March 19, 2024
Living with Disease and Disability

Adolf Hitler had Parkinson’s Disease?

  • June 24, 2013
  • 3 min read
  • 1238 Views
Adolf Hitler had Parkinson’s Disease?

Adolf Hitler, (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945 born in Braunau am Inn, Austria,) was the most well-known German Dictator, who became the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party . He was soon appointed as the Chancellor of Germany in 1933. He is said to have suffered from Parkinsonism and Syphillis, the evidence being weak in favor of these disease. However media and many people have claimed that Hitler , the once deadly feared Fuhrer of Germany had Parkinsonism and several medical conditions.

Adolf hitler
  • irritable bowel syndrome,
  • skin lesions,
  • irregular heartbeat,
  • Parkinson’s disease,
  • syphilis,
  • and a strongly suggested addiction to methamphetamine.

Newsreels of Hitler show he had tremors in his hand and a shuffling walk (also a symptom of tertiary syphilis) which began before the war and continued to worsen until the end of his life. Apparently, a scholar found some little known footage of Hitler with his left hand trembling in a way characteristic of Parkinson’s.  Further analysis of footage revealed that before he was about 43, he usually used both hands to gesticulate, buf after that, the left hand was kept down and controlled during all public performances.  In those days, there were no useful drugs available and so he would have known he was going to die.

SOme historians feel this may have contributed to Hitler’s rush to attack Russia and then as the disease progressed it could account for some of his later bad military decisions.   Of course his addiction to amphetamines and intake of other weird drugs given to him might also have contributed.   It is suspected he was probably physically near death anyway by the time he commited suicide.

Hitler was treated by his personal physician, Dr Theo Morrell. Theo Morell was well known in Germany for his unconventional, holistic and alternative treatments. Dr Morell kept very detailed diaries of his treatment of Hitler’s Parkinson’s Disease.Morell treated Hitler with a drug agent that was commonly used in 1945, although Morell is viewed as an unreliable doctor by most historians and any diagnoses he may have made are subject to doubt.

A more reliable doctor, Ernst-Günther Schenck, who worked at an emergency casualty station in the Reich Chancellery during April 1945, also claimed Hitler might have Parkinson’s disease. However, Schenck only saw Hitler briefly on two occasions and, by his own admission, was extremely exhausted and dazed during these meetings.

One of the Abstract says “Adolf Hitler had Parkinson symptoms in 1934, at age 45 years. He may have had transient symptoms in 1923, at age 34 years. Young-onset parkinsonism, during the 1920s, favored a diagnosis of post-encephalitic rather than idiopathic parkinsonism. Hitler had oculogyric crises, phenomena only associated with post-encephalitic parkinsonism. In addition, he had dystonic facial spasms, palilalia and a sleep disorder, phenomena more likely to be associated with post-encephalitic than idiopathic parkinsonism. In November 1918, at age 29 years, Hitler may have had von Economo’s encephalitis, while he was a patient in a hospital, recovering from poison gas”

Another media claims “Hitler had Parkinson’s disease which gave him a significant tremor in his left hand which was censored in the German media.”

WHAT IS PARKINSON’s DISEASE?

About Author

Editor