The molding of personality under dictatorship; the importance of the destructive drives in the socio-psychological structure of Nazism.

Abstract

This article is the third article based on material emanating from the Nurnberg war crimes trials. The first, entitled "War Crimes and Their Motivation-The Socio-Psychological Structure of the SS and the Criminalization of a Society" appeared in volume 39, No. 3, September-October, 1948, pp. 298-326 of this JOURNAL. The second, entitled "Destructive and Self-Destructive Trends in Criminalized Society-A Study of Totalitarianism" appeared in volume 39, No. 5, JanuaryFebruary, 1949, pp. 553-564. The author was consultant to the Secretary of War of the United States on duty with the Office of the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes in Nurnberg, 1946-1947. He is at present Director of the Neurobiologic Unit of the Division of Psychiatric Research at the Boston State Hospital, instructor in Psychiatry, Tufts College Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, and holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Medical Reserve Corps of the United States Army.-EDIToR.