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March 12, 2003 Was syphilis the
demon that drove Hitler mad? By Mark Henderson
Science Correspondent HITLER may have been dying of
syphilis when he committed suicide in his Berlin
bunker, according to a new book that could explain
his mental decline in the final months of the
Second World War. 
David Irving
comments: IT is characteristic of the British
press now that they ask every other
"expert" they can, other than myself, the
one historian and Hitler biographer
(Hitler's
War, Hodder & Stoughton, 1977)
who interviewed all Adolf Hitler's
surviving doctors, retrieved their papers,
and in 1981 found, transcribed, annotated,
and published the diary of his principal
physician Dr Theo Morell (The
Secret Diaries of Hitler's Doctor:
Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1983, and
Grafton Books, 1990)
Instead of inquiring my
opinion, they quote American hack academic
Rudolph Binion, and British
biographer Sir Ian Kershaw,
who boasted
to The New York Times that he had
made no attempt to locate or talk with
Hitler's staff, medical or otherwise (let
alone search for the medical records).
As for author Deborah
Hayden's theory: she visited my
lecture at Seattle in May 2002, and I
directed her attention to the Morell
diaries, and particularly to the
urinalyses and blood serology results on
his Patient "A" (Hitler) which I published
in full as appendices.
Morell routinely
performed on Hitler both the Wassermann
and Meinecke tests, which are tests for
syphilis, and they came up negative in
1940. There is not the slightest hint of
syphilis in Morell's diaries or in his
medical notes on the man who was his
patient from 1937 to 1945.
If Hitler was clear of
syphilis in 1940, it is a mystery why any
author should imagine that he had
contracted it by 1945 -- except perhaps
that a "syphilitic Hitler" will sell
books, while one clear of sexually
transmitted diseases probably will
not. Related
file: 
The
Secret Diaries of Hitler's
Doctor (1983) Free
download
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New analysis of the records kept by Hitler's
doctors has revealed that he suffered from many of
the most characteristic symptoms of tertiary
syphilis, and that he was treated regularly with
drugs that were commonly prescribed for the
sexually transmitted disease.The controversial diagnosis, which would cast
new light on the dictator's behaviour, from his
sexual frigidity to his paranoiac rages, is
advanced in Pox: Genius, Madness and the
Mysteries of Syphilis, by Deborah
Hayden, an American historian. Although it may
never be possible to prove that Hitler was
syphilitic, the balance of evidence suggests the
disease as the most likely explanation for the wide
range of health problems that afflicted him,
particularly in his last years. "If Hitler's life is
looked at through the selective lens of a
possible diagnosis of syphilis, one clue leads
to another and then another until a pattern of
progressive disease emerges," said Ms Hayden, a
former lecturer on the history of the disease at
the University of California at San Francisco.
"Syphilis must be considered in our
understanding of Hitler's career, his
motivations, the events of World War Two, and
even the Holocaust."  The
theory that Hitler had syphilis has been advanced
before, most notably by the Nazi-hunter Simon
Wiesenthal, but has generally been rejected for
lack of proof. Ms Hayden has amassed an
unprecedented wealth of circumstantial evidence,
although she accepts that the diagnosis will never
be irrefutable.
"This is not definitive proof, but I think there
is a preponderance of circumstantial evidence," she
said. "It certainly might have affected his mind,
and if he knew or thought he had it, and didn't
have long to live, it may have accelerated the war
effort." Aside from the well-known mania of his last
years, which would be consistent with the mental
effects of the parasite, Hitler had an abnormal
heartbeat that points towards syphilitic aortitis.
Notes kept by Theo Morell, his physician
(right), show that he had an accentuated or
"tympanic" second sound to the heartbeat, which is
often caused by syphilitic damage to the aorta. Dr
Morell's records of drug treatment show that from
1941 Hitler received regular injections of iodide
salts, a standard 1940s therapy for cardiac
syphilis. He had lesions on his shins so painful
that they sometimes prevented him from wearing
boots, and suffered intermittently from
encephalitis, dizziness, flatulence, neck pustules,
chest pain, gastric pain and restrictive palsies -
all are associated with the disease. A knowledge
that he carried the disease would explain his lack
of sexual interest towards his long-term consort
and eventual bride, Eva Braun, and his
devotion of 13 pages of Mein Kampf to
syphilis. "The question of combating syphilis
should have been made to appear as the task of the
nation," he wrote. H itler's
very appointment of Dr Morell in 1936, Ms Hayden
suggests, is significant. The doctor, a
dermatologist, was one of Germany's leading experts
on the disease. Several contemporary rumours held that Hitler
contracted syphilis from a prostitute in Vienna in
1908 or 1910. Some accounts suggested that the
prostitute was Jewish. Ms Hayden said that these
were probably hearsay, but that Hitler did write in
Mein Kampf that the Jews were responsible
for spreading the disease. More plausible are reports that Hitler was given
the diagnosis at a German field hospital in 1918,
when he was recovering from a gas attack.
Heinrich Himmler, the SS chief, may have
destroyed copies of his medical records. Robert
Berger, a cardiac surgeon at Harvard Medical
School in Boston, said that Hitler's symptoms could
indicate a diagnosis of syphilis. "The picture is
consistent with syphilis, although it is not
definitive. Each of the symptoms and treatments
fits." Rudolph Binion, Professor of History at
Brandeis University in Massachusetts and author of
Hitler Among the Germans, said that the
diagnosis would fit with almost every aspect of
Hitler's known medical symptoms and behaviour.
"While it's impossible to diagnose with 100 per
cent surety, she has an extremely presumptive case.
It falls in very much with a case of textbook
syphilis," he said. However, Sir Ian Kershaw, Professor of
History at Sheffield University and one of Hitler's
most authoritative biographers, said that he was
unconvinced. Rumours of Hitler's condition were
based on "dodgy hearsay", he said, adding: "I
remain heartily sceptical." Copyright 2003 Times
Newspapers Ltd. 
Related items on this website 
Hitler suffer from
syphilis? Disease Detective Deborah Hayden's new
book, Pox, pulls the covers off famous
people- Observer, Oct
7, 2001: Hitler was gay - and killed to hide it,
book says
-
October 1999 story:
Hitler secretly gay --historian (Joachim
Fest)
-
David Irving's
comments on this allegation
-
Eva Braun's cousin
breaks her silence about her times with Hitler's
mistress
see also The
Sydney Morning Herald |
write
to David Irving