Nuremberg Diary

London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1948. Presumed First U. K. Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Good. 289, illus., app, edges of spine worn, bookplate ins fr bd, discolor ins bds, pages darkened w/age, foxing to text & fore-edge. Gustave Mark Gilbert (1911 - 1977) was a psychologist best known for his writings containing observations of high-ranking Nazi leaders during the Nuremberg trials. Gilbert's published work is still a subject of study in many universities and colleges, especially in the field of psychology. During World War II, Gilbert, because of his knowledge of German, was sent overseas as a translator. In 1945, Gilbert was sent to Nuremberg, Germany, as a translator for the International Military Tribunal for the trials of the World War II German prisoners. Gilbert was appointed the prison psychologist of the German prisoners. Gilbert became a confidant of Hermann G�ring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Hans Frank, Rudolf H�ss, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, among others. Gilbert and Kelley administered the Rorschach inkblot test to the 22 defendants in the Nazi leadership group prior to the first set of trials. Gilbert also participated in the Nuremberg trials and provided testimony attesting to the sanity of Rudolf Hess. Gilbert testified in the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Gilbert described how both Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Rudolf H�ss tried to put the responsibility for the extermination of the Jews on each other's doorstep. Eichmann appeared in the accounts of both men. He presented a document, handwritten by H�ss, that surveys the process of extermination at Auschwitz and different sums of people gassed there - under H�ss as commandant and according to an oral report by Eichmann. In August 1945 Great Britain, France, the USSR, and the United States established a tribunal at Nuremberg to try military and civilian leaders of the Nazi regime. G. M. Gilbert, the prison psychologist, had an unrivaled firsthand opportunity to watch and question the Nazi war criminals. With scientific dispassion he encouraged G�ering, Speer, Hess, Ribbentrop, Frank, Jodl, Keitel, Streicher, and the others to reveal their innermost thoughts. In the process Gilbert exposed what motivated them to create the distorted Aryan utopia and the nightmarish worlds of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Buchenwald. Here are their day-to-day reactions to the trial proceedings; their off-the-record opinions of Hitler, the Third Reich, and each other; their views on slave labor, death camps, and the Jews; their testimony, feuds, and desperate maneuverings to dissociate themselves from the Third Reich's defeat and Nazi guilt. Dr. Gilbert's thorough knowledge of German, deliberately informal approach, and complete freedom of access at all times to the defendants give his spellbinding, chilling study an intimacy and insight that remains unequaled. The Nuremberg trials were a series of military tribunals held after World War II by the Allied forces under international law and the laws of war. The trials were most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, judicial, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany, who planned, carried out, or otherwise participated in the Holocaust and other war crimes. The trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany, and their decisions marked a turning point between classical and contemporary international law. The first and best known of the trials was that of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT). It was described as "the greatest trial in history" by Sir Norman Birkett, one of the British judges present throughout. Held between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, the Tribunal was given the task of trying 24 of the most important political and military leaders of the Third Reich. Martin Bormann had, unknown to the Allies, died in May 1945 and was tried in absentia. Another defendant, Robert Ley, committed suicide within a week of the trial's commencement. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels had both committed suicide in the spring of 1945 to avoid capture. Heinrich Himmler attempted to commit suicide, but was captured before he could succeed; he committed suicide one day after being arrested by British forces. Heinrich M�ller disappeared the day after Hitler's suicide, the most senior figure of the Nazi regime whose fate remains unknown. Reinhard Heydrich had been assassinated by Czech partisans in 1942. Josef Terboven killed himself with dynamite in Norway in 1945. Adolf Eichmann fled to Argentina to avoid capture but was apprehended by Israel's intelligence service (Mossad) and hanged after a trial in Jerusalem in 1962. Hermann G�ring was sentenced to death but committed suicide by swallowing cyanide the night before his execution. The categorization of the crimes and the constitution of the court represented a juridical advance that would be followed afterward by the United Nations for the development of an international jurisprudence in matters of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and wars of aggression, and led to the creation of the International Criminal Court. For the first time in international law, the Nuremberg indictments also mention genocide (count three, war crimes: "the extermination of racial and national groups, against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people and national, racial, or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles, and Gypsies and others.").