In 1961, Gilbert was called to Israel to testify as an expert witness at the trial of SS Lt. It wasn't long before Gilbert's Nuremberg experience beckoned again. Back to courtĭuring the late 1940s and 1950s, Gilbert taught clinical psychology and did research at Princeton University, Michigan State University and Long Island University. Many outside psychology found Gilbert's blending of psychoanalysis and social psychology unconvincing. The overall reaction to the book was mixed. His principal argument drew heavily on the work of Erich Fromm, who maintained that Hitlerism was the product of the social and economic anxieties of a people long used to order. Gilbert responded to his critics in "The Psychology of Dictatorship" (1950), a more academically ambitious book. In 1947, academic reviewers were less interested in a behind-the-scenes look at the Nuremberg prisoners than they were in a "big reveal" - a moment where science could put its finger on the pulse of Nazism and concisely demonstrate how it all worked. Ironically, the very qualities that recommended "Nuremberg Diary" to qualitative psychologists and the general reader undermined Gilbert professionally. His conversational approach played well with the public, and the book was favorably reviewed in newspapers nationwide. Although the book contained some psychological terms, Gilbert kept the theorizing and psychological jargon to a minimum. After returning to the United States in 1947 he published "Nuremberg Diary," which gave an account of his interactions with the prisoners. Throughout the trial, Gilbert made no secret of his desire to turn his experiences into a book. His unique and largely self-created role as prison psychologist was widely reported by the American press. As a young and ambitious psychologist, Gilbert quickly realized that Nuremberg was an opportunity as well as a military duty. The American press corps framed the trial as a mental examination as much as it was a judicial proceeding. But American officials were inclined to see the trial as a kind of psychological laboratory, an intellectual opportunity for the world to clinically dissect barbarism in its most extreme form. The trial involved a complex range of broad political and legal considerations concerning Germany's place in postwar Europe, the establishment of a legal basis for crimes against humanity and the emergence of a postwar international order of multilateral organizations. training center before being sent to Europe, where he served as a military intelligence officer interrogating captured German officers at the Battle of Bulge and later in Berlin.Īt the war's end, he was given the assignment in Nuremburg. He spent the first part of the war as a personnel consultant in a U.S. With America's entry into World War II, Gilbert was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the Army. Gilbert received a PhD in experimental psychology from Columbia University in 1939, and as a graduate student published empirical studies on psychophysics and the relationship of feeling to memory. He had an impressive academic pedigree, albeit one far removed from considerations of forensic psychology and genocide. He was the son of Austrian-Jewish immigrants, born in New York City in 1911. Gilbert was an unlikely figure to be thrust into the 20th century's most extraordinary legal spectacle. At the end of each day, he wrote about these conversations, providing a fascinating window into the thoughts and motivations of the prisoners as they faced what they all knew was a likely death sentence. Gilbert befriended the prisoners, visiting them in their cells daily and chatting with them at meal times. However, his preferred method was casual conversation. Gilbert used all the standard psychological tools of the day - intelligence tests, Rorschach and Thematic Apperception tests. With the approval of his superiors, he quickly recast the position as "prison psychologist" and began studying the prisoners as well. Gilbert's job was to keep the prisoners - Hitler's leading henchmen - in a reasonably calm, rational state. Nuremberg was a high-stakes affair, and the Allied powers wanted the trial to proceed in an orderly and dignified manner. Fluent in German, Gilbert was given the assignment to work as a morale officer and translator. 20, 1945, Gustave Gilbert arrived in Nuremberg, Germany, to begin what was perhaps the most compelling assignment ever given to an American psychologist - working for the International Military Tribunal at the first Nazi war crimes trial.
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