Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

suppression, finally accomplished by the end of October, of a rising, undertaken in the main by Soviet-inspired indigenous partisans alongside a sizeable minority of the 60,000-strong army, in the puppet state of Slovakia.¹⁹⁶ Most important of all, from Hitler’s point of view, in the gathering mayhem in south- eastern Europe Hungary, his chief ally, but long wavering, had immediately following the volte-face in Romania begun urgent soundings for peace with the Soviet Union. The consequences would soon be felt with the German takeover of the country in mid-October.¹⁹⁷

In these same critical weeks, Hitler was also losing a vital ally in northern Europe. The danger signals about Finland’s position had been flashing brightly for months. The grave setbacks on the north of the German eastern front in the summer boosted the growing feeling in Finland that the country must extricate itself from its German alliance, and from the war. State President Risto Ryti resigned on 1 August and was replaced by the veteran war hero Marshal Carl Gustaf von Mannerheim. It was clear to the Nazi leadership that the next step for Mannerheim would be to seek an armistice with the Soviet Union.¹⁹⁸ It was to no avail that Hitler dispatched Colonel-General Ferdinand Schorner to Finland on 3 August in an attempt to stiffen Mannerheim’s resolve; nor that Keitel was sent later in the month to Helsinki to bestow the Oak-Leaves to the Marshal’s Knight’s Cross.¹⁹⁹ On 2 September, Mannerheim informed Hitler that Finland was unable to continue the struggle. Relations were to be broken off immediately. German troops were to leave the country by 15 September. On 19 September, Finland signed an armistice with the Soviet Union.²⁰⁰

In these same momentous months, throughout the whole of August and September, the German leadership was also faced with suppressing the dangerous rising taking place in Warsaw. The rising had begun on 1 August, two days after tanks of the Red Army had pushed into the suburbs of Warsaw on the east of the Vistula and Soviet radio had encouraged the inhabitants of the city to rise against their occupiers. General Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski, head of the Polish underground army (around 25,000 strong) presumed the Red Army was poised to enter Warsaw, and wanted, with an eye on the future, to have the capital city liberated by Poles — and by Poles representing the exiled government based in London, not the ‘Polish Committee for National Liberation’ that Stalin had set up in Lublin. The uprising was not well planned. The Poles were aware that they could reckon with little help from the western powers. But they were unprepared to be left in the lurch by the Soviet Union. However, the Red Army halted at the Vistula and did not enter the city while Stalin — cynically conscious of containing hopes of Polish independence in a post-war order — neither aided the Poles nor, until it was too late, facilitated attempts by the British and Americans to supply the insurgents with weapons and munition.²⁰¹

Unaware of Stalin’s cynical ploy, the German Chief of Staff Guderian, fearing cooperation between the insurgents and the Red Army, asked Hitler to include Warsaw — still under the aegis of Hans Frank as Governor General — in the military zone of operations and place it thereby under Wehrmacht control.²⁰² Hitler refused. Instead, he handed over full responsibility for the crushing of the rising to SS chief Himmler. As soon as he had heard of the rising, Himmler had hastened to see Hitler. Himmler spoke shortly afterwards of how he had put the news of the rising to Hitler: ‘I said, “Mein Fuhrer, the time is disagreeable. Seen historically [however] it is a blessing that the Poles are doing it. We’ll get through the five, six weeks. But by then Warsaw, the capital, the head, the intelligence of this former 16–17 million Polish people will be extinguished — this people that has blocked the east for us for 700 years and has always stood in our way ever since the first battle of Tannenberg. Then the Polish problem will historically no longer be a big problem for our children and for all who come after us, nor indeed for us.”’²⁰³

Himmler now ordered the total destruction of Warsaw,²⁰⁴ putting in SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, formerly involved in massacres of Jews in Russia and subsequently in charge of combating partisans on the eastern front, to suppress the rising with all the ruthlessness he needed. Over the next weeks, Bach directed a ferocious onslaught on the Polish insurgents, using as his spearhead the notoriously brutal Kaminski and Dirlewanger Brigades — SS units of around 6,000 men comprised in the former case of Russian ex- prisoners-of-war, many of them rabidly anti-Polish, in the latter of criminals and desperadoes drawn from the concentration camps.²⁰⁵ Wild orgies of atrocities predictably followed as men, women, and children were slaughtered in their thousands while Warsaw burned. By the time General Bor surrendered on 2 October, the savage repression had left Polish civilian victims numbering around 200,000. German losses amounted to some 26,000 men killed, wounded, or missing.²⁰⁶ On 11 October, Hans Frank received notification that all raw materials, textiles, and furniture left in Warsaw were to be removed before the smouldering remains of the city were razed to the ground.²⁰⁷

V

As the news from all parts of his empire turned from appalling to disastrous, Hitler fell ill. On 8 September, he complained to Morell, his doctor, of pressure around his right eye. In his notes, Morell indicated blood-pressure. Six days later, he recorded fluctuating blood-pressure ‘following great agitation (Aufregung)’. Next day, 15 September, Morell noted: ‘Complains of dizziness, throbbing head, and return of the tremor to his legs, particularly the left, and hands.’ His left ankle was swollen. Again, ‘much agitation (viel Aufregungen)’ was registered by Morell.²⁰⁸ The systolic blood- pressure, at 150mm, was not unduly high, though higher than it had been at the start of the month. In accordance with contemporary practice, Morell was less concerned with Hitler’s diastolic blood-pressure, which he relatively seldom took. When he did, it was regularly too high, sometimes worryingly so.²⁰⁹ It was an indication that Hitler had a cardiac problem, and an electrocardiogram on 24 September did indicate progressive arteriosclerosis (though no acute anginal danger).²¹⁰

During the night before his cardiogram, Hitler’s acute stomach spasms returned — as Morell indicated ‘after great agitation’ (probably in connection with the Allied airborne landing in Arnhem and Hitler’s fury at the inadequacy of the Luftwaffe).²¹¹ They were so bad the following night that Hitler was unable to get up in the morning — an extremely rare occurrence — and seemed unusually apathetic.²¹² By 27 September, Morell pointed out to Hitler that his skin had a yellowish appearance — something Dr Giesing had noticed a few days earlier. Hitler refused to let Morell examine him.²¹³ But by now he was quite ill. The jaundice, accompanied by high temperature and severe stomach cramps, kept him in bed during the following days. It was 2 October, the day that Hitler was told of the death (following the injuries suffered in the bomb blast on 20 July) of his favourite adjutant, Rudolf Schmundt, that the yellow skin-colouring finally disappeared and Hitler felt well enough to get out of bed, dress himself, and make his way to the first situation briefing since he had fallen ill. He still seemed lifeless, however, to those in his company. It was the middle of the month before he felt himself again. By then, after eating little during his illness (when he was confined to a diet largely comprising mashed potatoes, oatmeal soup, and stewed fruit), he had lost sixteen pounds in weight.²¹⁴

While Hitler was suffering from jaundice, Dr Giesing, the ear, nose, and throat specialist who had been brought in to treat him after Stauffenberg’s bomb had exploded, began to be suspicious about Morell’s treatment. He started to wonder whether the little black tablets that Hitler took each day on Morell’s prescription, ‘Dr Koester’s Anti-Gas Pills’, were in fact a contributory cause of the dictator’s chronic stomach complaint rather than a satisfactory medicine for it. Whatever his concern for Hitler, Giesing’s own ambitions to oust and displace Morell probably played a part in what he did next. He managed to lay hands on a number of the pills, had them analysed, and discovered that they contained strychnine. Giesing dosed himself with the pills and found they had mildly harmful effects — effects he associated with those on Hitler. Giesing made mention of his findings, and his suspicions, to Hitler’s other attendant doctors, Dr Karl Brandt and Dr Hanskarl von Hasselbach, who passed on the sentiments to others in Hitler’s entourage. When Hitler found out, he was furious. He announced his complete faith in Morell, and dismissed Brandt and Hasselbach, who had both been with him since the early years of his rule. Giesing, too, was requested to leave Hitler’s service. Their replacement was one of Himmler’s former staff doctors, SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Ludwig Stumpfegger.²¹⁵

Morell’s diagnoses and methods of treatment were indeed often questionable. Many of the innumerable tablets, medicines, and injections he prescribed for Hitler — which his valet Heinz Linge provided on demand from the medical chest that was always ready at hand²¹⁶ — were of dubious value, often useless, and in some instances even exacerbating the problem (particularly relating to the chronic intestinal disorder). But allegations that Morell was intentionally harming Hitler were misplaced. The fat, unctuously perspiring Morell was