A Mind Prone to Evil: Teacher Paul Lynch’s novel about Nazi Hermann Göring is a horrifying lesson from history for Bishop’s Stortford students

The author of a new novel about Hitler’s right-hand man, Hermann Göring, challenged Bishop’s Stortford students to consider how monsters get elected.

Paul Lynch, who both attended and taught English at St Mary’s Catholic School for 15 years, returned to the Windhill secondary to discuss his book, A Mind Prone to Evil.

Visits to Birchwood High School and Hockerill Anglo-European College were also planned, along with talks at Harts Bookshop in Saffron Walden and Heffers Bookshop in Cambridge, during his promotional tour on Monday and Tuesday (October 6-7).

Eighty years ago, Göring was on trial at Nuremberg and Paul’s novel charts his descent into evil.

He said: “Göring, for me, seems the most Shakespearean of the Nazi elite. It’s like a classic tragedy. He was a First World War hero, highly decorated, the toast of Germany who was corrupted by the Nazi Party.

“The title of the novel comes from a quote from the Roman poet Ovid: ‘All things can corrupt when a mind is prone to evil’.

“Göring became completely immersed in the art, the glory, the wealth and the trappings of it all, and basically lost touch with what he was interested in as a young soldier. He became this corpulent, drug-addled megalomaniac.”

Paul began researching Göring for his doctorate and hopes his study of a charismatic monster will serve as a warning from history.

He said: “Unlike Hitler, who was socially awkward and aloof, Göring was funny, witty and highly intelligent; just off the rating of genius.

“Someone who read my early draft said ‘I like him’ – and that was the point. I want readers on one page to be charmed by him and then to catch themselves and think ‘Oh god, no, this man is an architect of the Holocaust and a monster’. Because in doing so, we understand how people like that get elected.”

Paul, 49, who was born in Newport, moved to Switzerland with his French wife so they could raise their daughter as a “truly global citizen”. He is currently head of English at a private school 1,400 metres up in the Alps.

He said: “Some people might be under the misapprehension that I’m teaching until the writing takes off; not a bit of it. It’s a glorious sideline and the writing has helped me to enhance my classroom practice, and I love having the two working alongside each other.”

His teaching has also been pivotal to the novel. He said: “Every year for 20 years I’ve run a student trip to Berlin that we call ‘The Third Reich and Cold War Experience’.

“Over the years, we’ve taken hundreds of students to a city that teems with history on every corner; it was very much the cockpit of world events during the 20th century.

“Standing at Sachsenhausen concentration camp every year on Holocaust Memorial Day and hearing the testimonies of the elderly, once operated on by the likes of the notorious ‘Angel of Death’, Josef Mengele, well, that nourishes the imagination and has always held a fascination for me.

“How could so many ordinary, civilised, educated and rational people end up committing some of the worst atrocities in human history? It is, of course, a question that abounds today as well.”

He researched his subject meticulously: “Like most writers, I used various history books – biographies too – but also searched through the vast catalogues that list the hundreds of thousands of art objects looted by the Nazis.

“Perhaps the most inspirational moment was sitting in Courtroom 600 – where the Nuremberg Trials took place almost 80 years ago to the day – and simply feeling the weight of history in that oak panelled room.”

Nevertheless, Paul’s work is fiction based on fact and not a biography.

He explained: “To the historian or the biographer, the truth must be unadorned facts; for the creative writer, the facts are only the raw material that we then shape and fashion to make a wider comment, explore broader ideas.

“In this way, A Mind Prone to Evil is not only about Hermann Göring but about the intoxication of power and its ability to corrupt – and that’s what also resonates in the current social and political climate.”

Göring, a cruel despot and architect of the Holocaust, provided ample material. He was an egomaniac with an opioid addiction.

Paul said: “He had two pet lions, dressed up as Emperor Nero and painted his fingernails for fun. Knowing all that stuff means that a fictional account of the man basically starts to write itself.”

He said how the horror of the Holocaust unfolded was more relevant today than ever.

“You know, when Göring was asked how the Nazis gained power so effectively, he replied that all you have to do is tell the population that ‘they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for exposing the country to danger. It works the same everywhere. The only thing that needs to be done to enslave people is to scare them’.

“Well, it seems clear that there is much scaremongering taking place not only in Britain, but also across Europe, in the US and elsewhere.”

Next March, Through a Judas Window, a stage adaptation of the novel, will open in London at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden.

Paul said: “The play is quite different but, of course, has many of the same themes. I’m excited to see what Paul Bamlett does with the character of Göring, a character that’s by turns chilling and charming.

“I think there’s also real drama to be found in the sparring between Göring and the psychiatrist sent to evaluate him, Douglas Kelley.

“This is not safe history. It is a confrontation – between past and present, between spectacle and truth, between what we want to believe about evil and the uncomfortable reality of how ordinary it can be. I hope that it’s theatre at its boldest: provocative, unflinching and disturbingly relevant.”

Paul’s next project, a poetry collection called Cranley Gardens, will also explore dark themes.

He said: “It’s a true crime collection about the serial killer Dennis Nilsen – and as far as I’m aware, a true crime poetry collection is not something that’s been tried before. I’ve had very positive feedback so far.”

A Mind Prone to Evil is published by Stairwell Books.