The Nazi and the Psychiatrist

In a devastated Europe at the end of World War II, the improbable relationship between fallen tyrant Hermann Göring and rising US Army physician Douglas Kelley became a hazardous quest into the nature of evil. Göring—he former war hero, Hitler confidante, Luftwaffe chief, and Reichsmarschall—had become an obese, paranoid codeine addict suffering from heart disease. The man whose mother said of him, “Hermann will either be a great leader or a great criminal,” was slowly coming to realize that he would be known through history as the latter and would likely be imprisoned for life as a result. His first imprisonment was in the American-run makeshift prison at Mondorf-les-Bains, a castle and spa in bucolic Luxembourg. The psychiatrist given charge of maintaining his mental health—and that of other Nazi prisoners—was Dr. Douglas McGlashan Kelley, an earnest Californian at the end of his three-year army service. This last assignment would bring him face to face with evil beyond his medical skills or his mental capacities.