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Authors: Jack El-Hai
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director of America’s Office of Strategic Services and a future founder of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), worked on the nascent prosecution of the upcoming war crimes trial andfrequently visited Mondorf. On August 8 the four Allied powers at last agreed on a charter for the tribunal. Although France, Great Britain, the United States, and the USSR would cooperatively prosecute and judge the Nazi defendants, the United States took the leading role in administering the International Tribunal, and one of America’s Supreme Court judges, Robert Jackson, agreed to head the prosecution. Jackson’s team targeted Göring as the top-ranking Nazi in Hitler’s absence and devoted much of its energy to obtaining his conviction.
Three months after Göring had arrived at Mondorf, he and a select group of top Nazis learned that they had another move ahead. They did not know where or when. Perhaps in preparation for this transfer, on August 6 Kelley wrote up a detailed physical, neurological, and psychiatric evaluation of Göring. He judged his patient alert, perfectly adjusted to his prison surroundings, and cooperative. Göring’s environment barely affected his emotions; instead, “strong and labile,” his emotions “are generated primarily from within.” At the same time, Kelley observed, Göring showed no interest in the affairs of others. Because of his military training and self-discipline, Göring claimed the sufferings of others did not bother him. Kelley consequently declared him “an aggressive narcissistic individual,” fixated upon himself.
To help Göring sleep after his withdrawal from paracodeine, Kelley had prescribed the barbiturate phenobarbital. He concluded in the psychiatricreport: “Internee is sane and responsible and demonstrates no evidence of any type of psychopathic deviation.” This appraisal of Göring’s fundamental sanity would not change in the months ahead.
In the early morning of August 12, a convoy of US Army ambulances and other vehicles appeared on the front drive of the Palace Hotel, and fifteen prisoners bearing satchels filed into them. The detainees, soon to be defendants, weredeprived of belts, ties, and shoelaces. (The remaining Nazi detainees traveled separately.) Three armed guards rode in each vehicle, and Andrus jumped into a lead car. Without escorts, sirens, or any sign of the importance of its passengers, the convoy quietly passed through Mondorf and proceeded to Luxembourg City, where a pair of C-47 transport planes awaited its arrival at an airfield.
Göring, carrying his red hatbox and yanking up his roomy trousers with his free hand, was among the first out of the ambulances. Ignorant of the cargo they were about to carry,the pilots watched with astonishment as the Nazis boarded. The captives took seats on benches running lengthwise through the planes, which were furnished with little else except a toilet bucket and urinal.
Two guards, one carrying a .45-caliber pistol and the other a billy club fashioned from a mop handle, climbed in. An armed guard kept watch over the prisoners from the rear of each plane. As each aircraft took off and banked to the southeast, most of the prisoners kept quiet, including Julius Streicher, who was airsick. The exception was Göring. “Take a good look at it,” he told his companions as they flew over the Rhine River. “That’s the last you may ever see of it.” Göring later asked to inspect the controls up front. Colonel Andrus denied the request. The city of Nuremberg lay ahead.
Kelley followed the Nazis to the Nuremberg jail. His new orders were to evaluate the mental fitness of the top twenty-two men to face justice in the trial to come. His experiences with the Nazis at Mondorf, and with Göring in particular, continued to send his thoughts soaring beyond the concerns of his official duties. Was there a mental flaw common to these prisoners? Did they share a psychiatric disorder that caused them to participate inthe
Three months after Göring had arrived at Mondorf, he and a select group of top Nazis learned that they had another move ahead. They did not know where or when. Perhaps in preparation for this transfer, on August 6 Kelley wrote up a detailed physical, neurological, and psychiatric evaluation of Göring. He judged his patient alert, perfectly adjusted to his prison surroundings, and cooperative. Göring’s environment barely affected his emotions; instead, “strong and labile,” his emotions “are generated primarily from within.” At the same time, Kelley observed, Göring showed no interest in the affairs of others. Because of his military training and self-discipline, Göring claimed the sufferings of others did not bother him. Kelley consequently declared him “an aggressive narcissistic individual,” fixated upon himself.
To help Göring sleep after his withdrawal from paracodeine, Kelley had prescribed the barbiturate phenobarbital. He concluded in the psychiatricreport: “Internee is sane and responsible and demonstrates no evidence of any type of psychopathic deviation.” This appraisal of Göring’s fundamental sanity would not change in the months ahead.
In the early morning of August 12, a convoy of US Army ambulances and other vehicles appeared on the front drive of the Palace Hotel, and fifteen prisoners bearing satchels filed into them. The detainees, soon to be defendants, weredeprived of belts, ties, and shoelaces. (The remaining Nazi detainees traveled separately.) Three armed guards rode in each vehicle, and Andrus jumped into a lead car. Without escorts, sirens, or any sign of the importance of its passengers, the convoy quietly passed through Mondorf and proceeded to Luxembourg City, where a pair of C-47 transport planes awaited its arrival at an airfield.
Göring, carrying his red hatbox and yanking up his roomy trousers with his free hand, was among the first out of the ambulances. Ignorant of the cargo they were about to carry,the pilots watched with astonishment as the Nazis boarded. The captives took seats on benches running lengthwise through the planes, which were furnished with little else except a toilet bucket and urinal.
Two guards, one carrying a .45-caliber pistol and the other a billy club fashioned from a mop handle, climbed in. An armed guard kept watch over the prisoners from the rear of each plane. As each aircraft took off and banked to the southeast, most of the prisoners kept quiet, including Julius Streicher, who was airsick. The exception was Göring. “Take a good look at it,” he told his companions as they flew over the Rhine River. “That’s the last you may ever see of it.” Göring later asked to inspect the controls up front. Colonel Andrus denied the request. The city of Nuremberg lay ahead.
Kelley followed the Nazis to the Nuremberg jail. His new orders were to evaluate the mental fitness of the top twenty-two men to face justice in the trial to come. His experiences with the Nazis at Mondorf, and with Göring in particular, continued to send his thoughts soaring beyond the concerns of his official duties. Was there a mental flaw common to these prisoners? Did they share a psychiatric disorder that caused them to participate inthe
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