Anatomy Of Malice: The Enigma of the Nazi War Criminals

In 1945, when the Allies convened the Nuremberg trials, a psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley, and a psychologist, Gustave Gilbert, tried to understand the psychology of the Nazi leaders, using extensive psychiatric interviews, IQ tests, and Rorschach tests. Their findings were so disconcerting that portions of the data were hidden and the research was bitterly disputed: Gilbert thought the war criminals exhibited depraved psychopathology; but Kelley believed them to be ordinary men corrupted by their situation. Who was right? Drawing on decades of experience, Joel E. Dimsdale, distinguished professor emeritus and research professor in psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, takes a fresh look at the findings and focuses on Robert Ley, Hermann Goering, Julius Streicher, and Rudolf Hess. This evening, Dimsdale will discuss his complex and troubling quest to make sense of the most extreme evil in his new book Anatomy of Malice. ------------------------------------------------------