22 Cells in Nuremberg: A Psychiatrist Examines the Nazi Criminals

 

By Alan Singer 

Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Kelley was a United States Army Military Intelligence Corps officer who served as chief psychiatrist at Nuremberg Prison prior to the post-World War II trial of leading Nazis. Kelley examined 22 high ranking officials of the Nazi party, including Hitler’s second-in-command Hermann Goering and his deputy Rudolf Hess to determine whether they were insane and predict if they would suffer a breakdown before and during their trial. After watching the movie Nuremberg (2025) featuring Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring and Rami Malek as psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, I wanted to read Kelley’s report on the imprisoned Nazis published in 1947 as 22 Cells in Nuremberg: A Psychiatrist Examines the Nazi Criminals.

In the introduction, Kelley wrote “It is imperative that we appreciate the horror of the Third Reich without experiencing it. The devastation of Europe, the deaths of millions, the near-destruction of modern culture will have gone for naught if we do not draw the right conclusions about the forces which produced such chaos. We must learn the why of the Nazi success so we can take steps to prevent the recurrence of such evil.” In the book, Kelley argued that the defendants did not represent a specifically Nazi pathology, but that “they were simply creatures of their environment, as all humans are.” He believed that under similar circumstances, other people, including Americans might act in the same way.

The book is organized into eight parts with a total of twenty chapters. The parts focus on the physical imprisonment and prisoners who played different roles in the Holocaust (e.g. Policymakers, Gunmen, Businessmen). There are separate chapters on Adolf Hitler and the implications of the for the United States. While the relationship between Kelley and Hermann Goering is the central focus of the movie, Goering, while a crucial figure, receives only one chapter in the book.

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Source: Daily Kos

Alan Singer is the director of Secondary Education Social Studies Teaching Learning Technology at Hofstra University and the author of Class-Conscious Coal Miners. Blogs, tweets, essays, and interviews present his views and not those of the university.