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Author Dimsdale, Joel E., 1947- author.

Title Anatomy of malice : the enigma of the Nazi war criminals / Joel E. Dimsdale
Published New Haven : Yale University Press, [2016]

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Description 1 online resource
Contents Part One. Run-Up To Nuremberg. The Holocaust: How Was This Genocide Different from All the Rest? The Gathering at Ashcan -- Part Two. Nuremberg. The War Crimes Trial: What Do We Do with the Criminals? War Criminals with Psychiatrists and Psychologists? -- Part Three. Faces Of Malice. Defendant Robert Ley: "Bad Brain" Defendant Hermann Goring: "Amiable Psychopath" Defendant Julius Streicher: "Bad Man" Defendant Rudolf Hess: "So Plainly Mad" -- Part Four. Coda To Nuremberg: Rorschachs and Recriminations. Douglas Kelley and Gustave Gilbert: A Collaboration from Hell A Message in the Rorschachs? Malice on a Continuum: The Social Psychologists' Perspective Malice as Categorically Different: Encounters with "the Other."
Summary When the ashes had settled after World War II and the Allies convened an international war crimes trial in Nuremberg, a psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley, and a psychologist, Gustave Gilbert, tried to fathom the psychology of the Nazi leaders, using extensive psychiatric interviews, IQ tests, and Rorschach inkblot tests. Never before nor since has there been such a detailed study of governmental leaders who orchestrated mass killings. Before the war crimes trial began, it was self-evident to most people that the Nazi leaders were demonic maniacs. But when the interviews and psychological tests were completed, the answer was no longer so clear. The findings were so disconcerting that portions of the data were hidden away for decades and the research became a topic for vituperative disputes. Gilbert thought the war criminals' malice stemmed from depraved psychopathology. Kelley viewed them as ordinary men who were creatures of their environment. Who was right? Drawing on his decades of experience as a psychiatrist and the dramatic advances within psychiatry, psychology, and neuroscience since Nuremberg, Joel E.0Dimsdale looks anew at the findings and examines in detail four of the war criminals, Robert Ley, Hermann Goering, Julius Streicher, and Rudolf Hess. Using increasingly precise diagnostic tools, he discovers a remarkably broad spectrum of pathology. Anatomy of Malice takes us on a complex and troubling quest to make sense of the most extreme evil
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on July 25, 2019)
Subject Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-1946.
Nazis -- Psychological testing
National Socialism -- history
Violence -- history
Criminals -- psychology
HISTORY -- Europe -- Western.
Germany
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2016930154
ISBN 9780300220674
0300220677