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Nuremberg Diary

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The author, Gilbert, was an American intelligence officer who in his capacity as prison psychologist at the Nuremberg Jail had unlimited free access to the top Nazi leaders throughout their trial. He produced an invaluable book. With few exceptions, the top Nazis reveal themselves as ordinary men promoted to higher positions than their abilities merited, and willing to do or at least tolerate pretty much anything in order to hold onto them. What they say privately about each other gives a unique perspective on the interplay of personalities and motivations that produced the Nazi regime and its horrors.

Foremost among those exceptions is Hermann Goering. Goering's character is rich and multifaceted. The facets can hardly be reconciled as belonging to the same person. So much about him is appealing - his intelligence, his sense of humor, his expansive good-natured bonhomie, his childlike responses to praise or reprimand. But a man can smile and smile and still be a villain. Goering uses the weaker defendants to pressure the more independent ones to toe his "party line" of maintaining loyalty to Hitler. He offers to trade or withhold testimony, inveigles his lawyer into intimidating a witness, and even threatens retaliation by the Feme kangaroo courts. In part because the author's duties required him to prevent that sort of behavior, he spent more time with Goering than with any of the other defendants. In part, though, I think he just found him fascinating.

The author's duties as psychologist required that he spend considerable time with Streicher, whose leering, lascivious, bigotry probably indicated mental illness. Streicher's anti-semitism was obsessive - it was the only subject he talked about - and he incessantly lobbied anyone who would listen. Gilbert also had to monitor Hess (Bormann's predecessor) and Ribbentrop (Foreign Minister) because of Hess's recurrent amnesia and Ribbentrop's descent into depression. Hess was empty-minded even when his memory was intact. Ribbentrop was an endless stream of rationalizations, denials, evasions, and lies - truly a washrag of a man. These entries become tedious, but are instructive as an antidote to the Hollywood image of the hard, focused, strong-willed Nazi. So too with Keitel, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces High Command whom the author fairly describes as having no more backbone than a jellyfish, and with Hans Frank, Governor General of Occupied Poland. When with the author, Frank was all introspection and contrition, but in the dock with his fellow war criminals, he joined freely in their stock rationalizations.

The author is sympathetic toward those defendants - Speer, von Schirach, Jodl, Fritsche - who passionately wanted the world to learn as much of the truth as possible about the Third Reich and its crimes. He usually but not always manages to restrain his animosity toward those who persisted in rationalizing or denying their guilt, particularly the vicious anti-semite Rosenberg (Nazi philosopher and Reich Commissioner for Eastern Occupied Territories) cold callous Frick (Minister of Interior) and the unspeakable Kaltenbrunner (Chief of RSHA - SD and Gestapo).

A story related by Funk (President of the Reichsbank) is especially revealing. After Kristalnacht, his wife wanted him to resign from the government. She said that the whole antisemitic business was just disgraceful, and they should have no part in it. He felt she was right. But to give up the status and luxury that went with his position and go live in a three-room flat? He just couldn't do it. Funk was no monster. Of his own volition, he wouldn't have hurt anybody. But step by step he went along, until he was accepting deposits of dental gold from the camps.

Active malice is rare. This book makes clear that although great evil may originate from active malice, its success in this world depends upon weakness - human, understandable, and frighteningly common weakness.

'Nuremberg Diary' is Gustav Gilbert's narrative of the time he spent with the defendants of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial after WWII. As the prison psychiatrist, Gilbert was given access to all the prisoners and the resulting conversations form the basis of this book. From the unrepentant, pompus bravado of Hermann Goering to the disgusting anti-semitism of Julius Streicher to the absent minded Joachim von Ribbentrop to the humbled Albert Speer, this work proves a keen insight into the men who at one time controlled an empire, but who now faced the world's final justice. Thought-provoking, chilling, and at times even moving, Gilbert's 'Nuremberg Diary' will stand forever as an important witness against Nazi barbarism.

Ever have the urge to get into the mind of a monster just to see how he thinks? Sound like another serial killer book? Well, in a sense, Nuremberg Diary is that, but it is so much more as well.

About a month ago, I watched the TNT production about the Nuremberg trial and took note of the names of some of the characters portrayed in it. The character of Captain Gilbert interested me. He was a prison psychologist who visited with many of the prisoners in their cells... spending an inordinate amount of time with Goering. I speculated that very probably that individual might have written a book after the trial.

I did a search on his name and guess what... he did indeed write a book about his experiences. It was published originally by Farrar, Straus & Company in 1947... barely a year after the Nuremberg trial was over. I quickly emailed a query off to Tracy at The Attic... could she get me a copy? The reply came back a day or so later... yes, she could, it would cost a certain amount... and if I wanted one with the dust-cover still intact... a certain amount plus about eight bucks... if I remember right. I placed the order and a few weeks later (coming from Canada), it arrived and Tracy emailed me to come pick it up. I showed up the next day to behold a beautifully preserved first-edition copy with the name "Clayton J. Golding" inscribed with an old-fashioned fountain pen. Thanks Tracy... good scrounge!

What's the book about? Well, some of you web-surfers are a bit young, I suppose.

After WWII was over, the victorious Allies decided to have a trial... charging 23 of the aforementioned monsters with four separate offenses. Two of the defendants, Robert Ley and Hermann Goering, killed themselves before sentence could be carried out, Ley, barely before the trial was even started. The others were either convicted and had their sentence carried out, or were released with a "not guilty" verdict... leaving them to the tender mercies of the German government.

During most of their time in captivity, an American officer, the aforementioned Captain G. M. Gilbert, Phd., for a time the Prison Psychologist, had access to the prisoners in their cells as well as at other times. He administered psychological tests... including intelligence tests, (they were all of fairly high intelligence... which I found a bit surprising) interviewed them at length, and even visited with some of their families... most noteworthy, the wife and daughter of Hermann Goering. Most importantly, he kept a journal... making careful notes as soon as he left the presence of the individual in question.

The book is lengthy, comprising some 471 pages, including the index. I found it to be fascinating at the outset, though the oft repeated anti-Semitic Nazi party line became a bit tedious toward the end.

Surprisingly, the defendants were willing to talk to Captain Gilbert quite openly... displaying lewdness, bigotry, hatred, stupidity, piousness, resignation, and every extreme of emotion that any group of men might display under similar pressures. One can really get a flavor for what these men of Hitler's inner sanctum were like.

After finishing this book, I was left with some questions, and a rather disturbing conclusion, that should not have surprised me but did. I wondered why they decided to try all these men simultaneously. Normally criminals are tried separately, not as a group. The defendants were judged guilty/not guilty of different crimes, indeed they were widely different in beliefs and temperament as well as tasking within the Dritte Reich. So why did they do it that way? The sentencing tends to support my questioning this as they were not sentenced as a group.

Initially, Goering was able to exert his yet considerable influence upon his co-defendants. As things began to heat up, and people saw, among other things, the incredible wealth of stolen artwork in Goering's larder, the absolutely horrifying conditions of the concentration camps, the lies, the signatures on orders, etc., his hold on them was broken. It was broken further when he was prevented from communicating with them. It was surprising how powerful he was perceived to be by the others who would hang with him... almost literally. Gilbert shows this in great detail by the words and activities of the other prisoners he chronicled.

I was surprised by what I saw of the monsters of the Dritte Reich. What surprised me most was that they were not monsters at all. They were just ordinary men. As a group, more intelligent on the average than most, but still fairly run-of-the-mill in terms of character and judgment. Yes, they were racists, certainly they were guilty of many crimes... but for all that, they were not significantly different from many other men of their time... not so very different than men of our own era. They sought to put the blame on others, to justify their actions by comparing themselves to other men in history, to deny knowledge... much like our own politicians do when they get some body part from the nether regions caught in a trap. (I was very much reminded of the words of William Jefferson Clinton during the Monica scandal.)

This is the truly scary part... the fact that they were not monsters. For if they were not monsters, then what makes them different from any one of us? Could not any of us, even including those of us blessed with high intellect, be seduced by a charismatic leader?

This is one that more people should be reading today, lest history repeat itself. The message is timeless... and should never, ever, be forgotten.

Dale A. Raby
Editor/Publisher
The Green Bay Web

I would recommend this book as it views the trial and above all the defendants from a perspective which no other book can possibly offer. I think it important for future reader that they are aware that this is hardly a complete account of the trial itself. Other books (The Nuremberg Trial, by Ann and John Tusa for example) achieve this well enough. This book brings you into the cells and lets you hear what the defendants thought about the whole situation, until you become familiar with their different personalities. I would recommend reading some other book before this, to gain better knowledge of the trial, but definitely I would not miss this one. It'd be like reading a book first, and then having a chance to meet the actors.

Gilbert takes us into the minds of the Nuremeberg War Crinimals, a look that not everyone got to see first hand. Gilbert has in-depth conversations with the various Nazis and reflects the emotion of the everyday effects of teh trial as if you were there talking to him in a normal conversation. This book is a good source of information for a sense of state of mind for the Nazis held in the Papalce of Justice.

As a person who has read a number of books relating to tghis subject, nothing so defines the striking differences between the nature of the Third Reich from the constitutional democracies that largely comprised the Allies as the way in which the defendants of the trials at Nuremberg were handled. With painstaking precision and at extraordinary cost in terms of international arm-twisting and back-door deals, the proponents of a judicial proceeding designed to illustrate the manifest individual guilt of the various Nazi officials forged a result that still stands today as a model of a non-retributive effort in the face of extraordinary pressure. While one can hardly describe the Nuremberg trials as unflawed or perfect, they did prove to the world that the Allies were willing to subscribe to the existing canon of law to judge the actions of the Nazis.

Doing so was anything but easy, Indeed, achieving a fair result that would literally convince the watching world of the guilt of the participants in the war was anything but easy, and moving toward that deliberate goal is a theme providing an interesting theme punctuating the pace of the book. Churchill wanted revenge by way of summary trials and quick retribution, while the Russians just wanted to string up the whole group in a mass hanging. Yet American Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson was able to resolve the differences well enough to proceed, although at times the reader wonders if the trials will be anything like the fair-minded judicial event he has in mind. Indeed, the back-stabbing, personal ambitions, and petty jealousies of the various factions, trial officials, and individual defendants becomes a kind of political circus that sometimes resembles nothing so much as vaudevillian showboating.

Still, the efforts at conducting a fair and open forum for the world to watch as the prosecution and defense teams clashed before the international tribunal prevailed, and the trials concluded with mixed results in terms of the results. Most of the defendants were found guilty, and many were hanged. Yet few observers doubted that the defendants had had their day in court along with and adequate opportunity to defend their actions to a watching world. Given how little justice and liberty they collectively allowed for their tens of millions of victims, it is remarkable just how civilized and dignified a proceeding the Nuremberg trials were, with all their theatrics and subterranean undercurrents.

One marvels at the fact that after fifty years the world still stands in awe at the deliberate, careful, and methodical way in which the Allies achieved the result of a rational and fair trial of the defendants in history's most horrific modern nightmare, the terror of the Third Reich. This is an interesting and absorbing book, and a fascinating and entertaining book to read. It was also particularly interesting to me because it explores the lives of each of the defendants in looking at their individual guilt. I recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about these singular trials and their impact on history

Gustav Gilbert gives a brilliant account of isstay at Nuremberg for the duration of the infamous trial. He exposes the men on trial not only as monsters but as humans. An account like no other as he remains steadfast to his work until the end when other such as Gen Kelley have left to return home and publish their own accounts. Gilbert allows us full access to these men as they realize what has happened and that they have no escape from their fate. He shows his own compassion for the condemed as he pays visits to their families to give them hop as well as get information vital to his book.

Gilbert weaves the tale of the Nuremburg trial as seen through the eyes of the defendants being tried. He describes the reaction of the defendants to the various parts of the prosection's case, to the witnesses, to the documented activities of their fellow defendants, and to the testimony of the defendants themselves.

So we see the contempt of the military clique (Raeder, Doenitz, Jodl, Keitel) toward the politicians (Frank, Frick, Funk, et al), the self-righteous disdain shown by the three ultimately acquitted defendants (Schact, Fritsch, von Papen). We see Goering take off his headset when witnesses talk about the death camps and the atrocities, so as not to have to face those realities.

And we hear them talk about each other behind the back. After Keitel testifies to all the orders he transmitted, even horrendous ones, he insisted he merely passed them on from Hitler, and hence was not culpable. "He is an honest man" says Doenitz to von Papen. "Yes, a man without a mind of his own, but an honest man" replies von Papen. Schact overhears, and chimes in "Yes, not a man at all, but an honest man."

As the trial draws to conclusion, the defendants use their personal testimony to settle scores with some other defendants. We hear Schact tell the court and the world how Goering used to receive dignitaries at his palace wearing a toga, with lipstick and painted fingernails. "He didn't have to say that" whines Goering. "I didn't wear lipstick."

The picture Gilbert shows us is darkly comedic, rather than tragic. These guys seem more like characters out of "Hogan's Heroes" than sinister figures of the third reich. Yet these guys were deadly, as Gilbert shows by synopsizing some of the evidence against them.

If you haven't read this book, be sure to give it a shot. Well worth reading. It's the best chance you'll have to understand what made those Nazis tick.

Gilbert somehow manages to contain his indignation with his subjects to the extent that he is able to protray the Nazi war criminals in a light that is not often associated with them. Von Ribbentrop the pathetic ashamed boot-licker, almost pity garnering, rather than the haughty "stateman" who once inspired fear in diplomats from the Bay of Biscay to the Urals. Goering, once the Marshall of the most powerful air force in the world, reduced to a playground bully. This is a very useful book for those who want to look behind the facade of the Nazi war criminals.

Gilbert brings Goering and the other Nazis to three-dimensional life in this impressive and ambitious book. Ultimately, however, Nuremberg Diary doesn't live up to its promise. A key problem is that Gilbert can't resist intruding his (albeit understandable) moral indignation. After all, he was the prison psychologist, and one has to wonder how objective his appraisals were. In interpreting the results of the personality tests, did Gilbert do so as a trained psychologist or as an outraged layman? The book would have been superior, I think, if Gilbert had discussed at least some of the results of his psychological testing, while keeping his angry outbursts (however understandable and even laudable) more to himself.