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The Nuremberg Interviews

An American Psychiatrist's Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses

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The Nuremberg Interviews

By: Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately
Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine, Joshua Kane
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About this listen

The Nuremberg Interviews reveals the chilling innermost thoughts of the former Nazi officials under indictment at the famous postwar trial. The architects of one of history’s greatest atrocities speak out about their lives, their careers in the Nazi Party, and their views on the Holocaust. Their reflections are recorded in a set of interviews conducted by a US Army psychiatrist. Dr. Leon Goldensohn was entrusted with monitoring the mental health of the two dozen German leaders charged with carrying out genocide, as well as that of many of the defense and prosecution witnesses. These recorded conversations have gone largely unexamined for more than 50 years.

Now, Robert Gellately - one of the premier historians of Nazi Germany - has transcribed, edited, and annotated the interviews, and makes them available to the public for the first time in this volume.

Here are interviews with the highest-ranking Nazi officials in the Nuremberg jails, including Hans Frank, Hermann Goering, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Here, too, are interviews with the lesser known officials who were, nonetheless, essential to the workings of the Third Reich. Goldensohn was a particularly astute interviewer, his training as a psychiatrist leading him to probe the motives, the rationales, and the skewing of morality that allowed these men to enact an unfathomable evil. Candid and often shockingly truthful, these interviews are deeply disturbing in their illumination of an ideology gone mad.

Each interview is annotated with biographical information that places the man and his actions in their historical context. These interviews are a profoundly important addition to our understanding of the Nazi mind and mission.

©2007 Leon Goldensohn and Robert Gellately (P)2021 Random House Audio
20th Century Military War & Crisis World War II War
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Critic reviews

“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)

What listeners say about The Nuremberg Interviews

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Wonderful insight into the worst crime ever !

Fascinating to hear how the protagonist's actually viewed their involvement in this heinous crime . The " I was only doing what I was ordered " is heard in many different forms . An excellent listen .

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Excellent.

I was currently reading a book at the same time as listening to this and it was a brilliant cross-reference.
Very good 👍

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A fascinating insight

The narration was excellent and individual interviews kept my attention even when the identities of the men seemed to merge into a single theme of individual denial and group amnesia. Going by the testimonies of these leading Nazis you’d have to put down the Nazi war machine and their atrocities as the work of just 2 men: Hitler and Himmler. Everyone else knew nothing, was solely focused on their own honourable work, and bore no responsibility or guilt for the death roll of WWII. Utterly astonishing, but a fascinating insight into how society can be drawn into a parallel universe where morality is put to one side and madness can become the norm.

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A very good edition

This is a very human face on the the many monsters at nuremberg. Well worth reading and having in the library of any historian of the period.

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Excellent

Hard to imagine a better treatment and narration xxxx ccccc rrrrr nnnnn rrrrr ggggg nnnnnn

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Interesting

A must listen to help understand people who implemented orders they did not create. Hard to grasp the argument.

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honesty by the interviewer.

Splendid interviews about the time of war an people. Listener can have a better understanding of the direction of the world now.

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Interesting

I wanted to learn more about there person thoughts amd lives around those associated with Hitler and why they did what they did, thru book was great for that.
My only wish was that the writer would have shared some closing thoughts in his journey, it seemed to end so suddenly, felt like something was missing.

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Important and often fascinating book

This is an interesting document on the leaders of the Third Reich, recorded at the time they were powerless and pathetic in the prison cells at Nuremberg. The psychologist's questions mostly concern the interviewees involvement in the holocaust, memories and what they thought of the other Nazi leaders, their thoughts on the Fuhrer principle or democracy, family history, hobbies and how they came to join the Nazi party. Of course, there are lots of the excuses repeated here that these men put forth during the Nuremberg trials: "Just following orders," I didn't know anything about it, and if I had then I'd have been against it from the start.", "what difference could it have possibly made if I had spoken up?" ...and so on. But some of the accounts are frank and chilling and any lack of reason is illuminating in itself. The psychologists I thought asked some very good and penetrative questions at times. He occasionally goes quite hard on some of them considering they could've presumably just refused to talk to him. He also seems to have quite a good knowledge and is well informed of the events in Germany and the crimes, even though the war had only fairly recently ended. I wonder if this book should be more widely known? Anyhow, the narrator does a good job here I would say. Finally, don't judge a book by its cover! The graphic design for this one looks really cheap it seems to me and doesn't at all reflect the quality therein.

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