Blitzed

by Norman Ohler

  Those headaches had probably also been caused by the constant crashing and screeching that had been putting the nerves of the residents of the innermost restricted zone of the Wolf’s Lair on edge for the last few days: the construction unit’s jackhammers and heavy machinery were hastily erecting a new, even more strongly reinforced Führerbunker. Patient A could only bear the noise while on cocaine, and the restorative drug made him feel as if he wasn’t ill at all: “Now my mind is freed again, and I feel very well.” But one concern preyed on his mind: “Please don’t turn me into a cocaine addict,” he said to his new favorite doctor, to which Giesing replied, reassuringly, “A real cocaine addict snorts dry cocaine.” Hitler was heartened: “I don’t intend to become a cocaine addict.”141

  So the Führer had his nose swabbed and went to the military briefing full of artificial confidence. The matter was clear as far as he was concerned: the war against the Russians would somehow be won. When he received another dose from Giesing on September 16, 1944, he had a very special brainstorm: one of those feared, pseudo-genius Führer’s ideas. He told his baffled entourage that despite their vast inferiority in terms of men and materials, he wanted to go back on the offensive on the Western Front. Immediately, he formulated an order demanding “fanatical determination from all soldiers fit for duty.”142 Although everyone advised him against the hopeless enterprise of a second Ardennes offensive, the dictator refused to be deterred: victory would be his!

  In consequence Giesing started to feel unsettled by Hitler’s affinity for cocaine—which erases all feelings of self-doubt and encourages megalomania—and he wanted to stop administering the potent swabs. But Hitler wouldn’t let him: “No, doctor, continue as before. This morning I have a terrible throbbing head that probably comes from the sniffing; concern for the future and the continued existence of Germany are consuming me more and more with each passing day.”143 Still, Giesing’s medical scruples outweighed his duty to obey, and he refused Hitler the drug. Defiantly, the supreme commander didn’t appear at the military briefing that day, September 26, 1944, but announced huffily that he was no longer interested in the situation in the East, where the whole front threatened to collapse. Intimidated, Giesing came round and promised cocaine, but in return he demanded a full checkup of Hitler. Patient A, who had previously always forbidden such an examination, consented, and on October 1, 1944, he even appeared naked, as he had otherwise generally refused to do, solely to wheedle for himself some of that coveted blow: “Look in my nose again and put that cocaine thing in to get rid of the pressure in my head. I have important things to do today.”144

  Giesing obeyed and administered the drug, this time in such a dose that Hitler is believed to have lost consciousness and for a short time there is supposed to have been a danger of respiratory paralysis. If the account given by Giesing is accurate, then the self-described abstainer almost died of an overdose.

  Speedball

  Hitler responded to just about every drug, with the exception of alcohol. He wasn’t dependent on one particular substance but on substances generally that gave him access to pleasant, artificial realities. Within a very short time he had become the most passionate consumer of cocaine, but from mid-October 1944 he was also able to abandon the drug and rely instead on other stimulants. In retrospect Hitler—like cocaine-users tend to do—shifted this phase of his existence into a doughty pose: “The weeks since July 20 have been the hardest of my life. I have fought with a kind of heroism that no German could have dreamed of. In spite of serious pain, hours of dizziness, and nausea, I have remained on my feet and fought against all of this with iron energy. I have often survived the danger of collapse, but through my will I have always taken control of the situation.”145

  The words “iron energy” and “will” need only be replaced by “Eukodal” and “cocaine” and we already come a little closer to the truth. The Luftwaffe adjutant Nicolaus von Below also used these incorrect terms when describing his Führer in the weeks after the assassination attempt: “He was sustained only by a strong will and his heightened sense of mission.”146 In fact, it was his strong cocaine and his heightened quantity of Eukodal. Because Eukodal was now being administered in the grand style—the dosage had doubled in comparison with the previous year to 20 milligrams, almost four times the typical medical application.147 During those weeks, cocaine and Eukodal—the Führer’s mixture, the cocktail in his blood—mutated into the classic speedball: the sedating effect of the opioid balancing the stimulating effect of the cocaine. Enormous euphoria and highs that are felt in every last fiber of the body result from this pharmacological pincer movement, in which two potent molecules with opposite biochemical effects fight for dominance in the body. This produces both a strong circulatory overload and insomnia, and the liver desperately fights against such an onslaught of poisons.

  During that last autumn of the war, and of his life, the dictator drew on a wealth of artificial paradises. When Patient A stepped onto his pharmacologically created Mount Olympus, setting his heels down first, as always, bending his knees, clicking his tongue, and flapping his wrists, imagining that his thoughts were crystal clear and that he could rearrange the world to his own liking, it was impossible for his generals, more than sobered by the oppressive situation at the front, to get through to him. The medication kept the supreme commander stable in his delusion, built up an unassailable rampart, an impregnable defense that nothing could penetrate. Any doubts were swept away by his chemically induced confidence.148 The world could sink into rubble and ashes around him, and his actions cost millions of people their lives—but the Führer felt more than justified when his artificial euphoria set in.

  Hitler had read Goethe’s Faust as a young man. In the autumn of 1944, by enjoying the fruits of the labors of Friedrich Sertürner, who discovered morphine as a young medical researcher in the days of Weimar classicism, and is seen as the father of Eukodal and all other opioids, Patient A entered into a pact with Mephisto once and for all. The narcotic not only rid him of his severe intestinal spasms—that was the publicly acceptable outcome—but also sweetened the moment. It is not possible to prove clinical dependence, but Morell’s almost undecipherable diary for September 1944 gives us an idea of how often this hardcore drug was really administered. But beyond these records it is by no means impossible that Eukodal made its way into Hitler’s bloodstream also as “x,” “injection as always,” or simply unrecorded. Whoever starts taking Eukodal, and has ready access to it, will in most cases never give it up again.

  On September 23, 24–25, and 28–29, 1944—just to examine a typical week—Patient A was given the potent narcotic four times, always with a day’s pause in between. This is the typical rhythm of an addict and contradicts the idea of a purely medical application. One striking feature is the combination with the anticonvulsive Eupaverin, a synthetic analogue of the plant-based agent papaverine from the opium poppy, which calms the muscles and is a comparatively harmless medication, because it does not cause dependency. This double pack—deliberately or not—disguised what Hitler was actually consuming. For a long time even the Führer confused the similar-sounding medications and demanded Eupaverin when he actually meant Eukodal. In Morell’s words: “The Führer was very happy about it, and gratefully pressed my hand and said: what a stroke of luck that we have Eupaverin.”149

  Eukodal every other day—the typical rhythm of an addict.

  We can only surmise how the dictator felt after an intravenous injection of 20 milligrams of the highly potent substance when, moments after the injection, its effects were felt by the oral mucous membranes and he got the “taste,” or drip, as addicts call it. The energy always came suddenly, within a few seconds, and from all directions: a felicitous, enormously calming force, and when Hitler said, “Doctor, I’m so glad when you arrive in the morning,”150 he was being unusually honest. In the morning he got a jab that created a heightened feeling that corresponded so perfectly to his own image of greatness—and that r
eality no longer supplied.

  The Doctors’ War

  You have all agreed that you want to turn me into a sick man.

  —Adolf Hitler151

  The power of the personal physician was approaching a high point during that autumn of 1944. Since the attempt on his life Patient A needed him more than ever, and with each new injection Morell gained further influence. The dictator was closer to him than he was to anyone else; there was no one he liked to talk to as much, no one he trusted more. At major meetings with the generals an armed SS man stood behind every chair to prevent any further attacks. Anyone who wanted to see Hitler had to hand over his briefcase. This regulation did not apply to Morell’s doctor’s bag.

  Many people envied the self-styled “sole personal physician” his privileged position. Suspicion about him was growing. Morell still stubbornly refused to talk to anyone else about his methods of treatment. Right until the end he maintained the discretion with which he had initially approached the post. But in the stuffy atmosphere of the haunted realm of the bunker system, where the poisonous plants of paranoia sent their creepers over the thick concrete walls, this was not without its dangers. Morell even left the assistant doctors Karl Brandt and Hanskarl von Hasselbach, with whom he could have discussed the treatment of Hitler, consistently in the dark. He had mutated from outsider to diva. He told no one anything, wrapping himself in an aura of mystery and uniqueness. Even the Führer’s all-powerful secretary, Bormann, who made it clear that he would have preferred a different kind of treatment for Hitler, one based more on biology, was banging his head against a wall when it came to the fat doctor.

  Patient A and his personal physician: “My dear doctor, I’m so glad when you arrive in the morning.”

  As the war was being lost, guilty parties were sought. The forces hostile to Morell were assembling. For a long time Himmler had been collecting information about the physician, to accuse him of having a morphine addiction and thus of being vulnerable to blackmail. Again and again the suspicion was voiced on the quiet: might he not be a foreign spy who was secretly poisoning the Führer? As early as 1943 the foreign minister, von Ribbentrop, had invited Morell to lunch at his castle, Fuschl, near Salzburg, and launched an attack: while the conversation with von Ribbentrop’s wife initially revolved around trivial questions such as temporary marriages, state bonuses for children born out of wedlock, lining up for food and the concomitant waste of time, after the meal the minister stonily invited him “upstairs, to discuss something.”

  Von Ribbentrop, arrogant, difficult, and blasé as always, tapped the ash off his Egyptian cigarette with long, aristocratic fingers, looked grimly around the room, then fired off a cannonade of questions at the miracle doctor: Was it good for the Führer to get so many injections? Was he given anything apart from glucose? Was it, generally speaking, not far too much? The doctor gave curt replies: he only injected “what was necessary.” But von Ribbentrop insisted that the Führer required “a complete transformation of his whole body, so that he became more resilient.” That was water off a duck’s back for Morell, and he left the castle rather unimpressed. “Laymen are often so blithe and simple in their medical judgments,” he wrote, concluding his record of the conversation.152

  But this was not the last assault Morell would bear. The first structured attack came from Bormann, who tried to guide Hitler’s treatment onto regular, or at least manageable, lines. A letter reached the doctor: “Secret Reich business!” In eight points “measures for the Führer’s security in terms of his medical treatment” were laid out, a sample examination of the medicines in the SS laboratories was scheduled, and, most importantly, Morell was ordered henceforth always “to inform the medical supply officer which and how many medications he plans to use monthly for the named purpose.”153

  In fact this remained a rather helpless approach from Bormann, who was not usually helpless. On the one hand his intervention turned Hitler’s medication into an official procedure, but on the other he wanted as little correspondence as possible on the subject, since it was important to maintain the healthful aura of the leader of the master race. Heil Hitler literally means “Health to Hitler,” after all. For that reason the drugs, as detailed in Bormann’s letter, were to be paid for in cash to leave no paper trail. Bormann added that the “monthly packets” should be stored ready for delivery at any time in an armored cupboard, and made “as identifiable as possible down to the ampoule by consecutive numbering (for example, for the first consignment: 1/44), while at the same time the external wrapping of the package should bear an inscription to be precisely established with the personal signature of the medical supply officer.”154

  Bormann’s unsuccessful attempt to control Morell’s actions: the memo describes the SS wanting to obtain and test samples of all of Morell’s medications for Hitler and insists that in the future Morell provide a full account of what he intends to give to his patient.

  Morell’s reaction to this bureaucratic attempt to make his activities transparent was as simple as it was startling. He ignored the instructions of the mighty security apparatus and simply didn’t comply, instead continuing as before. In the eye of the hurricane he felt invulnerable, banking on the assumption that Patient A would always protect him.

  In late September 1944, in the pale light of the bunker, the ear doctor, Giesing, noted an unusual coloration in Hitler’s face and suspected jaundice. The same day, on the dinner table there was a plate holding “apple compote with glucose and green grapes”155 and a box of “Dr. Koester’s anti-gas pills,” a rather obscure product. Giesing was perplexed when he discovered that its pharmacological components included atropine, derived from belladonna or other nightshade plants, and strychnine, a highly toxic alkaloid of nux vomica, which paralyzes the neurons of the spinal column and is also used as rat poison. Giesing indeed smelled a rat. The side-effects of these anti-gas pills at too high a dose seemed to correspond to Hitler’s symptoms. Atropine initially has a stimulating effect on the central nervous system, then a paralyzing one, and a state of cheerfulness arises, with a lively flow of ideas, loquacity, and visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as delirium, which can mutate into violence and raving. Strychnine in turn is held responsible for increased light-sensitivity and even fear of light, as well as for states of flaccidity.156 For Giesing the case seemed clear: “Hitler constantly demonstrated a state of euphoria that could not be explained by anything, and I am certain his heightened mood when making decisions after major political or military defeats can be largely explained in this way.”157

  In the anti-gas pills Giesing thought he had discovered the causes of both Hitler’s megalomania and his physical decline. He decided to treat himself as a guinea pig: for a few days Giesing took the little round pills himself, promptly identified that he had the same symptoms, and decided to go on the offensive. His intention was to disempower Morell by accusing him of deliberately poisoning the Führer, so that Giesing could assume the position of personal physician himself. While the Allied troops were penetrating the borders of the Reich from all sides, the pharmacological lunacy in the claustrophobic Wolf’s Lair was becoming a doctors’ war.

  As his ally in his plot, Giesing chose Hitler’s surgeon, who had been an adversary of Morell’s for a long time. Karl Brandt was in Berlin at the time, but when Giesing called he took the next plane to East Prussia without hesitation and immediately summoned the accused man. While the personal physician must have worried that he was being collared for Eukodal, he was practically relieved when his opponents tried to snare him with the anti-gas pills, which were available without prescription. Morell was also able to demonstrate that he had not even prescribed them, but that Hitler had organized the acquisition of the pills through his valet, Linge. Brandt, who had little knowledge of biochemistry and focused his attention on the side-effects of strychnine, was not satisfied with this defense. He threatened Morell: “Do you think anyone would believe you if you claimed that you didn’t issue this pre
scription? Do you think Himmler might treat you differently from anyone else? So many people are being executed at present that the matter would be dealt with quite coldly.”158 Just a week later Brandt added: “I have proof that this is a simple case of strychnine poisoning. I can tell you quite openly that over the last five days I have only stayed here because of the Führer’s illness.”159

  But what sort of illness was that exactly? Was it really icterus—jaundice? Or might it be a typical kind of junkie hepatitis because Morell wasn’t using properly sterile needles? Hitler, whose syringes were only ever disinfected with alcohol, wasn’t looking well.160 His liver, under heavy attack from those many toxic substances over the past few months, was releasing the bile pigment bilirubin: a warning signal that turns skin and eyes yellow. Morell was being accused of poisoning his patient. There was an air of threat when Brandt addressed Hitler. Meanwhile, on the night of October 5, 1944, Morell suffered a brain edema from the agitation. Hitler was unsettled beyond measure by the accusations: Treachery? Poison? Might he have been mistaken for all those years? Was he being double-crossed by his personally chosen doctor, Morell, the truest of the true, the best of all his friends? Wouldn’t dropping his personal physician, who had just given him a beneficial injection of Eukodal, amount to a kind of self-abandonment? Wouldn’t it leave him high and dry, vulnerable? This was an attack that might prove fatal, as his power was based on charisma. After all, it was the drugs that helped him artificially maintain his previously natural aura, on which everything depended.