introduction, the book’s purpose and intended audience are difficult to be
ascertained. Assuredly, El-Hai has written extensively on the history of science and of
medicine, and his motivation in working on The Nazi and the Psychiatrist was likely out of
curiosity and interest in the topic. The book focuses on Kelley, and because Göring came to
have such an important role in Kelley’s life after his stay in Nuremberg, this famous Nazi
prisoner also features prominently in the book.

According to the author, after doing some detective work, he was able to locate Kelley’s
oldest son, Douglas Kelley, who had kept his father’s documents and prized possessions.
Doug, as El-Hai called him, allowed the author to review all extensive documents and photos
and answered questions about the psychiatrist in several interviews. The book is based
mainly on the author’s research on the history of the Nuremberg tribunal, on Kelley’s life
and psychiatric work, and on the interviews he conducted with Doug Kelley and other
individuals.

The book reads like a novel, more than as an academic book—that I do not think it is,
alternating chapters to different topics. For instance, a very brief first chapter describes
Kelley’s house; then Göring’s capture and initial stay at Mondorf-les-Bains form the second
chapter, to return to Kelley’s life history in the third, and so on. The author seems to have
mastered the historical facts of World War II, the Nazi criminals—featuring prominently
Hermann Göring—and Kelley’s life and contributions to the behavioral sciences.

It is worth noting that Kelley committed suicide by ingesting a cyanide capsule, just as
Göring did. This fact attracted El-Hai’s attention to the point of his devoting several
paragraphs (in Chapter 9) to the similarities of their deaths.
The reader must be warned that this book does not add much to the scientific
understanding of war criminals or terrorists, particularly those of the Nazi era. El-Hai makes
only passing references to other relevant—though controversial—works such as Milgram’s
studies of obedience and Zimbardo’s prison experiment, but he makes no attempt to link his
findings to contemporary research on dictatorship (e.g., Moghaddam, 2013).

Notwithstanding the above, because of its engaging description of events and fullness of
facts, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist will be of interest to a wide audience, including war
historians, criminologists, sociologists, psychologists with forensic and/or historical
persuasions, and the lay reader. The book should also be of interest to anyone concerned in
understanding the psychology of dictators and terrorists and may be used as supplementary
reading in courses on clinical and social psychology or in forensic and criminology courses.

References

Gallegos, C. (Ed.). (2013). The legal language of terrorism: A thematic dictionary. Chicago,
IL: MERL.
Gellately, R. (2004). Introduction: Nuremberg—Voices from the past. In L. Goldenshon, The
Nuremberg interviews (pp. vii–xxix). New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Moghaddam, F. M. (2013). The psychology of dictatorship. Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/14138-000 PsycINFO →