Few names bring up a sense of revulsion and disgust quite like the moniker Adolf Hitler. Responsible for the most horrible war in history and a genocide that continues to reverberate to this day, he more than earned his place as one of history’s most inhuman monsters. However, it cannot be overstated, no matter what terrible things Hitler did, he was still just a man. Perhaps nothing supports this more than the case of Hitler’s farts.
From the time when he was a young man, Hitler suffered from gut issues which periodically wracked him with alternating crippling bouts of constipation, diarrhea, and uncontrollable farting. To make matters worse, the flatulence was reported to be of the type that can only be described as room clearing. As Hitler got older, his gut issues only got worse, a condition that was most likely related to the increasing stresses of his rising political career. Not being the type of person who trusted doctors, Hitler mostly self-treated himself with various over the counter and quack treatments. These attempts at self-care eventually culminated in him becoming a vegetarian, which had the positive side effect of reducing the stinkiness of the farts, but the negative of doubling the volume. He often fled the room after meals to avoid embarrassment. With his guts still wracked by terrible pain, Hitler finally gave in and decided that he needed to see a doctor. As Fuhrer, he had access to the finest medical minds in Germany. However, instead of using these doctors, Hitler went with the recommendation of his personal photographer, who couldn’t stop raving about some guy named Dr. Theodor Morell.
It’s probably easier to mention right out of the gate that Dr. Morell was most certainly a quack. While the man did have a medical degree, his practice didn’t treat real illnesses, instead focusing on handing out supplements to Germany’s rich and famous to treat whatever psychosomatic bullshit they felt they had that week. Being better with finances than medicine, Morell was also joint owner of a pharmaceutical company which produced bullshit medicine, the most popular of which was Mutaflor, a pill containing live bacteria cultured from the fecal matter of a simple Bulgarian peasant. Dr. Morell treated Hitler with a handful of vitamins, Mutaflor, and something called Dr. Koester’s Anti-Gas Pills. For whatever reason, the Fuhrer decided that this combination of random crap totally made him feel better, and as a result, he made Morell his personal physician.
The elevation of Dr. Morell was not popular amongst the Nazi inner circle, not just because he was a complete quack, but also because he had a habit of constantly belching and farting, not to mention the fact that the man pretty much never bathed. As time went on, Morell began prescribing heavier and heavier doses of his magic pills to Hitler, who for his part, took even more figuring that if a little was great than a lot would probably be awesome. While overdosing on any medication probably isn’t the best of ideas, in this case it most definitely wasn’t considering the fact that one of the ingredients of the anti-gas pills was strychnine. Though not enough to seriously affect his health, the significant dosage likely did little to help a body already weakened by the stresses of starting a fricking war. As Hitler’s ailments began to multiply, so too did the medications prescribed by Dr. Morell, which included injections of bull semen to help boost the Fuhrer’s flagging libido. By the time Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, it was estimated that Hitler was taking around 150 pills a week.
It shouldn’t really have to be pointed out that if you’re stressed out all the time and taking an insane amount of drugs, than you’re probably going to feel pretty god damn exhausted. This was certainly true for Hitler, which is probably why Dr. Morell began injecting him with methamphetamine. While originally just for the occasional boost, it quickly developed into Hitler getting at least 2 injections a day, which eventually turned into a 10 injection a day habit. The size of the doses grew too, doubling again and again. Things only got worse as the war dragged on. The high doses of meth began causing insomnia, which left Hitler exhausted, which he in turn treated with more meth. Eventually, Dr. Morell began having trouble finding fresh spots on Hitler’s arms to make injections.
Negative side effects began to appear fairly early on. Hitler increasingly began cycling through episodes of euphoria, irritability, paranoia, and impulsiveness; all signs of a toxic meth addiction. At times he would lose complete control of his emotions or become completely obsessed by some small mundane detail. The constant meth use also damaged his cardiovascular system, resulting in several strokes. Eventually, Hitler’s inner circle began to question his ability to make rational decisions, but by then it was too late, the Allies were already knocking on the door. By the time Hitler went into his bunker in Berlin, he was reported to have the physical appearance and mental faculties of a very old man. He was only 56 years old. Hitler never emerged from the bunker. As Soviet troops flooded into the German capital, he shot himself.
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