Jack El-Hai joined me today for a conversation about his latest book, The Nazi and the Psychiartrist: Hermann Goring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII. Mr. El-Hai’s book deals with the top 22 surviving Nazi officials and Dr. Kelley, an American Army Psychiatrist who was placed in charge of their mental health. His job was to ready the men for the Nuremberg Trails, but saw an opportunity to discover, if it existed, the Nazi personality.
Episode 87-Jack El-Hai Book Interview
VERY interesting! Dr. Kelly was a flawed man, and it was not even his job to figure out the Nazis. He tried to do that, and after discovering they were mostly just criminals (no unique “Nazi Gene”), I thought the author intimated that Dr. Kelly started his descent into his end. I will read the book to see if that’s what he meant. Also if Dr. Kelly got along famously with Goring but not some of the others, I wonder if he pandered to Goring’s ego but didn’t pander to the others. Just wonder.
An excellent interview, Ray. Congratulation. You structured it nicely. You introduced the events and let Jack to the talking. I hope you do more interviews with authors in the future. It sounds like an interesting book, too.