Product Description

In August 1945 Great Britain, France, the USSR, and the United States established a tribunal at Nuremberg to try military and civilian leaders of the Nazi regime. G. M. Gilbert, the prison psychologist, had an unrivaled firsthand opportunity to watch and question the Nazi war criminals. With scientific dispassion he encouraged Gering, Speer, Hess, Ribbentrop, Frank, Jodl, Keitel, Streicher, and the others to reveal their innermost thoughts. In the process Gilbert exposed what motivated them to create the distorted Aryan utopia and the nightmarish worlds of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Buchenwald. Here are their day-to-day reactions to the trial proceedings; their off-the-record opinions of Hitler, the Third Reich, and each other; their views on slave labor, death camps, and the Jews; their testimony, feuds, and desperate maneuverings to dissociate themselves from the Third Reich's defeat and Nazi guilt. Dr. Gilbert's thorough knowledge of German, deliberately informal approach, and complete freedom of access at all times to the defendants give his spellbinding, chilling study an intimacy and insight that remains unequaled.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #181949 in Books
• Published on: 1995-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 488 pages

Synopsis
In August 1945 Great Britain, France, the USSR, and the United States established a tribunal at Nuremberg to try military and civilian leaders of the Nazi regime. G. M. Gilbert, the prison psychologist, had an unrivaled firsthand opportunity to watch and question the Nazi war criminals. With scientific dispassion he encouraged Gering, Speer, Hess, Ribbentrop, Frank, Jodl, Keitel, Streicher, and the others to reveal their innermost thoughts. In the process Gilbert exposed what motivated them to create the distorted Aryan utopia and the nightmarish worlds of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Buchenwald. Here are their day-to-day reactions to the trial proceedings; their off-the-record opinions of Hitler, the Third Reich, and each other; their views on slave labor, death camps, and the Jews; their testimony, feuds, and desperate maneuverings to dissociate themselves from the Third Reich's defeat and Nazi guilt. Dr. Gilbert's thorough knowledge of German, deliberately informal approach, and complete freedom of access at all times to the defendants give his spellbinding, chilling study an intimacy and insight that remains unequaled.

Customer Reviews

spell binding and unmissable
Gus Gilbert, had free access to all the defendents during the entire Nuremberg trials. He spent much time in discussion with all the Nazi defendents, Goering, Ribbentrop, Hess, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Sauckel, Speer, Schacht, Funk, Papen, Neurath, Schirach, Seyss-Inquart, Streicher, Keitel, Jodl, Doenitz and Fritzsche. Robert Ley had committed suicide in his cell prior to the trial.

The book is a record of the defendents thoughts and a diary of conversations and observations. It is facinationing. Author Gilbert was a psychologist by profession and also acted as a sympathetic ear and councillor for some of the defendents and in some cases really gained their confidence. I have a very big problem with this because he also used this information to suggest lines of attack to the prosecution in some prisoners cases, in particular Goering.

This said, you begin to feel that you knew the prisoners as individuals by the end of the book, which is all credit to the author. Also very interesting is the continued power struggle between some of the defendents even in captivity.

It is a very interesting exercise to compare your own verdicts with that of the judges. One suspects that justice had a little bit of a flexible quality about it.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to put the book down once you have started reading it.

Second Hand info from a First Hand Source
International Law interests me and I have read alot of books on warcrimes and criminals, and had read Gilbert before. So I was looking forward to this book. But it's extreemely disappointing. There is nothing new here, and Gilbert's comments on the prisoners offer nothing new. The book feels like a brag, an account of how one american came face to face with the monsters, if Gilbert was not there I would have said that this was just another atempt at postering like the dreadful Nurmberg Tv series.
The only good parts of this books are the direct quotes from the prisoners, even then one can not help thinking that they have been carefully chosen and quoted to serve the authors end.

Good but should have been better.
I agree with the New York based reviewer below. The introduction of the psychologist's own opinions into conversations with the defendants and into descriptions of events in the text does spoil this book somewhat. The omission of coverage of a number of the defence cases 'for brevity' is very annoying.

Another quibble is that the account presented is strongly biased towards coverage of conversations with Goering, Schact, Von Shirach, Ribbentrop, Frank and Speer - whether this is because the others (e.g. Frick, Funk, Kaltenbrunner) refused contact with Gilbert, coverage was simply omitted or if they were not approached at all is not made at all clear Finally, I would also agree with the sentiment expressing a desire for more (some!!) coverage of the scientific psychological examination of the defendants.

This is, however, a very engaging account of the trial and the personalities of some of its protagonists, which is, by definition, unique. Those seeking a thorough description of the history of the trial, the legal issues, geopolitical wrangling and the prosecution characters will be better served with the excellent 'The Nuremberg Trials' by Ann and John Tusa. That said, this book really should not be overlooked, as it is an excellent read.