Gustave Gilbert administered the Rorschach test to the Nazi leaders during the Nuremberg Trials. The Rorschach inkblot test is a psychological evaluation of projection. Psychologists were hoping to decipher whether or not these Nazi Leaders’ scores were indicative of “normal” thinking people or psychopaths.
Here is a list of the Nazi subjects:
1. Hans Frank- Minister of Justice
2. Hans Fritzsche- Chief Deputy to Goebbels
3. Walther Funk- Minister of Economics
4. Hermann Goering- Luftwaffe Chief
5. Rudolf Hess- Hitler’s Secretary
6. Ernst Kaltenbrunner- Chief of concentration camps
7. Whilhelm Keitel- Cheif of Staff for Armed Forces
8. Constantin von Neurath- Protector for Bohemia and Moravia
9. Franz von Papen- Vice Chancellor under Hitler
10. Joachim von Robbentrop- Foreign Minister
11. Alfred Rosenberg- Editor of the main Nazi newspaper
12. Fritz Sauckel- Plenipotentiary General for the Utilization of Labor
13. Hjalmar Schact- Minister of Economics
14. Baldur von Shirach- Youth Leader of the Third Reich
15. Artur Seyss-Inquart- Governor to occupied Poland, Austria, and The Netherlands
16. Albert Speer- Hitler’s chief architect
Finding a comparative sample was difficult but a population was put together and the comparisons resulted in a difficulty to differentiate between the normal comparisons and the Nazi Leaders. This suggests that the Nazi leaders were, for the most part, normal according to this diagnostic tool.
The Rorschach test is an interesting diagnostic tool but there are factors which make it unreliable in some ways.
An explanation for the seemingly “normal” status of the Nazi leaders could simply be situation-dependent and social psychology. At this time in history Hitler had pulled together the economic growth of Germany with new construction business and had utilized the countries surrounding them to feed the German people. It was simply conformity of the time and the situation to follow the orders of the man who had lifted Germany up from an economic depression.
Works Cited
Ritzler, Barry A. “The Nuremberg Mind Revisited: A Quantitative Approach To Nazi Rorschachs.” Journal Of Personality Assessment 42.4 (1978): 344. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Dec. 2014.
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