Douglas Kelley’s Warning: Why Nazism Can Happen Anywhere
Douglas Kelley, the American psychiatrist who examined leading Nazi figures at Nuremberg, issued a warning that remains disturbingly relevant: every society contains the conditions in which Nazism can take root. His conclusion was not that Germans were uniquely susceptible to fascism, but that the people he evaluated were frighteningly ordinary. That ordinariness, Kelley argued, is precisely the danger.
Kelley’s work at Nuremberg involved close psychological assessment of figures such as Hermann Göring and Rudolf Hess. What struck him most was not monstrous abnormality, but familiarity. These men were not deranged outsiders, but individuals who, in different circumstances, could have been respected professionals, civil servants, or political leaders elsewhere. Kelley came to believe that Nazism was not the product of a uniquely evil people but of social, political and psychological pressures that can arise in any country.
At the heart of Kelley’s warning is the banality of authoritarianism. Nazism did not begin with gas chambers; it began with grievance, fear, economic instability and the promise of national renewal. It was normalised step by step, through propaganda, scapegoating and the steady erosion of democratic norms. Kelley observed how easily people rationalised cruelty when it was framed as duty, patriotism or obedience to authority.
Crucially, Kelley rejected the comforting myth that “it couldn’t happen here”. He argued that this belief is itself a form of denial that leaves societies dangerously unprepared. When people assume that fascism belongs only to another time or another nation, they fail to recognise its early warning signs in their own political culture: the dehumanisation of minorities, contempt for the rule of law, attacks on the press, and the glorification of strongman leadership.
Kelley also emphasised the role of conformity. Many of those who enabled Nazi crimes were not ideological fanatics but ordinary people who went along with the system to protect their careers, families or social standing. His findings echoed what later psychologists would demonstrate more formally: that under certain conditions, average individuals will commit or tolerate acts they would otherwise find abhorrent.
The lesson Kelley drew was deeply unsettling but vital. Democracies are not self-sustaining. They rely on active participation, moral courage and a willingness to challenge authority. When economic anxiety, social division and political cynicism combine, the ground becomes fertile for authoritarian movements that promise simple solutions and clear enemies.
In today’s world, Kelley’s warning carries renewed urgency. The resurgence of far-right movements, the normalisation of extremist rhetoric, and the casual dismissal of human rights as obstacles rather than protections all echo the early stages Kelley described. These developments do not require swastikas or explicit references to Hitler to be dangerous; they require only indifference, denial and the slow acceptance of the unacceptable.
Douglas Kelley’s legacy is a reminder that Nazism is not a historical anomaly safely locked in the past. It is a potential that exists wherever fear overrides empathy, where power goes unchecked, and where people convince themselves that they are immune. His warning is not about despair but about vigilance: the understanding that the defence of democracy is a continuous task and that the line between civilisation and barbarism is thinner than many would like to believe.
