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Speaker 1: sure to support Flashback by rating and leaving a review
Speaker 1: for us right here in your podcast app. A special
Speaker 1: shout out this week to our listener Wells Wells, who
Speaker 1: got last week's pop quiz correct. The question was what
Speaker 1: chronic physical ailment did Adolph Hitler suffer from? That led
Speaker 1: him to seek some rather unorthodox and highly consequential medical treatment,
Speaker 1: and you're all about to find that out. Stay tuned
Speaker 1: until the end of this episode to hear the quiz
Speaker 1: question for next week's episode. September, the fate of Europe
Speaker 1: hangs in the balance, and an effort to appease Adolph
Speaker 1: Hitler in the Nazi war machine, Allied leaders handed part
Speaker 1: of Czechoslovakia called the Sudaton Land over to Germany. A
Speaker 1: smiling British Prime Minister Nevill Chamberlain returned from Munich, then
Speaker 1: came down the steps of his airplane in triumph, and
Speaker 1: the Prime Minister comes home home to an empire pilled
Speaker 1: with giant relief, home to a welcome that he will
Speaker 1: never forget. It seemed like a true turning point in history.
Speaker 1: The settlement on the Czechoslova Can problem, which has now
Speaker 1: been achieved, is, in my view, only the plume to
Speaker 1: a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace.
Speaker 1: But neither the Czechoslovakia problem nor peace had been remotely achieved.
Speaker 1: Hitler wasn't done with Germany's neighbor, and he was prepared
Speaker 1: to seize every advantage he could to finish the job,
Speaker 1: even a medical emergency. Six months later, in March nine,
Speaker 1: Czechoslovakia's President Emil Hatcha came to Berlin to meet with Hitler,
Speaker 1: Herman Goring, and other Nazi leaders. This is scholar Norman Ohler,
Speaker 1: author of the book Blitzed Drugs and Nazi Germany. During
Speaker 1: that visit, girding Um put a paper on the desk
Speaker 1: and set please sign here. This is your capitulation. The
Speaker 1: German troops are coming tomorrow. If you sign here, no
Speaker 1: blood will be sheard. Hot refused, but under the stress
Speaker 1: of the situation, the ailing president suffered what was likely
Speaker 1: a coronary episode. The historical records show that he actually fainted.
Speaker 1: Hatcha actually lost consciousness in that room with Hitler, Girling
Speaker 1: and some other Nazi big wigs. And of course, if
Speaker 1: Hotcha wasn't awaken functioning, then he couldn't sign the paper
Speaker 1: that would give his country away to the Nazis. Luckily,
Speaker 1: Hitler's personal physician, Theodore Morrell, was standing by. Morrell was
Speaker 1: called and he injected a cocktail into the unconscious Czechoslovakian president.
Speaker 1: But this cocktail was no Martini. Well, it's not known
Speaker 1: for certain what was in the drugs that were shot
Speaker 1: into Hotcha. Most scholars think it was meth amphetamy. Certainly,
Speaker 1: the cocktail had the effect that Hotcha came back to life,
Speaker 1: looked around in the room, and suddenly felt that he
Speaker 1: could do it, that he could trust these guys. And
Speaker 1: Girling would then say to him, come on, we protects you.
Speaker 1: So Hatcha then signed it and basically signed over the
Speaker 1: defeat of his country. The next day Germans came and
Speaker 1: the Czechoslovakia was basically gone. The very next morning, Hitler
Speaker 1: invaded Prague without a fight, through the snow, the legions
Speaker 1: of occupation marching to Czechoslovakia. This rapid stroke, which is
Speaker 1: outraged all freedom loving nations of the world, is got
Speaker 1: it out with military executedure. Artillery rose into Prague, and
Speaker 1: man's God on the ragin the castle of King Winter's Mouth, presently,
Speaker 1: from a window of the castle you may catch a
Speaker 1: glimpse of Hitler himself contemplating his new conquest. Hitler stands
Speaker 1: alone in that castle window. But there was another man
Speaker 1: who was certainly in the room, doctor Theodore Morrel, the
Speaker 1: man who injected the Czech president in Berlin. Throughout the war.
Speaker 1: He was always at Hitler's side, and the conquest of
Speaker 1: Czechoslovakia was far from the only way he helped alter
Speaker 1: the course of the war and history itself. I'm Sean Braswell.
Speaker 1: This is Flashback, the podcast from Ozzie designed to take
Speaker 1: you on a ride through some of history's most remarkable,
Speaker 1: unintended consequences. Today a story of war and peace, of
Speaker 1: madmen and vitamins, A cautionary tale about what can happen
Speaker 1: when you give powerful people some powerful drugs. If you've
Speaker 1: ever seen a documentary film about Adolph Hitler or the Nazis,
Speaker 1: chances are you've seen some of the home movies shot
Speaker 1: by Hitler's girlfriend Ava Brown at the Berghoff the Furor's
Speaker 1: Mountain retreat. In those remarkable silent color films, you can
Speaker 1: see a relaxed Hitler chatting with other Nazi leaders like
Speaker 1: Hammon Goring and Joseph Gebbels on a sun drenched deck
Speaker 1: with the mountain view behind. The Nazis eat cake and
Speaker 1: sit tea, and gleefully discuss plans for world domination. One
Speaker 1: of the figures you see heatedly but might not recognize,
Speaker 1: is an overweight bald man with glasses. This was Hitler's
Speaker 1: personal physician, doctor Theodore Morrele. What you don't see, of course,
Speaker 1: is what happens when Ava Brown turns off the camera.
Speaker 1: That's when things are turned to normal and the Nazis
Speaker 1: warts are revealed. Brown goes back to biting her lips
Speaker 1: until they bleed. Dr Morrell is so unhealthy he can
Speaker 1: barely climb a flight of stairs, and Hitler himself when
Speaker 1: the camera stops, his hands are shaking so badly his
Speaker 1: teacup rattles loudly in its saucer. The German fuel is
Speaker 1: a wreck and a drug addict, and an increasingly deranged one.
Speaker 1: And there's one man to thank for it. But believe
Speaker 1: it or not, this whole thing, and perhaps the most
Speaker 1: fateful doctor patient relationship in history, starts with a very
Speaker 1: minor problem. One that World War Two historians don't often
Speaker 1: pay much attention to Adolph Hitler's insane and unrelenting flatulence.
Speaker 1: Hitler suffered from pretty bad health. This is Giles Milton,
Speaker 1: historian and the author of When Hitler Took Cocaine and
Speaker 1: Lenen Lost his Brain. He had suffered from stomach cramps,
Speaker 1: from diarrhea, from appalling flatulence. I mean this was partly
Speaker 1: perhaps due to the diet that he ate. He he
Speaker 1: only ate these sort of watery vegetables which he had
Speaker 1: purred or mashed, and he ate these virtually every meal.
Speaker 1: Hitler had such bad gas he would often have to
Speaker 1: leave the table, and his dietary problems left him desperate
Speaker 1: for solutions Norman Ohler. Again, Hitler was always looking for
Speaker 1: an orthodox treatments and he did not like his conventional
Speaker 1: doctors that would send him on diets when he was
Speaker 1: complaining of stomach cramps and gas, which was his main
Speaker 1: problem in the In the mid thirties, finally Hitler met
Speaker 1: someone who could help, even if his methods were a
Speaker 1: bit unorthodox. Morel as a celebrity doctor in um Berlin
Speaker 1: in the early thirties, and he was known to treat
Speaker 1: patients for diseases that didn't exist. He was a type
Speaker 1: of doctor Field Good. Morrell was also something of a
Speaker 1: medical pioneer. This was a new approach to medicine and
Speaker 1: he used especially vitamins. In the beginning. He was sure
Speaker 1: that if you inject high dosages of vitamins into the
Speaker 1: blood stream of a person, that that person would have
Speaker 1: more energy and that it would also elevate the mood
Speaker 1: of that person. It's not such a crazy idea when
Speaker 1: we do it still today we take vitamin supplements. But
Speaker 1: I was walking once in l A and I saw
Speaker 1: at a health food store an announcement that they were
Speaker 1: offering injections of vitamin B one. So I guess Morrell
Speaker 1: in a way was an avant garde health doctor or
Speaker 1: fitness doctor. Then in nineteen thirty three, something happened that
Speaker 1: made even Berlin's resident doctor feel good uneasy. Someone smeared
Speaker 1: the word Jew and large letters across the plaque outside
Speaker 1: the doctor's office. Morrell was not a Jew, but in
Speaker 1: the wake of that hate crime, he knew he needed
Speaker 1: to make sure others knew that as well. His response
Speaker 1: was that he joined the Nazi Party to show that
Speaker 1: he was not a Jew, Because the Jews obviously weren't
Speaker 1: allowed to join the Nazi Party, and Morrell came to
Speaker 1: see the Nazis as more than just protection. This reaction
Speaker 1: was not what an appalling racist movement, but his reaction was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to join them so they don't, you know,
Speaker 1: so I can be part of this, uh, this movement.
Speaker 1: So that was a very opportunist reaction, but it tells
Speaker 1: a lot about Morel and his late approach in life
Speaker 1: towards the Nazis. He basically tried to take advantage of them.
Speaker 1: He was never a real believer in the i theology.
Speaker 1: He was just a believer in power and money and
Speaker 1: even fame. And a few years later an opportunity came
Speaker 1: knocking that would give the social climbing Nazi vitamin peddler
Speaker 1: just the chance he desired. One day in the phone
Speaker 1: rang in Dr Morrell's office. A few hours later, he
Speaker 1: was being flown to Munich for a 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 fid Or Morrell 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 flatch once
Speaker 1: occurred on a scale I have seldom encountered before. He
Speaker 1: began by giving the fear these things, these tiny little
Speaker 1: black tablets, and they were they were called Dr Custa's
Speaker 1: anti gas pills, and Hitler was taking sixteen of these
Speaker 1: pills a day. What he didn't realize is that they
Speaker 1: contained small quantities of stricken in, which of course is
Speaker 1: a poisoning. But the treatment did work on the gas front,
Speaker 1: Norman Owler, and it did cure Hitler's um bloating in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six nenteen thirty seven, and Hitler was so
Speaker 1: impressed by this effect, which was a big effect on
Speaker 1: his daily life, that he appointed Morel as his personal physician.
Speaker 1: Doctor feel good had gone from being a celebrity doctor
Speaker 1: to treating the most powerful man in Europe. And for
Speaker 1: a while everything was great. Then Hitler in fact, did
Speaker 1: not get sick for those first years in Morel's treatment,
Speaker 1: never got the flu or anything, never got a cold
Speaker 1: because he was always ion filled to the brim with
Speaker 1: vitamin C and other vitamins. By the summer of nine,
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: twenty two, the peoples of the U. S. S I
Speaker 1: heard the news that table at war with Germany. Loudspeakers
Speaker 1: in the principal cities carried the voice of Mr. Montov
Speaker 1: announcing that the Nazis were already flinging in the battle
Speaker 1: about a hundred divisions along up front extending arly two
Speaker 1: thousand miles. The invasion of Russia was a critical juncture
Speaker 1: in the war, and Hitler was at odds with his
Speaker 1: generals about the best way to do it. And then
Speaker 1: Hitler fell ill. He had for the first time. He
Speaker 1: was ill since the war started, actually since thirty six
Speaker 1: and since he met Morrel and um. He had a strong,
Speaker 1: very strong flu with high fever, and demanded from Morrel
Speaker 1: that he would give him something that would enable him
Speaker 1: to go into the military briefing room and continue his
Speaker 1: version of the campaign. And so the loyal doctor obliged
Speaker 1: and gave the few of something stronger, a substance that
Speaker 1: would alter Hitler's physiological makeup and ultimately his conduct of
Speaker 1: the war, and with disastrous consequences. Do you have an
Speaker 1: interesting tale about unintended consequences from history or your own life.
Speaker 1: Please share it with us by emailing Flashback at Aussie
Speaker 1: dot com. That's Flashback at os y dot com. Enjoying
Speaker 1: this episode, check out the Great Courses Plus streaming service.
Speaker 1: It's an excellent resource to expand our knowledge on a
Speaker 1: variety of subjects. Like Adolf Hitler, in researching this episode
Speaker 1: of Flashback, I dove deep into the lectures World War,
Speaker 1: to Battlefield, Europe and Utopia and terror in the twentieth century.
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Speaker 1: Plus dot com slash o z y the Great Courses
Speaker 1: Plus dot Com slash AUSI. When Hitler and the Nazis
Speaker 1: first came to power in three they quickly set out
Speaker 1: to brand themselves as a new type of political party
Speaker 1: from those that had gone before in Germany, one whose
Speaker 1: members were virtuous even in their personal lives Norman Ohler.
Speaker 1: Drugs were quite widely taken in the Baymar republic Um.
Speaker 1: They were not tabu at all. There were laws against it,
Speaker 1: but those laws weren't enforced, so Hitler changed that. Hitler
Speaker 1: proclaimed to be leading an anti drug movement, and an
Speaker 1: important part of that self betrayal was to announce that
Speaker 1: Hitler himself was an abstinent person who did not drink alcohol,
Speaker 1: let alone take any drugs. Hitler also wouldn't drink caffeinated
Speaker 1: coffee or tea because he considered them stimulants. So this
Speaker 1: portrait of the Fura as the pure the pure man,
Speaker 1: was an integral part of the cult around Hitler and
Speaker 1: of the propaganda that the Nazi Party was spinning in
Speaker 1: Germany and also abroad. The Nazis promised clean living and
Speaker 1: a kind of social and ideological intoxication. That the core
Speaker 1: of that portrayal was the notion that the Nazis were
Speaker 1: about purity, They were about cleaning up the mess of
Speaker 1: the Vama Republic, cleaning it from strange influences like the Jewish,
Speaker 1: especially the Jewish influence. And for years Hitler, the teetotaler
Speaker 1: and vegetarian, never drank and hardly ever ate meat. As
Speaker 1: flashback listeners will know, millions of soldiers, especially in America,
Speaker 1: became addicted to cigarettes after World War One. Hitler, as
Speaker 1: the story goes, through his last pack of cigarettes into
Speaker 1: the Danube River after he fought in that war. As
Speaker 1: one of Hitler's supporters marveled about his purity and quote,
Speaker 1: he is all genius and body and gas. It might
Speaker 1: have been added, but thanks to Theodore Morrell's treatments and vitamins,
Speaker 1: even that unfortunate byproduct of his purity went away, and
Speaker 1: Hitler seemed as physiologically invincible as he was politically invincible.
Speaker 1: Then in ninety one, he got the flu on the
Speaker 1: eve of the war with Russia, and right before he
Speaker 1: briefing with his generals, he asked Morrele what else he
Speaker 1: had in his drug cupboard, and Morrell gave him then
Speaker 1: for the first time, an opioid called Dolantina German opioid
Speaker 1: at the time, which cured here. Hitler's flew immediately and
Speaker 1: let him go to the briefing room. From that point on,
Speaker 1: as the war raged on and Hitler encountered more stress
Speaker 1: and exhaustion, Morrell started to add some new ingredients into
Speaker 1: the vitamin mixture he was giving to the fure Giles
Speaker 1: Milton again. He was giving him testosterone, He was giving opiate, sedatives, laxatives, barbiturates, morphine,
Speaker 1: I mean, you name it. He was pumping the fear
Speaker 1: of full of full of this stuff. Up to eighty
Speaker 1: different drugs a day, so an extraordinary cocktail. As Morrell
Speaker 1: recorded in his notes which were later recovered, he gave
Speaker 1: Hitler more than eight hundred injections during those final years
Speaker 1: of the war Norman Ohler Hitler received one to two
Speaker 1: injections a day, which is an incredib will amount of injections.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's any person in the world
Speaker 1: that gets so many injections into the veins of the
Speaker 1: arm each day. Morrell's drug cocktail got even more bizarre
Speaker 1: as Hitler's addiction and needs grew animal hormones, steroids, cocaine, Hitler,
Speaker 1: the icon and purity was now a common drug addict.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine that the once teetotal Hitler towards
Speaker 1: the end of the war was had a very different
Speaker 1: approach to drug taking, and thanks to Morrell's efforts, so
Speaker 1: did rank and file Nazis. Germany was a drug free
Speaker 1: country basically due to the nazis strict anti drug regime,
Speaker 1: until in night a new medicine was allowed to come
Speaker 1: onto the market. It was called pavvy teen because pevyteen
Speaker 1: was pure mathemphetamine. One pill had three milligrams of methemphetamine
Speaker 1: and it became a big hit in Germany. That's right,
Speaker 1: methamphetamine a special brew developed by Dr field Good himself
Speaker 1: for the German public. You could buy at a local pharmacy.
Speaker 1: You didn't even need a prescription, and it wasn't long
Speaker 1: before the troops were taking it to crystal meth is.
Speaker 1: That is actually a very good drug for a fighter
Speaker 1: because it mobilizes um all your strength within a short
Speaker 1: period of time. It was the perfect drug to accompany
Speaker 1: the nazis new method of warfare. All under the world
Speaker 1: learned the meaning of a grim new word, let's cree.
Speaker 1: When Germany attacked France, thirty five million dosages of methamphetamine
Speaker 1: were distributed to the troops, enabling the Germans to perform
Speaker 1: the German soldiers to perform longer than the Allied soldiers.
Speaker 1: In the first hundred hours of the Nazi invasion of France,
Speaker 1: the Germans gained more territory than they had in over
Speaker 1: four years. During World War One, the Allied forces had
Speaker 1: brought a knife to a pharmacological gunfight, which was red
Speaker 1: wine in in the First World, where the French were
Speaker 1: using red and quite successfully boosting down Morrele in the
Speaker 1: in the In World War Two, this didn't work anymore, really,
Speaker 1: because the Germans were on meth, but it didn't take
Speaker 1: long for the rampant substance abuse to catch up with
Speaker 1: the Nazis and their fere The drug filled bubble that
Speaker 1: Theodore Morrell had injected into the veins of World War
Speaker 1: Two was about to burst, and the casualties would be
Speaker 1: in the millions. As the needle marks grew in number
Speaker 1: on Adolph Hitler's arms, so did his bizarre actions. Giles Milton.
Speaker 1: This extraordinary regime of drugs, many of which are are
Speaker 1: classified as illegal these days, led to increasingly erratic behavior
Speaker 1: on the part of the FURA, and there was one
Speaker 1: infamous meeting between Hitler and Mussolini in Italy where Hitler
Speaker 1: really began. He was almost hysterical when he was talking
Speaker 1: to Mussolini, and it seems that he had been taking
Speaker 1: so many hittamines that it was really begin to beginning
Speaker 1: to affect his performance, the way he talked, the way
Speaker 1: he acted. Where Hitler and once relied on adrenaline and
Speaker 1: natural charismatist sway audiences, he now relied on pharmaceuticals for
Speaker 1: his edge. If you watch videos of Hitler's speeches, that
Speaker 1: you get the impression of this kind of almost manic,
Speaker 1: pumped up sort of person. And I think this is
Speaker 1: largely to do with the with the regiment of drugs
Speaker 1: he was on. Soon he stopped doing speeches almost altogether
Speaker 1: and increasingly retreated into his bunker. He was unbalanced, irritable, impulsive,
Speaker 1: and at times delusional. He would go on screaming tirades
Speaker 1: that could last for hours. Of course, this it became
Speaker 1: increasingly complicated because it was taking on more and more
Speaker 1: responsibility for the actual running of the war, much to
Speaker 1: the horror of his senior generals. But certainly by the
Speaker 1: end of the war he was unable to think straight
Speaker 1: at all because he was, you know, so pumped up
Speaker 1: by the drugs he was taking. Norman Ohler, we can
Speaker 1: see for sure that Hitler became more and more inflexible
Speaker 1: in his decision making, his ego was so inflated that
Speaker 1: he never doubted himself. Hitler had actually been quite a
Speaker 1: measured strategic planner during the early days of the war.
Speaker 1: In the beginning from nineteen thirty three to ninety one,
Speaker 1: he basically made no mistakes, no great no big mistakes.
Speaker 1: Let's put it that way. I mean that the attack
Speaker 1: on Poland was of course a big mistake, which led
Speaker 1: to his downfall eventually. But still he won the war
Speaker 1: against Poland, he won the war against France. He won't
Speaker 1: basically the war against everybody in Europe. But his growing
Speaker 1: drug addiction helped change all that. His military decision making
Speaker 1: at a point in the war against the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: was not working anymore. The situation demanded of him a
Speaker 1: flexible mind, but he didn't have a flexible mind. Still,
Speaker 1: with the war dragging on in the Nazi forces losing
Speaker 1: ground and men in nineteen forty four, Hitler remained remarkably
Speaker 1: upbeat during his military briefings. So it beat that his
Speaker 1: own generals assumed he had an atomic bomb or some
Speaker 1: other secret playing up his sleeve that would turn the
Speaker 1: war around. But all Hitler had up his sleeve were
Speaker 1: track marks. The drugs kept him on his road as
Speaker 1: the few who knows everything and who could not fail.
Speaker 1: And and this was the road that led him to
Speaker 1: self destruction and led the whole country of Germany to
Speaker 1: to destruction and final defeat. Hitler's misplaced optimism kept Germany
Speaker 1: in a war that it could not win for months,
Speaker 1: even years, while millions perished throughout everything. Dr Morrell remained
Speaker 1: at Hitler's side himself wouldn't have anything said against Theodore Morrell.
Speaker 1: He thought he was a marvel worker and stayed with
Speaker 1: him to the very end, and in fact, right up
Speaker 1: to the fool of the Third Reich Green. Hitler was
Speaker 1: in his bunker fid m Rrell was at his sides,
Speaker 1: continually pumping in full of drugs. It was Morrell that
Speaker 1: supplied Hitler with the lethal cyanide pills that the dictator
Speaker 1: and Ava Brown would use to kill themselves in that
Speaker 1: famous Berlin bunker. Morrell himself escaped that bunker and was
Speaker 1: eventually tracked down not by Allied forces but by an
Speaker 1: industrious New York Times reporter. Thanks to her story, American
Speaker 1: forces took Morrel prisoner, but the increasingly ill doctor was
Speaker 1: of little use as a witness at Nuremberg and died
Speaker 1: a few years later after the war at age sixty one.
Speaker 1: Theodore Morrell had left his mark on Adolph Hitler's health
Speaker 1: and on world history, helping to prolong a costly and
Speaker 1: deadly war well beyond when it might have otherwise concluded.
Speaker 1: How many lives would have been saved had Hitler's drug
Speaker 1: addiction not reached such dangerous levels, Or might a healthy
Speaker 1: Hitler have made better decisions with the Nazis, have been
Speaker 1: more successful and the war lasted even longer. It's impossible
Speaker 1: to know. But there's one other fascinating wrinkle to this
Speaker 1: story that complicates things even further. Hitler had a pre
Speaker 1: existing condition that, when undiagnosed at the time, one that
Speaker 1: might have made all the difference to his drug induced downfall.
Speaker 1: That's next. Adolph Hitler is hardly the only world leader
Speaker 1: to have ever relied on a loyal doctor to services
Speaker 1: health and diet requirements. In fact, there was another big
Speaker 1: name twentieth century leader who also received regular injections while
Speaker 1: in charge of a major industrial power. There are that
Speaker 1: communism is the wave of the future that damn come
Speaker 1: to Berland. Like Hitler, US President John F. Kennedy suffered
Speaker 1: from a number of ailments that required doctor supervision. Nasier
Speaker 1: Gami is a psychiatrist at Tufts University in Harvard Medical
Speaker 1: School and the author of a First Rate Madness, uncovering
Speaker 1: the links between leadership and mental illness. In the case
Speaker 1: of Kennedy, he was getting um um steroid injections for
Speaker 1: his underlying Addison's disease, which is a adrenal gland um deficiency.
Speaker 1: One White House physician gave Kennedy these injections several times
Speaker 1: per week. But Kennedy, like Hitler, had his own less
Speaker 1: orthodox German doctor Max Jacobson. Jacobson was in a emigre
Speaker 1: from Germany and he had private previously worked in Berlin,
Speaker 1: and there is some possibility that he had actually worked
Speaker 1: with Theodore Morrell and had actually been was a protegee
Speaker 1: fact of Theodore Morrell. Jacobson, like Morrel, was a doctor
Speaker 1: feel good and a physician to celebrities, and perhaps his
Speaker 1: most famous patient was the thirty five President of the
Speaker 1: United States. He gave him intravenous amphetamines as well introvenous aeroids,
Speaker 1: a lot of the same treatments that that Morrell used.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, again, ground up testosterone, things of that nature,
Speaker 1: and then uh, he was giving these to Kennedy in
Speaker 1: the early years of his administration, the first two years
Speaker 1: or so, and again, just like with Hitler, Kennedy's friends
Speaker 1: and advisors and even family were noticing that he was
Speaker 1: acting differently. He was very irritable, impulsive, very hyper sexual.
Speaker 1: But despite the cocktail of drugs he was receiving, Kennedy's
Speaker 1: behavior and health didn't deteriorate the way that Hitler's did.
Speaker 1: Why well, Dr Gami says, the answer to that starts
Speaker 1: with another underappreciated aspect of Hitler's health, his mental illness.
Speaker 1: People who knew Hitler as a young man observes some
Speaker 1: very distinct behavioral traits. So, for instance, you know, they
Speaker 1: would describe that he would have periods of time where
Speaker 1: he would become much less functional, much less interested in things,
Speaker 1: wouldn't talk much, would need much, would just stay in
Speaker 1: his room for weeks or months on end um and
Speaker 1: that's kind of a standard definition of a clinical depression.
Speaker 1: And then he would come out of these periods and
Speaker 1: suddenly he'd be very energetic, very active, very talkative, and
Speaker 1: that would last weeks or months and again that's a
Speaker 1: classic definition of manic episodes. And this happened repeatedly, and
Speaker 1: that's what the definition of bipolar illness is. Despite being bipolar,
Speaker 1: says Dr Gami, Hitler was able to function for years
Speaker 1: before nineteen thirty seven. Hitler's mannic and depressive periods were
Speaker 1: on the mild side, and he wasn't treated medically because
Speaker 1: there were no treatments um at the time for depression
Speaker 1: or bipolar illness. But once Theodore Morrell started his injections,
Speaker 1: everything went haywire. A lot of people after the war
Speaker 1: among the West just thought that Hitler was an irrational,
Speaker 1: impulsive person, but by the end of the war, the
Speaker 1: drug fueled fure was not that person. The problem with amphetamines,
Speaker 1: if you have by polar illness, is that it can
Speaker 1: make you manic, and it can. Once you get manic,
Speaker 1: you go up and down and up and down, and
Speaker 1: suddenly you'll be having lots and lots of mood episodes
Speaker 1: caused by the amphetamines. The amphetamines improved the depressive symptoms
Speaker 1: short term, but they were some the depressive and manic
Speaker 1: episodes of given long term. Historians for years have pondered
Speaker 1: whether Hitler suffered from some kind of madness, so did
Speaker 1: his fellow Nazis. People like Himmler and others thought that
Speaker 1: he just got sick, that he just developed a new
Speaker 1: maybe insanity or a new kind of disease. But I
Speaker 1: think in retrospect it's much more likely the correlation is
Speaker 1: with the intravenous amphetamine treatment, that his baseline bipolar illness
Speaker 1: was just made worse. John F. Kennedy did not suffer
Speaker 1: from bipolar illness, and therefore his body responded to the
Speaker 1: amphetamines he was given differently, but he was also the
Speaker 1: beneficiary of a successful intervention. White House doctors tried for
Speaker 1: months to get Kennedy to stop taking advice and injections
Speaker 1: from Max Jacobson, and at first President Kennedy resisted. He
Speaker 1: famously said, I don't care if it's horse piss, it works.
Speaker 1: But the one person that could influence John Kennedy was
Speaker 1: Robert Kennedy, And when Robert Kennedy, the President's brother and
Speaker 1: the Attorney General, came down strongly against Jacobson, he was
Speaker 1: removed from the White House, and the president's other doctors
Speaker 1: were able to step in and prescribe a less harmful
Speaker 1: drug regimen. Adolf Hitler might have been a ticking time
Speaker 1: bomb well before he even met Theodore Morrell, but the
Speaker 1: doctor helped light of fuse that would have devastating consequences.
Speaker 1: It's an extreme example, but one we can still learn
Speaker 1: from Chiles Milton. The lesson is you've got to be
Speaker 1: very careful when you're, you know, messing around experimenting with
Speaker 1: these these drugs. They have powerful side effects and you
Speaker 1: don't always know what they are. And the more powerful
Speaker 1: the person taking the drugs or medication, the more powerful
Speaker 1: and impact those substances can have on the world. So,
Speaker 1: you know, my advice for any of today's CEOs, in
Speaker 1: in Silicon Value or elsewhere, would be to think very
Speaker 1: carefully before you start pumping yourself full of very very
Speaker 1: powerful drugs. Adolf Hitler is one of the most scrutinized
Speaker 1: figures in history, but in this episode we managed to
Speaker 1: extract a few of the more surprising lessons from his life. First,
Speaker 1: in some cases, farting is truly no laughing matter. Second,
Speaker 1: don't believe everything you see in a home movie. Third,
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler had more track marks than Courtney Love. And finally,
Speaker 1: beware of celebrity doctors pushing vitamin supplements that can change
Speaker 1: your world. Sometimes they can and not for the better.
Speaker 1: Going has Got One Ball, Hitler I So very small,
Speaker 1: him so very similar, and Gobbles Has No Ball. A
Speaker 1: Flashback is written and hosted by me Sean Braswell, senior
Speaker 1: writer and executive producer at Azzy. It was produced by
Speaker 1: Robert Coulos, Tracy Moran, Jori Di Gisia, and Shannon Williamson.
Speaker 1: Chris Hoff engineered our show special thanks to the crew
Speaker 1: at I Heart Radio podcast Networks, especially Sophie Lichterman and
Speaker 1: Jack O'Brien. This episode features the song Hitler has Only
Speaker 1: Got One Ball, performed by John Jones. Make sure to
Speaker 1: subscribe to Flashback on the I Heart Radio app or
Speaker 1: listen wherever you get your podcasts. Flashback is the latest
Speaker 1: podcast from Azzi, a modern media company producing original TV series, festivals,
Speaker 1: news and podcasts for curious people. Ozzy's unique storytelling focuses
Speaker 1: on the new and the next, whether that's forward looking
Speaker 1: news and features bold perspectives on TV or brand new
Speaker 1: ways of looking at history. To dive deeper, head to
Speaker 1: azzy dot com slash Flashback That's o z Y dot
Speaker 1: com slash Flashback. There you can find my lecture notes
Speaker 1: from today his episode featuring extended interviews, links to further
Speaker 1: reading and more information on the unintended consequences of giving
Speaker 1: drugs to Adolf Hitler, as well as other hidden stories
Speaker 1: from history uncovered by me and other reporters at Aussie.
Speaker 1: The song You're hearing is a wartime propaganda song that
Speaker 1: was hugely popular among British troops, and there may be
Speaker 1: some truth to the urban legend that Hitler had only
Speaker 1: one ball. A few years ago, a German historian unearthed
Speaker 1: some of the long lost medical records showing that the
Speaker 1: Gassy Dictator suffered from right side cryptochitism or, in late terms,
Speaker 1: an undescended right testicle. Please be sure to support Flashback
Speaker 1: by rating and leaving a review for us right here
Speaker 1: in your podcast app, and remember to answer this question
Speaker 1: about next week's episode for a chance to win a
Speaker 1: shout out. Who unintentionally paved the way for abortion rights
Speaker 1: in America? Was it a George Washington's cousin, little Tommy Delaware,
Speaker 1: be a woman with seventeen children, see a powerful lawmaker's
Speaker 1: common house cat, or d a male crusader against obscenity.
Speaker 1: Take your best guests and leave it as a comment
Speaker 1: in your podcast app along with your five star review.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, Smile