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the secret diaries of hitler’s doctorHealth, Education and Welfare: “We’ve found the Morell files; wouldthe Archives like to accession them?”From the original transmittal letter attached to them it emergedthat Major R G Seelig, chief of the German Military DocumentsSection at the Pentagon, had sent them to the Surgeon General onJune , listing them as “Dr Morell’s medical records, appointment booklets, medical account of Hitler’s health, photographs,personal correspondence.”On October , he had sent further unspecified Morell documents to a Dr Turner, of Medical Intelligence at the Pentagon.The Pentagon had later loaned it out to the Army Medical Library, subsequently known as the National Institute of Health, adivision of HEW based at Bethesda, Maryland; and it was from hereon March , that Dr John B Blake, chief of the institute’s History of Medicine Division, now sent them over to Wagner, at theModern Military Branch of the Archives.“As you will see,” he wrote, “it also includes X-rays of some of theother Nazi leaders, some photographs etc.”Papers attached to the files indicate that in about March anunnamed American officer had toyed with the idea of publishingthem, but evidently gave up.He noted, “I am sorry that I am not yet able to present the material in a more refined form. As soon as I have dug out the Englishmeaning, I plan to list all the drugs which Dr Morell used. . . Thematerial is not my property thus I do not like to show it to too manypeople.”Now these new Morell papers have been accessioned and partlymicrofilmed on National Archives microcopy T– , roll . Thefilmed portion comprises the correspondence files including seventy-two pages of private letters; a spring binder including pagesof records on Hitler’s health from July to April ; a folder of

introduction documents on Benito Mussolini’s health from November , toMarch , ; a desk diary covering the final weeks from November to the end of the war; a bundle of medical data cards onwhich Morell noted his almost daily sessions with “Patient A” from to ; and a sheaf of loose notes detailing individual crisessince August .Some items have not been microfilmed, including an importantbut unphotogenic diary for and a thick pack of large filing cardson which Hitler’s daily diet for – was meticulously recorded.The author has deciphered all the annotations, determined theprecise meanings of the often exotic medications used and obtainedmedical opinion on both Hitler’s problems and Morell’s methods.The medical picture of Adolf Hitler is now complete. There is nolonger room for any speculation.From the diary there emerges a picture of Hitler’s relationshipwith his medicine men and with Morell in particular – the doctorwho reigned supreme from his first meeting with Hitler in the winter of until his dramatic leave-taking from him in the last daysbefore the collapse of the Third Reich, when Hitler snapped at him:“Take off that uniform and go back to being the doctor of theKurfürstendamm!”

the secret diaries of hitler’s doctorThe RelationshipFor as long as the attention of modern historians remainsrooted to the “curse” of Adolf Hitler, they will also be intrigued by the relationship between him and one shadowyfigure in the background: his personal doctor, Theo Morell.This fascination has been nourished throughout history by visions of power and influence, by the mental and physical peculiaritiesof the beings who wield those instruments, and by the doctors whomthese men of power attract to their sides. Winston Churchill retainedas physician Lord Moran – a man not dissimilar to Morell – andLord Moran wrote an equally fastidious diary in which he jotteddown sufficient detail to reconstruct, in his declining years, a memoirof Britain’s great wartime prime minister. Joseph Stalin kept a wholecourt of doctors, many of whom he eventually terminated with considerable prejudice.Nobody should underestimate the influence that such doctorscan secretly exert. They are indispensable and know it. Great eventscan be affected by the illnesses of their leaders. International conferences, such as Yalta, have been overshadowed by the physical declineof the participants. Battles can be lost because of one’s general debility: obliged by a painful attack of diarrhoea to desert the field atWaterloo at the height of that battle, Napoleon forfeited victory.In Morell’s diaries we find proof for the theory that Hitler wassimilarly weakened by dysentery for weeks at the height of the Battle for Russia in the summer of , and that he was bedridden with

the relationshipintroduction hepatitis shortly before the Battle of the Bulge in ; we learn toothat he was oppressed by the knowledge that he had a heart ailment –rapid progressive coronary sclerosis – which might at any momentwrite finis to all his schemes for Germany.But the similarity with the case of Napoleon was only superficial.Napoleon abhorred doctors and spurned medicines until shortlybefore his death.Hitler was the opposite, a hypochondriac. From his earliest youthhe rarely travelled without his medicine cabinet, and willingly believed himself incapable of survival without pills, injections andbatallions of attendant doctors.Senior among them was Morell, his personal physician for thelast eight years of his life.“Morell,” wrote his rival Dr Karl Brandt in American captivity,“comes from somewhere near Darmstadt, is about fifty-six yearsold, very fat, has a bald head, a round and very full face, dark-browncomplexion and dark-brown eyes, is near-sighted and wears glasses,has very hairy hands and chest. Approximately five feet seven inchestall.”One of Hitler’s four private secretaries rendered this somewhatunappetising description of a soirée with Morell: “With his heavy,hairy hands clasped across a podgy paunch, Morell would fight backhis drowsiness. He had the odd characteristic that when he closedhis eyes he did so from the bottom upwards – it looked hideousbehind the thick pebble glasses . . . Sometimes Colonel von Belowwould give him a nudge and he’d wake up with a start and chuckleout loud in case the Führer had just told a joke.”No, Morell was not popular in Hitler’s circle.He was teetotal, did not smoke and there was worse to come.Another secretary remarked: “Morell had an appetite as big as hisbelly, and he gave not only visual but audible expression to it.”

the secret diaries of hitler’s doctorWhen Hasselbach once remarked on the physician’s body odour,Hitler snapped: “I don’t employ Morell for his fragrance but to lookafter my health.”it remains a matter for some speculation that Hitler should haveallowed this obese, middle-aged doctor to dose him with the volume and variety of medicines that he did.Hitler’s staff were in despair. His perennial housekeeper Frau AnniWinter, explained, “Once Morell was turned loose on him, all sortsof medicines popped up on Hitler’s table. Their number and potency increased at the same rate as the dietary regulations multiplied,the restrictions on certain foods were intensified and his overall foodintake declined. “It began around the winter of – with onelittle medicine bottle. Over the next seven years there were enoughto fill an attaché case.”Morell administered tablets and dragées, uppers and downers,leeches and bacilli, hot compresses and cold poultices, and literallythousands of injections – litres of mysterious fluids that were squirtedinto his grateful and gullible Führer each year, whose arms werepunctured so often that even Morell sometimes could not find anywhere to insert the needle into the scarred veins.since the end of the war intrigue has surrounded Morell and hismethods.How great was his influence on the Führer? What were his treatments of the man who had occasion to determine the destiniesbetimes of two hundred million Europeans?Dr Erwin Giesing, the ear nose and throat doctor who treatedHitler’s head traumas for weeks after the assassination attempt of , wrote the following report about his patient’s personality:“From Hitler’s psychopathic constitution and the associated con-

the relationship viction 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 gastro-intestinal and digestivetracts, were only one token of this.“Others were the frequency with which he took his own pulsewhen I gave him a check-up, and then asked me to confirm it; andhis ever-present fear of an imminent death – in the fall of herepeatedly said that he had only two or three years to live.“Of course, he was convinced that he would by then not onlyhave attained final victory but have given the German people suchleadership and have consolidated their position so enormously that‘others will be able to take up where I leave off.’“Other significant symptoms were his addiction to medicationlike sleeping pills, all manner of indigestion tablets, bacterial compounds and ‘general-purpose fortifier’ pills and injections. Not thatHitler was your common drug addict; but his neuropathic constitution led to his finding certain drugs particularly pleasureable, likethe strychnine and atropine contained in the Anti-Gas pills, and thecocaine in the sinus treatments I gave him; and there was a clearinclination towards becoming an habitual user of such medications,as he himself admitted to me.”“Morell,” he commented in June , “converted the largelyhealthy man that Hitler had earlier been into one constantly pliedwith injections and fed with tablets which made Hitler more or lessdependent on him; he played on Hitler’s neuropathic nature byspouting utter rubbish about how Hitler’s heavy workload meant . Erwin Giesing, MD: “Report on my Treatment of Hitler.” The author hasdonated all the documents used for this volume to the Institute of ContemporaryHistory in Munich. See footnote on page .

the secret diaries of hitler’s doctorthat he was burning energy at the same rate as people in the tropics,and that the lost energy had to be replaced by all manner of injections like iodine, vitamins, calcium, heart-and-liver extract andhormones.”Could such massive treatments be totally innocuous?Captain Heinz Assmann, a navy staff officer attached to the HighCommand, who stood at Hitler’s side every day from August until April , , talked to experts who regarded these thousandsof glucose injections as distinctly harmful.“They talked of the danger of premature arteriosclerosis,” hewrote, “with all its side effects like premature senility.” Assmannmaintained, “There are also grounds to believe that the shots A.H.got were beefed up with stimulants like Pervitin [a notorious amphetamine-type compound], because several observers who werewitness to A.H. ’s collapses told of how he revived dramatically aftergetting tablets or jabs from Morell.”It must be said that Morell’s dossier shows no explicit evidencethat he administered Pervitin to Hitler, unless the vitamin shots hechristened Vitamultin forte contained this ingredient.Pervitin (chemical designation -Phenyl- -methylaminopropanehydrochloride) was a substance capable of pharmacologicallyreproducing the effect of a stimulation of the vegetative sympatheticnervous system. But Pervitin was addictive; moreover, it was foundto cause serious permanent damage and in it was restrictedunder the German Narcotics Act.It figures only rarely in Morell’s papers. Thus in his agenda forOctober , he wrote: “Pervitin prescription for Engel Pharmacy,” with the hand-written postscript: “Out of stock.” The EngelPharmacy in Berlin supplied all medical stores to Hitler’s headquarters. And on January , he wrote: “Prescription Eupaverin Pervitin, heating pads.”

the relationship But Morell was familiar with the dangers of Pervitin. He wrote toone patient on December , : “You can get Intelan and bars ofVitamultin with the enclosed prescription from the Engel Pharmacyat No. Mohren Strasse , Berlin W . But let me warn you againstPervitin. This does not replace lost energy; it is not a carrot but thestick!”The doctors were frustrated by not knowing precisely what Morellwas injecting Hitler with.“For instance,” Giesing wrote, “I don’t know if he injected hormones. It might be important to know whether or not massivehormone doses were having an effect on Hitler’s physique in thesense of suppressing female stigmata.”reich ministers and Nazi Party officials also brooded on Morell.In June Joachim von Ribbentrop came out into the open andtackled him about the treatment.Morell wrote a painstaking record of the conversation.“Reich Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop had invited me to lunchat Fuschl. . . After lunch he invited me upstairs to talk somethingover.“Now it came out why he had asked me to lunch – to speak to meabout the Führer’s health and my treatment of him.”Ribbentrop had, noted Morell, inquired whether it was a goodthing for Hitler to get so many injections – “Whether he was gettinganything other than glucose? Whether I was giving him anythingelse?”Morell answered laconically, even cryptically, “I give him what heneeds.”He could afford to snub these powerful inquirers.He knew he had enjoyed Hitler’s unqualified confidence. Didn’tHitler keep telling him how much he needed him?

the secret diaries of hitler’s doctorIn July Hitler was to fob off the fuming Dr Giesing with thisexplanation:“It’s like this. It was Morell who first healed me. I know thatMorell’s newfangled methods are still not recognised internationally,and that even out here Morell is still researching in many fieldswithout having reached firm conclusions. But isn’t that how it hasalways been with innovations in medicine? It has always taken afinite time before new methods are accepted. I haven’t the slightestdoubt that Morell will see things through. And the moment he needsfinancial support for his researches he’ll get it from me.”small wonder that the other doctors envied Morell’s position,particularly Hitler’s escort doctor, Karl Brandt. Brandt was a goodlooking young surgeon whom the Americans would hang in .Brandt racked his brains over the Morell enigma: under interrogation in September , he tried to answer how Morell managedto maintain his position for eight years.Was he subject to some external pressure to keep Hitler underhis influence? Was he somebody else’s tool? Or was Morell himselfseeking to enslave Hitler for his own political or commercial ends?Eventually Brandt gave up. Although Morell had his measure ofanimal cunning, he was “too dense” for political intrigues; besides,he would never get involved in anything that might expose his quivering frame to personal risk.Perhaps Morell influenced Hitler in the way that doctors do, until Hitler could not do without his treatments and eventually cameto regard himself as owing some kind of obligation towards Morellas a person?Hasselbach, Brandt’s assistant since , also called attention toHitler’s obvious dependence on Morell. “I just couldn’t get over theinfluence Morell had on Hitler in medical respects,” he wrote.

the relationship Brandt surmised three possible ways in which Morell might havesnared the dictator: either by some narcotic like morphine; or byhormone treatments; or by less specific means – perhaps by playingon the gratitude that patients feel toward doctors who have curedan illness or stimulated their personal performance. Hitler’s reasonsfor staying with Morell were probably irrational.His choice was governed by the antipathy shown during the ThirdReich toward all true experts. Most of the top Party officials favoureddoctors of dubious repute.Himmler and Ribbentrop were devoted to non-medical practitioners and masseurs like Felix Kersten; Hess to herbal medicineand astrology.In the Third Reich the dilettante was king, and of Hitler’s inclinations there could be no doubt.On August , he snarled at his new chief of air staff, Lieutenant-General Werner Kreipe who had just ventured the expert viewthat the Messerschmitt– jet plane would make a better fighterthan bomber – “Experts are only good at one thing: explaining whysomething will not work!”His aversion to the military brains of the General Staff was equallynotorious: he called it an establishment for lying.What therefore could be more natural than that the busy Führershould engage a physician who could work instant “miracle cures”through a hypodermic needle?morell’s actual treatment of Hitler will be analysed in anotherchapter.Probably only clinical experiments can establish how far Hitler’sunquestioned capacity for sustained effort derived from Morell’smedication. Morell unquestionably influenced him by his use ofstimulants.

the secret diaries of hitler’s doctor“By stimulants,” Brandt wrote, “I am thinking not just of the dailyintake of Vitamultin but of the massive glucose injections, whichare bound to have had an effect on Hitler’s sense of vitality.”Hasselbach was more robust in his indictment of the physician’smethods. “In many cases he suggested to patients that they weresuffering from a serious malady which he then successfully ‘cured’,”he claimed.“I will say,” he admitted however, “that he often displayed a healing hand with nervous complaints.”Morell had treated the propaganda minister: Dr Goebbels hadcontracted dermatitis over virtually his entire body and was unableto sleep because of the irritation; twenty-two doctors tried to cure itand failed. Morell’s course of Homoseran injections worked, andGoebbels never forgot it: “I’m happy to be able to withstand thesepresent burdens,” he recorded on March , , “I attribute thisprimarily to Morell’s treatment.” Hitler, impressed, loaned his doctor to other VIPs, including Mussolini.the dossier on “Patient A” destroys many legends.Former OSS-adviser William C Langer’s speculations about Hitler’s exotic sexual and psychological problems are exposed for thebunkum that they were. American myths about Hitler’s “congenitalsyphilis” and Soviet whispers about his “impotence” are also slainby the urinalyses and blood serologies.However there does now seem to be evidence to support the persistent suggestions that by Hitler was a victim of paralysis agitans– also known as Parkinsonism.Morell certainly suspected it. There is no other explanation forthe medication which he initiated (daily doses of Homburg– ), aprescription which he left his doomed patient still taking whilst hefled to Bavaria on April , .

the relationship One thing is certain. Most of Morell’s medicines were quite harmless, and he injected the others in such minute quantities that theywould have been virtually useless.Modern experts have described Morell’s many hormone preparations such as Orchikrin, a so-called youth elixir, as trash.Of course, Morell may have realized this: he may have administered them to keep the medicine-crazy Führer contented.The same charitable view cannot be taken of his lavish use ofinferior proprietary sulphonamides like Ultraseptyl long after theyhad been publicly exposed as toxic by experts, nor of his use onHitler of his own still experimental penicillin.It is unlikely that Morell will be adjudged one of the great physicians of this century. History will term him a doctor with anunjustified sense of his own capabilities – a man who was less wickedthan n

March 2, 1944 (Re eye examination) 250 March 2, 1944 (Report on an Eye Examination) 252 September 24, 1944 (Electrocardiogram interpreted) 255 . Dr Karl Brandt, a rival Hitler doctor, had told them under inter-rogation a few weeks earlier that since Hitler had received almost