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Gustave Mark Gilbert (September 30, 1911 – February 6, 1977) was an American psychologist best known for his writings containing observations of high-ranking Nazism leaders during the Nuremberg trials. His 1950 book The Psychology of Dictatorship was an attempt to profile the Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler using as reference the testimonials of Hitler's closest generals and commanders. Gilbert's published work is still a subject of study in many universities and colleges, especially in the field of psychology.
During World War II, Gilbert was commissioned with the rank of First Lieutenant. Because of his knowledge of German, he was sent overseas as a translator.
Gilbert also administered to the Nazi leadership. Hjalmar Schacht scored highest with 143 points, followed by Arthur Seyss-Inquart and Göring. Julius Streicher scored lowest with 106 points.
In 1946, after the trials, Gilbert returned to the US. Gilbert stayed busy teaching, researching, and writing. In 1947 he published part of his diary, consisting of observations taken during interviews, interrogations, "eavesdropping" and conversations with German prisoners, under the title Nuremberg Diary. (This diary was reprinted in full in 1961 just before the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.)
The following is a famous exchange Gilbert had with Göring from this book:
In 1950, Gilbert published The Psychology of Dictatorship: Based on an Examination of the Leaders of Nazi Germany. In this book, Gilbert made an attempt to portray a profile of the psychological behavior of Adolf Hitler, based on deductive work from eyewitness reports from Hitler's commanders in prison in Nuremberg.
In September 1954, while he was an Associate Professor of Psychology at Michigan State College, Gilbert attended the 62nd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in New York. Gilbert was part of a four-person panel discussing "Psychological Approaches to the Problem of Anti-Intellectualism."
In 1961, when he was the chairman of the psychology department of Long Island University in Brooklyn, Gilbert was summoned to testify in the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Gilbert testified on May 29, 1961, describing how both Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Rudolf Höss tried in their conversations with him to put the responsibility for the The Holocaust on each other's doorstep. Nevertheless, Eichmann appeared in the accounts of both men. Then he presented a document, handwritten by Höss, that surveys the process of extermination at Auschwitz and different sums of people gassed there – under Höss as commandant and according to an oral report by Eichmann. The court decided not to accept Gilbert's psychological analyses of the prisoners at Nuremberg as part of his testimony. (Sessions 55, 56 and 57 contains the testimony of Gilbert) from the Nizkor Project
In 1967, Gilbert convinced Leon Pomeroy, then a recent graduate from University of Texas at Austin, to build a clinical doctoral program in the field of psychology at Long Island University. At the time, Gilbert was serving as chairman of the psychology department of Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York.
Gilbert died on 6 February 1977.
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