The Nazi and the Psychiatrist ― Hermann Goring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of Wwii

In 1945, an improbable relationship between the captured Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring, and an ambitious US Army psychiatrist, Douglas M. Kelley, becomes a hazardous quest into the nature of evil

The Nazi and the Psychiatrist explores the unusual relationship that took shape in a small prison cell in 1945. The cell held two men: Hermann Goring, the most prominent Nazi leader still standing after Hitler’s fall, and Douglas M. Kelley, a young American psychiatrist sent to assess the mental fitness of Goring and his top Nazi colleagues to stand trial at Nuremberg.

Sentenced to death at that trial, Goring cheated the hangman in 1946 by swallowing a cyanide capsule just before his execution date. Kelley’s life spiraled downward into alcoholism, emotional outbursts, and depression. During an argument with his wife on New Year’s Day in 1958, he, like Goring, ended his life by swallowing cyanide.

Given exclusive access to Kelley’s records, award-winning journalist Jack El-Hai vividly re-creates the interactions and atmosphere, and explores the insidious impact of the Goring-Kelley relationship, providing a cautionary tale about the dangers of coming too close to evil.

Jack El-Hai is a widely published journalist who covers history, medicine, and science. He is the author of The Lobotomist. El-Hai has contributed more than 500 articles to such publications as The Atlantic, Scientific American Mind, Wired, The Washington Post Magazine, and The History Channel Magazine. He is the winner of the June Roth Memorial Award for Medical Journalism, as well as fellowships and grants from the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and the Center for Arts Criticism. He lives in Minneapolis and teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at Augsburg College.