The Nuremberg Interviews

Zusatztext “A gripping work of history! a series of oral narratives that drag the reader! almost by force! into the nightmarish mental landscape of the Third Reich.” — The New York Times “A rare document. . . . Striking proof of the banality of evil.” — Kirkus “Goldensohn serves as a down-to-earth Dante in these anterooms to hell! getting one damned soul after another to reveal himself in his own words." — Newsweek Informationen zum Autor Leon N. Goldensohn Edited and with an Introduction by Robert Gellately Klappentext 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. Leseprobe Nuremberg—Voices from the Past Leon Goldensohn was an American physician and psychiatrist at the time the United States entered the Second World War. In 1943 he joined the U.S. Army and was soon posted to France and Germany, where he served in battles in the European theater. Not long after the war ended, he became prison psychiatrist at Nuremberg, the location of the first postwar trials of the major Nazi war criminals. Goldensohn arrived in Nuremberg in early January 1946, about six weeks into the trials, and remained there until late July of that year. As a trained psychiatrist he had responsibility for the mental health of the nearly two dozen German leaders who had survived the war and who were now fighting for their lives before the International Military Tribunal. As a medical doctor who saw the prisoners nearly every day, he also kept careful track of their physical problems. Over a period of seven months in Nuremberg prison he spoke on a regular basis with many of the twenty-one prisoners who were there when he arrived, and he carried out formal and extended interviews with most of them. In addition, he interviewed a large number of defense and prosecution witnesses, some of whom had also been significant Nazi officials. This book publishes for the first time a broad selection of the interviews Goldensohn conducted during his time in Nuremberg. They represent an important addition to the record of the trials and of the Third Reich. They are unique in that they are systematic interviews conducted by a trained psychiatrist, and they offer new testimony about the mentality and motives of the major Nazi perpetrators. Background to the Nuremberg Trials The Nuremberg trials came into existence out of a multitude of political and judicial concerns, but are seen by many today as a landmark in international law. They were by no means inevitable, however, and might never have taken place. During the war, as Allied leaders learned about the vast scale of the Nazi atrocities, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill of Great Britain, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union at one time or another all considered summary execution as the more appropriate response to Nazi crimes. The concept of the trials was apparently first suggested by Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov as far back as October 14, 1942. On that date Molotov wrote to several East European governments in exile in London about Moscow’s inclinatio...

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Robert Gellately, Leon Goldensohn, Leon Goldersohn
• Mitarbeit: Robert Gellately (Herausgeber)
• Verlag: Vintage USA
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Taschenbuch
• Erschienen: 25.10.2005
• EAN: 9781400030439
• ISBN: 978-1-4000-3043-9
• Seiten: 528
• Abmessung: 132 mm x 202 mm x 28 mm
• Thema: Sachbuch