The secret diaries of Hitler's doctor

Written by Bernie Weisz Historian June 8, 2010 Pembroke Pines, Florida e mail: [email protected] Title of Review: "Satan's" Doctor" David Irving's book, ""The Secret Dairies of Hitler's Doctor" was written in 1983 by David Irving. This is the story of a fat, balding and sloppy doctor named Theodor Morell, Adolf Hitler's personal physician. No doubt a meglomaniac, Morell catered to all of Hitler's medical needs and jealously guarded this title against all rival doctors vying to be Hitler's number one personal physician, particularly Karl Brandt you might want to read Ulf Schmidt's book entitled "Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor: Medicine and Power in the Third Reich" and Felix Kersten book called "The Kersten Memoirs 1940 - 1945" to gain additional perspective. With a tremendous ego, Morell actually designed his own dashing uniform with a gold buckle sewn in by his wife so that he could feel part of the Fuhrer's jealous coterie. Nevertheless, Brandt and Kersten mocked him and intrigued against him. Morell was accused of munching "like a pig at a trough" and having no friends was the price of being Hitler's favorite doctor. There is another book that fits nicely into this research written by John H. Waller. Called "The Devil's Doctor: Felix Kersten and the Secret Plot to Turn Himmler Against Hitler" this biography tells the story from Morell's start, whereupon as a licensed medical practitioner with only a dabbler's knowledge in other disciplines, that was enough to satisfiy Hitler to take him on. In 1936, when he arrived at Hitler's Berghof villa to begin serving as his personal physician, Morell was already used to treating the wealthy and famous of Germany. In the next eight years, at Hitler's behest, he would continue to do so. Other notable patients were Prince Phillip of Hesse, Benito Mussolini, Japan's Ambassabor Oshima (who presented him with a Samurai helmet) and even Neville Chamberlain (for flu, in 1938). Irving presents an interesting format of writing this book. He interweaves Morell's diaries and correspondence that were discovered shortly prior to publication of this book with the impressions of Hitler's stenographers, valets, housekeepers, and various other doctors. The reader of this rare book is treated to a careful description of Adolf Hitler's mental and physical health that details the pattern of decline that bizarrely parallels that of the Nazi war machine. My only criticism of this book is that the reader is bored with endless notations of Morrell's meticulous record keeping and detailing of the daily injections of vitamins, glucose, and one or several of the 77 different medicines he administered to Hitler between 1941 to 1945. However, the reader is treated to a wealth of information previously unknown. In Morell's diaries we find proof that Hitler was weakened by dysentery for weeks at the height of the Battle for Russia in the summer of 1941, and again bedridden with hepatitis shortly before the Battle of the Buldge in 1944. We learn too that he was oppressed by the knowledge that he had a heart ailment-rapid progressive coronary sclerosis, which might at any moment write finis to all his schemes for Germany. In commenting about Morell's relationship with Hitler, Irving wrote: "It remains a matter for some wonderment that Hitler should have allowed this obese, middle-aged doctor to dose him with the extraordinary volume and variety of medicines that he did. Hitler's staff were in despair. His perennial housekeeper, Frau Anni Winter, explained: "Once Morell started on him, all sorts of medicines began popping up on Hitler's table. As their number and potency increased at the same rate as the dietary regulations multiplied, the restrictions on certain foods were intensified and his overall food intake declined. It began around the winter of 1937-38 with one little medicine bottle. Over the next seven years there were enough to fill an attache case. Morell administered tablets and dragees, uppers and downers, leeches and bacilli, hot compresses and cold poultices and literally thousands of injections-liters of mysterious fluids that were squirted into his grateful but gullible Fuhrer each year, so often that even Morell sometimes could not find anywhere to slide the needle into his chief's scarred veins". Irving further details that although his fingernails might not have always have been clean or his needles sterile (the reader must brace himself, as the pictures of Morell in this book show how sloppy and gruesome of a man he appeared!), Morell succeeded where others failed. Morell had pills, potions, lotions, injections and the right words for his Fuhrer's every symptom, condition and complaint. Morell went to what he called "limits of the permissible", and Hitler approved. As a response to his doubters, Morell retorted "What else matters? I give him what he needs." Hitler's reward to Morell was a gigantic villa, and his admitted obsession, money. Another interesting study one might want to read is Doctor Leonard L Heston's "The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler: His Illnesses, Doctors and Amphetamine Abuse." There is a very interesting passage in this book that truly gives insight as to how abnormal Adolf Hitler truly was. Morell remarked: "From Hitler's psychopathic constitution and the associated conviction that he always knew better, there developed a marked neuropathic disorder. His intense contemplation of his own bodily functions, and particularly his preoccupation with his gastrointestinal and digestive tracts, were only a token of this. Others were the frequency with which he took his own pulse when I gave him a checkup, and then asked me to confirm it; and his ever-present fear of an imminent death. In the fall of 1944 he repeatedly said that he had only two to three years to live. Of course, he was convinced that he would by then not only have attained final victory but have given the German people such leadership and have consolidated their position so enormously that "others will be able to take up where I leave off". Other significant tokens were his addiction to medication like sleeping pills, all manner of indigestion tablets, injectible amphetimines ("Pervitin"), injectible narcotic pain killers ("Eukodal"-now called "Dilaudid"), bacterial compounds and general purpose "fortifier pills" and injections. Did Morell think Hitler was an addict? Morell noted: "Not that Hitler was your common drug addict: but his neuropathic constitution led to his finding certain drugs, like the strychnine and atrophine contained in the anti-gas pills, and the cocaine in the sinus treatments I gave him particularly pleasurable, and there was a clear indication toward becoming a habitual user of such medicines". It is also interesting to note in Morell's records the multiple documentation of anabolic steroid injections he gave Hitler (in particular, the drug "Testoviron"). Was Hitler's vision of "world conquest and domination" influenced because he was on "the juice"? For the effects of anabolic steroids on the human pwersonality, please read anthony robert's "Anabolic Steroids: Ultimate Research Guide." Morell also remarked: "It might be important to know whether or not massive hormone doses were having an effect on Hitler's physique in the sense of supressing female stigmata". In other words, was Hitler trying to supress a feminine personality and disposition? You might find a detailed examination of this in Ron Rosenbaum's book "Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil." It is interesting to note in Pierre Galante's book "Operation Valkyrie", Galante's remarks about General Adof Heusinger's impressions of Dr. Morell. Galante wrote that Hitler stated "After you reach 50, you shouldn't ignore your doctor's advice. In my own case, if I didn't have Dr. Morell, would I still be alive?" Galante also informs us the following: "Palmists and astrologers had predicted that Hitler would enjoy a brilliantly successful career that would be interrupted prematurely, which he took to mean that he would meet with an early death. This became an obsession with him, and long before the war he had forbidden the practice of "divination" in Germany; crystal gazers and card readers who persisted in plying their trades were packed off to the concentration camps, along with the communists, intellectuals, homosexuals, and Jews. As for Dr. Morell, General Heusinger (Gen Adolf Heusinger was the operations chief of the German General Staff from 1940-1944) recalled that one day when he complained that he had been feeling tired and worn out, the Fuhrer sent for his miracle doctor immediately. Morell took Heusinger into a bathroom, produced a syringe, and gave Heusinger a shot in the buttocks. "I immediately felt like my blood was boiling. My head was on fire. For several hours, in fact, I felt particularly energetic, but this was followed by a bout of depression that lasted for several days. I took care never to say anything more about my health in front of Hitler, but I had realized how much harm this regime of almost daily injections had done him." Irving takes the reader alongside both Hitler and Morell from the early days of the war, i.e. the invasion of Poland, France, the "Phony War", the "Battle of Britain", "Barbarossa", all the way to the last days of Hitler rudely discharging Morell ungratefully in the bunker in Berlin right before his suicide. Aside from the medical boredom of Hitler's "drugalog", there is a tremendous historical lesson to be gleaned from this book, unavailable prior to this. For the serious student of Adolf Hitler and World War II, this is a "must read", indispensible book! Well worth it!