Did hitler personally kill anyone?

  • Thread starter Smurf
  • Start date
In summary: Himmler)You're saying someone thinks he executed Rohm himself?That's an inference drawn from accounts of the event --- and you just had to ask me whose inference (not percolating to the conscious level at the moment) --- based upon a lot of second-hand and circumstantial "testimony:" Hitler supposedly was carrying a drawn pistol when storming Rohm's residence; his orderly borrowed cleaning equipment following the event; and an unscheduled change of clothing. Strikes me the source... "testimony" could just as easily suggest he had someone else do it.
  • #36
zoobyshoe said:
Bystander, I think what I am hearing you say is that you don't want to consider the possibility that he was seriously nuts.

Ya dun thunk one step too far --- it's been considered, and pretty much dismissed. I'm not saying I've tracked down "smoking guns" for sources on all the stories.

I can understand that because it leads to the questions of responsibility.

Good point --- in that it illustrates that we've been discussing this in two different contexts --- get to that in a moment.

My reasoning goes in a different direction: if people had only had the savvy to recognise that he was nuts at the start, they would never have let him get anywhere.

Thomas Eagleburger (or is it 3 "e"s?) was the only certified sane candidate for an office a heartbeat away from becoming POTUS --- he got dropped like a hot potato in '72 when that fact became public.

Okay, contexts: I'll hypothesize that you analyze WW II within the context of Studs Terkel's Last Good War; we were the good guys, wore white hats, saved the world for democracy? Or, am I barking up the wrong tree? I'll stop here --- don't want to waste time developing my context if I've misread yours.
 
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  • #37
I just happened to catch a show on the History Channel about Hitler and his Dr. Morel.

They interviewed a Neurologist, Dr. Thomas Hutton, who said it's pretty certain Hitler had Parkinson's Disease. The first syptoms of this show up in 1934, and by 1944 he was completely unable to hide the symptoms, especially the noticable spasming of his left hand. They had a film of him where he was shaking hands with a line of people. Every once in a while his left hand, hanging at his side away from the camera, can be seen in the shot, and you can see these spasms.

Coincidently, in a separate piece of film, the side to side rocking shows up again.
They didn't call attention to the rocking on this program as they did on the other I saw, but laid out in detail the history of Morel giving Hitler methamphetamines. I wouldn't be surprised if that was behind this rocking.

In addition to Parkinson's and Methamphetamines, it looks like he probably also had syphilis. Morel wrote in his diary that he'd found the characteristic heart rhythm associated with coronary syphilis over and over. He did an EKG as well, on which this shows up. Later, when he was sure, he prepared a report about it and sent it to Himmler, the point being to warn him to be prepared that Hitler might soon not be able to govern anymore. He was in the tertiary stages and had all the final symptoms save fixity of gaze and confusion of speech. According to a woman they were also interviewing (didn't catch her name or profession) the very first sympotoms Hitler consulted Morel about, bouts of intense gastrointesinal pain and skin lesions on his legs, are also symptoms of syphilis.

Hitler, they say, did a 14 page rant against syphilis in Mein kampf, calling it a Jewish disease, and part of their plot to destroy the Aryan Race. The fact this particular disease seems to have been of special concern to him obviously suggests he knew, or at least, believed, he, himself had it, and had probably caught it from a Jewish prostitute. In any event, Morel recorded giving him shots of something iodide (didn't catch the whole name), which was the standard treatment for syphilis at that time.

The main problem it would have caused him at the stage he was at was the heart condition he had. The rhythm indicates that his aorta was forming an aneurism, and that his left ventricle was having to pump twice as hard as normal. That would explain the fatigue for which Morel was prescribing the meth.

They mentioned the arsenic that was in his "gas pills" but didn't suggest any symptoms that might have been adding to the mix.
 
  • #38
Parkinson's? Interesting. Haven't run into that. Little tough to believe it can be diagnosed ten years prior to uncontrollable exhibition of symptoms just from film. Worth looking into, even if it is H. Ch. --- love it, but I've been having to keep 50 lb. salt blocks (like for livestock) handy when I tune in.

If Morel was treating him for syphilis, dollars to donuts it was calomel, or some other mercury regimen --- cure worse than disease --- that would also explain the shakes. "Hatter's disease" takes a few different turns as it develops, though.

Amphetamines? I have no idea how many flavors there are, nor what the history of their development, use, and abuse is; the speed freaks I've had the misfortune to be around I have to characterize as jumpy, twitchy, hypersensitive to any sound, to light, and generally unable to physically keep up with their nervous systems --- unable to finish a sentence because by the time the third word has left the lips, they've forgotten what they started to say, and can't sort through the twenty later sentences they've queued on the way to the tongue to recover it.
 
  • #39
Here's a page of links about the Parkinson's:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Dr.+Thomas+Hutton+Hitler+Parkinsons&btnG=Google+Search

not that I've read them all.

The syphilis treatment was "something" iodide. They said it was the standard treatment at the time. Could be they meant in Europe at that time, or in Germany at that time. I don't think this was a mercury compound, and they didn't think this drug was causing any particular side effects. The importance of finding it in his diary it that it confirms Morel was sure Hitler had syphilis.

As for the meth, I don't really know anything about it outside of what they said. This was the first generation of it. Morel later switched to two more powerful versions as they were developed. This gives me the idea that original meth wasn't as powerful as what's common today.

They didn't trace his Parkinson's symptoms back to 34 by film. 1934 was the first mention they found of anyone noticing the tremble that later became impossible to hide. There is plenty of general mention of the tremble and leg dragging in the memoirs of the people around him. (I first read about it in Albert Speers first book.) The propaganda department screened all footage of him and if there were any more clear films of his trembling they were probably destroyed. They pointed out that when you can see his left hand in film from this later period, he is always holding it tightly with his right hand, or else holding something tightly in the left as a "cover" for the tremble.
 
  • #40
Sorry to inflict this long a quote on you,
In a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association, a physician in Alabama describes a case of "syphilis" in which "his first Kahn test was found positive after a very thorough examination in which no physical defects of note were discovered." This man was treated uninterruptedly for three years by several physicians, with such harmless remedies as "neoarsphenamine," bismuth, arsphenamine sulphanate, mapharsen, yellow mercurous iodide, mercuric salicilate, mercury by inunction, potassium iodide by mouth potassium bismuth tartrate, iodobismtol and hyperpyrexia (fever) treatment."

After three years of such abuse his Kahn and Wasserrnann reactions remain positive. The young man, age 26, wants to get married and the physician asks what course should be taken. The doctor was told that the young man should not be allowed to marry and that further tests should be made.

This thing would be funny if it were not so tragic. This man had no symptoms of any trouble. The diagnosis of "syphilis" was made solely upon the result of a Kahn test. The test is known to every physician to be unreliable. The ..."​

from

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020134syphilis/020134syphilis-ch13.htm

Read the first page of links --- seems to be where all "the beef" is.

Actually ties in even earlier in H's life --- the critiques of his efforts at art include the words "inflexible, stiff, unimaginative," and others that don't come to mind at the moment; he was technically competent at the buildings, streets, and other regular geometric shapes and perspectives, but couldn't handle trees, and people were impossible for him.
 
  • #41
Bystander said:
The diagnosis of "syphilis" was made solely upon the result of a Kahn test. The test is known to every physician to be unreliable.
The show explained that Hitlers blood was sent out for testing by Morel and came back negative for syphilis. An interviewee said that was basically meaningless since the test they administered was notorious for both false positives and false negatives. They put a lot of stock in the particular heart rhythm problem he reported over and over again, though. Apparently that particular rhythm is exclusive to syphilis invading the heart muscle.

Read the first page of links --- seems to be where all "the beef" is.
Actually ties in even earlier in H's life --- the critiques of his efforts at art include the words "inflexible, stiff, unimaginative," and others that don't come to mind at the moment; he was technically competent at the buildings, streets, and other regular geometric shapes and perspectives, but couldn't handle trees, and people were impossible for him.
I'm not sure what to make of possible psychological manifestations. You look at Michael J. Fox whose symptoms were very extreme last time I saw him interviewed, and there's no indication it has affected his personality. Is that because they have him on some med to counteract this, or because these personality things aren't always natural concommitants? I can't say. I haven't read that much about Parkinson's. The last pope had Parkinson's and we don't hear stories to the effect he was inflexible, stiff, and unimaginative. On the other hand, Mao Tse Tung had it, and he fits right in with Hitler. Hard to know how to sort that out.
 
  • #42
MJF getting senile? No, don't think so. The other two P.'s cases I know are/were neither one "rigid" in their thinking --- both enjoy(ed) working with the hands very much, so the disease is "maddening," in that sense. The "rigid thought" in the links is more a subjective evaluation of one generation by another if I had to bet --- "Ol' man's gettin' senile. Some one oughta put him out of our misery."

The art critiques were also pre-WW I, little early for P.'s to be showing up --- H. simply could not draw live things.

Inflexible commitments to strategies? IJN in WW II; Luetjens after sinking Hood.

Starting to see where some of my doubts about the "Freddy Kreugerizing" of H. are rooted?
 
  • #43
Smurf said:
As far as I'm aware the thing Hitler personally and directly killed was his dogs whom he poisoned. Everyone else was killed by his Waffen SS or soldiers. Does anyone know any time he actually directly murdered anyone?

probably his niece Geli, he was banging her then she was found shot to death with his gun but he claimed it was a suicide
 
  • #44
This thread ended over 4 years ago. Closed.
 

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