Douglas Kelley
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Lt. Colonel Douglas McGlashan Kelley (11 August 1912 – January 1, 1958) was a
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Military Intelligence Corps officer who served as chief psychiatrist at
Nuremberg Prison The Nuremberg Palace of Justice ''(german: Justizpalast)'' is a building complex in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany. It was constructed from 1909 to 1916 and houses the appellate court (''Oberlandesgericht''), the regional court (''Landgericht'') ...
during the Nuremberg War Trials. He worked to ascertain defendants' competency before they stood trial.


Life and career

Kelley was born in
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. He graduated from
University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
and received his medical degree from the School of Medicine in San Francisco. He continued his studies at
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) is the graduate medical school of Columbia University, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Founded ...
, earning a Doctor of Medical Science in 1941. In 1942 he was called to duty in the
United States Army Medical Corps The Medical Corps (MC) of the U.S. Army is a staff corps (non-combat specialty branch) of the U.S. Army Medical Department (AMEDD) consisting of commissioned medical officers – physicians with either an M.D. or a D.O. degree, at least one ...
as chief psychiatrist for the 30th General Hospital in the
European Theatre The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the ...
. Along with psychologist Gustave Gilbert he administered the
Rorschach inkblot test The Rorschach test is a projective psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a pe ...
to the 22 defendants in the Nazi leadership group prior to the first Nuremberg trials. Kelley authored two books on the subject: ''Twenty-two Cells in Nuremberg'' and ''The Case of Rudolph Hess''. After his examination of Hess, Kelley concluded that this defendant suffered from "a true
psychoneurosis Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...
, primarily of the hysterical type, engrafted on a basic paranoid and schizoid personality, with amnesia, partly genuine and partly feigned". His diagnosis was confirmed by at least six other psychiatrists from Russia, France, England and the United States. Upon honorable discharge in 1946, Kelley was appointed Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the
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in
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. In 1949 he was appointed Professor of Criminology at the University of California at Berkeley. He served as the President of the then Berkeley-based Society for the Advancement of Criminology (later, the American Society of Criminology) in 1950 and 1951. Kelley was portrayed by
Stuart Bunce Stuart Alexander Bunce (born 21 October 1971) is an English actor who is best known for his portrayal of the First World War poet Wilfred Owen in the film '' Regeneration'' directed by Gillies MacKinnon. Biography Bunce was born in Beckenham, Ke ...
in the 2006
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
docudrama '' Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial'', which depicts the events at Nuremberg, as does Jack El-Hai's nonfiction book ''The Nazi And The Psychiatrist''.Fleming, Mike, Jr. (November 30, 2012)
‘The Nazi And The Psychiatrist’ Rights Acquired By Mythology Entertainment.
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Death

Kelley committed suicide in front of his wife, father and oldest son on New Year's Day 1958 during a family gathering to watch the Rose Bowl game on television. He died by ingesting potassium cyanide as had Nazi leader
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 ...
, whom Kelley had come to know during his psychiatric evaluation at Nuremberg. According to '' Psychology Today'', Kelley was alcoholic and despondent by that time and had a "history of dark moods"; he had also expressed admiration "for Göring’s control over his own death". Neither his son nor wife could shed light on the motivation for the suicide. In an interview, son Doug Kelley recounted the circumstances: "He was cooking dinner, burned himself and exploded. The next thing we knew, he was on the stairs saying he was going to swallow the potassium cyanide and that he'd be dead in 30 seconds".Staff report (January 2, 1958)
U. S. PSYCHIATRIST IN NAZI TRIAL DIES; Coast Police Say Dr. Douglas Kelley Swallowed Capsule of Potassium Cyanide
''
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''
Ryan, Joan (February 6, 2005)
Mysterious suicide of Nuremberg psychiatrist.
''
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''
He did as threatened and died in the bathroom, leaving no suicide note.


Publications

* ''22 Cells in Nuremberg. A Psychiatrist Examines the Nazi Criminals.'' London: W. H. Allen, 1947. * Bruno Klopfer: ''The Rorschach Technique. A Manual for a Projective Method of Personality Diagnosis.'' With Clinical Contributions by Douglas McGlashan Kelley; introduction by Nolan D. C. Lewis. Yonkers-on-Hudson: World Book Comp. 1942.


Further reading

* Jack El-Hai : ''The Nazi and the Psychiatrist'', Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2013,


References


External links


Guide to the Douglas McGlashan Kelley Papers
via
Online Archive of California The California Digital Library (CDL) was founded by the University of California in 1997. Under the leadership of then UC President Richard C. Atkinson, the CDL's original mission was to forge a better system for scholarly information management a ...

Douglas McGlashan Kelley, Criminology: Berkeley
via
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelley, Douglas 1912 births 1958 deaths American psychiatrists United States Army Medical Corps officers Nuremberg trials United States Army personnel of World War II Suicides by cyanide poisoning 20th-century American physicians 1958 suicides Suicides in California