Gustave Gilbert
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Gustave Mark Gilbert (1911 - 1977) Gustave Mahler Gilbert was born in the state of New York in 1911, the son of Austrian –Jewish immigrants. He won a scholarship from the School for Ethical Culture at the College Town Center in New York. In 1939 Gilberts obtained his Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University. Gilbert also held a diploma from the American Board of Examiners in Professional Psychology.
During World War II Gilbert was commissioned as a military psychologist with the rank of First Lieutenant. Because of his knowledge of the German language, he was sent overseas as a military intelligence officer.
In 1945, after the end of the war, Gilbert went 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 to the German prisoners. During the process of the trials Gilbert became the confidant of Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Frank, Oswald Pohl, Ohlendorf, Rudolf Hoess (the commandant of Auschwitz), and Kaltenbrunner, among others, at first he did not tell them he was Jewish; after he told them, most of the prisoners did not mind talking to him. He participated in the Nuremberg Trials as the American Military Chief Psychologist and provided testimony.
In 1946, after the trials, Gilbert returned to the U.S.A. Gilbert stayed busy teaching, researching, and writing. He published part of his diary, consisting of observations taken during interviews, interrogations, “eavesdropping” and conversations with German prisoners in 1947, under the title “Nuremberg Diary.” This book was reprinted in 1961 just before the Jerusalem’s trials. The following is a famous quote from Goering, in this book:
“Why of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war, when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship.... The people can always be brought to do the bidding of their leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
In 1948, as Head Psychologist at the Veterans Hospital at Lyons, Gilbert treated veterans of World Wars I and II with nervous breakdowns.
In 1950, Gilbert published “The Psychology of Dictatorship; Based on an examination of the leaders of Nazi Germany.” In this book, Gilbert made an attempt to portray a profile of the psychological behavior of Adolph Hitler, based on deductive work from eyewitness reports from Hitler’s commanders in prison in Nuremberg.
In September, 1954, while he was an Associate Professor of Psychology at Michigan State College, Gilbert attended the 62nd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in New York. Gilbert was part of a four-person panel discussing “Psychological Approaches to the Problem of Anti-Intellectualism.”
In 1961, when he was the chairman of the Psychology Department of Long Island University in Brooklyn, N.Y., Gilbert was summoned to testify in Jerusalem’s trial of Adolf Eichmann. During his interview on 29 May, 1961, Gilbert stated clearly his functions as a prison psychologist while in Nuremberg. In 1967, Gilbert convinced Leon Pomeroy, Ph.D., a recent graduate from Texas University at Austin, to build a clinical doctoral program in the field of psychology at Long Island University. At the time, Gilbert was serving as chairman of the Psychology Department of Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York.
Gustave Mahler Gilbert died in 1977.
Gilbert’s participation in the Nuremberg trials may have been his biggest contribution to psychology. His “Psychology of Dictatorship” was an attempt to profile Adolph Hitler using as reference the testimonials of Hitler’s closest generals and commanders.
Gilbert’s published work is still a subject of study in many universities and colleges, especially in the psychology classes, where it is often required reading.
Gilbert’s book “The Psychology of Dictatorship; Based on an examination of the leaders of Nazi Germany” was “..included in a 2005 auction of materials from Ayn Rand's personal library. The auction catalog describes it as being underlined and/or annotated, so it is clear that Rand actually read it.”
Among his published works are:
G. M. Gilbert, (1947). The Nuremberg Diary. Farrar, Straus and Company: New York.
Gilbert, G.M. (1948). Hermann Goering: Amiable Psychopath. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 43, 211-229.
Gilbert, G. M. (1950). The Psychology of Dictatorship; Based on an examination of the leaders of Nazi Germany. New York: The Ronald Press Company.
Gilbert, G.M. (1951). Stereotype persistence and change among college students. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 46, 245-254. References:
G. M. Gilbert, (1947). The Nuremberg Diary. Farrar, Straus and Company: New York.
http://alumni.princeton.edu/~class51/mar48.html
http://fortytwo.ucsc.edu/~john_doris/websyl/190zmpwc.htm
http://www.acad.carleton.edu/curricular/PSYC/classes/psych383_Lutsky/P383.htm
http://www.bgu.ac.il/~danbaron/Docs_Dan/genocidal%20mentalities.doc
http://www.e-valuemetrics.com/resume.htm#educational
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Letters/hate_04/Brennan030904.html
http://www.ninehundred.net/control/mc-ch6.html
http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/misc/read.html What Ayn Rand read
http://www.spssi.org/teach_cc_syllabi7.html
http://www.topographiedesterrors.de/opac/find.php?urG=%7C1&urS=goering,!hermann
http://www.users.muohio.edu/shermarc/p630lf1.shtml
Picture #2 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Angeklagte-im-Nuernberger-Kriegsverbrecherprozess.jpg
was a New York-born, German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail. Ironically, he was Jewish. One of the notable interviews he conducted was with prominent member of the Nazi party and founder of the Gestapo Hermann Göring.
Gilbert's interviews were published 1947 in a book called Nuremberg Diary.
[edit] In fiction
Gilbert was played by Matt Craven in the 2000 TV movie Nuremberg, also starring Alec Baldwin and Jill Hennessy.
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