WEBVTT - Flashback: Episode 5 "High Hitler" (Sneak Peek) 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:06.600 September, the fate of Europe hangs in the balance, and 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.520 an effort to appease Adolph Hitler in the Nazi war machine, 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:13.360 Allied leaders handed part of Czechoslovakia, called the Sudaton Land 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:17.400 over to Germany. A smiling British Prime Minister Nevill chamberlaind 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:20.119 returned from Munich, then came down the steps of his 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.720 airplane in triumph. And the Prime Minister comes home home 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.560 to an empire pilled with giant relief, home to a 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:31.080 welcome that he will never forget. It seemed like a 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:37.840 true turning point in history. The settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem, 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:43.720 which has now been achieved, is, in my view, only 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:49.760 the prelu to a larger settlement in which all Europe 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:57.160 may find peace. That neither the Czechoslovakia problem nor peace 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:00.800 had been remotely achieved. Hitler wasn't done with Germany's neighbor, 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.480 and he was prepared to seize every advantage he could 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:10.320 to finish the job, even a medical emergency. Six months later, 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:15.240 in March nine, Czechoslovakia's President Emil Hotcha came to Berlin 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.520 to meet with Hitler, Herman Goring, and other Nazi leaders 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.000 this is scholar Norman Ohler, author of the book Blitzed 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:27.720 Drugs and Nazi Germany. During that visit, Girling um put 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.160 a paper on the desk and set please sign here. 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.280 This is your capitulation that German troops are coming tomorrow. 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:36.720 If you signed here, no blood will be shared. Hacha refused, 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.560 but under the stress of the situation, the ailing president 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:43.320 suffered what was likely a coronary episode. The historical records 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:49.400 show that he actually fainted. Hatcha actually lost consciousness in 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:54.000 that room with Hitler, Girling and some other Nazi big wigs. 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.640 And of course, if Hotcha wasn't awaken functioning, then he 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:00.000 couldn't sign the paper that would give his country away 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:05.240 to the Nazis. Luckily, Hitler's personal physician, Theodore Morrell, was 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:09.240 standing by. Morell was called and he injected a cocktail 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:16.119 into the unconscious Czechoslovakia president. But this cocktail was no Martini. Well, 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.240 it's not known for certain what was in the drugs 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:21.160 that were shot into Hotcha. Most scholars think it was 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.640 meth amphetamy. Certainly, the cocktail had the effect that Hotcha 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.680 came back to life, looked around in the room, and 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.160 suddenly felt that he could do it, that he could 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.960 trust these guys, and Girling would then say to him, 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:39.080 come on, we will protect you. So Hotcha then signed 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.160 it and basically signed over the defeat of his country. 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.840 The next day Germans came and the Czechoslovakia was basically gone. 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:49.400 The very next morning, Hitler invaded Prague without a fight 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:54.080 through the snow, the legions of occupation marching to Czechoslovakia. 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.359 This rapid stroke which is outraged all freedom loving nations 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:01.320 of the world. He's got it out with military executive Artiya, 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.160 rose into Prague and mons God on the ragin the 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.280 castle of King Winter's Nus. Presently, from a window of 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:09.800 the castle you may catch a glimpse of Hitler himself 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:14.120 contemplating his new conquest. Hitler stands alone in that castle window, 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.440 But there was another man who was certainly in the room, 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.400 doctor Theodore Morrel, the man who injected the Czech president 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:24.200 in Berlin. Throughout the war, he was always at Hitler's side, 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:27.360 and the conquest of Czechoslovakia was far from the only 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.080 way he helped alter the course of the war and 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:40.720 history itself. I'm Sean braswell. This is flashback the podcast 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:42.840 from Ozzie designed to take you on a ride through 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:47.360 some of history's most remarkable, unintended consequences. Today a story 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.440 of war and peace, of Madmen and vitamins, the cautionary 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:54.400 tale about what can happen when you give powerful people 0:03:54.880 --> 0:04:08.280 some powerful drugs. If you've ever seen a documentary film 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:11.480 about Adolph Hitler or the Nazis, chances are you've seen 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.240 some of the home movies shot by Hitler's girlfriend, Ava 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:18.280 Brown at the Berghoff the Furor's Mountain retreat. In those 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.640 remarkable silent color films, you can see a relaxed Hitler 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:25.280 chatting with other Nazi leaders like Hammon Gory and Joseph 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.320 Gebbels on a sun drenched deck with the mountain view behind. 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.360 The Nazis, eat cake and sit tea and gleefully discuss 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.719 plans for world domination. One of the figures you see 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.680 repeatedly but might not recognize, is an overweight bald man 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:44.160 with glasses. This was Hitler's personal physician, Dr Theodore Morrell. 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:47.920 What you don't see, of course, is what happens when 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.599 Ava Brown turns off the camera. That's when things are 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.040 turned to normal and the Nazis warts are revealed, Brown 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.960 goes back to biting her lips until they bleed. Dr 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.560 Morrel is so unhealthy he can barely climb a flight 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.359 of stair. And Hitler himself when the camera stops, his 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.919 hands are shaking so badly his teacup rattles loudly in 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.160 its saucer. The German Fuere is a wreck and a 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:14.080 drug addict, and an increasingly deranged one. And there's one 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:18.680 man to thank for it. But believe it or not, 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:21.920 this whole thing, and perhaps the most fateful doctor patient 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.960 relationship in history, starts with a very minor problem, one 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.920 that World War Two historians don't often pay much attention 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:35.360 to Adolph Hitler's insane and unrelenting flatulence. Hitler suffered from 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.800 pretty bad health. This is Giles Milton, a historian and 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:42.599 the author of When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lennon Lost 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:46.600 his Brain. He had suffered from stomach crumps, from diarrhea, 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:51.080 from appalling flatulence. I mean this was partly perhaps due 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.760 to the diet that he ate. He he only ate 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:58.000 these sort of watery vegetables which he had purred or mashed, 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:00.960 and he ate these virtually every meal. Hitler had such 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:03.440 bad gas he would often have to leave the table, 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:08.640 and his dietary problems left him desperate for solutions Norman Ohler. Again, 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:15.600 Hitler was always looking for unorthodox treatments, and he did 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:20.200 not like his conventional doctors that would send him on 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:25.560 diets when he was complaining of stomach cramps and gas, 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.440 which was his main problem in the In the mid thirties, 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.039 finally Hitler met someone who could help, even if his 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:37.400 methods were a bit unorthodox. Morrel was a celebrity doctor 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:43.039 in u Berlin in the early thirties, and he was 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:47.760 known to treat patients for diseases that didn't exist. He 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.080 was a type of doctor Field Good. Morrell was also 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.279 something of a medical pioneer. This was a new approach 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:58.800 to medicine, and he used especially vitamins. In the beginning. 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.760 He was sure that if you in checked hi dosages 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.919 of vitamins into the blood stream of a person, that 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:09.560 that person would have more energy, and that it would 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.680 also elevate the mood of that person. It's not such 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:16.080 a crazy idea when we do it. Still today we 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:20.160 take vitamin supplements. But I was walking once in l 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.720 A and I saw at a health food store an 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.360 announcement that they were offering injections of vitamin B one. 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.920 So I guess Morell in away was an avant garde 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:37.200 health doctor or fitness doctor. Then in nine three, something 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:41.400 happened that made even Berlin's resident doctor feel good uneasy. 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.800 Someone smeared the word Jew and large letters across the 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.280 plaque outside the doctor's office. Morrell was not a Jew, 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:53.640 but in the wake of that hate crime, he knew 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.040 he needed to make sure others knew that as well. 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.520 His response was that he joined the Nazi Party to 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.960 show that he was not a Jew. The Jews obviously 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.840 weren't allowed to join the Nazi Party, and Morrell came 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.600 to see the Nazis as more than just protection. This 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:14.400 reaction was not what an appalling racist movement, but his 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.600 reaction was, Yeah, I'm going to join them so they don't, 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.520 you know, so I can be part of this, uh, 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:25.280 this movement. So that was a very opportunist reaction, but 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.880 it tells a lot about Morele and his later approach 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:31.800 in life towards the Nazis. He basically tried to take 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:35.520 advantage of them. He was never a real believer in 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:40.040 the ideology. He was just a believer in power and 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:44.400 money and even fame. And a few years later an 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.680 opportunity came knocking that would give the social climbing Nazi 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.400 vitamin peddler just the chance he desired. One day in 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:58.120 the phone rang in Dr Morrell's office. A few hours later, 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.679 he was being flown to Munich first special vegetarian spaghetti 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.280 dinner with none other than the Fewer himself. After the dinner, 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.160 Hitler admitted to the doctor that his digestion was so 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:12.800 poor he could barely function. Giles Milton again, and he 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:17.719 turned to Theodore Morrell because third or Morell claimed that 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:20.319 he would be able to help him, And help him 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:24.880 he did, but in the most unorthodox ways. Morrell studied 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.760 Hitler in his diet and his resulting digestion. After Hitler 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:32.240 down to typical vegetable platter one day, the doctor recorded 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.520 in his diary that quote constipation and colossal flatulence occurred 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:40.080 on a scale I have seldom encountered before. He began 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.160 by giving the furer these things, these tiny little black tablets, 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:48.200 and they were they were called Dr Custa's anti gas pills, 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.640 and Hitler was taking sixteen of these pills a day. 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.920 What he didn't realize is that they contained small quantities 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:58.520 of stricken in which of course is a is a poisoning. 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:02.160 But the treatment did work on the gas front, Norman Ohler, 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:06.839 and it did cure Hitler's um bloating in nineteen thirty 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.760 six nenteen thirty seven. And Hitler was so impressed by 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.680 this effect, which was a big effect on his daily life, 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:19.000 that he appointed Morale as his personal physician. Doctor feel 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.559 Good had gone from being a celebrity doctor to treating 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.280 the most powerful man in Europe. And for a while 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.480 everything was great, and Hitler in fact did not get 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:32.040 sick for those first years. In Morel's treatment, never got 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.080 the flu or anything, never got a cold because he 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.640 was always high on filled to the brim with vitamin 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.520 C and other vitamins. By the summer of nineteen one, 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.240 a healthy Hitler in Germany had taken much of Europe 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:51.240 and turned their attention to Russia. At midday on June 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.400 the twenty two, the peoples of the U. S as 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:55.960 I heard the news that Table to war with Germany. 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.880 Loudspeakers in the principal cities carried the voice of Mr Monitov, 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:02.840 announcing that the Nazis were already flinging in the battle 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.079 about a hundred divisions along up front, extending them a 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.000 two thousand miles. The invasion of Russia was a critical 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.240 juncture in the war, and Hitler was at odds with 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:13.719 his generals about the best way to do it. And 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:17.000 then Hitler felt ill. He had for the first time. 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:19.680 He was ill since the war started, actually since thirty 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.000 six and since he met Morrel and Um. He had 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:27.239 a strong, very strong flu with high fever, and demanded 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.880 from Morrel that he would give him something that would 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.480 enable him to go into the military briefing room and 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:39.040 continue his version of the campaign. And so the loyal 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.520 doctor obliged and gave the few something stronger, a substance 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.120 that would alter Hitler's physiological makeup and ultimately his conduct 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:55.960 of the war, and with disastrous consequences. Do you have 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.679 an interesting tale about unintended consequences from history or your 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.880 own life. Please share it with us by emailing flashback 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:20.280 at Aussie dot com. That's flashback at os y dot com. 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.880 We all need a break from the constant cycle to 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:27.280 learn something new, to gain new perspectives. The Great Courses 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.160 Plus streaming service is an excellent resource to expand our 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.000 knowledge on a variety of subjects or pick up a 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.000 new hobby. I've been enjoying the Great Courses Plus while 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:40.120 researching this season of flashback lectures like Playball, the Rise 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:43.480 of Baseball is America's Pastime, History of the Supreme Court, 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.680 and Battlefield Europe have helped me connect the dots on 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:50.400 several stories from history. Right now, they're giving our listeners 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:54.000 a special limited time offer a free month of unlimited 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.280 access to their entire library. 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