01x01 - Body Image

[bunniefuu]

(gentle music)

(people chanting)

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] Adolf Hitler believed

he possessed superhuman qualities.

In public, he claimed he'd
never been ill in his life.

- Hitler was a complete hypochondriac.

- [Narrator] But in private,

he was hiding a terrible secret

he had to keep covered
up for his entire life.

- As a member of the master Aryan race,

there was a strong bias
against congenital problems.

- [Narrator] By the time
the most destructive w*r

of the 20th century turned
against his aggressor,

he could no longer hide the illness

that was attacking his body.

- He drools, he can't keep his arms,

now what they were picking up

was of course the escalation
of his Parkinson's.

- [Narrator] And Hitler's
drug fueled madness

was taking its toll.

- He had become a drug addict,

Hitler just degenerated and
became this raving sick guy.

- [Narrator] This is the
truth behind the propaganda

and lies about the 20th
century's most hated man.

- In reality, Hitler became a human wreck.

(people shouting)

- [Narrator] Adolf
Hitler has been described

as a grotesque figure,

hollow chested with thin and
spindly legs, narrow shoulders,

flabby flesh and brown,
rotten teeth, a drug addict,

insane and delusional.

(speaking in foreign language)

But Adolf Hitler claimed to
be one of the hardest men

Germany had seen for decades,

equipped with the greatest
authority of any German leader.

And the Reich Propaganda Ministry

went to great lengths
to promote this myth.

- [Announcer] Significant.

- [Narrator] A leader who worked
tirelessly for his people,

a non-smoker and a vegetarian.

(dramatic music)

As with many aspects of
Hitler's public life,

his sex life, his family life,

his public image was an invention.

Heil Hitler, meaning healthy Hitler,

sound of body, sound of mind,

was a well worked propaganda message

to promote the power of the Führer.

- It was an important part of the cult

that the party created around Hitler

to portray him as
basically a health saint.

He was always shown and
presented as an abstinent person.

People knew that the Führer
doesn't drink alcohol.

He doesn't eat meat.

He walks with his dog every day.

He's in the clear mountain air.

- [Narrator] Hitler's
glorified public persona

belied his deep narcissism
and many ailments.

He complained of skin irritations,

stomach problems and expl*sive flatulence.

According to US military medical reports,

Hitler regularly took over 82
medications while in power.

When Hitler's physician,
Dr. Theodor Morell,

suggested he write up his medical history,

drug addled Hitler said
he'd never been ill,

so there was nothing to write about.

By the time the end came,

Hitler no longer had a clear understanding

of what was happening to him,

as a terminal illness
ravaged his failing body.

His drug addled brain

didn't seem to be able
to grasp the enormity

of what he and his n*zi party
had inflicted on the world.

(plane whirring)

On April the 30th, 1945,

as allied forces converged
on German cities,

in a bunker under the
chancellery in Berlin,

Hitler took his own life.

(dramatic music)

Days later, fragments of Hitler's body

were recovered by the Red Army.

Since Hitler's death,

vast resources have been poured

into the forensic examination
of what remains of Hitler.

Can forensic examination of
remnants of Hitler's skull,

medical notes, and personal accounts

help explain the evil of Adolf Hitler.

In 2017, Russian authorities
permitted a team of researchers

to examine what was left of Hitler.

Hitler's teeth indicated cyanide poisoning

and confirmed he was on a vegetarian diet.

Hitler was 56 when he
died and he had only five

of his own teeth left.

Over the years, historians and researchers

have analyzed Hitler's mental health.

An examination of Hitler's physical health

relies on accounts from his
inner circle, his physicians,

as well as the fragments
of his burnt body.

Apart from the discovery of rotten teeth,

Hitler may have been
predestined for poor health.

(gentle music)

Hitler's ancestral Homeland
was in lower Austria.

In this isolated region,
inter marriage was common

between peasant farmers
and their families.

Hitler's parents were second cousins.

So he came from a pool of genetic stock

that may have been weakened
by centuries of inbreeding.

Certainly that may have played out

in his mother Klara's life.

Her first three children did
not survive past infancy.

So there was great relief
when on April the 20th, 1889,

newborn Adolf survived.

Klara doted on Adolf, and
they formed a very close bond.

But as a boy, he was
prone to violent outbursts

and considered a lazy child.

A teacher at Hitler's secondary school

was not impressed by the young student,

recalling him as willful and arrogant,

unwilling to listen to advice

and demanding his fellow pupils

give him their unqualified subservience.

(dramatic music)

- I think this was
characteristic of Hitler

from a very early age

and it exemplified the fact

that he was totally self-centered,

totally obsessive, incapable
of having any opinion

that disagreed with him.

And he simply reacted in kind.

- [Narrator] At home at all
Adolf Hitler's father, Alois,

an alcoholic customs official,
was a*usive and violent.

He would explode into a
rage and attack his son,

and at times, his wife, Klara.

Hitler learned to be silent
through the beatings,

once telling his mother
that he didn't say a word,

even though he was whipped 32 times.

- So if you look at the
household Hitler grew up in,

it's really a classic model
of a dysfunctional house.

First of all, he had a
doting mother and secondly,

he had a distant, rigid
and punitive father.

So you've got the same
kind of scenario there

that you have with many serial K*llers.

They have an over bonded
relationship with their mother

and a much more distant
relationship with their father.

- [Narrator] On the 3rd of January, 1903,

Alois Hitler died of a heart
attack over his morning pint,

when Hitler was just 14 years old,

Four years later,
Hitler's mother Klara died

after a long and painful
battle with breast cancer.

Hitler was shattered.

He'd idolized his mother

and struggled to cope with her death.

- His mother gets cancer when he's 17

and he's absolutely devastated.

Edward, the Jewish family doctor

said he'd never seen anyone
as devastated at a funeral

as he saw Hitler there
when his mother died.

- [Narrator] With both parents gone,

Hitler joined his childhood
friend August Kubizek in Vienna.

Hitler's dream was to be an artist.

He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts,

but was rejected twice.

The knock backs devastated Hitler.

With very little money and
living in a men's hostel,

Kubizek observed Hitler's
mental health deteriorating.

He would choke over a catalog of hates,

railing against everyone
who didn't understand him

or appreciate him.

He felt he was being
persecuted and cheated.

His friend felt sure that
Hitler was becoming unbalanced.

- He was certainly shattered
when his mother died.

And I think he internalized this

into this just carrying on
with this loose lifestyle

and somewhere, trying to
think, what am I going to do?

'Cause I don't think
he really had any idea.

He really was drifting.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] And it seems,
Hitler's physical health

was about to be called into question too.

The First World w*r was
about to change Europe

and the Austro-Hungarian army
was calling for recruits.

When Hitler reported for
his medical examination,

he was rejected as unfit for combat.

This might have been the first indication

that something was wrong.

- Military medical boards are notorious

for being pretty tough.

They're not interested in excuses.

And there certainly are cases
where they've stamped people

with missing a leg as fit for combat duty.

Hitler was found unfit for
duty and there was vague talk

or he gave vague talk that it
was for respiratory reasons.

Now this is nonsense.

Hitler never had chest illness.

So my theory is the only other reason

they could have knocked him back

was they found the congenital defects,

and that's something they
didn't want in the army.

- [Narrator] Apparently the
standards in the German army

were not as high as in the
Austro-Hungarian military

and Hitler was accepted there.

Adolf Hitler enjoyed being a soldier,

but his colleagues found
him odd and peculiar.

- Hitler was a competent soldier.

He was a bit of a lone wolf.

We don't really know exactly

what his officers thought of him.

Occasionally in private conversations,

there's evidence that there
was something about Hitler

that didn't endear
himself to other people.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] One account from
a soldier in his regiment

claimed Hitler would suddenly jump up

and make loud speeches
attacking Jews and Marxists.

They gave him the nickname, Crazy Adolf,

but something else made Hitler
the topic of barracks gossip.

Hitler's close friend Ernst Hanfstaengl,

says that Hitler was the
victim of sexual bullying.

Old army comrades who
saw him in the washhouse

noted that his genitals were
almost freakishly undeveloped.

- Well, there were always rumors

about this and it started with the fact

that when he was out say
picnicking with these friends

and he'd go behind a tree to pee,

he could always see that
he leaked afterwards.

Whenever a doctor examined him,

he would never let them take his shirt off

or examine his abdomen or pelvic area.

So that sort of set up
the thought amongst people

who are looking at him,
there's something wrong there.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] And it seems there was.

A Soviet pathologist examining
Hitler's burnt remains

at the end of World w*r II

stated that one testicle
couldn't be found.

(keys tapping)

This report was later
challenged by some historians

as an attempt by the Russians

to portray Hitler as sexually deformed.

But it turns out they may
have been telling the truth.

Recently discovered documents

from Hitler's time in Landsberg Prison,

after a failed attempt to
overthrow the government,

point in the same direction.

Like the popular school boy song,

it seems Hitler did only have one ball.

- He went into Landsberg Prison

after the Bavarian Putsch,
and like any prisoner,

he was examined by the prison
doctor and the prison doctor

noted his weight, his height,

all the details, said he
was pretty healthy and fit,

but he was missing the right testicle.

The likely explanation is that he had

what we call spina bifida occulta.

It is strongly associated
with genital abnormalities.

So in Hitler's case,

he's got a missing testicle,
it's called cryptorchidism.

So he had right cryptorchidism,

which is a congenital defect
and he's got hypospadias,

and that is a hole at the
tip end of your p*nis,

which makes you leak.

Hitler's secret was now out.

But of course it lay there
almost like a non-smoking g*n,

until discovery of the Landsberg records.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Could such
a deformity go some way

in explaining Hitler's brutal regime.

American psychoanalyst, Dr.
Henry Murray believed so.

During the w*r, Murray
was involved in a covert

US operation to understand
Hitler's psychology.

He concluded that Hitler
dealt with his insecurities

about his genitals by
exhibiting brute strength,

ruthless domination

and military conquest
in the world at large.

- This can have considerable
effects on someone,

and certainly in Hitler's case,

he never was seen in a bathing costume.

He'd never let a doctor
examine his abdomen

or take off his shirt.

And it's highly likely

it would affect his attitude to intimacy.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] The contrast between Hitler

and the allied leaders could
not have been more stark.

Winston Churchill loved swimming.

And despite Franklin D
Roosevelt's severe disability,

he too was far less body conscious

than paranoid Adolf Hitler.

- But the biggest issue is
in Hitler's racial attitudes.

As a member of the master Aryan race,

there was a strong bias
against congenital problems

because that was carried
by so-called others,

Jews, gypsies, thieves, h*m*.

So this was a strong contradiction

to what he was putting out publicly

and must have led to a lot of ducking

and weaving on his part.

(whirring)

- [Narrator] Lance Corporal Hitler

was injured twice in combat,

at the Battle of the Somme in 1916,

when a shell exploded,
wounding his left thigh.

And two years later, in a
British mustard gas attack.

He was sent to a military hospital,

but while he was recovering,
Germany surrendered.

Hitler was broken.

Later, he would write of that
day with despair and anger

and ask whether it had all been in vain.

So a g*ng of wretched criminals

could lay hams on the father land.

- Hitler was shattered and this
started his train of thought

that led to, what am I gonna
do now that the w*r is over

and how do we get revenge
for our unfair loss?

- I think Hitler believe that
it had all been for nothing,

that Germany had been stabbed in the back

by those on the home front,
the civilians, the Marxists,

the Jews that didn't
understand what fighting

at the front was like,
what that sacrifice meant.

And he aimed to put that right.

- [Narrator] His outrage
at Germany's defeat,

along with his antisemitic,
anti communist beliefs

found a home in the beer halls of Munich,

where far right members

of the German Workers Party Gathered.

(upbeat music)

- The Germans felt that
they had lost a w*r.

They had lost economic power,
prestige and territory.

They wanted greater economic strength,

not to be reliant upon American loans.

They wanted greater job
security and they wanted

the prestige that they
felt was owing to Germany.

- [Narrator] By 1921, Hitler was chairman

of the newly formed n*zi party,

a party that saw the German
race as superior to all others.

It was a rapid rise to
power and a demonstration

of Hitler's early commanding authority.

- Hitler became leader of the n*zi party

through the force of his personality.

I think Hitler was super charged by it.

It gave him a reason for being

that perhaps he hadn't
had up until that point.

- [Narrator] By 1930,
with Hitler as leader,

the n*zi party was the second largest

political party in Germany.

And Hitler's brilliant oratory skills

were drawing huge crowds.

He was called a born natural orator,

who began slowly and then all
at once seemed to take fire,

as he railed against all the evils

he saw as the ruin of Germany,
particularly the Jews.

(audience cheering)

Eyewitnesses commented on how in person,

away from the public stage,

he was a peculiarly
insignificant and vacant figure.

Dorothy Thompson,

the head of the Berlin
Bureau at the New York Post

was definitely not impressed
when she met Hitler in 1931,

she called him formless, almost faceless.

He is the very prototype
of the little man.

- Everything in public was
the most crude way of saying,

I am powerful, I am big.

I am the ultimate weapon as a human being.

I think a good way of understanding it

is existentially, inside
Hitler there was nothing,

he was only something
when he projected out,

particularly with the speeches.

So take him away from that,
and he just about collapsed.

- [Narrator] The n*zi propaganda machine

wasn't relying on Hitler's looks

and physical bearing
to promote the Führer.

Instead, the Reich advanced Hitler

as a leader who worked
tirelessly for his country,

clean living, healthy vegetarian,

who avoided all stimulants
like alcohol, nicotine,

and coffee, but privately,

Hitler was suffering from
a number of ailments.

- Firstly, Hitler was a
complete hypochondriac,

there's no question about that.

When he became chancellor,

he developed all these minor problems,

skin rashes, bowel problems.

Remember, he was the
great farter of history,

headaches, those sort of things.

A lot of this came from
what you could call stress,

probably his diet, this kind of thing.

- [Narrator] No treatments
seemed to give Hitler any relief,

but all that changed in 1936,

when he met Dr. Theodor Morell,

the man who had put Hitler on
a path to certain destruction.

- Hitler and Morell for the first time

met in Munich in 1936,

they had a mutual friend,
his name is Hoffmann.

He was Hitler's photographer.

Hitler told Morell that he
has been suffering from pain

in his stomach, that his
doctors couldn't cure him.

And then Morell offered and
unorthodox way of treating him.

- [Narrator] According to
Morell, Hitler's stomach issues

were caused by a complete exhaustion

of the intestinal system.

He prescribed a treatment of vitamins

and probiotics and Hitler
immediately felt better.

That was the start of Hitler
and Dr. Morell's relationship.

And it would last until a few
days before Hitler's suicide

nine years later.

- Hitler now swears by Morell,
he will not go anywhere,

do anything without Morell.

What Hitler didn't know is that
Morell amidst other things,

gave him a yoga preparation
with the organisms

taken from the bowel
of a Bulgarian peasant.

If Hitler knew that,
he would've gone crazy.

So this is the basis on which Morell

formed his relationship with Hitler.

Morell really was a quack.

- [Narrator] Dr. Morell became
indispensable to Hitler.

And by 1937, he was appointed

one of Hitler's personal physicians.

Although he was the trained doctor,

hitler's generals were
suspicious of Morell.

Hitler's main physician, Carl Brant,

feared Hitler was in
danger of being poisoned

by Morell's prescribed c*ck
of hormones and vitamins.

But Hitler wouldn't hear a word

against the man who was
making him feel better.

He said he had the greatest
confidence in Morell

and would follow his
prescriptions to the letter.

- Morell gave Hitler
these daily injections.

He slept late, he slept
like till 11:00 AM.

It was normal for him to wake up,

roll up the sleeve of his pajamas

and get his first injection from Morell.

Then he thought, he's ready for the day.

These injections contained mostly vitamins

in the first four to five
years of the treatments.

So an early, you could say

psychological dependency developed.

He thought, if Morell is
close to me, I'm fine.

And this is actually how
it was in the beginning.

- [Narrator] Hitler's inner circle

was unnerved by Morell's
power over their leader.

General Heinz Guderian called Morell

a fat, unappetizing quack and Hermann G,

disparagingly referred to Morell

as the Reich syringe master.

(gentle music)

By 1943, with the tide of
w*r turning against him,

Hitler's health was declining,
as well as stomach cramps,

the Führer also suffered from headaches,

double vision, dizziness and tinnitus.

Hitler's secretary Traudl
Junge, reported that Hitler

had become very dependent on Morell.

She claimed the doctor would
turn up in person every day

to administer his usual
medical working injection,

and these started to contain
some very alarming substances.

- Morell was giving over
90 different medications,

about a dozen of them were heavy drugs.

Hitler's favorite drug was,

which is a euphoric making
opioid that is on the market

still today as oxycodone.

It actually created the opioid crisis

in America and in other countries,

and Hitler was getting this oxycodone

intravenously in very high dosages.

So the effect was extremely strong.

It's a much stronger effect
than your everyday junkie has

when he or she injects heroin for example.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] It's no wonder
Hitlers unsalable faith

in his physician prevailed, but Dr. Morell

was testing dozens of
unknown drugs on Hitler,

including extractions from the intestines

of male animals and amphetamines.

Hitler's girlfriend, Eva Braun,

also took advantage of Dr.
Morell's endless supply of drugs.

Morell told Hitler's
personal secretary, Christa,

he was giving him hormone
injections from bulls testicles,

claiming, that should pep him up.

(dramatic music)

With so many drugs in his system,

Hitler's failing libido
was obviously a problem.

Hitler's armament minister, Albert Speer,

questioned Dr. Morell's methods
and influence on the Führer.

He commented that the
injections had to be given

more and more frequently.

Hitler was under Dr. Morell's spell

and completely convinced of
his personal physician's genius

and forbade any criticism of the man.

What Speer was describing
was a classic relationship

between a junkie and his dealer.

- There's no doubt that
throughout his time in office,

Hitler had bouts of great
sickness, maybe of depression.

And so he became increasingly
reliant upon Morell,

his advice and his drugs,

and it was a bit of a vicious circle.

- [Narrator] By 1943, Dr.
Morell was giving the Führer

the addictive drug, as
well as high grade cocaine,

injecting him several times a day.

It's incredible to realize that Hitler

was making decisions every day

that directly affected the lives

of tens of thousands of his own soldiers,

all while he was constantly high on drugs.

- Hitler became a human wreck

from 1943 on because all those medicines

that Morell gave him, late in the w*r,

started to show their side effects.

So he started trembling,
his skin was yellow.

He was losing his train of thought.

He was not fit anymore at all.

- [Narrator] Did Morell turn
Hitler into a drug addict,

or was he simply powerless to resist

the Führer's drug addled demands?

- British intelligence
actually stop their plan

to assassinate Hitler.

They realize that actually
Morell is doing their job.

Anyone high on drugs is not that much

in contact with reality.

And if you are the leader in the w*r,

you have to be very much
in contact with reality.

You cannot live in a dream world.

This ultimately has to
lead to terrible decisions.

So they were quite happy

with a degenerating Hitler still in power.

- [Narrator] Hitler began showing signs

of a serious medical condition.

His left hand would often shake.

Dr. Theodor Morell
noticed this peculiarity

in 1941 and diagnosed it as
a stress related condition.

- Hitler appeared perfectly healthy

to people around him and of
course the German public,

but from 1942,

it became very obvious
to people, to Goebbels,

to Guderian and other people
have all listed comments

that suddenly, he's a very old man.

He looks overwhelmed,
he shuffles, he drools.

He can't keep his arms still.

- [Narrator] His deteriorating
health was a secret

Hitler could no longer hide.

He was suffering from Parkinson's disease,

a degenerative neurological
disorder with no cure.

- Now what they were
picking up was of course,

the escalation of his Parkinson's.

And that explains a couple of other things

about his behavior.

In the past, he'd always
been meticulously neat.

As the Parkinson's went on,
you could see he had food

sort of dripping down on
the front of his shirt.

And it got to the stage
that he couldn't sit down

in a chair, he needed
pushed underneath him.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] Did Hitler's
Parkinson's disease

affect his decision making abilities

and influence the outcomes of the w*r?

Neurologists suggest as much,

questioning the reckless
choices Hitler made

as his Parkinson's disease took hold.

- [Person] The Russian
settled upon a strategy

that was to pay off handsomely
for them, realizing.

- [Narrator] Like
Hitler's steadfast refusal

to allow Paulus to
surrender at Stalingrad,

in the face of overwhelming
odds in January, 1943.

- [Person] Followed, blindly.

And so doing, stretched their supply lines

to the snapping point.

- [Narrator] Or his 1944
failure to defend Normandy,

or consider tactical retreats
on the Eastern front,

condemning millions of
his own troops to death.

It's also likely his worsening drug habit

left him unable to make
clearheaded decisions.

- So Hitler really used very strong drugs

in regular intervals.

His drug intake became completely mad.

You could say because
he was using cocaine,

which is a strong upper,
and then getting oxycodone,

which as an opioid is
always kind of a downer.

So he had this what in street language

is called speedball effect.

- By the 20th of July, 1944,

the tide of w*r had turned against Germany

and a plot to assassinate
the dictator was underway.

At a meeting, inside Hitler's Wolf's Lair

headquarters in Poland, n*zi officer,

lieutenant Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg

placed a briefcase with a b*mb

underneath the conference
table, close to the Führer.

When it exploded, the
table leg protected Hitler

from the worst of the blast,

four people were k*lled and 13 injured.

Morell rushed to the scene of the bombing

to attend to Hitler and
began removing splinters

of glass and wood from his body.

Hitler was scheduled
to meet with Mussolini

later that evening

and convinced the doctor
to give him something

to get him through.

His injuries would've been very painful,

but Morell dosed him up on
one of the strongest opioids,

and Hitler was ready to
meet the Italian leader.

- Well, Mussolini got out of
the train at the Wolf's Lair,

was obviously informed

that there had been an
assassination attempt.

Hitler was standing at the
platform, high on the opioid.

So he didn't feel any pain.

And Mussolini said, this is a miracle.

You are superhuman.

You can already greet me
and have meetings with me,

even though you've nearly
been k*lled a few hours ago.

- We know that there were at
least 42 assassination attempts

on Hitler between the 1930s
and the end of the w*r.

Hitler knew about many of
the assassination attempts.

The fact that he survived
them reinforced his view

that he was sort of a
Superman that had been chosen

to lead Germany in this
struggle for survival

and that nothing could do him in

and that these merely
confirmed his greatness.

- [Narrator] Hitler was very lucky

to survive this attempt on his life,

but his delusion that he was
protected by some higher power,

along with his accelerating
drug use, was taking its toll.

(dramatic music)

Hitler's capacity was
failing on all fronts.

Germany was losing the w*r.

Over a month before the
assassination attempt,

150,000 allied troops stormed
the beaches of Normandy,

overwhelming the German army.

(gentle music)

Six months later, the Red Army

encountered their first horrific evidence

of the true nature of n*zi excesses,

when liberating Auschwitz
concentration camp.

At the same time, the Americans
launched Operation Cobra,

a surprise offensive and a key milestone

in the liberation of France and Germany.

Despite these heavy military losses,

Hitler was obsessed with seeking revenge

for the attempted assassination.

- [Person 2] Adolf Hitler,
who had survived a b*mb

planted by one of his own officers.

- [Narrator] In his paranoid
state, he told his generals

that he would exterminate
this nest of vipers

once and for all, and he did it.

It is estimated that almost
5,000 Germans were ex*cuted

after the July assassination
attempt on Hitler's life.

The officers behind the plot

were hung with piano wire from meat hooks.

Their executions were
filmed and later shown

to senior members of the
Nazis and the armed forces.

at the n*zi military briefings

that followed this mass execution,

Hitler was chirpy and optimistic.

It appeared he still believed
Germany would be victorious,

but it seems it may have
been the regular injections

of opioids, methamphetamine, and cocaine

that were giving Hitler
a delusional confidence

in the face of certain defeat.

- After the assassination attempt,

Hitler's drug use skyrocketed.

He used euphoric making opioids

every other day to boost his morale.

He used cocaine a lot, over 50 times

from early August till September, 1944.

So after the assassination attempt,

there's no more sober day
for the so-called Führer.

- [Person 3] And a new ally

came to the aid of a Soviet forces.

- [Narrator] By the spring of 1945,

the Red Army was closing in on Berlin,

a gray haired 55 year old Hitler

moved into the Führer bunker in January.

And he insisted Morell come with him.

- The bunker was quite small actually.

The only people that had
bedrooms in the bunker

were Hitler and Morell.

So their relationship
was still very intimate,

but that changed over the
course of those bunker months.

And this probably changed

because Morell didn't
have the drugs anymore.

- [Narrator] The British had
bombed the pharmaceutical plant

responsible for making,
and it was getting harder

and harder to find the
drugs Hitler craved.

By 1945, Hitler had no opiates,

no cocaine and no methamphetamine.

- There's a note in Morell's diary

where he writes that two of his helpers

are driving on motorcycles
through bombed out Berlin

from pharmacy to pharmacy,

trying to find the drugs for Hitler,

but even the pharmacies
didn't have drugs anymore.

- [Narrator] Hitler would've been sick

and suffering severe drug withdrawals.

- He had become a drug addict

and and didn't have the
drugs anymore that he needed.

That was a very real physical problem,

which led to terrible withdrawal symptoms.

Hitler just degenerated

and became this raving sick
guy who was just in pain

all the time and just not
functioning at all anymore.

- [Narrator] A few days
before Hitler died,

he told Morell to leave the bunker.

- One mistake a dealer should never make

is to make his client
dependent on a substance

and suddenly not be able to
supply the substance anymore.

Hitler fired Morell in late April, 1945.

He said to Morell, get out of the bunker,

I don't wanna see you anymore.

You've been turning me into an addict,

so Hitler seemed to have realized by then

what had been happening to him.

- [Narrator] On the 20th of
April, Morell left the bunker,

taking one of the last planes

out of a completely destroyed Berlin.

The head of the German
state was a spent force.

- And we can see in
those weeks in the bunker

how he self destructs,

he becomes very aggressive
against everyone around him.

And he also starts destroying himself

by becoming self a*usive,

picking his own skin with tweezers.

He just becomes a very unhappy,
unhealthy, horrible person.

Maybe that's the true
Hitler that he always was.

Now it really comes out.

(sirens whirring)

- [Narrator] On the 28th of April, 1945,

Hitler married Eva Braun in the bunker.

Two days later, Eva took her own life

by swallowing a cyanide pill

and Hitler was right beside her.

He wanted to make sure he was
successful in his own death.

He swallowed a cyanide capsule

and then shot himself in the head.

It was the final predictable
act of a twisted mind.

- Hitler was the greatest
narcissist in history.

Death comes as a part of
every act that he plans.

I will k*ll people who get in my way

and I will eventually k*ll myself

to show the world what they've lost.

It's another indication of
his absolute self-belief.

The world must come to me, otherwise I go.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] 75 years after his death,

Hitler's health is still scrutinized.

Fragments of his chard
body have been studied

and rest restarted by scientists

hopeful they might find a gateway

into understanding the
destructive force of Hitler.

Pathologists, using pioneering
profiling techniques

have tried to understand
Hitler's intensity.

Geneticists have looked
into Hitler's heritage

for clue to his perversity,

doctors have poured over
Hitler's medical records.

Some shed light on his health,

but are not a window into his mind.

We may never have the tools
to understand Hitler's evil,

but what Hitler does confirm

is that evil can exist in humankind.

(upbeat music)