Speaker 1: September, the fate of Europe hangs in the balance, and
Speaker 1: an effort to appease Adolph Hitler in the Nazi war machine,
Speaker 1: Allied leaders handed part of Czechoslovakia, called the Sudaton Land
Speaker 1: over to Germany. A smiling British Prime Minister Nevill chamberlaind
Speaker 1: returned from Munich, then came down the steps of his
Speaker 1: airplane in triumph. And the Prime Minister comes home home
Speaker 1: to an empire pilled with giant relief, home to a
Speaker 1: welcome that he will never forget. It seemed like a
Speaker 1: true turning point in history. The settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem,
Speaker 1: which has now been achieved, is, in my view, only
Speaker 1: the prelu to a larger settlement in which all Europe
Speaker 1: may find peace. That neither the Czechoslovakia problem nor peace
Speaker 1: had been remotely achieved. Hitler wasn't done with Germany's neighbor,
Speaker 1: and he was prepared to seize every advantage he could
Speaker 1: to finish the job, even a medical emergency. Six months later,
Speaker 1: in March nine, Czechoslovakia's President Emil Hotcha came to Berlin
Speaker 1: to meet with Hitler, Herman Goring, and other Nazi leaders
Speaker 1: this is scholar Norman Ohler, author of the book Blitzed
Speaker 1: Drugs and Nazi Germany. During that visit, Girling um put
Speaker 1: a paper on the desk and set please sign here.
Speaker 1: This is your capitulation that German troops are coming tomorrow.
Speaker 1: If you signed here, no blood will be shared. Hacha refused,
Speaker 1: but under the stress of the situation, the ailing president
Speaker 1: suffered what was likely a coronary episode. The historical records
Speaker 1: show that he actually fainted. Hatcha actually lost consciousness in
Speaker 1: that room with Hitler, Girling and some other Nazi big wigs.
Speaker 1: And of course, if Hotcha wasn't awaken functioning, then he
Speaker 1: couldn't sign the paper that would give his country away
Speaker 1: to the Nazis. Luckily, Hitler's personal physician, Theodore Morrell, was
Speaker 1: standing by. Morell was called and he injected a cocktail
Speaker 1: into the unconscious Czechoslovakia president. But this cocktail was no Martini. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not known for certain what was in the drugs
Speaker 1: that were shot into Hotcha. Most scholars think it was
Speaker 1: meth amphetamy. Certainly, the cocktail had the effect that Hotcha
Speaker 1: came back to life, looked around in the room, and
Speaker 1: suddenly felt that he could do it, that he could
Speaker 1: trust these guys, and Girling would then say to him,
Speaker 1: come on, we will protect you. So Hotcha then signed
Speaker 1: it and basically signed over the defeat of his country.
Speaker 1: The next day Germans came and the Czechoslovakia was basically gone.
Speaker 1: The very next morning, Hitler invaded Prague without a fight
Speaker 1: through the snow, the legions of occupation marching to Czechoslovakia.
Speaker 1: This rapid stroke which is outraged all freedom loving nations
Speaker 1: of the world. He's got it out with military executive Artiya,
Speaker 1: rose into Prague and mons God on the ragin the
Speaker 1: castle of King Winter's Nus. Presently, from a window of
Speaker 1: the castle you may catch a glimpse of Hitler himself
Speaker 1: contemplating his new conquest. Hitler stands alone in that castle window,
Speaker 1: But there was another man who was certainly in the room,
Speaker 1: doctor Theodore Morrel, the man who injected the Czech president
Speaker 1: in Berlin. Throughout the war, he was always at Hitler's side,
Speaker 1: and the conquest of Czechoslovakia was far from the only
Speaker 1: way he helped alter the course of the war and
Speaker 1: history itself. I'm Sean braswell. This is flashback the podcast
Speaker 1: from Ozzie designed to take you on a ride through
Speaker 1: some of history's most remarkable, unintended consequences. Today a story
Speaker 1: of war and peace, of Madmen and vitamins, the cautionary
Speaker 1: tale about what can happen when you give powerful people
Speaker 1: some powerful drugs. If you've ever seen a documentary film
Speaker 1: about Adolph Hitler or the Nazis, chances are you've seen
Speaker 1: some of the home movies shot by Hitler's girlfriend, Ava
Speaker 1: Brown at the Berghoff the Furor's Mountain retreat. In those
Speaker 1: remarkable silent color films, you can see a relaxed Hitler
Speaker 1: chatting with other Nazi leaders like Hammon Gory and Joseph
Speaker 1: Gebbels on a sun drenched deck with the mountain view behind.
Speaker 1: The Nazis, eat cake and sit tea and gleefully discuss
Speaker 1: plans for world domination. One of the figures you see
Speaker 1: repeatedly but might not recognize, is an overweight bald man
Speaker 1: with glasses. This was Hitler's personal physician, Dr Theodore Morrell.
Speaker 1: What you don't see, of course, is what happens when
Speaker 1: Ava Brown turns off the camera. That's when things are
Speaker 1: turned to normal and the Nazis warts are revealed, Brown
Speaker 1: goes back to biting her lips until they bleed. Dr
Speaker 1: Morrel is so unhealthy he can barely climb a flight
Speaker 1: of stair. And Hitler himself when the camera stops, his
Speaker 1: hands are shaking so badly his teacup rattles loudly in
Speaker 1: its saucer. The German Fuere is a wreck and a
Speaker 1: drug addict, and an increasingly deranged one. And there's one
Speaker 1: man to thank for it. But believe it or not,
Speaker 1: this whole thing, and perhaps the most fateful doctor patient
Speaker 1: relationship in history, starts with a very minor problem, one
Speaker 1: that World War Two historians don't often pay much attention
Speaker 1: to Adolph Hitler's insane and unrelenting flatulence. Hitler suffered from
Speaker 1: pretty bad health. This is Giles Milton, a historian and
Speaker 1: the author of When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lennon Lost
Speaker 1: his Brain. He had suffered from stomach crumps, from diarrhea,
Speaker 1: from appalling flatulence. I mean this was partly perhaps due
Speaker 1: to the diet that he ate. He he only ate
Speaker 1: these sort of watery vegetables which he had purred or mashed,
Speaker 1: and he ate these virtually every meal. Hitler had such
Speaker 1: bad gas he would often have to leave the table,
Speaker 1: and his dietary problems left him desperate for solutions Norman Ohler. Again,
Speaker 1: Hitler was always looking for unorthodox treatments, and he did
Speaker 1: not like his conventional doctors that would send him on
Speaker 1: diets when he was complaining of stomach cramps and gas,
Speaker 1: which was his main problem in the In the mid thirties,
Speaker 1: finally Hitler met someone who could help, even if his
Speaker 1: methods were a bit unorthodox. Morrel was a celebrity doctor
Speaker 1: in u Berlin in the early thirties, and he was
Speaker 1: known to treat patients for diseases that didn't exist. He
Speaker 1: was a type of doctor Field Good. Morrell was also
Speaker 1: something of a medical pioneer. This was a new approach
Speaker 1: to medicine, and he used especially vitamins. In the beginning.
Speaker 1: He was sure that if you in checked hi dosages
Speaker 1: of vitamins into the blood stream of a person, that
Speaker 1: that person would have more energy, and that it would
Speaker 1: also elevate the mood of that person. It's not such
Speaker 1: a crazy idea when we do it. Still today we
Speaker 1: take vitamin supplements. But I was walking once in l
Speaker 1: A and I saw at a health food store an
Speaker 1: announcement that they were offering injections of vitamin B one.
Speaker 1: So I guess Morell in away was an avant garde
Speaker 1: health doctor or fitness doctor. Then in nine three, something
Speaker 1: happened that made even Berlin's resident doctor feel good uneasy.
Speaker 1: Someone smeared the word Jew and large letters across the
Speaker 1: plaque outside the doctor's office. Morrell was not a Jew,
Speaker 1: but in the wake of that hate crime, he knew
Speaker 1: he needed to make sure others knew that as well.
Speaker 1: His response was that he joined the Nazi Party to
Speaker 1: show that he was not a Jew. The Jews obviously
Speaker 1: weren't allowed to join the Nazi Party, and Morrell came
Speaker 1: to see the Nazis as more than just protection. This
Speaker 1: reaction was not what an appalling racist movement, but his
Speaker 1: reaction was, Yeah, I'm going to join them so they don't,
Speaker 1: you know, so I can be part of this, uh,
Speaker 1: this movement. So that was a very opportunist reaction, but
Speaker 1: it tells a lot about Morele and his later approach
Speaker 1: in life towards the Nazis. He basically tried to take
Speaker 1: advantage of them. He was never a real believer in
Speaker 1: the ideology. He was just a believer in power and
Speaker 1: money and even fame. And a few years later an
Speaker 1: opportunity came knocking that would give the social climbing Nazi
Speaker 1: vitamin peddler just the chance he desired. One day in
Speaker 1: the phone rang in Dr Morrell's office. A few hours later,
Speaker 1: he was being flown to Munich first special vegetarian spaghetti
Speaker 1: dinner with none other than the Fewer himself. After the dinner,
Speaker 1: Hitler admitted to the doctor that his digestion was so
Speaker 1: poor he could barely function. Giles Milton again, and he
Speaker 1: turned to Theodore Morrell because third or Morell claimed that
Speaker 1: he would be able to help him, And help him
Speaker 1: he did, but in the most unorthodox ways. Morrell studied
Speaker 1: Hitler in his diet and his resulting digestion. After Hitler
Speaker 1: down to typical vegetable platter one day, the doctor recorded
Speaker 1: in his diary that quote constipation and colossal flatulence occurred
Speaker 1: on a scale I have seldom encountered before. He began
Speaker 1: by giving the furer these things, these tiny little black tablets,
Speaker 1: and they were they were called Dr Custa's anti gas pills,
Speaker 1: and Hitler was taking sixteen of these pills a day.
Speaker 1: What he didn't realize is that they contained small quantities
Speaker 1: of stricken in which of course is a is a poisoning.
Speaker 1: But the treatment did work on the gas front, Norman Ohler,
Speaker 1: and it did cure Hitler's um bloating in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: six nenteen thirty seven. And Hitler was so impressed by
Speaker 1: this effect, which was a big effect on his daily life,
Speaker 1: that he appointed Morale as his personal physician. Doctor feel
Speaker 1: Good had gone from being a celebrity doctor to treating
Speaker 1: the most powerful man in Europe. And for a while
Speaker 1: everything was great, and Hitler in fact did not get
Speaker 1: sick for those first years. In Morel's treatment, never got
Speaker 1: the flu or anything, never got a cold because he
Speaker 1: was always high on filled to the brim with vitamin
Speaker 1: C and other vitamins. By the summer of nineteen one,
Speaker 1: a healthy Hitler in Germany had taken much of Europe
Speaker 1: and turned their attention to Russia. At midday on June
Speaker 1: the twenty two, the peoples of the U. S as
Speaker 1: I heard the news that Table to war with Germany.
Speaker 1: Loudspeakers in the principal cities carried the voice of Mr Monitov,
Speaker 1: announcing that the Nazis were already flinging in the battle
Speaker 1: about a hundred divisions along up front, extending them a
Speaker 1: two thousand miles. The invasion of Russia was a critical
Speaker 1: juncture in the war, and Hitler was at odds with
Speaker 1: his generals about the best way to do it. And
Speaker 1: then Hitler felt ill. He had for the first time.
Speaker 1: He was ill since the war started, actually since thirty
Speaker 1: six and since he met Morrel and Um. He had
Speaker 1: a strong, very strong flu with high fever, and demanded
Speaker 1: from Morrel that he would give him something that would
Speaker 1: enable him to go into the military briefing room and
Speaker 1: continue his version of the campaign. And so the loyal
Speaker 1: doctor obliged and gave the few something stronger, a substance
Speaker 1: that would alter Hitler's physiological makeup and ultimately his conduct
Speaker 1: of the war, and with disastrous consequences. Do you have
Speaker 1: an interesting tale about unintended consequences from history or your
Speaker 1: own life. Please share it with us by emailing flashback
Speaker 1: at Aussie dot com. That's flashback at os y dot com.
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