The Murder of Adolf Hitler:

The Murder of Adolf Hitler:
The Truth About the Bodies in the Berlin Bunker

W. Hugh Thomas

Rejecting historians' consensus that Hitler and his mistress, Eva Braun, committed suicide in the Nazi underground bunker as Allied forces took Berlin, British surgeon and forensic expert Thomas (The Murder of Rudolf Hess) asserts that the two partially charred corpses found by Soviet troops were actually those of a Hitler Doppelgänger and a substitute for Braun, wearing one of her dresses. In his scenario, Hitler was strangled by Heinz Linge, his valet, rather than allow a degenerate, raving Führer to fall into Soviet clutches, and that Eva Braun was allowed to escape.

As Thomas paints the scene:

He (Hitler) is still shuffling around the anteroom when Linge returns. Linge... offers him a cyanide capsule from a small brass case, and the use of the Army pistol that Linge withdraws from the drawer of a table. Staring blankly and uncomprehendingly at his manservant, Hitler calls him a 'stupid peasant' and turns his back.

Linge picks up the cyanide capsule and vainly tries to force it into Hitler's mouth from behind--forcing the mouth open by closing his powerful middle finger and thumb across the Führer's mouth, from side to side in the cheek pouch. Despite his feeble state, Hitler manages to turn his head away from the strong grip and lower his head. Linge's increasingly violent efforts can't succeed, even though he is by now half facing the Führer.

But the affront has been made, the first act of violence committed. Savagely Linge turns the prematurely aged man around and throttles (strangles) him from behind. Terrified, he holds up the Führer in front of him while the frothing stops and struggles cease.

He is still holding the corpse almost at arm's length, when Stumpfegger comes into the room... Stumpfegger beckons Linge to lay the corpse down on the floor. Checking that Hitler is dead, he reaches in his pocket and produces an ampule-crushing forceps. The cyanide capsule is quickly and professionally crushed under Hitler's protruding tongue.

Before reaching this conclusion, Thomas examines Hitler's personality and health.

Hitler, he speculates, suffered from Parkinson's disease, which made him a partially paralyzed, grossly weakened, uncontrollably shaking insomniac, and was a borderline schizophrenic. Thomas bases his detailed analysis, which raises far more questions than it answers, on Russian State Archive material comprising alleged skull fragments of Hitler and Braun, as well as on their dental records and on six folios of documents found with the skulls. Using Paraguayan police files released in 1993, Thomas concludes that Martin Bormann, Hitler's personal secretary, survived the bunker, apparently moving to Paraguay in 1956.

Hitler: An amphetamine and barbiturate addict

Adolf Hitler was variously diagnosed as bipolar, schizophrenic and paranoid schizophrenic. He was also diagnosed as having had Parkinson's disease Yet Hitler had none of these disorders: he was an amphetamine and barbiturate addict.

Injections given to him by the doctor without whom he "could not live," Dr. Morell, included large quantities of amphetamine, beginning by 1937. (Because Hitler can be seen moving his hands back and forth on his upper legs in a way consistent with amphetamine use, called "stereotypical behavior," in 1936 Olympic Games videos, use likely began a bit earlier.)

When injections, widely believed to be multi-vitamins "specially compounded for the Führer," ceased on occasion, Hitler experienced severe depression, a common symptom among newly abstinent amphetamine or cocaine addicts. He engaged in all-night monologues with an endless repetition of stories, along with increasingly disorganized thinking and confused syntax. The latter would not be expected of someone considered to have been a supreme orator. His mood swings became more volatile, paranoia increased (a common side effect of amphetamine addiction) and, while early on he accepted blame for tactical errors, he developed a tendency to project blame onto others.

Intravenous injections of the "special compound" increased from one to as many as five daily. While intravenous amphetamine use has the same effect as injecting cocaine, it is much longer lasting: the half-life of amphetamines is twelve times longer. He took barbiturates every night during WW2, no doubt needed to offset the effect of amphetamines to allow for sleep. Hitler also used narcotics from 1938 onward, in particular, Eukodal, an early version of Percodan. A potent mix of drugs such as this has adverse effects on a person's personality, thinking, perceptions and behaviors.

Over-confidence and intoxication with his own early successes, common to early-stage addiction, fuelled a propensity to risk-taking and impulsive behaviors. As his use progressed during WW2 he experienced tremors, often attributed to Parkinson's disease. However, heavy amphetamine use mimics Parkinson's, probably because the neurotransmitter dopamine is affected by both. A stereotypical behavior very common to amphetamine addicts, an incessant scratching (the description offered by amphetamine addicts is "bugs are crawling under their skin"), began by 1943.

It is an irony of history that Hitler chose never to drink because of the vile effects that alcoholism had on others. However, barbiturates are alcohol in pill form for the alcoholic. Hitler, then, was likely an alcoholic who used only other drugs.