Leon N. Goldensohn (October 19, 1911 – October 24, 1961) was an American

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

who monitored the mental health of the twenty-one

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

defendants awaiting trial at Nuremberg in 1946. Born on October 19, 1911, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, Goldensohn was the son of Jewish emigrés from Lithuania. He obtained his psychoanalytic training at the

William Alanson White Institute The William Alanson White Institute (WAWI), founded in 1943, is an Psychoanalytic institutes and societies in the united states, institution for training psychoanalysts and psychotherapists which also offers general psychotherapy and psychoanalys ...

, and then joined the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

in 1943. Goldensohn was posted to France and Germany, where he served as a psychiatrist for the 63rd Division. At Nuremberg, Goldensohn replaced another psychiatrist,

Douglas Kelley Lt. Colonel Douglas McGlashan Kelley (11 August 1912 – January 1, 1958) was a United States Army Military Intelligence Corps officer who served as chief psychiatrist at Nuremberg Prison during the Nuremberg War Trials. He worked to asce ...

, in January 1946, about six weeks into the trials, and spent more than six months visiting the prisoners nearly every day. He interviewed most of the defendants, including

Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...

and

Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...

, the

Foreign Minister of Germany , insignia = Bundesadler Bundesorgane.svg , insigniasize = 80px , insigniacaption = , department = Federal Foreign Office , image = Annalena Baerbock (cropped, 2).jpg , alt = , incumbent = Annalena Baerbock , incumbentsince = 8 December ...

from 1938 until 1945. Goldensohn conducted most of his interviews in English with the aid of an interpreter to have the defendants and witnesses express themselves fully in their own language. Some of his subjects, notably von Ribbentrop, who had been ambassador to the United Kingdom, and

Karl Dönitz Karl Dönitz (sometimes spelled Doenitz; ; 16 September 1891 24 December 1980) was a German admiral who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as head of state in May 1945, holding the position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government follo ...

, were partially or fully fluent in English, and conducted their interviews in that language. Goldensohn served as prison psychiatrist until July 26, 1946. He had resolved to write a book about the experience but later contracted tuberculosis and died from a coronary heart attack in 1961 before accomplishing the book project. The detailed notes he took were later researched and collated by his brother Eli (1916–2013), a retired neurologist.

Robert Gellately Robert Gellately (born 1943) is a Canadian academic and noted authority on the history of modern Europe, particularly during World War II and the Cold War era. Education and career He earned his B.A., B.Ed., and M.A. degrees at Memorial Unive ...

, a World War II scholar, edited and annotated the interviews in the 2004 book ''The Nuremberg Interviews: An American Psychiatrist's Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses''. After the war, Goldensohn kept his papers at his New York City office-apartment and his home in

Tenafly, New Jersey Tenafly () is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 census the borough had a population of 15,409,

. He and his wife, Irene ("Renee") had three children, Max, Daniel, and Julia.

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References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Goldensohn, Leon American psychiatrists American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Nuremberg trials 1911 births 1961 deaths 20th-century American physicians People from Tenafly, New Jersey