Was syphilis the demon that drove Hitler into madness?

ADOLF HITLER may have been dying of syphilis when he committed suicide in his Berlin bunker, according to a new book that could explain the Führer’s mental decline in the final months of the Second World War.

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 fresh 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. While 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, when they are all assembled and looked at in order, a pattern of infection and progressive disease emerged,” said Ms Hayden, a former lecturer on the history of the disease at the University of California at San Francisco. “Syphilis must then 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. It could have supercharged what was going on, 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, the Führer had an abnormal heartbeat that points towards syphilitic aortitis. Notes kept by Theo Morell, Hitler’s personal physician, 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.

Hitler’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, including one spread by Putzi Hanfstaengl, a friend of Hitler from the 1920s, held that he had 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. His experience of syphilis may thus have influenced his anti-Semitism.

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, she said. Heinrich Himmler, the SS chief, may have held and destroyed copies of his medical records, according to the book. Hitler is widely thought to have taken the Wassermann test for the disease, with a negative result, but this should not rule out the diagnosis, Ms Hayden said. The sample was labelled only “Patient A”, and thus may not have come from Hitler.

Robert Berger, a cardiac surgeon at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said Hitler’s symptoms could indicate a diagnosis of syphilis. “The total picture is consistent with syphilis, though 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, was not convinced. Rumours of Hitler’s condition were based on “dodgy hearsay”, he said, adding: “I remain heartily sceptical.”

SYPHILIS is thought to have originated in the Americas and to have begun its devastating spread around the world after Christopher Columbus’s voyage in 1492.

The first major epidemic of the disease broke out in Europe in 1494, spread at least in part by French troops retreating from the siege of Naples, giving rise to its first nicknames: “the disease of Naples” and “the French pox”.

The French philosopher Voltaire had his own views on its national origins. “The first fruit the Spaniards brought from the New World was syphilis,” he wrote.

In fact, syphilis may have been present in Europe before Columbus, although it became commonplace only with the arrival of new strains from the New World. Female bones dug up in 2001 in a churchyard in Rivenhall, near Witham, Essex, which have been dated to between 1290 and 1445, show characteristic syphilitic damage.

Whatever its provenance, the disease began to sweep through the European population in the 16th century, and there is good evidence that it afflicted Charles VIII and Francis I of France and Ivan the Terrible of Russia. Mary Tudor of England may have had the congenital version of the disease, inherited from her father, Henry VIII.

At its peak in the 19th century, syphilis may have affected as many as 15 per cent of the adult population of Europe and North America, according to Deborah Hayden’s book. The disease, which is caused by the parasite Treponema pallidum, has largely died out since the development of penicillin in the 1940s.

Many sufferers were celebrated artists, authors, politicians and philosophers. Figures who are known to have had the disease include the French novelists Gustave Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant, the French poet Charles Baudelaire and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

Ms Hayden suggests several more controversial diagnoses. Vincent van Gogh may have begun to paint images involving death after contracting the disease, she suggests, and Ludwig van Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, James Joyce and Oscar Wilde may also have suffered.

As I indicated there may be some exceptions to this rule, but as a general rule, aortic anomalies don't lend credence to a diagnosis of neurosyphilis.

Interesting! Is there any particular reason why the syphilis bug would infect the heart OR the brain, but not both, or just the luck of the draw?

I've been interested in historical medicine (or medical history) ever since my mom passed on to me The Human Body, the book that HER mother left around for her to find to "explain the facts of life" (we're talking about back in the 1930s!) It was written by that great medical character Logan Clendening in 1927. He presented all sorts of useful information with a flair for the pithy observation and the interesting anecdote. That generation worked almost entirely on clinical diagnosis and instinct born of long experience, and I really admire that. (That's why all my doctors are a whole lot older than I am, which means they're all retiring about now. Fortunately they have all been able to recommend talented young proteges . . . :-D )

"But the truth is far more prosaic and horrible...."

The thesis that Hitler was sick fits his behvior throughout the entire range of his political career. As Hitler gained power and re-armed Germany he showed diabolical political brilliance and an unfailingly incisive judgements about his domestic and international rivals.

As the war dragged on, however, Hitler began to exhibit serious and sustained lapses of judgement. The Hitler of 1943 and 1944 made mistakes that the Hitler of 1937 would have never have made.

During Hitler's rise to power he exhibited true, distilled evil. I believe that Hitler was evil and became sick toward the end. As the recent movie "Max" showed, Hitler was a bohemian painter living in Vienna before starting his political career. The venereal disease theory is at least plausible.

Hitler’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.

He might have been a leading expert in 1936, but I doubt he was considered one before Hitler took over. Dermatology as a specialty was founded in Germany by Jews and was dominated by them. This probably reflected the lower social status of the then combined specialty of Dermatology and Venereology. Skin diseases and VD (which had prominent skin manifestations) were both considered unclean. This of course included treatment of syphilis. The specialty remained combined until penicillin simplified VD treatment enough for generalists to treat it.

In 1933 16% of German doctors were Jewish compared to <1% of the general population. 27% (569/2078) of German Dermatologists were Jewish with the big cities especially Jewish. Berlin had 54% (229/428) Jewish Dermatologists. They also dominated the teaching programs for Dermatology. Hitler soon changed this.

In 1938 Jews were forbidden to practice medicine, except in some cases on Jewish patients only. A study was able to identify the fate of 76% (432/569) of these pre-Hitler Jewish Dermatologists. Information wasn't available for 24%(137) of them. 10%(57) were murdered in concentration camps. This was the highest percentage killed in the camps of all medical specialties. Included there was Karl Herxheimer whose last name should be familiar to my fellow physicians in relation to syphilis. Herxheimer had been a pupil another familiar name—Albert Neisser (1855-1916), one of the big three of early German Dermatology, all of whom were Jewish. 10.7%(61) managed to die of natural causes. Only 4%(25) survived the Third Reich in Germany or concentration camps. 2%(13) committed suicide. At least 45.5%(259) emigrated and probably 3%(17) more did. Most came to the U.S. (107) with Palestine second (34). Several became chairmen of major teaching programs in the US. By the time the war started the country that once had the best Dermatology in the world had mostly thrown it away.

The above data is from a poster presented at the 2001 American Academy of Dermatology meeting in Washington D.C. by Sven Eppinger MD, Albrecht Scholz MD and Michael Meurer MD
Department of Dermatology, Dresden University of Technology,
Germany and Institut for History of Medicine, Dresden University of Technology, Germany
University Hospital and Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus
Harvard Medical International Associated Institution

Hitler began to exhibit serious and sustained lapses of judgement. The Hitler of 1943 and 1944 made mistakes that the Hitler of 1937 would have never have made.

That's a good point. But emotional stress, unwillingness to accept reality, megalomania and few good options can explain it as well.

My point was that finding an illness to explain Hitler is a way of demystifying him. An easy explanation for everything. It's also a way of letting everyone, including Hitler off the hook.

BTW, he led a bohemian life, but there weren't many girls. He was very shy and didn't have any money. No evidence of him with other women until he was past 30 years of age.

I think the book "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" is an excellent text on the life of Hitler.

The scariest thing I ever saw with regards to Hitler was a film where he is nuzzling his pet dog. The image of a man with the blood of millions on his hands is smiling and talking cutsey to his dog was just chilling. He looked so...normal.

My feeling is that Hitler didn't truly hate Jews, he used them to acheive his political ends. He knew the average German loathed the Jews and they were a convenient scapegoat. I believe indifference is worse than hate.

People have a hard time accepting that Hitler was merely evil.

No doubt he was. But there could also be medical reasons for some of his mental "divergences." For example, Hitler's personal physician apparently shot him up with all kinds of stuff.

For example, Dr. Morell gave him injections of the following

Orchikrin: A combination of all the hormones of males. Potency was increased by the addition of extracts of testis, seminal vesicles and of young bulls. Orchikrin was used in pill form (one pill being equivalent to three grams of fresh testis) and also injected intramuscularly in ampoules of 2.2 cc. Morell's chemist, Dr. Mulli, claimed it had been developed to combat cancer of the prostate. Morell suggested to American interrogators that he had tried it on Hitler only once or twice to combat fatigue or depression.

Imagine getting shot up with that!

Poke "The Secret Diaries of Hitler's Doctor.

"My point was that finding an illness to explain Hitler is a way of demystifying him..."

Yes there is that danger especially in the age of therapuetic non-accountability. On the other hand I thought the historian's effort to better understand Hitler the man was commendable. There are several aspects of Hitler's life that still seem puzzling and most histories after the War focused on Hitler as a wartime leader; his previous background has not been as well studied until recently.

At this point in point all aspects of Hitler's rise to power and political career are very well known. What I think has been less well studied are the philosophical roots of Nazism and its relation to European history. Nazism strong philosophical roots in work of German philosphers such as Nietchze and Hegel has not been explored sufficiently, in my opinion. Under our current level of historical understanding Nazism seems to come out of nowhere like some type of freakish growth on the body politic. New research that relates the Nazi movement to the context of German and European history would be more useful than additional recitations of Hitler's biography.

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