stronghold of Berchtesgaden. After his capture,Ley attempted suicide three times.
Kelley found Ley almost identical to Streicher in appearance: squat, bald, and paunchy, garbed in an ill-fitting, discarded GI uniform. A veteran of the German Air Force during World War I, he had been seriously wounded when his plane was shot down in 1917. Kelley took detailed interview notes on this accident: “Fell 2900 meters, pilot killed. Ley thrown against cowling—unconscious 2–3 hours, struck forehead—no fracture. Was unable to speak for half a day—speech slowly improved. Still stutters slightly.” Ley’s stammer was most pronounced when he grewexcited—which occurred often after 1924, when he became an enthusiastic follower of Hitler.He always claimed that a couple of jolts of American whiskey helped him overcome his speech impediment, and he frequently indulged.
Working as a chemist, Ley lost his job after political disputes with his employer and went into politics full time. He developed into one of the Nazi Party’s busiest spokesmen. “An inner voice drove me forward like hunted game,” he told Kelley. “Though my mind told me differently and my wife and family repeatedly told me to stop my activities and return to a civil and normal life, the voice inside me commanded, ‘You must, you must,’ and I obeyed that irresistible force, fate. Call it mystic, call it God.” Ley never gave up his fervent support of Hitler, even in defeat. “He gave the impression of being intellectually gifted, vital, tough,” a translator recalled. “But he really was just a bullshitter of the highest order.”
Kelley detected something psychologically amiss in Ley. Chatting with him was impossible, a descent into verbal chaos. “Often when I talked with him in his cell, he would begin an ordinary conversation and, as he became interested, he would stand, then pace the floor, throw out his arms, gesticulate more and more violently, and begin to shout,” Kelley wrote. In addition, Kelley had discovered that as Labor Front leader, Ley had proposed utterly irrational programs to benefit Germany’s workers, including the building of one hundred ships to take workers on pleasure cruises, the construction of grand residences to improve the nation’s housing shortage, and the provision of new cars for laborers. He so deeply idolized Hitler that he wrote a book overly dripping in praise, which even Hitler could not tolerate, ordering the destruction of the print run.
Clearly the prisoner lacked sound judgment and ran on unchecked emotions. What exactly was wrong with Ley? To learn more, Kelley arranged to interview the Labor Front leader’s former secretary. She described him as an idealist “who always saw the world through rose-colored glasses, who was always drunk and who, therefore, always saw people better than they really were. . . . [Ley] lived in a world removed from reality.” To Kelley,Ley’s lack of verbal control, his bad judgment, and his general lack of inhibitions pointed to a diagnosis of brain damage.
Several other prisoners piqued Kelley’s curiosity. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rosenberg’s rival in the sphere of Nazi foreign relations and Hitler’s foreign minister from 1938 through the war’s end, occupied cell no. 7 in a shaky state.He told Allied interrogators that as a legitimate government official, his arrest had shocked him. With only an elementary school education and a background in the liquor business that had given him little political experience, Ribbentrop was sensitive to any suggestion of short-comings, including the whispers of fellow diplomats that he was just a “champagne salesman.” (Another nickname, “the movie actor,” stuck because of his theatrical expressions and gestures.) His notions of his inferiority led to a strong personal attachment to Hitler. Kelley believed that Ribbentrop had long seen Hitler as a father figure, and the Führer’s suicide left the foreign minister
Kelley found Ley almost identical to Streicher in appearance: squat, bald, and paunchy, garbed in an ill-fitting, discarded GI uniform. A veteran of the German Air Force during World War I, he had been seriously wounded when his plane was shot down in 1917. Kelley took detailed interview notes on this accident: “Fell 2900 meters, pilot killed. Ley thrown against cowling—unconscious 2–3 hours, struck forehead—no fracture. Was unable to speak for half a day—speech slowly improved. Still stutters slightly.” Ley’s stammer was most pronounced when he grewexcited—which occurred often after 1924, when he became an enthusiastic follower of Hitler.He always claimed that a couple of jolts of American whiskey helped him overcome his speech impediment, and he frequently indulged.
Working as a chemist, Ley lost his job after political disputes with his employer and went into politics full time. He developed into one of the Nazi Party’s busiest spokesmen. “An inner voice drove me forward like hunted game,” he told Kelley. “Though my mind told me differently and my wife and family repeatedly told me to stop my activities and return to a civil and normal life, the voice inside me commanded, ‘You must, you must,’ and I obeyed that irresistible force, fate. Call it mystic, call it God.” Ley never gave up his fervent support of Hitler, even in defeat. “He gave the impression of being intellectually gifted, vital, tough,” a translator recalled. “But he really was just a bullshitter of the highest order.”
Kelley detected something psychologically amiss in Ley. Chatting with him was impossible, a descent into verbal chaos. “Often when I talked with him in his cell, he would begin an ordinary conversation and, as he became interested, he would stand, then pace the floor, throw out his arms, gesticulate more and more violently, and begin to shout,” Kelley wrote. In addition, Kelley had discovered that as Labor Front leader, Ley had proposed utterly irrational programs to benefit Germany’s workers, including the building of one hundred ships to take workers on pleasure cruises, the construction of grand residences to improve the nation’s housing shortage, and the provision of new cars for laborers. He so deeply idolized Hitler that he wrote a book overly dripping in praise, which even Hitler could not tolerate, ordering the destruction of the print run.
Clearly the prisoner lacked sound judgment and ran on unchecked emotions. What exactly was wrong with Ley? To learn more, Kelley arranged to interview the Labor Front leader’s former secretary. She described him as an idealist “who always saw the world through rose-colored glasses, who was always drunk and who, therefore, always saw people better than they really were. . . . [Ley] lived in a world removed from reality.” To Kelley,Ley’s lack of verbal control, his bad judgment, and his general lack of inhibitions pointed to a diagnosis of brain damage.
Several other prisoners piqued Kelley’s curiosity. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rosenberg’s rival in the sphere of Nazi foreign relations and Hitler’s foreign minister from 1938 through the war’s end, occupied cell no. 7 in a shaky state.He told Allied interrogators that as a legitimate government official, his arrest had shocked him. With only an elementary school education and a background in the liquor business that had given him little political experience, Ribbentrop was sensitive to any suggestion of short-comings, including the whispers of fellow diplomats that he was just a “champagne salesman.” (Another nickname, “the movie actor,” stuck because of his theatrical expressions and gestures.) His notions of his inferiority led to a strong personal attachment to Hitler. Kelley believed that Ribbentrop had long seen Hitler as a father figure, and the Führer’s suicide left the foreign minister
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