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THE NUREMBERG INTERVIEWS

Name: THE NUREMBERG INTERVIEWS
Author: Leon Goldensohn
ISBN: 0-375-41469-X

AN AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIST’S CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEFENDANTS AND WITNESSES

by Leon Goldensohn & edited by Robert Gellately ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 2004

Striking proof of the banality of evil.

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A rare document: a psychiatrist’s working notes on Nazi officials awaiting trial for war crimes.

Goldensohn, who served on the US army medical staff at Nuremberg in 1946, may have intended to publish his interviews with the likes of Hermann Goering and Julius Streicher one day, but he did not. A pity, for the documents gathered here provide much insight into the minds and lives of the Third Reich’s founders and rulers, who survived the war through no end of intrigue and backstabbing. Not surprisingly, most of Goldensohn’s subjects deny having committed crimes, protest that they were merely following orders, profess having had no knowledge of the Holocaust. Thus, Goldensohn writes, Admiral Karl Doenitz, who surrendered Germany to the Allies, “knew nothing of plans for an aggressive war, knew nothing about the extermination of the Jews, nothing about the extermination of 30 million Slavs, nothing of the atrocities in Russia and Poland,” adding, “He sees only that he was innocent of any crime, past or present, and that any attempt to incriminate him or any of the others on trial with him is political connivery.” Similarly, Hans Frank, the Nazi governor general of Poland, insists that “the extermination of the Jews was a personal idea of Hitler’s” in which he had played no part. Goering asserts, “Many of us in the party were opposed to the sharp racial laws and politics, but we were too busy.” (He adds, “I made other proposals, as for example that Jews who had been living in Germany for a hundred years or more should be exempted.” And so on: By the time he reaches Nazi theoretician Streicher, whom many of the defendants blame for their woes, Goldensohn is plainly fed up: “He smiles constantly, the smile something between a grimace and a leer, twisting his large, thin-lipped mouth, screwing up his froggy eyes, a caricature of a lecher posing as a man of wisdom.”

Striking proof of the banality of evil.

Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2004

ISBN: 0-375-41469-X

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2004

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.