The Nazi and the Psychiatrist

by Jack El-Hai

  Haymaker was the recipient of the disguised package. His examination of the brain showed a “long-standing degenerative process of the frontal lobes” in the region that Kelley had predicted was injured, a finding that microscopic study confirmed. The pathologist’s report on Ley’s brain exhilarated Kelley. “I shall be everlastingly grateful to Robert Ley for giving it to me,” he said.

  Kelley’s rejoicing was premature. In 1947 Haymaker sent specimens of Ley’s brain to pathologists at the Langley Porter Clinic in San Francisco for another opinion. The examination there produced no clear findings of organic damage. Haymaker passed the news to Kelley in a letter that December: Ley’s brain abnormalities “were of a lesser scope than we had at first believed. Personally, I think maybe we had better let the whole thing lie buried, as the degree of change [in the brain] could be subject to a difference of opinion.”

  Gilbert had learned how to administer the Rorschach test at Columbia but was not much interested in the assessment. He understood its value, however, and introduced the inkblots to the Nazis Kelley had not yet tested and retested others. Gilbert’s repeat of the Rorschach test with Göring arrived at a different interpretation than Kelley’s. Gilbert determined that Göring’s results “betrayed the qualitative mediocrity of his intellect.” Although the Reichsmarschall described plenty of human and animal activity in the inkblots, Gilbert found a lack of originality in Göring’s responses that “revealed his superficial and pedestrian realism, rather than brilliantly creative intelligence.” In other words, Göring was smart and cynical but no genius. Gilbert also labeled Göring depressed and depraved.

  Two Rorschach evaluators, two very different interpretations: Why? Kelley read imagination, power, and boldness into Göring’s responses, probably because the psychiatrist had formed an unusual bond with him during their months of almost daily contact. In such qualities as self-confidence, stubbornness, dedication to work, and focus on one’s self, the two men were alike. They both were high climbers in their fields and adept manipulators of others. Without knowing it, Kelley identified with Göring. Gilbert felt none of that rapport and viewed his subject more coolly.

  Gilbert retested Hess with the Rorschach as well, finding a shortage of emotion, empathy, and maturity in Hess’s meager responses. The prisoner never saw living creatures of any kind in the blots, described little motion, and perceived “lifeless details” in the images. “All of this bespeaks impotence and lack of vitality in his mental resources,” Gilbert concluded, and he noted Hess’s “severely constricted personality with a most tenuous grip on reality.”

  The psychologist embarked on another series of tests of the prisoners using a German translation of the Wechsler-Bellevue Adult IQ tool, a battery of memory, verbal, mathematical, and conceptual examinations. These tests gave the Nazis such tasks as assembling jigsaw puzzles, finding the missing parts of pictures, and swapping numerical digits for symbols. Göring eagerly accepted the challenge, “behaving like a bright and egotistical schoolboy who was anxious to show off before the teacher,” Gilbert remembered. When Göring failed to recall a nine-digit series of numbers after sailing through previous memory challenges, he struck his cot with his fist and cried, “Ach, come on, give me another one—I can do it!” When the Reichsmarschall succeeded on the retry, to Gilbert’s visible amazement, Göring “could hardly contain himself for pride and joy.” Göring praised American psychological examinations as “much better than the stuff our psychologists were fooling around with.” (Keitel similarly complained to Gilbert of the “silly nonsense” German military psychologists resorted to during evaluations of Wehrmacht members; he had eliminated their testing after his own son flunked an officer candidate evaluation.) Like Kelley, Gilbert quickly learned that appealing to the prisoner’s vanity and craving to impress bought Göring’s hard work and enthusiasm.

  Using a scoring formula that took account of the gradual failing of brain function that he thought likely came with aging, Gilbert came up with IQ results that placed many of the top Nazis well above average in mental acuity. The banker Schacht topped the group with a score of 143, followed by Artur Seyss-Inquart at 141, Göring and Dönitz at 138, Papen at 134, Frank and Schirach at 130, Ribbentrop at 129, Rosenberg at 127, Hess at about 120, and Streicher trailing the pack at 106. Predictably, Göring was disappointed that he had not emerged on top. Streicher’s lackluster performance surprised no one.

  Gilbert tried some other psychological assessments, including a test that asked the prisoners to form a coherent comic strip out of images on a series of cards (which none of the Nazis could figure out), the Thematic Apperception Test (to which Hess responded with variations on “I can’t tell” and “It only makes me sleepy looking at it”), and exercises in making change for imaginary purchases of postage stamps, which befuddled Streicher and, amazingly, Schacht. “Any financial wizard who is good at arithmetic is probably a swindler,” Schacht said, brushing off his blunders. Gilbert ultimately concluded that successful people in any realm of activity—including the management of a fascist regime—were likely to possess above-average intelligence. Although he thought these men were all smart enough to have known better than to authorize war crimes and atrocities, Gilbert also knew that “IQ dictates nothing but the mere intellectual efficiency of the mind, and has nothing to do with character or morals, nor the various other considerations that go into an evaluation of personality.” Not impressed by the high IQ scores, Andrus judged the Nazis not even particularly smart: “From what I’ve seen of them as intellects and characters, I wouldn’t let one of these supermen be a buck sergeant in my outfit,” he said.

  Although Kelley, a major, outranked Gilbert, a lieutenant, the latter roamed the prison, examined the defendants, and managed his tasks largely independently of the psychiatrist. They sometimes did not share their data and appear to have rarely consulted with one another. At some point, however, Kelley broached with Gilbert the possibility of taking advantage of their unique access to the prisoners to collaborate on a book about the workings of the Nazi mind. The prestige associated with introducing the world to this information would be immense, both men believed, and they agreed to share the glory in a single volume. The partnership would not go as they planned.

  Differences in personality and approach made some prisoners prefer Gilbert to Kelley and vice versa. Gilbert’s Jewishness set some of the Nazis on edge. Others preferred his more demonstrative helpfulness and energetic personality. After his IQ examination with Gilbert, Hans Fritzsche confided to the psychologist his certainty that he would end up on the gallows. “It wouldn’t be too bad if one could feel he was dying an honorable death, as a sacrifice to protect Germany’s honor,” Fritzsche said. “But to die in shame, with the contempt of the whole world on one’s head—pfin teufel! It’s bitter!” Gilbert recorded that he listened without replying, noticing the graying of the Nazi’s hair. Franz von Papen, the former German vice chancellor, disliked both Kelley and Gilbert and complained of “gentlemen who called themselves psychiatrists [and psychologists];. . . few of them gave the impression of having any genuine scientific qualifications.”

  Göring, on the other hand, greatly preferred Kelley’s straightforward professionalism to what he perceived as Gilbert’s manipulative hostility. To many of his interrogators and members of the prison staff he expressed his dissatisfaction with the legality and morality of the International Tribunal, although he eventually chose a defense attorney, Otto Stahmer, a former German judge who professed certainty that Göring was completely innocent of all charges. To Kelley, however, Göring confessed other concerns. Five days after Kelley’s last letter-carrying mission to her, Göring’s wife Emmy had been arrested at her residence in Veldenstein, suspected of complicity in her husband’s art thefts. She was confined to a civilian internee camp at Straubling, near Regensburg. His daughter Edda was separated from her mother and relocated with her nanny to a residence in Neuhaus, managed by Catholic nuns, with about ten miles separating them
and no contact allowed. Emmy referred to this occurrence as “one of the darkest days of my life. I was forced to be separated from my child without even knowing where she would be sleeping that night.” On her way to Straubling, Emmy popped a peppermint candy into her mouth, causing the American officers in charge of her to panic. They thought she had taken poison.

  The fracture of the family outraged Göring, who again raised the promise that his family would be well cared for. A separation of mother and daughter was not good care, the Reichsmarschall insisted. Separation from her daughter tormented Emmy, and seven weeks passed before she had any news of Edda. Kelley reported this breaking of promises to Andrus, and his intervention worked. Göring’s anxiety over his family was damaging “his mental and physical health,” Andrus wrote to the commanding general of the Third US Army, which had detained Emmy. Weeks later, on November 24, the director of Emmy’s camp walked into her room and announced, “Edda is here.” They shed tears of happiness at their reunion, but Edda was now her mother’s cell mate. A former Luftwaffe officer scrounged up a straw mattress for the girl. Göring was grateful and gladdened when he heard the news. He had somehow managed to get one of his letters smuggled out of the Nuremberg prison and into Emmy’s hands, secretly passed to her by the inmate worker who brought her meals. However he managed it, it was a sign, entirely missed by his guards, that Nuremberg’s prison walls were permeable.

  Göring continued to share reminiscences with Kelley, including franker admissions about his relationships with Hitler and the other defendants. When Hitler had named Göring his official successor during the early years of the war, “I was pleased for myself, though it was only what I expected,” Göring said. “But I was furious that Hitler should name that nincompoop Hess to be my successor. I told Hitler so, too, and made a big fuss.” Göring paused in his story to lean forward on his cot, set his hands on his knees, and face Kelley. “Do you know what Hitler said?” he continued. “He said, ‘Now, Hermann, be sensible. Rudolf has always been loyal, a hard worker. I must reward him, so I give him this public recognition. But, Hermann, when you become Führer of the Reich—poof! You can throw Hess out and appoint your own successor.’” Göring’s eyes glowed at the end of the anecdote, his excitement about the prospect of exercising power rekindling despite his incarceration.

  During another conversation, Göring gave Kelley an account of his decision to join the Nazi Party after the end of World War I. Göring claimed to have carefully examined the numerous right-wing groups then sprouting up in Germany and allied himself with the National Socialists because of their appeal to military veterans who were dissatisfied with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. With those veterans among its membership, the Nazi Party controlled enough bodies to mount a putsch, which it did in Munich in 1923. The anti-Semitism of the Nazis struck Göring as useful bait for potential adherents with gripes more emotionally rooted than the mere imposition of an offensive peace treaty. “You see, I was right,” Göring told Kelley. “The people flocked to us, the old soldiers swore by us—and I became head of the nation.” Then the Reichsmarschall seemed to remember that his assumption of the Führership never really happened and nearly cost him his life. “Too late you would say?” he went on. “But perhaps not. Anyway, I made it.”

  It was a declaration worthy of a McGlashan, and it must have rung in Kelley’s ears. Göring appeared to suggest that his rise to the top of the Nazi heap, a promised promotion that he expected to be realized after Hitler’s suicide but that never occurred, still might have future value to him despite his certainty that the Allies would eventually sentence him to death. “You know I shall hang. I am ready. But I am determined to go down in German history as a great man. If I cannot convince the court, I shall at least convince the German people that all I did was done for the Greater German Reich. In fifty or sixty years there will be statues of Hermann Göring all over Germany. Little statues, maybe, but one in every German home.”

  The prospect of death did not trouble him, he explained. As a military commander who ordered countless men to their deaths in battle, he always accepted the possibility of facing the enemy on the field. Now that the Allies were upon him, Göring planned to “dish it out,” to do as much damage as he could on his way down. “I do not recognize the trial’s legal jurisdiction, but since they have the power to enforce their will, I am prepared,” he boasted, “to tell the truth and face anything that may come.” His approach, he insisted, was practical, the consequence of his preparation and experience as a soldier and wager of war.

  Was it really practical, though, for a man who considered himself a revered leader to make his neck available for the hangman’s noose? Göring seemed to feel uncertain about the propriety of his current imprisonment. When he confessed to Kelley his fear that fate could thwart the best planning of men who tried to control their future, Kelley called the admission “the only time I ever saw Goering realize that he alone could not face and perhaps conquer the entire world.”

  Certainly the Nazi decried his imprisonment and forthcoming trial as an injustice possible only as part of the Allies’ spoils of victory, but he was much happier plopped on his cot behind bars than contemplating the prospect of a still-living Hitler occupying a neighboring cell. “It was not cowardly of Hitler to commit suicide,” Göring maintained. “After all, he was chief of the German state. It would be absolutely unthinkable to me to have Hitler sitting in a cell like this waiting trial as a war criminal before a foreign tribunal. Though he hated me at the end, he was for me, after all, a symbol of Germany. . . . I would still rather suffer any consequence than to have Hitler alive as a prisoner before a foreign court.” Göring already regarded suicide as a logical choice when honor and national dignity came under attack.

  Kelley had concluded that Göring’s denials that he was a homosexual—a rumor that Streicher’s accusations had given new life in 1940—were plausible. “He naturally denied any perversions, and psychiatric observation and independent conversations with other prisoners who had known Göring well seemed to bear him out,” Kelley observed. What, then, accounted for the sexual energy that Göring projected, and his absorption in his own appearance, wardrobe, and physique? “He probably sublimated his sex drive into hard work, which gave him his amazing ability to keep going eighteen hours a day,” Kelley wrote. “Undoubtedly ambition took precedence over ‘amour.’ However, his home life was a happy one, and the devotion between Göring and his second wife seemed satisfying to both.”

  Yet Kelley learned that personal considerations sometimes trumped Göring’s loyalty to Hitler and Nazi policy. One day Göring told Kelley and translator Triest about his efforts to assist the family of the Jewish nurse who had helped him recover from his wounds after the Munich putsch of 1923. Years after he had benefited from her healing attention, he pushed ahead the paperwork that enabled her family to move to England and escape Nazi persecution. Göring made it clear that this was an individual decision, one that made no difference in his overall opinion of Jews or their role in German society.

  To Kelley, Göring’s confidences confirmed that the Nazi leader craved attention and needed it to lift his spirits. He admired Göring’s willingness to take responsibility for his actions and the energy with which he defended himself, but Kelley never lost sight of the Reichsmarschall’s worst traits. “Göring hasn’t changed a bit,” he told journalists months later. “He is still the same swaggering, vain, conceited braggart he always was. He has made up his mind he’s going to be killed anyway, so he’s very anxious to be considered the number one Nazi, a curious kind of compensation.”

  Hess still vacillated between amnesia and lucidity. On October 30, 1945, he claimed not to remember the contents of the food packets he had so carefully conveyed to Nuremberg from England. “He readily admitted that the writing on each package was in his handwriting and identified various documents, but seemed content to merely glance at them, identify his handwriting, and hand them back,” Kelley wrote. “His
only explanation for the time-consuming wrapping and sealing job which he had performed was: ‘It certainly seems a good way to pass the time.’” A couple of weeks later, authorities tried to spark his memory by showing him newsreels of him and his codefendants attending Nazi events and rallies. Handcuffed to two guards and placed in a part of the impromptu prison screening room where lights would reveal the emotions that played across his face, Hess was observed by chief prosecutor Jackson, special assistant Donovan, and interrogator Colonel John Amen, along with Kelley and another American psychiatrist brought in to consult. The movies began with a welling underscore of Wagnerian music. Hess leaned forward and rose as, on the screen, he bellowed a speech and ended it with thunderous Sieg Heils, to the Führer’s visible satisfaction. Hess sat and calmed down during clips of Göring, Ley, and Streicher. The lights rose, and Hess let a minute go by before speaking. “I recognize Hitler and Göring,” he said. “I recognize the others, but only because I heard their names mentioned and have seen their names on cell blocks in this jail.” He said he did not recall attending any of the filmed events. “I must have been there because obviously I was there. But I don’t remember.”

  Kelley had not been watching the screen. He stared at Hess’s hands, where the prisoner unconsciously revealed his tension “by a tightening of the hands, readily visible to anyone looking for this symptom,” the psychiatrist wrote. “He certainly recognized some of the scenes shown in that picture, although his denial was complete. He realized his inner tension and perhaps recognized its manifestation in the tightening of his fingers.”