Operation Valkyrie and Its Pharmacological Consequences
When Hitler pointed out that Mussolini was coming for an important state visit in two hours, Morell took out his tools and injected "x" again. That it was just glucose and not an effective painkiller seems hardly likely. Patient A had dozens of splinters in his body, and these now had to be removed individually—a painful procedure. But Hitler wasn't bothered. His two burst eardrums were bleeding, but even that didn't trouble him, and he impressed everyone with his apparent courage.On the medical file for Patient A, Morell recorded that Hitler hadn't been agitated in the slightest. His pulse was normal, as always. Nonetheless the physician recommended that he stay in bed. But Hitler, full of beans from his injection, was already standing in freshly polished boots and announced that it was ridiculous for a healthy man to receive guests in bed. Wrapped in a bulging black cloak, he went to the Wolf's Lair railway station and waited impatiently for Mussolini, who said, dumbfounded by Hitler's apparent physical integrity: "That was a sign from heaven!"In reality Hitler had been more severely affected than it at first appeared. He had lost his hearing almost entirely, and he began to have severe pains in his arms and legs as the effects of "x" abated in the evening. Blood was still flowing uninterruptedly from both ears. Psychologically the attack had devastating consequences. In the traditional day-on/day-off rhythm, Patient A now received his "x" against the pain and the shock to his nerves. In this critical phase after the attempted coup, he couldn't afford to miss a dose. However, the presentation of Hitler as an invincible, even invulnerable hero didn't always work. When he welcomed a group of army officers a week later, their excited cries of "Heil Hitler!" died away when they laid eyes on him as he entered the room. All of a sudden the gap between the fiction of the führer and the real-life Hitler was all too apparent.On the medical file for Patient A, Morell recorded that Hitler hadn't been agitated in the slightest. In reality, Hitler had been more severely affected.
At Last, Cocaine!
In a neurological respect, the specialist diagnosed the patient as normal: no hallucinations, no incontinence, functioning memory, and sense of time and space. "Emotionally unstable, however—either love or hate. Constant flux of thoughts, his statements always relevant… the führer's psychological condition is very complex."The face was pale, slightly swollen, and there were large bags under both bloodshot eyes. The eyes did not make the fascinating impression so often ascribed to them in the press. I was particularly struck by the wrinkles from either side of the nose to the outer corner of the mouth, and by the dry, slightly cracked lips. His hair was already clearly mixed with gray and rather unkempt. The face was well shaven, but with somewhat withered skin, which I attributed to fatigue. The speech was unnaturally loud and tended toward a shout, and later became somewhat hoarse… An aged, almost depleted, and exhausted man, who had to make do with what was left of his strength.
Morell comes in, distinctly short of breath and panting. He shakes only Hitler's hand and asks agitatedly whether anything in particular happened during the night. Hitler says no. He slept well, and even digested the previous night's salad without any difficulty. Then, with the help of Linge, he takes off his coat, sits back down in his armchair, and pulls up his left sleeve. Morell gives Hitler the injections. He pulls the needle out again and wipes the puncture site with a handkerchief. Then he leaves the room and goes into the office, holding in his right hand the used syringe and in the left empty ampoules, one large and two small. He goes with the ampoules and a syringe into the adjacent orderlies' bathroom, rinses the syringe out himself, and destroys the empty ampoules by throwing them into the toilet. Then he washes his hands, comes back into the office, and says goodbye to everyone present.
Again, Hitler's biographers have barely noticed this obvious application of drugs, even though it is worth mentioning because of its strong euphorigenic potential for the critical phase after the assassination attempt. The procedure went like this: In the morning, assistant surgeon Karl Brandt brought his colleague Giesing to a tent behind the guest bunker, where they went through the strict security measures in place since July 20. Giesing's bags were emptied, every instrument was examined; even the lightbulbs of the otoscope were taken out and screwed back in again. Giesing had to hand over his uniform cap and his dagger, empty out the contents of his trouser and jacket pockets on to the table, and turn out his pockets. He got only his handkerchief and keys back, and his fountain pen and pencil were returned afterward. He was frisked from top to bottom. Cocaine was left out of these rigid controls; it was already inside. Now Linge, the valet, went into action, taking the bottle out of the drugs cabinet in the orderly room and inviting Giesing to make his examination."Please don't turn me into a cocaine addict," Hitler said to his new favorite doctor, to which Giesing replied, reassuringly, "A real cocaine addict snorts dry cocaine."
Those headaches had probably also been caused by the constant crashing and screeching that had been putting the nerves of the residents of the innermost restricted zone of the Wolf's Lair on edge for the last few days: The construction unit's jackhammers and heavy machinery were hastily erecting a new, even more strongly reinforced Führerbunker. Patient A could only bear the noise while on cocaine, and the restorative drug made him feel as if he wasn't ill at all: "Now my mind is freed again, and I feel very well." But one concern preyed on his mind: "Please don't turn me into a cocaine addict," he said to his new favorite doctor, to which Giesing replied, reassuringly, "A real cocaine addict snorts dry cocaine." Hitler was heartened: "I don't intend to become a cocaine addict."So the führer had his nose swabbed and went to the military briefing full of artificial confidence. The matter was clear as far as he was concerned: The war against the Russians would somehow be won. When he received another dose from Giesing on September 16, 1944, he had a very special brainstorm: one of those feared, pseudo-genius führer ideas. He told his baffled entourage that despite their vast inferiority in terms of men and materials, he wanted to go back on the offensive on the Western Front. Immediately, he formulated an order demanding "fanatical determination from all soldiers fit for duty." Although everyone advised him against the hopeless enterprise of a second Ardennes offensive, the dictator refused to be deterred: Victory would be his!In consequence, Giesing started to feel unsettled by Hitler's affinity for cocaine—which erases all feelings of self-doubt and encourages megalomania—and he wanted to stop administering the potent swabs. But Hitler wouldn't let him: "No, doctor, continue as before. This morning I have a terrible throbbing head that probably comes from the sniffing; concern for the future and the continued existence of Germany are consuming me more and more with each passing day." Still, Giesing's medical scruples outweighed his duty to obey, and he refused Hitler the drug. Defiantly, the supreme commander didn't appear at the military briefing that day, September 26, 1944, but announced huffily that he was no longer interested in the situation in the East, where the whole front threatened to collapse. Intimidated, Giesing came round and promised cocaine, but in return he demanded a full checkup of Hitler. Patient A, who had previously always forbidden such an examination, consented, and on October 1, 1944, he even appeared naked, as he had otherwise generally refused to do, solely to wheedle for himself some of that coveted blow: "Look in my nose again and put that cocaine thing in to get rid of the pressure in my head. I have important things to do today."Giesing obeyed and administered the drug, this time in such a dose that Hitler is believed to have lost consciousness and for a short time there is supposed to have been a danger of respiratory paralysis. If the account given by Giesing is accurate, then the self-described abstainer almost died of an overdose.Excerpted from Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in March 2017. Used by permission.Follow Norman Ohler on Twitter."Look in my nose again and put that cocaine thing in to get rid of the pressure in my head. I have important things to do today."