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a review for us right here in your podcast

1:01

app. A special shout out this week

1:03

to our listener Wells Wells, who got

1:05

last week's pop quiz correct. The

1:07

question was what chronic physical

1:09

ailment did Adolph Hitler suffer from?

1:11

That led him to seek some rather unorthodox

1:14

and highly consequential medical treatment,

1:17

and you're all about to find that out. Stay

1:19

tuned until the end of this episode to

1:21

hear the quiz question for next week's episode.

1:26

September, the

1:28

fate of Europe hangs in the balance, and

1:30

an effort to appease Adolph Hitler in the Nazi

1:33

war machine, Allied leaders handed

1:35

part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudaton

1:37

Land over to Germany. A smiling

1:39

British Prime Minister Nevill Chamberlain returned

1:42

from Munich, then came down the steps of his

1:44

airplane in triumph, and the Prime Minister

1:46

comes home home to an empire pilled

1:48

with giant relief, home to a welcome

1:51

that he will never forget. It

1:54

seemed like a true turning point in history.

1:57

The settlement on the Czechoslova

2:00

Can problem, which

2:02

has now been achieved, is,

2:05

in my view, only

2:08

the plume to

2:10

a larger settlement in

2:12

which all Europe may

2:15

find peace. But

2:18

neither the Czechoslovakia problem nor

2:20

peace had been remotely achieved. Hitler

2:23

wasn't done with Germany's neighbor, and he was

2:25

prepared to seize every advantage he could

2:27

to finish the job, even a medical

2:30

emergency. Six

2:33

months later, in March nine,

2:36

Czechoslovakia's President Emil Hatcha

2:38

came to Berlin to meet with Hitler, Herman

2:40

Goring, and other Nazi leaders. This

2:43

is scholar Norman Ohler, author of the book

2:45

Blitzed Drugs and Nazi Germany.

2:48

During that visit, girding

2:50

Um put a paper on the desk

2:53

and set please sign here. This is your capitulation.

2:55

The German troops are coming tomorrow. If you sign

2:58

here, no blood will be sheard. Hot refused,

3:01

but under the stress of the situation, the ailing

3:03

president suffered what was likely a coronary

3:05

episode. The historical records show

3:08

that he actually fainted. Hatcha

3:11

actually lost consciousness in that room

3:14

with Hitler, Girling and some other Nazi

3:17

big wigs. And of course, if Hotcha

3:19

wasn't awaken functioning, then he couldn't

3:22

sign the paper that would give his country away

3:24

to the Nazis. Luckily, Hitler's

3:26

personal physician, Theodore Morrell, was

3:29

standing by. Morrell was called

3:31

and he injected a cocktail into

3:33

the unconscious Czechoslovakian

3:36

president. But this cocktail was no

3:39

Martini. Well, it's not known for certain

3:41

what was in the drugs that were shot into Hotcha.

3:44

Most scholars think it was meth amphetamy.

3:46

Certainly, the cocktail had the effect that Hotcha

3:48

came back to life, looked

3:50

around in the room, and suddenly felt that

3:53

he could do it, that he could trust these

3:56

guys. And Girling would then say to him,

3:59

come on, we protects you. So

4:02

Hatcha then signed it and basically signed

4:04

over the defeat of his country. The

4:06

next day Germans came and the Czechoslovakia

4:09

was basically gone. The very next

4:11

morning, Hitler invaded Prague without

4:13

a fight, through the snow, the legions

4:15

of occupation marching to Czechoslovakia.

4:18

This rapid stroke, which is outraged all

4:20

freedom loving nations of the world, is got

4:22

it out with military executedure. Artillery

4:25

rose into Prague, and man's God on the

4:27

ragin the castle of King Winter's Mouth, presently,

4:30

from a window of the castle you may catch a glimpse

4:32

of Hitler himself contemplating his new conquest.

4:36

Hitler stands alone in that castle window.

4:38

But there was another man who was certainly in the room,

4:41

doctor Theodore Morrel, the man who

4:43

injected the Czech president in Berlin. Throughout

4:46

the war. He was always at Hitler's side,

4:48

and the conquest of Czechoslovakia was far

4:50

from the only way he helped alter the

4:52

course of the war and history itself.

5:01

I'm Sean Braswell. This is Flashback,

5:04

the podcast from Ozzie designed to take you on

5:06

a ride through some of history's most remarkable,

5:08

unintended consequences. Today

5:11

a story of war and peace, of madmen

5:13

and vitamins, A cautionary tale

5:16

about what can happen when you give powerful

5:18

people some powerful drugs.

5:30

If you've ever seen a documentary film about

5:32

Adolph Hitler or the Nazis, chances

5:35

are you've seen some of the home movies shot by

5:37

Hitler's girlfriend Ava Brown at the Berghoff

5:40

the Furor's Mountain retreat. In

5:42

those remarkable silent color films, you

5:44

can see a relaxed Hitler chatting

5:46

with other Nazi leaders like Hammon Goring

5:48

and Joseph Gebbels on a sun drenched

5:50

deck with the mountain view behind. The

5:53

Nazis eat cake and sit tea, and

5:55

gleefully discuss plans for world domination.

5:58

One of the figures you see heatedly but

6:01

might not recognize, is an overweight

6:03

bald man with glasses. This was

6:05

Hitler's personal physician, doctor Theodore

6:07

Morrele. What you

6:10

don't see, of course, is what happens when Ava

6:12

Brown turns off the camera. That's when

6:14

things are turned to normal and the Nazis warts

6:16

are revealed. Brown goes back to biting

6:19

her lips until they bleed. Dr

6:21

Morrell is so unhealthy he can barely climb

6:23

a flight of stairs, and Hitler

6:25

himself when the camera stops, his

6:27

hands are shaking so badly his teacup

6:30

rattles loudly in its saucer. The

6:32

German fuel is a wreck and a drug

6:34

addict, and an increasingly deranged

6:36

one. And there's one man to thank

6:39

for it. But

6:42

believe it or not, this whole thing, and perhaps

6:44

the most fateful doctor patient relationship

6:46

in history, starts with a very

6:48

minor problem. One that World War Two

6:50

historians don't often pay much attention

6:53

to Adolph Hitler's insane

6:55

and unrelenting flatulence.

6:58

Hitler suffered from pretty

7:00

bad health. This is Giles Milton,

7:03

historian and the author of When Hitler Took Cocaine

7:05

and Lenen Lost his Brain. He had suffered

7:08

from stomach cramps, from diarrhea,

7:11

from appalling flatulence. I

7:13

mean this was partly perhaps due to

7:15

the diet that he ate. He he only

7:17

ate these sort of watery vegetables

7:20

which he had purred or mashed, and

7:22

he ate these virtually every meal. Hitler

7:24

had such bad gas he would often have to

7:26

leave the table, and his dietary

7:28

problems left him desperate for solutions

7:31

Norman Ohler. Again, Hitler was always

7:33

looking for an orthodox

7:36

treatments and he

7:39

did not like his conventional doctors

7:42

that would send him on diets when

7:45

he was complaining of stomach

7:47

cramps and gas,

7:49

which was his main problem in the In the mid

7:52

thirties, finally Hitler

7:54

met someone who could help, even if his

7:56

methods were a bit unorthodox. Morel

8:00

as a celebrity doctor in um

8:02

Berlin in the early thirties,

8:05

and he was known

8:07

to treat patients for diseases

8:10

that didn't exist. He was a

8:12

type of doctor Field Good. Morrell

8:14

was also something of a medical pioneer.

8:17

This was a new approach to medicine and

8:20

he used especially vitamins.

8:22

In the beginning. He was sure that if you inject

8:25

high dosages of vitamins into

8:27

the blood stream of a person,

8:29

that that person would have more energy

8:33

and that it would also elevate the mood of

8:35

that person. It's not such a crazy

8:37

idea when we do it still

8:39

today we take vitamin supplements.

8:42

But I was walking once in

8:44

l A and I saw at a health food store

8:46

an announcement that they were offering

8:48

injections of vitamin B one. So I

8:50

guess Morrell in a way was an

8:54

avant garde health

8:56

doctor or fitness doctor. Then

8:59

in nineteen thirty three, something happened

9:01

that made even Berlin's resident doctor feel

9:04

good uneasy. Someone

9:09

smeared the word Jew and large letters

9:11

across the plaque outside the doctor's office.

9:14

Morrell was not a Jew, but in the wake of

9:16

that hate crime, he knew he needed to

9:18

make sure others knew that as well. His

9:20

response was that

9:23

he joined the Nazi Party to show that

9:25

he was not a Jew, Because the Jews obviously

9:28

weren't allowed to join the Nazi Party, and

9:30

Morrell came to see the Nazis as more than

9:32

just protection. This reaction was not

9:34

what an appalling racist

9:37

movement, but his reaction was, Yeah,

9:40

I'm going to join them so they don't, you know, so

9:42

I can be part of this,

9:44

uh, this movement. So that was a very opportunist

9:48

reaction, but it tells

9:50

a lot about Morel and his late

9:52

approach in life towards the Nazis.

9:54

He basically tried to take advantage of them. He was

9:57

never a real believer

9:59

in the i theology. He was just

10:02

a believer in power and money and even

10:06

fame. And a few years later an

10:08

opportunity came knocking that would give the social

10:10

climbing Nazi vitamin peddler just

10:13

the chance he desired. One day

10:15

in the phone rang

10:17

in Dr Morrell's office. A

10:21

few hours later, he was being flown to Munich

10:23

for a special vegetarian spaghetti dinner

10:26

with none other than the Fewer himself. After

10:29

the dinner, Hitler admitted to the doctor that

10:31

his digestion was so poor he could

10:33

barely function. Giles Milton

10:35

again, and he turned

10:37

to Theodore Morrell because

10:40

fid Or Morrell claimed that he would be able

10:42

to help him, And help him he did,

10:45

but in the most unorthodox

10:47

ways. Morrell studied Hitler in his

10:49

diet and his resulting digestion.

10:52

After Hitler down to typical vegetable platter

10:54

one day, the doctor recorded in his

10:56

diary that quote constipation

10:58

and colossal flatch once occurred on a scale

11:01

I have seldom encountered before. He

11:03

began by giving the fear these

11:06

things, these tiny little black tablets, and they

11:08

were they were called Dr Custa's

11:10

anti gas pills, and Hitler

11:13

was taking sixteen of these pills a day.

11:16

What he didn't realize is that they

11:18

contained small quantities of stricken

11:20

in, which of course is a poisoning.

11:23

But the treatment did work on the gas front,

11:25

Norman Owler, and it did cure Hitler's

11:28

um bloating in nineteen

11:30

thirty six nenteen thirty seven, and Hitler

11:32

was so impressed by this effect, which

11:35

was a big effect on his daily life, that

11:38

he appointed Morel as

11:41

his personal physician. Doctor feel

11:43

good had gone from being a celebrity doctor to

11:45

treating the most powerful man in Europe. And

11:47

for a while everything was great. Then

11:50

Hitler in fact, did not get sick for

11:52

those first years in Morel's treatment,

11:55

never got the flu or anything, never got

11:57

a cold because he was always

12:00

ion filled to the brim

12:02

with vitamin C and other

12:04

vitamins. By the summer of nine, a

12:07

healthy Hitler in Germany had taken much of Europe

12:09

and turned their attention to Russia.

12:14

At midday on June twenty two, the

12:16

peoples of the U. S. S I heard the news

12:18

that table at war with Germany. Loudspeakers

12:21

in the principal cities carried the voice of

12:23

Mr. Montov announcing that the Nazis

12:25

were already flinging in the battle about a

12:27

hundred divisions along up front extending

12:30

arly two thousand miles. The invasion

12:32

of Russia was a critical juncture in the war, and

12:34

Hitler was at odds with his generals about the best

12:36

way to do it. And then Hitler

12:39

fell ill. He had for the first time.

12:41

He was ill since the war started, actually

12:43

since thirty six and since he met Morrel and

12:46

um. He had a strong, very strong

12:48

flu with high fever, and demanded

12:51

from Morrel that he

12:53

would give him something that would enable him

12:55

to go into the military briefing room and

12:58

continue his version of the campaign.

13:02

And so the loyal doctor obliged and gave

13:04

the few of something stronger, a substance

13:06

that would alter Hitler's physiological makeup

13:08

and ultimately his conduct of the war, and

13:11

with disastrous consequences. Do

13:19

you have an interesting tale about unintended

13:21

consequences from history or your own

13:24

life. Please share it with us by emailing

13:26

Flashback at Aussie dot com.

13:28

That's Flashback at os y dot

13:30

com.

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13:54

Hitler, in researching this episode

13:56

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13:59

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14:01

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14:03

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slash AUSI. That's the Great Courses

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y the Great Courses Plus

14:34

dot Com slash AUSI. When

14:39

Hitler and the Nazis first came to power in three

14:42

they quickly set out to brand themselves as

14:44

a new type of political party from those

14:46

that had gone before in Germany, one

14:48

whose members were virtuous even in their

14:50

personal lives Norman Ohler.

14:53

Drugs were quite widely

14:55

taken in the Baymar republic Um.

14:57

They were not tabu at all. There

15:00

were laws against it, but those laws

15:02

weren't enforced, so

15:05

Hitler changed that. Hitler

15:08

proclaimed to be leading an anti

15:10

drug movement, and

15:13

an important part of that self betrayal

15:16

was to announce

15:18

that Hitler himself was an

15:20

abstinent person who did not drink

15:23

alcohol, let alone

15:25

take any drugs. Hitler also wouldn't drink

15:27

caffeinated coffee or tea because

15:29

he considered them stimulants. So

15:31

this portrait of the

15:34

Fura as the pure the

15:36

pure man, was an integral

15:38

part of the cult around Hitler

15:41

and of the propaganda that the Nazi

15:43

Party was spinning

15:45

in Germany and also abroad. The

15:47

Nazis promised clean living and a kind

15:50

of social and ideological intoxication.

15:53

That the core of that portrayal was

15:57

the notion that the Nazis

15:59

were about purity,

16:02

They were about cleaning

16:05

up the mess of the Vama Republic,

16:07

cleaning it from strange

16:11

influences like the Jewish, especially

16:13

the Jewish influence. And

16:15

for years Hitler, the teetotaler and vegetarian,

16:18

never drank and hardly ever ate meat.

16:20

As flashback listeners will know, millions

16:22

of soldiers, especially in America, became

16:25

addicted to cigarettes after World War One.

16:27

Hitler, as the story goes, through his

16:30

last pack of cigarettes into the Danube River

16:32

after he fought in that war. As

16:34

one of Hitler's supporters marveled about his purity

16:36

and quote, he

16:39

is all genius and body

16:42

and gas. It might have been added, but

16:44

thanks to Theodore Morrell's treatments and vitamins,

16:46

even that unfortunate byproduct of his

16:48

purity went away, and Hitler seemed as

16:50

physiologically invincible as he was politically

16:53

invincible. Then in ninety

16:55

one, he got the flu on the eve of

16:57

the war with Russia, and right before he

17:00

briefing with his generals, he asked

17:02

Morrele what else he had in his drug cupboard,

17:04

and Morrell gave him then for the first time,

17:07

an opioid called

17:09

Dolantina German opioid at the time,

17:12

which cured here. Hitler's

17:15

flew immediately and let

17:17

him go to the briefing room.

17:20

From that point on, as the war raged on

17:22

and Hitler encountered more stress and exhaustion,

17:24

Morrell started to add some new ingredients

17:26

into the vitamin mixture he was giving to the

17:28

fure Giles Milton again. He

17:31

was giving him testosterone, He was giving

17:33

opiate, sedatives, laxatives,

17:35

barbiturates, morphine, I mean, you

17:37

name it. He was pumping the fear

17:40

of full of full of this stuff. Up to eighty

17:42

different drugs a day,

17:44

so an extraordinary cocktail. As

17:47

Morrell recorded in his notes which were later

17:49

recovered, he gave Hitler more than eight hundred

17:51

injections during those final years of the war

17:54

Norman Ohler Hitler received one

17:56

to two injections a day,

17:59

which is an incredib will amount of injections.

18:01

I don't know if there's any person in the world

18:03

that gets so many injections into

18:05

the veins of the arm each

18:08

day. Morrell's drug cocktail

18:10

got even more bizarre as Hitler's addiction

18:12

and needs grew animal hormones,

18:14

steroids, cocaine, Hitler,

18:17

the icon and purity was now a common

18:20

drug addict. So you can imagine

18:22

that the once teetotal

18:25

Hitler towards the end of the war was

18:29

had a very different approach

18:31

to drug taking, and thanks to Morrell's

18:33

efforts, so did rank and file Nazis.

18:36

Germany was a drug free country basically

18:39

due to the nazis strict anti drug

18:41

regime, until in night a

18:43

new medicine was allowed

18:46

to come onto the market. It was called pavvy

18:48

teen because pevyteen was

18:50

pure mathemphetamine. One

18:53

pill had three milligrams of methemphetamine

18:56

and it became a big hit in Germany.

18:58

That's right, methamphetamine a special

19:00

brew developed by Dr field Good himself

19:02

for the German public. You could buy at a

19:04

local pharmacy. You didn't even need a prescription,

19:07

and it wasn't long before the troops were taking

19:09

it to crystal meth is. That is

19:12

actually a very good drug

19:14

for a fighter because it mobilizes

19:17

um all your strength within

19:19

a short period of time. It was the perfect

19:22

drug to accompany the nazis new method

19:24

of warfare. All under the world learned

19:26

the meaning of a grim new word, let's

19:29

cree. When Germany attacked

19:31

France, thirty five million dosages of methamphetamine

19:34

were distributed to the troops, enabling

19:37

the Germans to perform

19:40

the German soldiers to perform longer

19:42

than the Allied soldiers. In the

19:44

first hundred hours of the Nazi invasion of

19:46

France, the Germans gained more territory

19:48

than they had in over four years. During World

19:51

War One, the Allied forces had

19:53

brought a knife to a pharmacological

19:55

gunfight, which was red wine in

19:57

in the First World, where the French were using

19:59

red and quite successfully boosting

20:01

down Morrele in the in the

20:03

In World War Two, this didn't work anymore,

20:06

really, because the Germans were on meth, but

20:08

it didn't take long for the rampant substance

20:10

abuse to catch up with the Nazis and their

20:12

fere The drug filled bubble that Theodore

20:15

Morrell had injected into the veins of World

20:17

War Two was about to burst, and

20:19

the casualties would be in the millions. As

20:26

the needle marks grew in number on Adolph Hitler's

20:28

arms, so did his bizarre actions.

20:30

Giles Milton. This extraordinary

20:33

regime of drugs, many

20:35

of which are are classified as illegal

20:37

these days, led to increasingly

20:40

erratic behavior on the part of the

20:42

FURA, and there was one infamous

20:45

meeting between Hitler and Mussolini in Italy

20:48

where Hitler really began. He

20:50

was almost hysterical when he was talking

20:52

to Mussolini, and it seems

20:54

that he had been taking

20:56

so many hittamines that it was really begin

20:58

to beginning to affect his performance,

21:01

the way he talked, the way he acted. Where

21:03

Hitler and once relied on adrenaline and natural

21:05

charismatist sway audiences, he now

21:08

relied on pharmaceuticals for his edge.

21:10

If you watch videos of Hitler's speeches,

21:12

that you get the impression of this kind of

21:15

almost manic, pumped up

21:17

sort of person. And I think

21:19

this is largely to do with the with the regiment

21:21

of drugs he was on. Soon he stopped

21:23

doing speeches almost altogether and increasingly

21:25

retreated into his bunker. He was unbalanced,

21:28

irritable, impulsive, and at

21:30

times delusional. He would go on screaming

21:33

tirades that could last for hours. Of

21:35

course, this it became increasingly

21:38

complicated because it was taking on more

21:40

and more responsibility for the actual running

21:43

of the war, much to the horror of his

21:45

senior generals. But certainly

21:47

by the end of the war he was unable

21:50

to think straight at

21:52

all because he was, you know, so

21:55

pumped up by the drugs he was taking. Norman

21:57

Ohler, we can see

22:00

for sure that Hitler

22:02

became more and more inflexible

22:05

in his decision making, his ego

22:07

was so inflated that

22:10

he never doubted himself. Hitler

22:12

had actually been quite a measured strategic

22:14

planner during the early days of the war. In

22:17

the beginning from nineteen

22:19

thirty three to ninety one,

22:21

he basically made no mistakes, no great

22:24

no big mistakes. Let's put it that way. I mean

22:26

that the attack on Poland was of course a big mistake,

22:28

which led to his downfall eventually. But still

22:30

he won the war against Poland, he won the war against

22:33

France. He won't basically the war against

22:35

everybody in Europe. But his growing drug

22:37

addiction helped change all that. His

22:39

military decision making

22:42

at a point in the war against the Soviet Union

22:44

was not working anymore. The situation

22:47

demanded of him a flexible

22:49

mind, but he didn't have a

22:51

flexible mind. Still, with the war

22:54

dragging on in the Nazi forces losing ground

22:56

and men in nineteen forty four, Hitler

22:59

remained remarkably upbeat during his military

23:01

briefings. So it beat that his own

23:03

generals assumed he had an atomic bomb

23:05

or some other secret playing up his sleeve that would

23:07

turn the war around. But all

23:10

Hitler had up his sleeve were track marks.

23:12

The drugs kept him on

23:14

his road as the few

23:17

who knows everything and who could not fail.

23:19

And and this was the road that

23:22

led him to self destruction

23:24

and led the whole country of Germany

23:26

to to destruction and final

23:28

defeat. Hitler's misplaced optimism

23:31

kept Germany in a war that it could not win

23:33

for months, even years, while

23:36

millions perished throughout

23:42

everything. Dr Morrell remained at Hitler's

23:44

side himself wouldn't have anything

23:47

said against Theodore Morrell.

23:49

He thought he was a marvel worker

23:52

and stayed with him to

23:54

the very end, and in fact, right up to the

23:56

fool of the Third Reich Green. Hitler was in his bunker

23:59

fid m Rrell was at his sides,

24:01

continually pumping in full of drugs. It

24:04

was Morrell that supplied Hitler with the lethal

24:06

cyanide pills that the dictator and Ava

24:08

Brown would use to kill themselves in

24:10

that famous Berlin bunker. Morrell

24:12

himself escaped that bunker and was eventually

24:15

tracked down not by Allied

24:17

forces but by an industrious New York

24:19

Times reporter. Thanks to her story,

24:22

American forces took Morrel prisoner, but

24:24

the increasingly ill doctor was of

24:26

little use as a witness at Nuremberg and

24:28

died a few years later after the war at

24:31

age sixty one. Theodore

24:35

Morrell had left his mark on Adolph Hitler's

24:37

health and on world history, helping

24:39

to prolong a costly and deadly war

24:42

well beyond when it might have otherwise concluded.

24:44

How many lives would have been saved had Hitler's drug

24:47

addiction not reached such dangerous levels,

24:50

Or might a healthy Hitler have made

24:52

better decisions with the Nazis, have

24:54

been more successful and the war lasted

24:56

even longer. It's impossible to

24:58

know. But there's one other fascinating

25:00

wrinkle to this story that complicates

25:02

things even further. Hitler

25:05

had a pre existing condition that, when

25:07

undiagnosed at the time, one that might

25:09

have made all the difference to his drug induced

25:11

downfall. That's next. Adolph

25:30

Hitler is hardly the only world leader to have ever

25:32

relied on a loyal doctor to services

25:34

health and diet requirements. In

25:37

fact, there was another big name twentieth

25:39

century leader who also received regular

25:41

injections while in charge of a major

25:43

industrial power. There are

25:47

that communism is

25:49

the wave of the future that

25:52

damn come to Berland. Like Hitler,

25:54

US President John F. Kennedy suffered from

25:56

a number of ailments that required doctor supervision.

26:00

Nasier Gami is a psychiatrist at Tufts University

26:02

in Harvard Medical School and the author

26:04

of a First Rate Madness, uncovering

26:06

the links between leadership and mental illness.

26:09

In the case of Kennedy, he was getting um

26:11

um steroid injections for his underlying

26:14

Addison's disease, which is a

26:16

adrenal gland um deficiency.

26:19

One White House physician gave Kennedy these

26:21

injections several times per week. But

26:24

Kennedy, like Hitler, had his

26:26

own less orthodox German doctor

26:29

Max Jacobson. Jacobson was

26:31

in a emigre from Germany

26:34

and he had private previously worked in Berlin,

26:37

and there is some possibility

26:40

that he had actually worked with Theodore Morrell

26:43

and had actually been was a protegee

26:45

fact of Theodore Morrell. Jacobson,

26:47

like Morrel, was a doctor feel good and

26:49

a physician to celebrities, and perhaps

26:51

his most famous patient was the thirty five President

26:54

of the United States. He gave him intravenous

26:57

amphetamines as well introvenous

27:00

aeroids, a lot of the same treatments

27:02

that that Morrell used. Uh

27:04

you know, again, ground up testosterone,

27:07

things of that nature, and

27:09

then uh, he was giving these to

27:12

Kennedy in the early years

27:14

of his administration, the first two years

27:16

or so, and again, just

27:18

like with Hitler, Kennedy's friends

27:20

and advisors and even family were noticing

27:22

that he was acting differently. He was very

27:26

irritable, impulsive, very hyper

27:28

sexual. But despite the cocktail

27:31

of drugs he was receiving, Kennedy's

27:33

behavior and health didn't deteriorate the way that Hitler's

27:35

did. Why well, Dr Gami

27:37

says, the answer to that starts with another underappreciated

27:40

aspect of Hitler's health, his mental

27:42

illness. People who knew Hitler as a

27:45

young man observes some very distinct

27:47

behavioral traits. So, for instance,

27:50

you know, they would describe that he would have periods of time

27:52

where he would become much less functional, much

27:55

less interested in things, wouldn't talk much,

27:58

would need much, would

28:00

just stay in his room for weeks or months

28:02

on end um

28:05

and that's kind of a standard

28:07

definition of a clinical depression. And

28:09

then he would come out of these periods and suddenly

28:11

he'd be very energetic, very active, very

28:13

talkative, and that would last weeks or

28:15

months and again that's a classic definition

28:18

of manic episodes. And this happened

28:20

repeatedly, and that's what the definition

28:22

of bipolar illness is. Despite

28:24

being bipolar, says Dr Gami, Hitler

28:26

was able to function for years before

28:28

nineteen thirty seven. Hitler's

28:31

mannic and depressive periods were on the

28:33

mild side, and he wasn't treated

28:35

medically because there were no treatments

28:38

um at the time for depression

28:40

or bipolar illness. But once Theodore

28:42

Morrell started his injections, everything

28:45

went haywire. A lot of people after

28:47

the war among the West just thought

28:50

that Hitler was an irrational, impulsive

28:52

person, but by the end of the war,

28:55

the drug fueled fure was not that

28:57

person. The problem with amphetamines,

28:59

if you have by polar illness, is that it can make you manic,

29:02

and it can. Once you get manic, you go up

29:04

and down and up and down, and suddenly you'll be

29:06

having lots and lots of mood episodes caused

29:08

by the amphetamines. The amphetamines

29:11

improved the depressive symptoms short

29:13

term, but they were some the depressive

29:15

and manic episodes of given long term.

29:17

Historians for years have pondered whether Hitler

29:20

suffered from some kind of madness, so

29:22

did his fellow Nazis. People like Himmler

29:25

and others thought that he just

29:27

got sick, that he just developed a new

29:30

maybe insanity or a new kind of disease.

29:33

But I think in retrospect it's much more likely

29:35

the correlation is with the intravenous amphetamine

29:37

treatment, that his baseline bipolar illness

29:40

was just made worse. John F. Kennedy

29:42

did not suffer from bipolar illness,

29:44

and therefore his body responded to the amphetamines

29:47

he was given differently, but he

29:49

was also the beneficiary of a

29:51

successful intervention. White

29:53

House doctors tried for months to get Kennedy

29:56

to stop taking advice and injections

29:58

from Max Jacobson, and at first

30:00

President Kennedy resisted. He famously said,

30:03

I don't care if it's horse piss, it works.

30:05

But the one person that could influence

30:07

John Kennedy was Robert Kennedy, And when

30:10

Robert Kennedy, the President's brother and

30:12

the Attorney General, came down strongly

30:14

against Jacobson, he was removed from the

30:16

White House, and the president's other

30:18

doctors were able to step in and prescribe

30:21

a less harmful drug regimen. Adolf

30:30

Hitler might have been a ticking time bomb well

30:33

before he even met Theodore Morrell, but

30:35

the doctor helped light of fuse that would have

30:37

devastating consequences. It's

30:39

an extreme example, but one we can

30:41

still learn from Chiles Milton. The

30:43

lesson is you've got to be very careful when you're,

30:46

you know, messing around experimenting with these

30:48

these drugs. They have powerful side

30:50

effects and you don't always know what they are.

30:53

And the more powerful the person taking the drugs

30:55

or medication, the more powerful and

30:57

impact those substances can have on the

30:59

world. So, you know, my

31:01

advice for any of today's CEOs,

31:04

in in Silicon Value or elsewhere,

31:06

would be to think very

31:08

carefully before you start pumping yourself

31:11

full of very very powerful

31:13

drugs. Adolf

31:16

Hitler is one of the most scrutinized figures in

31:18

history, but in this episode we managed

31:20

to extract a few of the more surprising lessons

31:22

from his life. First, in

31:24

some cases, farting is truly

31:27

no laughing matter. Second,

31:29

don't believe everything you see in a home movie.

31:32

Third, Adolf Hitler had more track marks

31:35

than Courtney Love. And finally,

31:37

beware of celebrity doctors pushing vitamin

31:40

supplements that can change your world. Sometimes

31:43

they can and not for the better. Going

31:47

has Got One Ball,

31:50

Hitler I So very

31:53

small, him so

31:55

very similar, and

31:58

Gobbles Has No Ball.

32:00

A Flashback

32:03

is written and hosted by me Sean Braswell,

32:06

senior writer and executive producer at Azzy.

32:08

It was produced by Robert Coulos, Tracy

32:10

Moran, Jori Di Gisia, and Shannon

32:13

Williamson. Chris Hoff engineered

32:15

our show special thanks to the crew at

32:17

I Heart Radio podcast Networks, especially

32:19

Sophie Lichterman and Jack O'Brien. This

32:22

episode features the song Hitler has Only Got

32:24

One Ball, performed by John Jones.

32:27

Make sure to subscribe to Flashback on the I Heart

32:29

Radio app or listen wherever you get

32:31

your podcasts. Flashback

32:34

is the latest podcast from Azzi, a modern

32:36

media company producing original TV series,

32:38

festivals, news and podcasts

32:41

for curious people. Ozzy's unique

32:43

storytelling focuses on the new and the next,

32:45

whether that's forward looking news and features

32:47

bold perspectives on TV or brand

32:49

new ways of looking at history. To dive

32:52

deeper, head to azzy dot com slash Flashback

32:55

That's o z Y dot com slash

32:57

Flashback. There you can find my lecture

32:59

notes from today his episode featuring extended

33:01

interviews, links to further reading and

33:03

more information on the unintended consequences

33:06

of giving drugs to Adolf Hitler, as

33:08

well as other hidden stories from history uncovered

33:11

by me and other reporters at Aussie.

33:21

The song You're hearing is a wartime propaganda

33:23

song that was hugely popular among British

33:25

troops, and there may be some truth

33:28

to the urban legend that Hitler had only one

33:30

ball. A few years ago, a German historian

33:32

unearthed some of the long lost medical records

33:35

showing that the Gassy Dictator suffered

33:37

from right side cryptochitism

33:40

or, in late terms, an undescended

33:42

right testicle.

33:50

Please be sure to support Flashback by rating

33:52

and leaving a review for us right here in your podcast

33:54

app, and remember to answer this question

33:56

about next week's episode for a chance

33:59

to win a shout out. Who unintentionally

34:01

paved the way for abortion rights in America?

34:04

Was it a George Washington's

34:07

cousin, little Tommy Delaware, be

34:10

a woman with seventeen children, see

34:13

a powerful lawmaker's common house cat,

34:16

or d a male crusader against

34:18

obscenity. Take your best guests

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and leave it as a comment in your podcast app

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along with your five star review. Thanks

34:25

for listening,

34:35

Smile