The Nazi and the Psychiatrist Quotes

“Unlike animals, who react to stimuli but cannot think of rational explanations for them, humans have the ability to change their behavior by understanding causes, circumstances, and solutions.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“The horrors of this decision are well known,” Kelley wrote, “and it is appalling to realize that an entire war was precipitated because of the severe hysterical stomach cramps and obsessive-compulsive fears of a psychoneurotic who happened to be in a position of command.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“the qualities that led the top Nazis to commit and tolerate acts of horror existed in many people, living in many places.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“suggested to him that Germany’s problems could, in theory, become America’s. His countrymen commonly reassured themselves that in the United States the few could not control the many, civilization could not sink to such barbarity, and the nation’s democratic traditions would not tolerate totalitarianism. Kelley found such optimism naive. He grew convinced that “there is little in America today which could prevent the establishment of a Nazi-like state.” Even worse, fascistic bigotry already riddled American culture. “I found the same anti-minority feeling shot through the American population,” he told one lecture audience.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“are people who exist in every country of the world. Their personality patterns are not obscure. But they are people who have peculiar drives, people who want to be in power, and you say that they don’t exist here, and I would say that I am quite certain that there are people even in America who would willingly climb over the corpses of half of the American public if they could gain control of the other half, and these are the people who today are just talking—who are utilizing the rights of democracy in anti-democratic fashion.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“Naturally, I am the leader, so it is my problem to see that each of us contributes his share’.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“But men whose personalities fell within normal parameters had set in motion the Nazi outrages, making Kelley worry that they could happen again. “With the exception of Dr. Ley, there wasn’t an insane Joe in the crowd,” he told a reporter for the New Yorker. The leaders “were not special types,” he wrote. “Their personality patterns indicate that, while they are not socially desirable individuals, their like could very easily be found in America” or elsewhere. Consequently, he feared that holocausts and crimes against humanity could be repeated by psychologically similar perpetrators.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“Like many who wondered about the rise of the Third Reich, Kelley saw connections between the growth of Nazi ideology and the presence of long-standing barbaric tendencies and prejudices in German culture. From the late nineteenth century through World War I, German leaders had preached the necessity of slaughtering enemies, setting Germans above people of neighboring countries, and recognizing their destiny to conquer others. The Nazis did not have to invent notions of the Führer principle, the folk hero who would rescue the nation, and the existence of an elite who could lead everyone else. They simply tapped into what was already present in the national atmosphere.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“These people without Hitler are not abnormal, not pervert[s], not geniuses,” Kelley said. “They were like any aggressive, smart, ambitious, ruthless businessman, and their business happened in the setting up of a world government.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“Of course we rearmed,” Göring, seated once more next to the psychiatrist on his cot, said. “We rearmed Germany until we bristled. I am only sorry we did not rearm more. Of course, I considered treaties as so much toilet paper. Of course, I wanted to make Germany great. If it could be done peacefully, well and good. If not, that’s just as good. My plans against Britain were bigger than they ascribe to me even now. When they told me I was playing with war by building up the Luftwaffe, I replied I certainly was not running a finishing school.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“Psychology, above all, is applying human understanding in a scientific manner. . . . The only profession I have ever encountered which separates the role of a human being from his professional activity,” he declared, “was the role of the SS man.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“Paranoiac people suffer from megalomania, a need to dominate others, feelings of persecution, and a compulsion to falsify the past to fit their view of the world. Fascism, aggression, and anti-Semitism, then, were only symptoms of what ailed Nazi Germany.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“He pegged criminals as impulsive, immature, deprived of affection, and lacking in restraint, all qualities that later studies bore out.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“The psychiatrist marveled at Rosenberg’s one-track mind, which could turn a conversation on any topic into a discourse on racial purity. “I was more than casually interested as a psychiatrist to find in Rosenberg an individual who had developed a system of thought differing greatly from known fact, who absolutely refused to amend his theories, and who, moreover, firmly believed in the magic of the words in which he had expressed them.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“The armed guard, following Göring by the mandated six steps, suddenly heard something whiz through the air, followed by a sickening thump. Embedded in the wooden planking behind Göring was an eight-inch SS combat knife. The sentry looked up, but was unable to determine who had thrown it or whether he or Göring was the intended target. “And if Göring himself had died who could prove that an American did not do it?”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“If some fanatical gang had taken it into their heads to lead a truck with high explosives and send it speeding through the wall to the jail itself, we should have all been blown skywards.” The facility was dangerously understaffed by Americans, and Andrus considered his security contingent unwilling castoffs and poor performers. He fumed over the security mess he and the top Nazis were entering, and he thought they had arrived at Nuremberg too early.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“Far greater numbers of Americans experienced psychological trauma than in the previous war, and anyone who could relieve the troops’ tortures and, better still, send them back to duty, would be a hero to the military. Between Pearl Harbor and the end of the war, the US military was overwhelmed by 1.1 million disabling, psychiatric traumas. Fear and stress were most often responsible. Kelley, serving as an army psychiatrist, called the problem “combat neurosis” and “combat exhaustion.”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII

“He capitalized on his police department expertise by frequently writing and speaking on law enforcement themes. One of his topics was “dumb cops.” “About one-third to one-half of the policemen in this country are totally unfit to protect you or to solve crimes,” he declared sweepingly in one article. “They are emotionally unstable, low in mentality and psychologically unsound.” Even worse, he claimed that many cops on the beat were paranoiac, sadistic, and actually insane. “They’re just as dangerous as the thug who steps out from behind the”
― Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII