Theo Morell

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Theodor Morell

Prof. Dr. med. Theodor Morell was one of Adolf Hitler's physicians. He has been part of claims such as Hitler having various diseases or Hitler becoming ill due to various medications given by Morell. Such assertions may be part of baseless claims that Hitler was insane. A review of David Irving's The Secret Diaries of Hitler’s Doctor instead states:

"Morell’s detailed medical reports and diaries are useful for refuting lies about Hitler, e.g., that he had abnormal genitals or that he suffered from syphilis. [...] Over the years, Hitler’s entourage became alarmed at the number of pills and injections administered by Morell. [...] Irving reveals that Morell injected Hitler with such tiny doses that there was little chance of any purely pharmacological effect, for good or ill."[1]
Born Theodor Karl Ludwig Gilbert Morell[2]
22 July 1886(1886-07-22)
Trais near Münzenberg, Grand Duchy
of Hesse, German Empire
Died 26 May 1948 (aged 61)
Tegernsee south of Munich, Bavaria,
Allied-occupied Germany
Occupation Medical doctor
Spouse ∞ 1919 Johanna "Hanni" Moeller
Awards Iron Cross
Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross

Theodor "Theo" Karl Ludwig Gilbert Morell (22 July 1886 – 26 May 1948) was a German urologist, physician, medical officer and personal physician to Adolf Hitler from 1936 to 1945.

Life

Morell wore a special uniform (first brown, later grey) of his own design and managed to evade the efforts of Heinrich Himmler, who wanted to give him, like all other people in Hitler's entourage, an honorary rank in the SS.
The Führer at the fairground in Berlin visiting the International Motor Show (Internationale Automobil- und Motorrad-Ausstellung) on 4 March 1939; Hitler is at the stand of the Opel AG; others are (from left): Jakob Werlin, chairman of the Daimler-Benz AG, Chefpilot Hans Baur, chauffeur Erich Kempka, and, on the far right, Hitler's doctor Dr. Theo Morell; in the background (left) Hitler's personal adjutant Albert Bormann, NSKK-Brigadeführer of the National Socialist Motor Corps. Photographer: Heinrich Hoffmann.
From left to right: Gerda "Dara" Daranowski,[3] Eva Braun, Hanni Morell, Gretl Braun and an unknown lady at the Berghof
Morell with Hitler and Blondi
Leibarzt Prof. Dr. med. Theodor Morell.jpg
Dr. Morell, Adolf Hitler und Frau Morell.jpg
Prof. Dr. med. Theodor Morell (1886-1948), Leibarzt des Führers, Besitzzeugnis Ritterkreuz des KVK.jpg
RKdKVK für Dr. Morell.png
Theodor Morell with RKdKVK.jpg
Professor Dr. med. Theo Morell. Hitlers Leibarzt by Ottmar Katz, 1982.jpg

The boy, who was sickly as a child, was sent to the preparatory institute in Lich at the age of 14 and then attended the teacher training college in Friedberg between Gießen and Marburg. In 1905, he got his first job as a teacher in Bretzenheim near Mainz. However, he did not like the profession and took the Abitur exam in order to be able to study medicine. In 1907, he enrolled at the University of Gießen and joined a student fraternity (Burschenschaft Germania Gießen), where he was given the Kneipnamen "Mephisto". After just one semester he moved to Heidelberg, from where he went to the "École de Medizine de Grenoble" to get to know his family's place of origin, Diex, where half of the inhabitants bore his name.

Back in Heidelberg, he passed the preliminary medical examination (Physicum) in July 1909 with the grade "very good" and moved to Paris at the end of the year, where he worked as an obstetrician at the Clinique d'Accouchement Tornier and took a course at the Institut Pasteur under the famous Professor Elias Metschnikoff (1845-1916), who had a significant influence on him throughout his life. This course later led him to become an assistant and work closely with him.

During his studies, he moved from Paris to Munich via Heidelberg. There he took the state medical examination in May 1912 and received his license to practice medicine from the Bavarian government one year later (on 23 May 1913), after completing the required year as a medical intern in Bad Kreuznach. At the same time, in August 1913, he completed his doctorate under Prof. Dr. med. Albert Sigmund Gustav Döderlein with a dissertation, earning him a doctorate in medicine.

Post-studies

He then spent about nine months as a ship's doctor on steamers of the Woermann, Hamburg-South America Line and North German Lloyd, traveling to North America, South America and the East African coast. From there, he later made expeditions into the interior of the continent to study medical rites and customs. Finally, in mid-1914, he took over a medical practice in Dietzenbach near Offenbach in Hesse. In later years, Morell sometimes mysteriously hinted that many of his treatment methods were based on his extensive experience as a ship's doctor in the tropics.

WWI

Since he had not previously served as a conscript, he was able to continue his medical practice after the war began in 1914 until 1915; only then was he drafted into the Landsturm (national military reserve) and served as a battalion doctor on the Western Front. He was also awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. Soon after, Morell fell ill with a kidney disease that developed into a chronic illness, which required him to spend months in military hospitals. However, he then served in officers' prisoner of war camps (Ohrdruff) until he was discharged from the military as unfit for service at the beginning of 1918 and given a pension, and returned to civilian life – initially in his former practice in Dietzenbach.

Between wars

However, he did not stay in Dietzenbach; he decided to set up a practice in Berlin. As early as October 1918, he began working as a doctor for urinary tract diseases and electrotherapy at Bayreuther Straße 7 and continued to work there until 1935, when he moved his practice to a better area at Kurfürstendamm 216. It remains undocumented whether he also practiced in Fasanenstraße in the meantime and whether he operated as a “specialist in skin and venereal diseases” at Kurfürstendamm.

Members of the Inter-Allied Commission were among his patients, as were nobles and wealthy Jewish businessmen. The attempt to run a sanatorium in the Baltic resort of Heringsdorf in 1925 failed. The house that had been bought specifically for this purpose had to be converted into a boarding house. Nevertheless, the 1920s were golden years for Theodor Morell too. The practice, which had now been extremely luxuriously equipped with his wife's considerable financial resources, received tempting offers: he was offered the position of court physician to the Shah of Persia and wanted to make him the private physician to the King of Romania. But Morell turned both down because he had decided to stay in Berlin.

By the beginning of the 1930s, Morell had become a celebrity doctor who could afford to treat only private patients. A prescription pad from 1932 shows the modern technical equipment in his practice: "X-rays, high frequency, diathermy, four-cell bath, radiation, etc." The Prussian Crown Prince gave him a portrait with a dedication, and celebrities such as Richard Tauber, boxsport legend Max Schmeling, Rosita Serrano, Martha Eggert and Hans Albers' partner, Hansi Burg, were in constant attendance in his waiting room. They were people from the stage and film, from sport, business and politics. Morell's assistant, Dr. Richard Weber, however, said of his patients in retrospect: "There were no critical, intellectually leading personalities among them."

Morell joined the NSDAP in April 1933. This and the relocation of the practice to Kurfürstendamm 216 in 1935 meant a leap upwards; income increased, and between 1934 and 1937 he was able to purchase two further large houses in the popular town of Bad Heringsdorf on the Baltic Sea and operate them as boarding houses. In May 1936, patients from the film industry introduced Morell to a new patient in Munich: the personal photographer and close friend of Hitler, Heinrich Hoffmann. Heini, as Hitler called him, was suffering from pyelonephritis. Morell, to whom Hitler provided a plane especially for his trip to Munich, hesitated at first, but then decided to agree. Just a few days after Morell arrived in Munich, patient Hoffmann was on the road to recovery. There were no complications. Morell stayed near his patient for four weeks and even accompanied him to Venice for a follow-up treatment. In this way, he gradually got to know Hoffmann's circle of acquaintances and friends, and thus also Hitler's inner circle.

It was also in the Hoffmann house in the upscale Munich district of Bogenhausen that Morell was introduced to Hitler during an evening party. Hitler was friendly towards him, clearly very relieved that his friend had been helped so quickly. Shortly before, Hitler's long-time driver Julius Schreck had died, as had Hoffmann, a companion from the turbulent 1920s in Munich. Perhaps Hitler had feared losing both friends at once and was therefore very happy that the worst had been averted. Years later, Morell's friend Aloys Becker remembered this first meeting between the two men: "Mr. Hitler was very taken with Mr. Morell and regretted that Schreck had not been treated by Morell." In the Hoffmann house, Morell also met Hitler's life partner Eva Braun, who had formerly been Hoffmann's assistant in the photo lab. During a joint visit to Bogenhausen, Morell pointed out a blonde young woman to his wife, who had meanwhile come to visit Munich: "You, that lady with the white-blonde hair, she is the Führer's girlfriend."

At Christmas 1936, the Morells were back in Munich with the Hoffmann family. On Christmas Day, they went to visit the Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden. They wanted to stay for a few days, so the Morells took up residence in the so-called Bechsteinhaus, from where they climbed up to Hitler's Berghof every day. "One day," recalled Mrs. Morell, "they were all bowling [nine-pin bowling] down on the bowling alley, including Mrs. Hoffmann; there was a stove with a stove bench, and I was sitting on it with my husband. Suddenly Hitler came and said: 'Morell, just a minute!' The two men strolled into the winter garden. Adjutant Albert Bormann and Dr. Karl Brandt came in; they had probably been alerted, as I then thought. They immediately rushed to the winter garden. Hitler then sent them straight back out again. And then he 'nailed down' my husband!" That evening, Dr. Theodor Morell became Adolf Hitler's personal physician (Leibarzt).

Hitler had described to Morell the problems with his stomach, which were causing him great distress because no doctor could provide him with relief. These complaints were probably caused by stress, at least that was what Morell had suggested in his notes: he linked various cases of painful stomach cramps to "great excitement". However, the acute reason why Hitler decided to try a new doctor at the end of 1936 was probably extremely unpleasant eczema. Years later, Hitler himself would describe it like this: "I already had eczema on both legs, so that I had to walk around with bandages all the time and couldn't put on boots." In his desperation, Hitler is said to have promised to give Morell a house if he could only make him well again. The very next day, Morell carried out a general examination of his new, prominent patient. When he had finished, he made a bold promise: "In a year, I will have you healthy again, my Führer!" With this, Morell had given his life a decisive turn. His wife was not exactly happy about it. She said excitedly to her husband: "We don't need that. We don't need to come here. We have our big practice in Berlin." But for Morell, the temptation was too great; he couldn't resist it. In Morell’s files, Hitler always appears as “Patient A.”

We know from Mrs. Morell's pocket diary that the couple stayed on the Obersalzberg with Albert Speer from 1 to 3 January 1937. It was probably during these days that Morell subjected Hitler to a thorough examination for the first time. Hitler suffered from stomach and intestinal disorders. He weighed about 70 kg and was 1.76 meters tall. Temperature, pulse and breathing were normal and remained within normal limits for about eight years. His blood type was A. Hitler's hairless chest was said to have been pale and of normal sensitivity to heat and cold as well as to sharp and blunt touches. Hitler had felt pain in the area of ​​his right kidney, but not in the area of ​​the bladder, prostate, testicles, epididymis and urethra. Morell claimed that during this examination he had not found any disturbance of the sphincter muscle in either the bladder or the rectum. There were no indications of a prostate disease or hemorrhoids, and Hitler's secondary sexual characteristics were basically normally developed. Apparently, Hitler showed no shame towards Morell. As early as 1938, Hitler had asked Morell to accompany him on his trips around Germany, which prompted him to employ a representative of his practice, initially the later well-known Dr. med. Wolfgang Wohlgemuth (gynecologist and surgeon; in WWII Luftwaffe staff doctor).

WWII

From the beginning of the campaign in France in 1940, Morell had to stay constantly in Hitler's immediate environment including his numerous trips to the various Führerhauptquartiere (Führerhauptquartier „Felsennest“ in 1940). Morell was older than most of those around Hitler. His letters provide numerous clues to his isolated position and the intense competition. Between 1941 and 1945, Morell prescribed at least 92 different medications and gave Hitler over 1,000 intravenous and intramuscular injections (mainly vitamins, but allegedly also opioids and steroids) to his satisfaction and partly at his request. No psychotropic drugs were used.[4]

When the war started, Morell was attached to Hitler’s HQ and accompanied him where the fuhrer was going. Whatmore, Morell turned out to be the person who spent most of the time with Hitler as he was deeply involved with his health issues. As Hitler became fully engaged with war operations, the health problems returned. Morell blamed those on too much stress, lack of physical activity, and unhealthy bowel flora. The way he saw it, Hitler’s heavy workload meant he was burning more energy than usual. The energy was to be replenished by injecting glucose, multivitamins, heart-and-liver extracts and hormones. Once the German war machine started to crumble, the stress increased and Hitler’s health deteriorated even more. For Morell, it was not a call to alter his therapy but to continue with it with stronger doses. Apart from treating the lack of energy with extra glucose, Morell also injected his patient with large quantities of Vitamulin, a mixture of vitamins and amphetamines.[5]

Battle of Berlin

One of the Führerbunker's telephones, as Rochus Misch described in his post-war book, was located in Hitler's private rooms, one was in Professor Morell's room, which was right next to the telephone exchange, and other devices were assigned to the servant Heinz Linge in his lounge and the guard room. From the telephone exchange you could get to four more rooms. This passage could be closed with a door, but this was usually open. First you came into an anteroom, on the left there was a table with four chairs. From the anteroom you could go straight into another room, where Professor Morell, later Joseph Goebbels, moved in. To the right you went into Linge's room and a somewhat larger doctor's and dressing room, where the most important medical utensils such as instruments and medicines were kept. Misch also wrote about 1945:

The last few months had not left Hitler unscathed. Every defeat, every setback, every imagined or actual betrayal in his closest circle had caused his now clearly visible physical decline to progress. He now walked clumsily, dragging one leg. His eyes often looked without a fixed point, his sense of balance seemed to be disturbed. Above all, his movements had slowed down extremely; all in all, he gave me the impression of an old man. His left hand was shaking noticeably, which I had not noticed before, as he continued to reach for dispatches with precision – but with his right. As in better times, when he was fighting against his poor eyesight, he fought against the visible signs of decline and hid his shaking hand as best he could. As far as his physical and mental state was concerned, he had always acted well anyway. Even those of us who were closest to him could only tell the general mood from the reactions and expressions of the other participants in the situation – Hitler rarely showed any signs of being upset. He wanted to continue to maintain the discipline he displayed, but he was increasingly unable to do so in view of his rapidly increasing physical ailments. In any case, Morell could no longer get it all under control, and on that evening of 21 April, he trudged past me, breathing heavily, with his suitcases packed. Hitler had dismissed him after nine years of service. Dr. med. habil. Ludwig Stumpfegger, one of Hitler's medical assistants, took care of him from then on.

Other sources state, Prof. Dr. med. Werner Haase took over for Morell, but that is untrue. During the last days of the Battle of Berlin in April 1945, he worked as a doctor in the emergency field hospital (Notlazarett) of the public bunker near the Reich Chancellery. On 29 April 1945, he was ordered to the Führerbunker to assist Ludwig Stumpfegger in poisoning Hitler's German Shepherd dog Blondi. This was considered a test for Hitler's suicide. He then returned to the public bunker and was captured by Red Army soldiers on 2 May 1945, along with dentist and Waffen-SS member Helmut Kunz, who had been involved in the death of the Goebbels children, and two nurses, Erna Flegel and Liselotte Chervinska. Am 2. Mai 1945 geriet Dr. Kunz im Lazarett unweit des Hotel Adlons gemeinsam mit Dr. Werner Haase und den beiden DRK-Schwestern Erna Flegel und Liselotte Chervinska in Kriegsgefangenschaft. On 6 May, he was among those selected by Soviet authorities to identify the bodies of Joseph Goebbels, his wife Magda Goebbels, and their six children. Haase died in Soviet captivity from the effects of tuberculosis.

Post-war and death

Dr. Morell escaped the Battle of Berlin on one of the last German flights out of the city on 23 April 1945 and spent some time in the hospital in Bad Reichenhall. On 17 July 1945, he was arrested at Munich Central Station. Morell was then held captive by the US in the Dachau internment camp. Although he was brutally interrogated because of his proximity to Hitler, Morell was never charged with any crimes. In July 1945, the Americans discovered valuable medicines worth 140,000 RM (equivalent to about 600,000 € in 2023) that Morell had hidden in Munich. The medicines were sold by the Bavarian Doctors' Association to the health insurance companies, with the proceeds going to charity. It was assumed that this would lead to a noticeable alleviation of the drug shortage in Bavaria, where the situation was particularly critical. On 30 June 1947, Morell was admitted to the Tegernsee District Hospital with aphasic speech disorders caused by a stroke. He died there a year later at the age of 61. He left his wife an estimated fortune of 1.9 million DM (equivalent to around 5.8 million euros in 2023).

Morell writes in his diary: "On Saturday the 21st, Hitler was vey depressed. He must have had an important meeting the evening before. I wanted to give him another injection but he grabbed my arm and lost his temper. He yelled he knew exactly that I was going to inject him with morphine." Morell protested but Hitler screamed, was out of control and threatened to have him executed. Morell fell down to Hitler’s feet but he yelled he should leave, exchange his uniform for civilian clothes and go back to his practice on the Kurfürstendamm. With Hitler’s words still ringing in his ears, Morell went to the airport. He flew back to Munich in a Focke Wulf Fw 200 Condor. Due to the tension and the flight (he hated flying) Morell was close to a heart attack. On arrival, he was taken to a clinic in Munich immediately. May 1st, 1945, he was transferred to a hospital in Bad Reichenall. Two days later, the area was captured by American troops. His wife visited him in hospital and found a crying, broken man. On May 18th, soldiers of the American 3rd army, looking for former SS officers, paid him a visit. A few weeks later, his condition deteriorated. On July 17th, 1945, he was formally arrested and transferred to the prison hospital in Bad Reichenall. He even ended up in the same cell as his rival Karl Brandt for a while. The Americans listened in on their conversations. Later on, Morell was transferred to the former Luftwaffe interrogation center in Oberursel. Subsequently he was transferred via Darmstadt to Kornwestheim, then to Ludwigsburg and in the end, in early 1946, to the American prison camp for civilians nr. 29, beter known as the former concentration camp Dachau. His health deteriorated further and in June 1946, he was admitted to the prison hospital in Dachau. He was partly paralysed on his right hand side. On October 12th, 1946, he was visited by a physician who had to determine if he was physically fit enough to testify in the so called Doctor’s Trial (NMT or National Military Tribunal). This proved not to be the case. Ultimately he became a burden to the Americans. Because of his bad health, the trial ended without his testimony. On June 20th , 1947, he was released from Dachau. He was given a release note (Nr. 52160) in which he was acquitted of war crimes. An old American army coat, a few American socks and an army shirt several sizes too small was all he received in the form of clothing. The Americans took him to Munich railway station and left him there. Two hours later he was found by Red Cross volunteers. The once so prominent man in his lavishly decorated uniform now lay helpless on a stretcher in a Red Cross station, his hair tousled, his face pale and mumbling to himself. The papers he was given in the prison hospital contained notes to the effect that he suffered from serious heart problems, that he was unable to work and suffered from an aphasic speech disorder as a result of brain damage. He was taken to a clinic and on June 30th, 1947, he was transferred for the last time to a clinic in Tegernsee. Morell did not leave this clinic alive. He died 11 months later, on May 26th, 1948, like a stray dog as his former assistant described it. His wife Johanna died on July 2nd, 1983, of heart failure at the age of 85.[6]

Family

Morell came from a Huguenot family on his father's side from Diex near Grenoble, whose branches were spread across Germany, Switzerland and Austria-Hungary His paternal family arrived in Friedrichsdorf in 1687. He was born in 1886 in Trais in Upper Hesse, before a sister, as the second son of the local elementary school teacher Karl Morell (b. 1857) and his wife Elise, née Häuser (1857–1933), who came from a well-off Hessian farming family of Frisian origin. His grandfather had already been a teacher in the same place, and his older brother would also remain in this city until his death in November 1944. Throughout his life, Morell was proud of his French-Upper Hessian origins.

Marriage

In August 1919 in Charlottenburg, Morell married Johanna "Hanni" Moeller (1898-1983), who was 12 years younger than him and apparently wealthy and business-savvy. The marriage with the actress remained childless, but Mrs. Morell, who later lived until her death in the Hamburg villa, which her husband had purchased in 1940, became his confidante in all his business matters, an advisor, critic and, above all, a supervisor in his pharmaceutical companies until the end of the war in the interests of both parties. After making her a partner in some of his companies in the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia in 1943, he gave her extensive powers of attorney in February 1945.

Wealth and properties

During the war years, Morell bought factories in Hamburg and in Olmütz in Moravia, where he produced, among other things, hormone preparations, vitamin concentrates and a lice powder. Morell was able to use his relationship with Hitler to sell his "Vitamultin" to the German Labor Front and his delousing product "Rußla powder" to the Wehrmacht. In addition to an annual salary of 60,000 Reichsmarks (ℛ︁ℳ︁), these business ventures earned Morell a fortune of about seven million Reichsmark.

Since the 1920s, Morell owned villa in the spa town of Heringsdorf on the Baltic Sea. On 28 March 1938, Morell bought a luxury villa on the outskirts of Berlin for 338,000 Reichsmarks on a 10,000 square meter lake plot at Inselstraße 24-26 on the island of Schwanenwerder, which lies at the outlet of the Great Wannsee in the Havel. Hitler had given them an interest-free loan of 200,000 Reichsmarks, which was offset two years later as a treatment fee. The doctor paid the rest out of his own pocket. In 1961, the Hamburg publisher Axel Springer bought the property.In 1940, he bought an exquisite lakefront house in Hamburg (at Bellevue 42, Außenalster). Towards the end of the war, he commissioned the construction of another villa in Berchtesgaden.

Since 1935, he had held a 50 percent stake in the Hamburg company Hamma GmbH, a subsidiary of the Nordmark-Werke. During the war, he became the sole owner of Hamma GmbH. Morell also sat on the supervisory boards of the pharmaceutical company Hageda in Berlin (preparation: "Mutaflor") and the company Chinoin in Budapest which manufactured a rather useless sulfonamide preparation called "Ultraseptyl". He had conducted negotiations with Walter Haupt, who had a connection to the Hungarian pharmaceutical industry, and Dr. Riesenberg, both owners of a pharmaceutical company in Berlin. He founded the company Walter Haupt and Co. This company bought an empty factory building in Kosolup near Mies in the Sudetenland, and Morell founded the Kosoluper Farbenfabrik GmbH. At the turn of the year 1939/39, Morell contacted the Nuremberg pharmaceutical company Johann Schmidt KG, for which he was already working as a research assistant.

"If only the chemical things would get off to a good start! [...] I'm already 54 years old. The houses in Heringsdorf are not profitable, Schwanenwerder is only sustainable with a constantly high income, so I either have to earn a lot in medicine (if my ability to work decreases) or get a solid pharmaceutical income. [...] He made no secret of his business acumen. This exposed him to the envy of many colleagues. A letter from the Führer's adjutant, Captain von Below, settled the question of medical treatment for the adjutant. Disappointed, Morell forwarded the letter to his wife: 'Enclosed is the letter from Below, who apparently spoke to Brückner. So I'm not getting any money for treatment from the escort command (de) and the adjutants.'"

Portrayal in the media

Morell has been portrayed by the following actors in film and television productions:

  • Derek Francis in the 1973 British television production The Death of Adolf Hitler.
  • John Sharp in the 1981 U.S. television production The Bunker.

Awards, decorations and honours (excerpt)

Honours

  • Title "Professor" personally from Hitler on 24 December 1938
  • Endowment of 100,000 RM (equivalent to 500,000 € in 2023) personally from Hitler in 1943
  • The first industrially manufactured and functioning electron microscope personally from Hitler in 1944
    • Towards the end of the war, a research institute was built for Morell in Bayerisch Gmain at a cost of 500,000 RM (2023 equivalent of about 2,300,000 €), in which the electron microscope was housed in a "special bunker".

Writings (excerpt)

  • Sechzehn Fälle von verschleppter Querlage und ihre Behandlung in der Universitäts-Frauen-Klinik zu München. Druck der Straßburger Neuesten Nachrichten, Straßburg 1913

Further reading

References

  1. David Irving: The Secret Diaries of Hitler’s Doctor
  2. Full name in the Charlottenburg marriage register 816/1919 of 7 August 1919
  3. Gerda was a personal secretary of Adolf Hitler and later (∞ 2 February 1943) the wife of Eckhard Christian.
  4. Morell, Theodor, deutsche-biographie.de
  5. Theodor Morell – Hitler's Personal Drug Dealer
  6. Theodor Morell, tracesofwar.com