Goldensohn, Leon: The Nuremberg Interviews

During the Nuremberg trials, Leon Goldensohn—a U.S. Army psychiatrist—monitored the mental health of two dozen Germans leaders charged with carrying out genocide. These recorded conversations went largely unexamined for more than fifty years, until Robert Gellately—one of the premier historians of Nazi Germany—made them available to the public in this remarkable collection. 

Here are interviews with the likes of Hans Frank, Hermann Goering, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Joachim von Ribbentrop—the highest ranking Nazi officials in the Nuremberg jails. Here too are interviews with lesser-known officials essential to the inner workings of the Third Reich. Candid and often shockingly truthful, The Nuremberg Interviews is a profound addition to our understanding of the Nazi mind and mission.

“A gripping work of history, a series of oral narratives that drag the reader, almost by force, into the nightmarish mental landscape of the Third Reich.” —The New York Times

“A rare document. . . . Striking proof of the banality of evil.” —Kirkus

“Goldensohn serves as a down-to-earth Dante in these anterooms to hell, getting one damned soul after another to reveal himself in his own words." —Newsweek