183 He knew he would lose the southern states: Robert Kennedy was later asked in an oral history whether the Kennedys thought they would gain any political or electoral advantage with their new policy. (JFK Presidential Archives, Oral History Program, interview of Robert F. Kennedy by Ted Sorensen, 1966.) No, he recounted; they did not expect that black voting rights would change elections in the South for years to come, perhaps in the 1970s or later, but not so soon as to have any effect on JFK’s reelection. They fully expected to lose the South, even Johnson’s Texas, during the 1964 election, Robert said; they might even lose the whole election. They knew their civil rights plan would mean electoral losses to some extent, but they were also savvy enough to have Lou Harris polling in the North and Midwest, with increasing support for Kennedy’s civil rights position. JFK had made a dangerous gamble, the first Democrat since the Civil War to do so: he would enter reelection, he had decided, with a plan to win by taking all of the country except the South. In fact, with the exception of Jimmy Carter, Democrats have only won the presidency since JFK by peeling off, barely, a few southern states either because of personal roots or special circumstances. Of the ten standard southern states—Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas—Lyndon Johnson, riding a wave of post-assassination sympathy, won only five; Bill Clinton won four in 1992 and three in 1996; and Barack Obama, even with a major black turnout, won only one. Only Jimmy Carter was successful, winning all southern states but Virginia in 1976. In fact, since JFK, no white non-southern Democrat has won the presidency.
183 “Every single person who spoke about it”: Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings, 172.
184 The White House practically took over: Reeves, President Kennedy, 580–582.
184–185 He changed a line in . . . John Lewis’s speech . . . asked Lewis to remove an analogy: Ibid., 581–582.
185 “He’s damned good”: Ibid., 584.
185 “You made the difference”: Ibid., 585.
185 JFK “frankly acknowledged that he was responding to mass demands”: Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings, 177.
185 “I have a dream”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 584.
185 In her 1966 oral history: JFK Presidential Archives, Oral History Program, interview of Janet Travell by Ted Sorensen, 1966:
Sorensen: Did he ever express concern that he was dependent on too many drugs or that they might have some unknown effects on his system?
Travell: These were not drugs.
Sorensen: Pills.
Travell: That’s right. . . . He really didn’t take any drugs. . . . He didn’t take sleeping pills. He wouldn’t take medication for pain. He didn’t want it. I think the record should be perfectly clear that the things that he did take were normal physiological constituents of the body, almost entirely.
186 “It is my considered opinion”: JFK Presidential Archives, Medical Records, PP, Box 45, November 29, 1963.
CHAPTER 13. HITLER AMOK
188 was advanced . . . by Hannah Arendt: Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Viking, 1963). Arendt previously had been a student and mistress of the philosopher Martin Heidegger, who later became pro-Nazi. Arendt, who was Jewish, then rejected Heidegger’s ideas and maintained close personal and intellectual ties to Jaspers.
189 the memoirs of his closest friend from young adulthood: August Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1955; Norwalk CT: MBI Publishing Company, 2006).
189 Most historians accept the general veracity: Some historians express concern that Kubizek’s memoir may not be entirely valid, partly because some have claimed that it was commissioned by the Nazi Party, a claim vehemently denied by Kubizek and by his publisher Stocker Verlag. Though a party member in 1942, Kubizek had not joined in previous years and was never an active member. He also turned down Hitler’s offers of special positions throughout the Nazi period. Another critique is that Kubizek’s claim that Hitler was anti-Semitic early in his life has not been corroborated, apparently, from other sources. With such caveats, most historians accept the broad outline of Kubizek’s memoir. (Martin Kitchen, personal email communication, July 31, 2010.)
189 “He walked always and everywhere”: Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew, 39.
189 “I cannot remember a time when he had nothing to do”: Ibid., 62.
189 “Once he had conceived an idea”: Ibid., 105.
189 “Here he could give full vent to his mania”: Ibid., 105.
190 “When Adolf and I strolled”: Ibid., 55.
190 “I had long since known this behavior of his”: Ibid., 194.
190 “He used to give me long lectures”: Ibid., 32.
190 “Hysterically he described”: Ibid., 226.
191 “Adolf was exceedingly violent and high-strung”: Ibid., 32.
191 “Adolf stood in front of me”: Ibid., 117.
192 “In that hour it began”: Ibid., 116.
192 it is 90 percent likely . . . depressive episodes: Frederick Goodwin and Kay Jamison, Manic-Depressive Illness, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
192 “His mood worried me more and more”: Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew, 158.
192 “As the Goddess of Misery took me”: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Delhi: Jaico Publishing, 2008).
193 “the most outstanding trait”: Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew, 49.
193 his family history: Fritz Redlich, Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 255–257. Ron Rosenbaum, Explaining Hitler (New York: Random House, 1998), 19–21. Leonard L. Heston and Renate Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler (New York: Stein and Day, 1980), 63–67.
194 “[Alois Hitler] often moved”: Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew, 54.
195 Regarding the course: Jablow Hershman and Julian Lieb, A Brotherhood of Tyrants (New York: Prometheus, 1994), 69–82. Heston and Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, 67–72.
196 his classic work about Hitler’s rise to power: Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (New York: Harper and Row, 1964).
196 In 1937, Hitler began using amphetamines: Heston and Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, 82–83.
196 previous attempts to “explain” him: Rosenbaum in his book (Explaining Hitler) never mentions Heston’s work. Redlich (Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet) discusses the amphetamine story only briefly, but never engages with it in terms of what it means psychiatrically.
196 published a complete medical study of Hitler: Leonard L. Heston and Renate Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler (New York: Stein and Day, 1980).
196 the man who would remain his personal physician: Robert Kaplan, “Doctor to the Dictator: The Career of Theodor Morell, Personal Physician to Adolf Hitler,” Australasian Psychiatry 10 (2002): 389–392.
197 “Herr Reich Injektion Minister”: Heston and Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, 85. D. Doyle, “Adolf Hitler’s Medical Care,” Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 35 (2005): 75–82.
197 Morell admitted to giving Hitler twenty-eight different treatments: Heston and Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, 162. Doyle, “Adolf Hitler’s Medical Care.”
197 “Orchikrin” . . . “Prostakrimum” . . . “Cortiron”: Heston and Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, 162. Transcript of interrogation of Dr. Morell by Allied investigators, November 29, 1945.
197 the narcotic given was Eukodal: Heston and Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, 75.
198 a barbiturate for sleep . . . Brom-Nervacit: Ibid., 79, 162.
198 By 1971, there were over thirty-one amphetamine preparations: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu36.html (accessed February 27, 2011). Methamphetamine was also widely distributed to German and U.S. troops during the war.
198 They were especially noted by Albert Speer: Heston and Heston, The Medical Casebook o
f Adolf Hitler, 72.
198 Himmler . . . began collecting a medical file: Ibid., 138.
198 repeated negative tests for syphilis: Ibid., 115.
198 the Italian king . . . wondered aloud to his court: Ibid., 138.
198 the Hestons interviewed Hitler’s valet: Ibid., 82–83.
199 “a mixture specially compounded for the Führer”: Ibid., 16.
199 Schenck . . . analyzed its chemical contents: Ibid., 85–86. Schenck’s confirmation is the most definitive documentation that Hitler took methamphetamine, which raises the question: Was Hitler simply a crystal meth addict? Is his behavior merely attributable to methamphetamine addiction? I would say no, for the following reasons: although methamphetamine is the same ingredient as in crystal meth, the pill form is quite different from the injected crystal form. Each pill of methamphetamine, called Pervitin in Hitler’s day, contained 3 mg of active drug. (Andreas Ulrich, “Hitler’s Drugged Soldiers,” Der Spiegel, 5/6/2005; http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,354606,00.html, [accessed April 11, 2011]). Thus Hitler’s use added up to 15 mg/day, which is notably lower than the usual minimum composition of crystal meth (100 to 1000 mg). Also, oral use is much less addicting than intravenous. Depending on how much daily intravenous amphetamine Hitler also received, and whether it was the methamphetamine form, his usage might have begun to approach the low end of crystal meth addiction. It is more likely, though, that the harmful amphetamine effects for Hitler had to do with the fact that, especially when the drug is given intravenously, it is likely to destabilize mood episodes in bipolar disorder.
199 Schenk . . . repeated in his own memoirs: E. G. Schenck, Patient Hitler. Eine medizinische Biographie (Düsseldorf, 1989). “Hitler’s Life: Hitler’s Doctor—Interview with Ernst Günther Shenck,” http://www.onlinefootage.tv/video/show/id/4430 (accessed February 27, 2011).
199 According to Linge: Heston and Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, 82–83.
200 Like Kennedy’s doctors, some of Hitler’s: Finally intervening in 1944, when Hitler was declining mentally, Hitler’s other doctors chose the wrong drug: noting that Morell’s gastrointestinal preparations included traces of strychnine, they accused Morell of trying to poison the Führer. The doses were tiny, however, and of dubious risk; Hitler dismissed Morell’s enemies. Kaplan, “Doctor to the Dictator,” 392.
200 Even oral amphetamines . . . cause mania: A. P. Wingo and S. N. Ghaemi, “Frequency of Stimulant Treatment and of Stimulant-Associated Mania/Hypomania in Bipolar Disorder Patients,” Psychopharmacology Bulletin 41, no. 4 (2008): 37–47.
201 he shouted nonstop for three hours: Heston and Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, 40.
201 Himmler, convinced that Hitler had a “sick mind”: Ibid., 42.
201 several generals tried to persuade prominent psychiatrists to commit Hitler: Redlich, Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet, 337.
202 “That pathological liar has gone completely mad!”: Charles F. Marshall, Discovering the Rommel Murder (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2002), 259.
202 “The only troops I could move”: Alan Wykes, Hitler (New York: Ballantine, 1970), 120.
202–203 Morell even publicly revised his prior diagnosis: Hershman and Lieb, Brotherhood of Tyrants, 79. Heston and Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, 46.
203 The source . . . a Swedish journalist: G. T. Pihl, Germany: The Last Phase (New York: Knopf, 1944).
203 “The more inexorably events moved”: Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 292.
203 Linge . . . told the Hestons: Heston and Heston, The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler, 46.
203 The Hestons date such brief periods: Ibid., 47.
203 “cycle” into and out of his manic and depressive episodes: Ibid., 139–140.
203 his mind already had: In addition to manic depression, it is hard to avoid another illness: Hitler is well known to have had parkinsonian symptoms in his final years, a common side effect of amphetamines, especially when used in their potent forms and intravenously, as with Hitler. Parkinson’s disease starts on average at age sixty. Onset in one’s forties is considered early, and usually due to external causes, like head trauma or drugs. Hitler’s parkinsonian symptoms began around age fifty. If it was naturally occurring, concurrent amphetamine use also may have worsened the condition. E. Gibbels, “Hitler’s Neurologic Disease—Differential Diagnosis of Parkinson Syndrome,” Fortschritte der Neurologie-Psychiatrie 57 (1989): 505–517. Original article in German.
203 Hitler heard a voice: This was first described in Mein Kampf. It has been discussed by Hershman and Lieb, Brotherhood of Tyrants, 62. Except for those authors, most historians and physicians have viewed Hitler’s experience as a metaphorical, rather than actual (and hence psychotic), “voice.” Robert George and Leeson Waite, The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler (New York: Da Capo, 1993), 378. This was also the conclusion of the official U.S. intelligence psychiatric profile of Hitler, conducted from a psychoanalytic perspective by Walter C. Langer in 1942–1943. He interviewed a number of sources who knew Hitler somewhat well. This was a very psychoanalytically oriented evaluation, and it applied numerous Freudian concepts to explain Hitler, such as projection and narcissism. It labeled him neurotic, not psychotic, but beyond that judgment it is not diagnostically valuable. Walter C. Langer, The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report (New York: Basic Books, 1972). One might claim that Hitler had “overvalued ideas,” such as Aryan superiority and Jewish conspiracy, but these views, shared by many in his culture, would not meet most psychiatric definitions of delusious.
203–204 Some think his experience occurred under hypnotic suggestion: David Lewis, The Man Who Invented Hitler (London: Headline Publishing Company, 2003).
205 a “paranoid destructive prophet”: Redlich, Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet.
205 But rejecting psychoanalytic diagnoses: We can draw from three full books about Hitler written by psychiatrists who are prominent researchers or academics but not psychoanalysts (Hershman and Lieb, Heston and Heston, Redlich). Supplementing those works with memoirs and other historical material, Hitler’s story is rather well documented. The three psychiatric writers disagree among themselves (one sees Hitler as having no mental illness but mainly affected by amphetamine-induced psychosis, another sees him as having pure manic-depressive psychosis, and a third sees him as having neither condition but rather a kind of political personality disorder of paranoid destruction). All these sources provide the same evidence, described above, which seems to show rather clearly that Hitler had manic and depressive episodes, a likely family history of manic symptoms, a typical course for bipolar disorder, and treatment for depression. The likely diagnosis of bipolar disorder seems solid.
206 apparently was treated by . . . Dr. Edmund Forster: Lewis, The Man Who Invented Hitler . Lewis presents the following story: There is some evidence that Hitler was examined and apparently treated by a psychiatrist at Pasewalk Hospital in present-day Poland, where he had been sent in late October 1918. This was a hospital known to be used for psychiatric cases, six hundred miles away from where Hitler had been involved in a mustard gas attack in France; all his other companions injured in the attack were treated at medical hospitals nearby. Hitler was sent far away, suggesting a psychiatric problem. Also, Hitler’s complete and immediate recovery from mustard gas is biologically implausible. On this evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude, as did U.S. intelligence during World War II, that Hitler suffered from something like PTSD, manifested as hysterical blindness. Naval intelligence records from 1943, declassified in 1973, report, according to Dr. Karl Kroner, who saw Hitler immediately after the blindness, that Hitler was transferred to the care of a psychiatrist, Dr. Edmund Forster. Exactly during the period when the armistice occurred, Forster treated Hitler with what might today be called a species of psychodrama, sometimes used in French and German psychiatry of the nineteenth century for hysteria (excellent examp
les are found in the most prominent ninenteenth-century psychiatric text written by Philippe Pinel). According to Dr. David Lewis’s book on Forster, the psychiatrist made strong hypnotic suggestions to Hitler that he had much to see and live for, including helping Germany. One week after the armistice, Hitler recovered his eyesight and was discharged from the army as unfit for duty. He never again had any difficulty with his vision. Years later, after Hitler came to power in 1933, Forster, a known anti-Nazi, took his psychiatric records to France and reportedly gave them to German exiles there, including Eduard Weiss, who, according to Lewis, later posthumously published the content in fiction form. Soon thereafter, Forster either committed suicide or was killed. After the naval report was released, Rudolph Binion, an American-German professor, tracked down some persons who were present in the reported Paris meeting with Forster, and they confirmed the events. Forster’s notes have never been found, though, leading to doubt on the part of other observers.
This is the only known official psychiatric evaluation or treatment of Hitler in his life. While Lewis and others make the mistake, in my view, of thinking that Forster’s hypnotic suggestion “invented” the grandiose Führer, the overall story of PTSD is consistent with Hitler’s many psychiatric symptoms and his high level of anxiety (which is called the personality trait of neuroticism), a well-established risk factor for PTSD.
In 1923, after the Munich putsch, Hitler was again psychiatrically examined, though this time by the chief physician of Landsberg prison, Dr. Joseph Brinsteiner, who was not a psychiatrist. Documented in a January 8, 1924, report titled “Report of the Mental Condition of Prisoner Adolf Hitler,” it was described as follows by one biographer: “The doctor, who was obviously very impressed by his prisoner, wrote very general comments stressing that he was a man of very high intelligence, extraordinary range of knowledge and great oratorical ability. At the time of his arrest, Hitler was very depressed, the doctor said, and suffering from ‘a very painful neurosis’ (sehr schmerzhaften Neurose). No details are given. The report emphasizes the ephemeral nature of the condition and that the prisoner was soon in excellent spirits.” Robert G. L. Waite, The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 350. A prison guard, Otto Lurker, who later published in 1933 a hagiographic memoir of Hitler’s time in jail, called “Hitler Behind Fortress Walls,” reported that the painful neurosis diagnosed by Dr. Brinsteiner was due to a shoulder dislocation Hitler suffered when hurt during the melee of the putsch. Lurker quotes Brinsteiner as telling the court, while attesting that Hitler was mentally fit to stand trial, “The patient . . . has no symptoms of psychic disorders or psychopathic tendencies.” Quoted in Milan Hauner, Hitler: A Chronology of His Life and Time, 2nd ed. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Yet the earlier possibility of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment for PTSD would be consistent with the known fact that the chairman of psychiatry at the University of Heidelberg, Karl Willmans, had stated publicly that Hitler had suffered a hysterical reaction during World War I. In 1933, Willmans was forced to resign. Ruth Lidz and Hans-Rudolph Wiedemann, “Karl Wilmanns (1873–1945) einige Ergänzungen und Richtigstellungen,” Fortschritte der Neurologie-Psychiatric 57 (1989): 161–162.
A First-Rate Madness Page 33