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When the leaders of the National Socialistic Third Reich fell into the hands of the American Army, were imprisoned, and could be observed for a period of almost two years, science in general,
and psychiatry in particular, had a unique opportunity to study the psychiatric aspects of history. If this opportunity, limited in its scope by suicide and execution, has been used, the results have still not been reported. What Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, Chief Consultant in Clinical Psychology, Assistant Consultant in Psychiatry for the European Theatre of Operation, has to say about his contact with twenty-two German leaders before the court in Nuremberg, is disappointing and frustrating. Like stamps in a collection, the prisoners are lined up and described in popular psychological terms, and are almost stripped of any individual or identifying marks. The motivation, the ideology, or even the behavior of such different men as army and navy officers, 'true' National Socialists and fanatics and businessmen, all working with, and for, the same Führer in an often highly ambivalent relationship is presented without any attempt at clarification. Little material is offered that is not already known from previous reports; only a few observations are given which could enable the analytic student of National Socialistic ideology to draw his own conclusions and interpretations.
The twenty-two 'profiles' are introduced by a short description of the environment. The former leaders of Germany are grouped roughly as follows: the Policy Makers (Hess, Rosenberg, Goering), the Salesmen, the Gunmen, the Rabble Rousers (Streicher and Ley), and the Businessmen. From the stories of the accused men emerges a short description of the Führer which concludes the book.