The Nazi and the Psychiatrist

NOW THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE NUREMBERG STARRING RUSSELL CROWE AND RAMI MALEK In 1945, an improbable relationship between the fallen Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goering, and ambitious US Army physician, Douglas Kelley, becomes a hazardous quest into the nature of evil ​ "The book is a page turner."-NPR A New York Times Bestseller In 1945, after his capture at the end of the Second World War, Hermann Göring arrived at an American-run detention center in war-torn Luxembourg, accompanied by sixteen suitcases and a red hatbox. Joining him in the detention center were fifty-one senior Nazis, of whom Göring was the dominant figure. To ensure that the captives were fit for trial at Nuremberg, the US army sent an ambitious army psychiatrist, Captain Douglas M. Kelley, to supervise and evaluate them. To Kelley, it was the professional opportunity of a lifetime: to discover a distinguishing trait among these arch-criminals that would mark them as psychologically different from the rest of humanity. But Kelley's quest would prove to be a dangerous one. The more he spoke with the Nazi captives, the more he began to understand and appreciate their perspective-and the more he would fall for their charms.

Jack El-Hai is an author and journalist who has written for The Atlantic, Smithsonian, GQ, Wired, Scientific American, Discover, and many other publications. His books, including The Lobotomist, The Lost Brothers, and Face in the Mirror, have been translated into twenty foreign languages. He often gives lectures and workshops on writing and medical history, and he publishes the Damn History newsletter for readers and writers of history.