Leon Goldensohn. The Nuremberg Interviews

Leon Goldensohn, a psychiatrist with the 63rd Division of the US Army since 1943, became a prison psychiatrist at Nuremberg in 1946. In this capacity, from January 3 to July 26, 1946, he interacted almost daily with prisoners accused at the Nuremberg Trials and recorded his conversations with them. This book contains a large selection of these conversations. It is a unique document. Guided by an experienced psychiatrist, the defendants talk about themselves, their families, their political activities, their service, and other Nazis. They blame the now deceased Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, and Bormann for all their crimes, claim complete ignorance and non-involvement in the deaths of millions, attempt to justify themselves by citing the historical situation, and even warn against the possibility of a third world war. But these confessions and justifications sound even more terrible than the accusations themselves, because they reveal the mentality of Nazi criminals and the ideology of Nazism, which inspired the most inhumane and bloody crime in world history.