Was Hitler Ill?: A Final Diagnosis [Hardcover]

Four months after the end of the war, Hitlers personal physician Theo Morell stated to his fellow prisoner Karl Brandt: In fact, Hitler was never sick. Brandt, who had been responsible for the euthanasia killings and was thus deeply implicated in the crimes of the Nazi regime, disagreed. He claimed that Morell had pumped the F?hrer full of drugs and was now merely attempting to justify his actions. In his opinion, Morell had turned Hitler into a physical wreck.

The image of a decrepit and drug-dependent psychopath in the Reich Chancellery bunker is one of the most enduring myths about Hitler. It provides a simple explanation for his actions: who but a sick man could have ordered the killing of millions of people? Hans-Joachim Neumann and Henrik Eberle study this question and seek answers in the detailed notes and diaries left by Morell, in medical reports, pharmacological analyses and interviews with eye witnesses. Their conclusions are clear and definitive.

Acknowledgements vi

Illustrations viii

Glossary ix

List of Abbreviations xi

1 Madness, Design and Reality: Why a Medical Biography of Hitler? 1

2 The Diseased Hitler: A Historiographical Project 7

3 Hitlers Doctors: Personal Physician Morell and Others 46

4 Hitlers Medicine Chest: The Drugs and their Effects 74

5 Hitlers Medical History 104

6 Hitlers Health and the War 142

7 Concluding Diagnosis 186

Notes 191

Selected Bibliography 229

Index 236

Few historians have emphasized 'the rational core of Hitler's anti-Semitism: expedience'.... The authors' conclusions are informative and often fascinating
Journal of Modern History

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