Read Online The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai - Free Book Online
Authors: Jack El-Hai
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major in May 1944, Kelley took on steadily increasing responsibilities. During the remainder of the war he supervised all research for the development of new methods to treat combat exhaustion, took charge of the treatment of all psychiatric army cases in Europe, organized the army’s psychological clinics, and won appointment as European theater consultant in clinical psychology in March 1945. By then, as Germany’s surrender drew near, Kelley’s work was tailing off. “I suspect in the not too far future he and others of the organization may find themselves deployed home,” a fellow officer wrote to Dukie in May 1945. It wasn’t to be.
By midsummer 1945 the Hermann Göring familiar to his Nazi peers had returned to health in prison. Confident and charismatic, he ached to again challenge the world. He became a feisty leader of a group of several fellow prisoners who had found their way, unwillingly, to Mondorf. Like Göring, Karl Dönitz had sent messages to General Eisenhower protesting that his treatment was not in accordance with the Geneva Convention standards for prisoners of his rank captured in war. Eisenhower refused to order any changes in Dönitz’s treatment, noting in a public statement his displeasurewith the almost luxurious conditions of captivity in which some Nazis lived in the days immediately after their surrender. He declared that “senior Germans will be given only minimum essential accommodations which will not be elaborately furnished and that all prisoners will be fed strictly upon the ration that has been authorised for German prisoners of that particular category.”
After two months the presence of Göring and other top Nazis in Mondorf was no longer a secret. Reporters spread word of the prisoners idling away their hours in a luxury hotel, and Radio Moscow gave its listeners a weird and fantastical description of Nazis confined to a palace in which they were served rich cuisine and vintage drinks on silver platters, grew fat and sassy, and were chauffeured around the prison grounds in luxury automobiles. Alarmed by these fabrications, Colonel Andrus declared an open house for the press on July 16 and issued subsequent invitations for reporters to examine the prison. He used these opportunities to show that no Nazis were being pampered on his watch.Reporters arrived and wrote about the ordinary food, the condition of captives’ underwear, the tidiness (or lack thereof) of their cells, and the fences and guns that surrounded the prison.
Andrus’s discipline, reporters learned, was no sham. He enforced behavior that grated against many of the inmates. The Nazis were required to rise to their feet upon the arrival of visiting Allied officials, for example, and on one occasion Dönitz—like Göring, upset over treatment he thought unbefitting a former head of state—failed to do so. “Get up, that man!” Andrus shouted, and Dönitz reluctantly rose from his chair. The early press reports, however, had already swayed public opinion. Allied officials wanted Göring and the other high-ranking Nazis moved to a real prison.
Göring, among others, still considered himself a captured chief of state and reiterated that he was puzzled by his continued incarceration. Unable to imagine a forthcoming trial—there was little precedent for trying heads of state—he expected eventual release from prison. Others had moreprescience; Franz von Papen, a former vice chancellor of Germany from the early years of the Nazi regime,felt dread when guards moved him to a cell closer to Göring’s. Few of the prisoners, however, realized exactly what the Allies had in store for them. Over in the British detention center, Dustbin, where prisoners could listen to the radio, former Nazi munitions head Albert Speer heard about a planned war crimes trial. He hinted to other prisoners that he wanted a cyanide capsule similar to those Göring possessed, but none came his way.
William “Wild Bill” Donovan,
By midsummer 1945 the Hermann Göring familiar to his Nazi peers had returned to health in prison. Confident and charismatic, he ached to again challenge the world. He became a feisty leader of a group of several fellow prisoners who had found their way, unwillingly, to Mondorf. Like Göring, Karl Dönitz had sent messages to General Eisenhower protesting that his treatment was not in accordance with the Geneva Convention standards for prisoners of his rank captured in war. Eisenhower refused to order any changes in Dönitz’s treatment, noting in a public statement his displeasurewith the almost luxurious conditions of captivity in which some Nazis lived in the days immediately after their surrender. He declared that “senior Germans will be given only minimum essential accommodations which will not be elaborately furnished and that all prisoners will be fed strictly upon the ration that has been authorised for German prisoners of that particular category.”
After two months the presence of Göring and other top Nazis in Mondorf was no longer a secret. Reporters spread word of the prisoners idling away their hours in a luxury hotel, and Radio Moscow gave its listeners a weird and fantastical description of Nazis confined to a palace in which they were served rich cuisine and vintage drinks on silver platters, grew fat and sassy, and were chauffeured around the prison grounds in luxury automobiles. Alarmed by these fabrications, Colonel Andrus declared an open house for the press on July 16 and issued subsequent invitations for reporters to examine the prison. He used these opportunities to show that no Nazis were being pampered on his watch.Reporters arrived and wrote about the ordinary food, the condition of captives’ underwear, the tidiness (or lack thereof) of their cells, and the fences and guns that surrounded the prison.
Andrus’s discipline, reporters learned, was no sham. He enforced behavior that grated against many of the inmates. The Nazis were required to rise to their feet upon the arrival of visiting Allied officials, for example, and on one occasion Dönitz—like Göring, upset over treatment he thought unbefitting a former head of state—failed to do so. “Get up, that man!” Andrus shouted, and Dönitz reluctantly rose from his chair. The early press reports, however, had already swayed public opinion. Allied officials wanted Göring and the other high-ranking Nazis moved to a real prison.
Göring, among others, still considered himself a captured chief of state and reiterated that he was puzzled by his continued incarceration. Unable to imagine a forthcoming trial—there was little precedent for trying heads of state—he expected eventual release from prison. Others had moreprescience; Franz von Papen, a former vice chancellor of Germany from the early years of the Nazi regime,felt dread when guards moved him to a cell closer to Göring’s. Few of the prisoners, however, realized exactly what the Allies had in store for them. Over in the British detention center, Dustbin, where prisoners could listen to the radio, former Nazi munitions head Albert Speer heard about a planned war crimes trial. He hinted to other prisoners that he wanted a cyanide capsule similar to those Göring possessed, but none came his way.
William “Wild Bill” Donovan,
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