Adolf Hitler's medical health

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Adolf Hitler's medical health has long been a subject of popular controversy. There has also been speculation regarding his mental health.

Contents

1 Doctors and drugs
2 Diet
3 Syphilis
4 Other possible health issues
5 Mental health and sexual inclinations
6 Autopsy comment on anatomy
7 References
8 Further reading

8.1 Medical books
8.2 Other

9 External links

Doctors and drugs

Unknown to most people today, and especially to many Germans at the time, Hitler suffered from several medical ailments. In 1934, the young SS officer and surgeon Dr. Karl Brandt, assisted by Professor Werner Haase, was assigned as his escort physician. Professor Theodore Morell, who was reputed to have developed a syphilis treatment, became Hitler's physician and a member of the Führer's inner circle by the late 1930s and may have been responsible for worsening his health.

Hitler suffered from at least two health problems when he first met Morell, including gastro-intestinal pain with accompanying flatulence, which has also been attributed to his vegetarian diet, and skin lesions on his thighs. Later during the war, while still under Morell's care, he developed an irregular heartbeat and aggressive tremors throughout the left side of his body. He also became dependent on methamphetamine that Morell supplied to him daily with other compounds, including Nux Vomica, which contains strychnine. Initially described as "vitamultin," the mix later became "vitamultin forte." This was administered via injection and small tablets packaged in gold wrappers. By 1945, Hitler was using cocaine as well, which Morell applied via eye drops for Hitler's vision troubles. Other attending doctors are known to have criticized Morell, only to be brushed off by Hitler. During the 1920s and 1930s in Germany, both cocaine and methamphetamine were routinely prescribed for many ailments.

Hitler occasionally smoked cigarettes, but only in private, as he otherwise prohibited anyone from smoking at his retreat at Berchtesgaden, and in the Führerbunker; Albert Speer recalls him joking that the Führer could not be seen doing such a mundane thing. His teeth were stained brown despite a reported obsession with brushing them.

Diet

Related article: Vegetarianism of Adolf Hitler.

Although beginning in the early 1930s, Hitler gradually reduced his meat intake and more or less eschewed alcohol until the war went badly (when he used it to aid his sleep), his eating habits in general could be unhealthy and irregular. He reportedly had a sweet tooth and as a result ate large amounts of chocolate and pastries, sometimes to the exclusion of a balanced diet. According to the Wagner family, for example, he added at least seven teaspoons of sugar to every cup of tea he drank. Combined with his refusal to engage in any regular exercise aside from walking, Hitler put on weight as he aged.

His penchant for sweets seems to have contributed to bad dental health. By the 1930s, Hitler had many bridges and fillings (which were used by the Soviets to identify his body in 1945). Some observers have offered this as one reason why Hitler rarely smiled in public and when laughing often covered his mouth with one hand.

Syphilis

Hitler's tremors and irregular heartbeat during the last years of his life could have been symptoms of tertiary syphilis.[link] Along with another doctor, Morell diagnosed them as such by early 1945 in a joint report to SS head Heinrich Himmler. Some historians have also cited Hitler's discussion of syphilis across fourteen pages of Mein Kampf, which he called a "Jewish disease," leading to speculation he may have had the disease himself, since it may be difficult to imagine another reason for such a tirade.

Since the 1870s, however, it was a common rhetorical practice on the völkisch right to associate Jews with diseases such as syphilis. Historian Robert Waite claims Hitler tested negative on a Wassermann test as late as 1939 although this does not prove that he did not have the disease as the Wasserman test was prone to false-positive results. Regardless of whether he actually had syphilis or not, Hitler lived in constant fear of the disease and took treatment for it no matter what doctors told him.

In his biography of Doctor Felix Kersten, called The Man with the Miraculous Hands,[link] journalist and Académie française member Joseph Kessel wrote of how in the winter of 1942 Kersten heard of Hitler's medical condition. Consulted by his patient, Himmler, as to whether he could "assist a man who suffers from severe headaches, dizziness and insomnia," Kersten was shown a top secret twenty-six page report. It detailed how Hitler had contracted syphilis in his youth and was treated for it at a hospital in Pasewalk, Germany. However, in 1937, symptoms re-appeared, showing the disease was still active, and by the start of 1942, signs were evident that progressive syphilitic paralysis (Tabes dorsalis) was occurring. Himmler advised Kersten that Morell was in charge of Hitler's treatment, and that it was a state secret. The book also relates how Kersten learned from Himmler's secretary, Rudolf Brandt, that at that time, probably the only other people privy to the report's information were Nazi Party chairman Martin Bormann and Hermann Göring, the head of the Luftwaffe.

Other possible health issues

It has also been speculated Hitler had Parkinson's disease. Newsreels of Hitler show he had tremors in his hand and a shuffling walk (also a symptom of tertiary syphilis, see above) which began before the war and continued to worsen until the end of his life. Morell treated Hitler with an agent commonly used to treat this condition in 1945, although Morell is viewed as an unreliable doctor by most historians and any diagnoses he may have made are subject to doubt.

A more reliable doctor, Ernst-Gunther Schenck, who worked at an emergency casualty station in the Reich Chancellory during April of 1945, also claimed Hitler might have Parkinson's disease. However, Schenck only saw Hitler briefly on two occasions and, by his own admission, was extremely exhausted and dazed during these meetings (at the time, he had been in surgery for numerous days without much sleep). Also, some of Schenck's opinions were based on hearsay from Dr. Haase.

Some doctors dismiss his ailments as hypochondria, pointing out the apparently drastic decline of Hitler's health as Germany began losing World War II.

Mental health and sexual inclinations

If Hitler's medical issues are controversial, his mental health is a minefield of theories and speculation. The topic can become argumentative, since many believe that if a psychological cause can be found for Hitler's behavior, it may serve as an explanation for his atrocities.

Waite, who authored an extensive psychohistory of Hitler, concluded he suffered from borderline personality disorder, which manifested its symptoms in numerous ways and would imply Hitler was in full control of himself and his actions. Others have proposed he may have been schizophrenic, based on claims he was hallucinating and delusional during his last year of life. If true, this might be explained by a series of brief reactive psychoses in a narcissistic personality which could not withstand being confronted with reality (in this case that he was not the "superman" or "savior of Germany" he envisioned, as his plans and apparent early achievements collapsed about him). However, Hitler never visited a psychiatrist, and under current methodology, any such diagnosis is speculation.

Hitler's sex life presents similar problems. In 1943, the Allied Office of Strategic Services (OSS) published "A Psychological Analysis of Adolf Hitler: His Life and Legend." In the course of the 281-page report, the authors describe Hitler "(1) as he appears to himself, (2) as he has been pictured to the German people, and (3) how he is known to his associates." Using this information, they then perform a "psychological analysis ... in which an attempt is made to understand Hitler as a person and the motivations underlying his actions." On page 138, Hitler is described as "an extreme masochist who derives sexual pleasure from having a woman squat over him while she urinates or defecates in his face." According to interviews with Otto Strasser, Hitler made his niece, Angela Raubal (whom he called Geli), "squat over his face ... [and] demanded that she urinate on him and this gave him sexual pleasure." However, this conclusion is not without its detractors. In "Hitler and Psychohistory," Hans Gatzke argues that many of the report's conclusions are "based on nonexistent, unreliable, or misinterpreted evidence" which "historians would not accept ... as valid." Journalist Ron Rosenbaum, in his book Explaining Hitler, actually made a point of tracking down the psychologists who contributed to this OSS report (but whom Langer did not directly acknowledge), and found that they denied ever making such diagnoses or claims on Hitler's paraphilias. According to his interviews, Rosenbaum found that much of the claims in the OSS report were apparently made up by its author, Langer. Rosenbaum suggested that Langer may have written such claims for entertainment value, noting that in the preface of the original report, Langer himself admitted that by the time he wrote it (1943), the Allies already considered the war against the Axis won, and as such, the report may not have had much strategic value.

In 1945 a Jewish historian by the name of Samuel Igra published "Germany's National Vice"[link] (In the 1920s and 30s, homosexuality was known as "the German vice" across Europe) in which Igra, who escaped from Germany in 1939, alleged Hitler "had been a male prostitute in Vienna at the time of his sojourn there, from 1907 to 1912, and that he practiced the same calling in Munich from 1912 to 1914" (Igra:67). None of Hitler's supposed former clients are known to have come forward during his rise to power. Also that Hitler was noted by friends from his Vienna days to have been vociferously opposed to prostitution. A somewhat more credible argument that Hitler might have been homosexual were put forward in a book by Lothar Machtan, based primarily upon the "Mend Protocol," a series of allegations made to the Munich Police in the early 1920s by a former soldier colleague of Hitler's. In 2004 an American doumentary film based on Machtan's theory was produced by HBO titled . American late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien once joked during his show's monologue that the evidence the documentary has that validate's their argument is Hitler's diary, which constantly referers to the invasion of France as an "Extreme Makeover."

In his book Explaining Hitler, Rosenbaum sarcastically remarked that theories concerning Hitler's mental state and sexual activity shed more light on the theorists than on Hitler.

Autopsy comment on anatomy

The Soviet autopsy stated Hitler's left testicle was missing, (see Hitler has only got one ball). Lev Bezymenski, who authored the autopsy report, later admitted it was falsified. Hitler was routinely examined by many doctors throughout his childhood, military service and later political career, and no clinical mention of any such condition has ever been discovered. Records do show he was wounded in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, and some sources describe his injury as a wound to the groin. Hitler's World War I company commander said a VD exam found that Hitler had only one testicle, but this individual was known to be politically critical of Hitler, and no documentation of the exam seems to exist.

References

External links

[Did Hitler have only one testicle?] from The Straight Dope
[The Hidden Führer]
[OSS document alleging sexual deviancy]
http://gaytoday.badpuppy.com/garchive/reviews/111201re.htm
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,564899,00.html

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