6. The lion Scar (voice of Jeremy Irons) kills the lion Mufasa (voice of James Earl Jones) to become king of the jungle animals. After years of tyranny, the true king returns to claim his throne—and he’s a crass, beer-drinking, overweight lounge singer (John Goodman).
7. As he attempts to write the play that ultimately becomes Romeo and Juliet, young William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) meets his muse, a young woman (Ali MacGraw) that he can’t have…because she’s suddenly dying.
8. Professor Higgins (Rex Harrison) bets his colleague (Wilfrid Hyde-White) that he can turn Eliza, a Cockney street peddler (Audrey Hepburn), into a proper lady. Higgins falls in love with her, but so does another suitor: a scruffy dog from the wrong side of the tracks.
9. A bumbling klutz (Charlie Chaplin) goes to the wilds of Alaska to mine for gold with his partner, a Chinese police detective (Jackie Chan) who speaks little English but knows a lot of martial arts. Despite the language barrier—and the fact that the gold miner is completely silent—they manage to save a kidnapped girl from drug lords.
10. In the middle of a four-day bender, an alcoholic (Ray Milland) whose life is in shambles discovers the dead body of his boss (Terry Kiser), which he props up and parades around, pretending that his boss is alive so as not to frighten the pretty girls who are coming over to party.
11. While making one of the first “talkies,” a silent movie star (Gene Kelly) falls in love with a young actress (Debbie Reynolds) brought in to dub the voice of another silent film star (Dustin Hoffman) whose voice is unsuitable for the movies—all he can say is “K-Mart sucks,” and “15 minutes to Judge Wapner.”
12. Despite losing his hand in a light-saber fight with the most brutal leader in the universe (voice of James Earl Jones), who, he just found out, is his father, a young intergalactic warrior (Mark Hamill) must travel back in time in his crazy inventor friend’s (Christopher Lloyd) DeLorean-based time machine and make sure his parents meet, fall in love, and marry.
DER FARTENFÜHRER, PT. III
What was to blame for the rapid decline in Hitler’s physical and
mental health in the last years of his life? Here’s the final
installment of the story. (Part II is on page 312.)
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
All doubts about the safety of Dr. Koester’s Anti-Gas Pills were resolved when some of them were sent to a lab for analysis. The fart pills were found to contain small enough doses of strychnine and atropine that Hitler would have had to have consumed 30 pills or more—all in one sitting—for them to pose a threat to his health. He never took more than 6 at a time, and never more than 20 over the course of a day. Strychnine is quickly neutralized by the human body and does not accumulate in body tissues; because of this, nonlethal doses such as those contained in Dr. Koester’s anti-gas pills can be taken for years on end with little or no ill effect. (Still, don’t try it at home!)
Neither the rat poison nor the peasant poop had done Hitler much good…but they hadn’t done him much harm, either. But the intravenous injections that Morell administered to Hitler beginning in the late 1930s were a different story. Morell was very secretive about what was in the Führer’s regular daily shots; in his surviving medical records he never suggests that they contain anything other than vitamins or glucose. Some of the injections undoubtedly did contain these relatively innocuous ingredients, but not all of them. There’s considerable evidence to suggest that many of the shots Morell administered contained something much more powerful—and that they, not the Mutaflor or Dr. Koester’s Anti-Gas Pills, were responsible for the collapse in Hitler’s health at the end of his life.
GOOOOOOOOOD MORNING!
Some of the most convincing pieces of evidence are the eyewitness accounts of how Hitler responded to the intravenous injections. In the late 1930s, the shots were administered infrequently, usually just before an important meeting or a major speech, when Hitler wanted a quick boost. But by late 1941, they were being administered every morning, before Hitler had even gotten out of bed, as part of his daily routine. Hitler’s valets, secretaries, and other close aides occasionally witnessed the shots being administered, and after the war they all described how the sleepy and at times completely exhausted Führer responded to the injections instantly, sometimes even while the needle was still in his arm: One moment he was groggy and noncommunicative, and the very next he was fully alert and sitting up in bed, contentedly chatting away with whoever was in the room. Ordinary vitamins and glucose don’t produce the instant surge of energy that Hitler experienced, even when injected directly into the veins.
THANK YOU SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER
By 1943 Hitler was receiving two shots a day, more if the news from the front was especially bad. As the years progressed—and the tide of the war turned against Germany—Hitler called on Morell more and more frequently to give him the injections. By late 1944, the doctor was administering so many shots that he was having trouble finding fresh areas in Hitler’s needle-pocked arms to give new injections.
And as Morell confided to an assistant, Hitler’s tolerance for whatever was in the shots had increased so dramatically over time that Morell had had to increase the dosage from 2 cubic centimeters per injection to 4, then 10, and eventually to 16 cc—an increase of 700 percent—for the injections to have the desired effect.
As Dr. Leonard Heston and Renate Heston point out in their book The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, human tolerance for vitamins and glucose does not change over time. The fact that Hitler was building up a tolerance for the injections is further evidence that they contained a drug of some kind.
THE DRUG CULTURE
When you compare this evidence to the eyewitness accounts of Hitler’s instant response to the drug, a likely candidate for which drug he was taking begins to emerge. “The effects described,” the Hestons write, “are characteristic of an injection of a stimulant drug of the amphetamine group or cocaine, and are not compatible with any other drug.” Of the two possibilities, “amphetamine …is a much more probable because its injectable form was readily available, while injectable cocaine was an illegal drug.…Also, the effects of amphetamine last two or three hours, while the action of cocaine is much more rapidly terminated. The effects on Hitler were relatively long-lasting.”
SIDE EFFECTS
Amphetamines give the user a surge in energy and an improvement in mood, just as the witnesses to Hitler’s injections described. But they are now illegal for very good reasons: They’re terribly addictive and they have numerous debilitating negative side effects that more than outweigh the handful of desirable effects.
When taken even in moderate amounts, amphetamines can cause insomnia—which Hitler suffered from—and loss of appetite. As dosages increase, so do the number and intensity of the side effects. Psychological side effects associated with amphetamine toxicity include euphoria, irritability, paranoia, impulsiveness, loss of emotional control, and rigid thinking that is often marked by an obsession with minor, unimportant details at the expense of the larger picture. Because these symptoms impair the user’s ability to perceive events and the surrounding environment rationally, decision making also suffers.
NO SURRENDER
Hitler suffered from all of these symptoms and, at least as far as his generals were concerned, his thinking did indeed become impaired, especially his ability to make intelligent, rational decisions. A number of the generals assigned to Hitler’s headquarters were convinced he was losing his mind.
One of the reasons the war in Europe ended in the spring of 1945 and not many months or even years later is that even as the tide of the war turned against Germany, Hitler irrationally demanded that his battlefield commanders hold every inch of ground they had conquered, even when their situations became hopeless. In late 1942, for example, General Friedrich von Paulus, commander of the Sixth Army, requested permission to withdraw his troops from the Russian city of Stalingrad to avoid being surrounded by a superior force of Russian tro
ops. Hitler, who by now was receiving shots every day, responded with the lunatic reply that the Sixth Army could withdraw from Stalingrad, “provided that it could still hold Stalingrad.” Unable to think of a way to abandon a position and hang onto it at the same time, von Paulus dutifully remained in the city. Stalingrad was surrounded a few weeks later, and in January 1943, the Sixth Army surrendered. As many as 800,000 Axis troops died in the Battle of Stalingrad, and when it ended, the 90,000 soldiers who survived it were marched off to Siberia. All but 6,000 perished.
Had Hitler allowed von Paulus to withdraw to a defensive position when requested, hundreds of thousands of German soldiers would have lived to fight another day, and the war might have dragged on for years. Instead, Stalingrad marked the turning point of the war and the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. Who knows? We may have Dr. Morell and his amphetamines to thank for the war ending when it did.
MIND…AND BODY
In addition to the psychological side effects of amphetamine abuse, there are physical side effects, among them twitching, tremors, and what are called “stereotypes”: compulsive behaviors, such as repeated picking at or biting of one’s own skin. Hitler was twitchy, his head jerked uncontrollably, and he had tremors in spades—the shaking that began in his left hand soon spread down his left leg and then to his right hand. He also exhibited at least two types of stereotypical behavior: compulsively biting the skin around the fingernails of his thumbs, index fingers, and middle fingers, and picking and scratching at the skin on the back of his neck until it became infected.
The trembling in Hitler’s left leg impaired his ability to walk normally, but there may be another explanation for the slow, foot-dragging shuffle and loss of motor function that he displayed at the end of his life. Chronic amphetamine abuse takes a terrible toll on the cardiovascular system and can cause both heart attacks and strokes. Electrocardiographs taken of Hitler’s heart in July 1941 and again in September 1943 show a deterioration in heart function between the two dates that is consistent with a heart attack. And among Dr. Morell’s surviving medical records is an article torn from a June 1943 medical journal that may provide another clue. Topic of the article: How to treat a heart attack.
Then, in February 1945, the Hestons write, “Hitler suffered at least one small stroke; but he may have had several, and, indeed, his rapid decline from this time onward suggests widespread vascular disease.” The odds of a healthy 56-year-old man suffering both a heart attack and one or more strokes are “distinctly improbable,” say the Hestons: “The most parsimonious explanation, given the lack of conclusive evidence, is to attribute both vascular events to the injection of intravenous amphetamine.” By April 1945, Hitler was so close to death that had he not killed himself, it may have been just a matter of time before he dropped dead from amphetamine-induced “natural” causes.
SO LONG
Morell remained by Hitler’s side until almost the very end…but not quite. Ironically, the cause of Hitler’s falling-out with his beloved quack was an injection: Hitler had resigned himself to remaining in Berlin and committing suicide before the city fell to the Russians. Many in the Führer’s inner circle wanted him to escape to the mountains of southern Germany, where it might have been possible for remnants of the military, led by Hitler, to hold out indefinitely. Hitler would hear none of it. He was determined to die in his capital, but he feared that his subordinates would drug him and take him out of Berlin against his will. And who better to administer the drugs than Morell? When the doctor came to Hitler on April 21 with yet another syringe filled with who-knows-what (probably just more amphetamines), the raging, paranoid Führer fired him on the spot. Not that Morell minded—by then the bombs were dropping on the führerbunker 24 hours a day, and he was desperate for an excuse to escape.
LAST GASP
Morell did make it out of Berlin, and he survived the war, but not by much. A few days after fleeing the city, he checked into a hospital complaining of heart problems. On July 17, 1945, he was arrested by the Americans and imprisoned. After investigators determined he wasn’t guilty of any war crimes, he was released. Morell’s health continued to deteriorate, and by June 1947 he was back in the hospital, where he remained bedridden until May 1948, when he died shortly after suffering a stroke.
PHRASE ORIGINS
We’ve heard these expressions before and perhaps even used them in conversation, but how many of us know where they come from?
DRAWING ROOM
It’s a familiar scene in period films: After a party or banquet held in the home of a wealthy person, the ladies retreat into the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen behind to enjoy brandy and cigars. If you’re like Uncle John, you’ve probably wondered why nobody ever draws in the drawing room. It turns out the name has nothing to do with drawing: It dates back to the days when large English country houses contained entire suites of rooms set aside for visiting royalty and other important guests, along with the servants and staff that accompanied them on such visits. Included in the suite were one or more “withdrawing rooms,” parlors or living rooms that these guests could withdraw to for more privacy. Over time the name was shortened to drawing room.
JERKWATER TOWN
This term for a remote or unimportant town dates back to the days when towns were further apart than trains could travel without having to stop to take on fresh water for the boilers. When a train low on water came upon a pond or a creek running alongside the track, it stopped and the train crew hauled, or “jerked,” buckets of water back to the train. (In some places water towers were set up and the boil-erman swung a spigot arm over the train’s water tender, then “jerked” on a chain to start the water flowing.) Small settlements often grew up in places where the trains were known to stop. These towns—in the middle of nowhere—came to be know as jerkwater towns.
BEAR HUG
Bears walk on all fours, but rear up on their hind legs when they lunge at other bears; two bears fighting can look like they’re wrestling or even dancing. For centuries, people believed that they killed their prey and each other with giant, crushing hugs. (Hunters unlucky enough to find out how bears really killed their prey probably would have preferred a hug.)
IT’S A WEIRD, WEIRD CRIME
In the history of the BRI, we’ve written about smart crooks,
dumb crooks, and even nice crooks. But these crimes were
committed by crooks of an entirely different breed.
IF CONVICTED, HE WILL A-PEEL
In 2007 a man walked into a 7-Eleven in Monrovia, Maryland, just past midnight and attempted a holdup. The unidentified man didn’t have a gun or any kind of weapon at all—he merely demanded that the clerk give him money. The clerk refused, so the man started picking up items off the counter to use as weapons. After repeatedly hitting the clerk with a banana, the attacker fled (empty-handed) before police arrived.
BED RIDDEN
Police in Ferrol, Spain, charged Antonio Navarro with driving while intoxicated on a highway. He was only going 12 mph, and he wasn’t driving a car. Navarro is a quadriplegic, and police busted him driving his motorized bed on the freeway. Where did he need to go in such a hurry? Navarro was on his way to a local brothel.
SMALL CRIMES DIVISION
Swedish police are trying to bust a ring of thieves who steal valuables from bus travelers’ luggage. Criminal teams work in twos: The first person rides inside the bus; the second, who by the crime’s nature must be a “little person,” hides inside a suitcase. The suitcase is placed in the bus’s baggage compartment… and the weird (but clever) robbery begins. As soon as the baggage compartment door is closed, the little person comes out of his suitcase and begins to rifle through other people’s bags and suitcases, looking for valuables. He pockets whatever he finds, and then returns to his own suitcase before arrival at the destination. Police are looking at crime records to identify “criminals of limited stature.”
KIDNEY REMOVAL
In 2007 the Seattle Museum ho
sted “Bodies…The Exhibition,” an educational display of preserved corpses and internal organs. One of the display kidneys was stolen. Police are still searching for the culprit, but do not fear the kidney will turn up on the black market, because even though the kidney is real, it’s not “usable,” as it’s been filled and covered with plastic resin.
GETTING TANKED
Grand theft auto is a common crime; grand theft tank is not. At about 4:00 one morning in February 2009, an 18-year-old British army soldier stationed in northern Germany decided to steal one of his squadron’s tanks. The unnamed serviceman, who had never driven one before, broke into the eight-ton Scimitar tank and made it about a third of a mile outside of his camp before the vehicle ran off the road and got stuck. So he returned to base and stole another tank. This time, British military police followed him. They blocked the soldier’s path, forcing him to swerve and crash into a tree.
Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader Page 52