Len Deighton - XPD

‘Hoffmann,’ said Stein pointing to a sheet. ‘Hitler’s personal photographer and a close friend.’ He picked up an ancient manilla envelope and took from it a desk diary. It had been used as a physician’s appointments book. It was dated 1936. ‘This is how Dr Morell first met Hitler,’ Stein said. ‘Hoffmann was sick-H.H. are Hoffmann’s initials, M.F. is Mein Führer-look at that!’

Morell had written, ‘Met M.F. at Hoffmann’s home, Munich.’ Then a page or so later, ‘M.F. provided his personal aircraft for professional visit to H.H. in his Munich home.’

Again Stein turned a page of the diary. ‘Now we come to Morell’s first professional opinion of Hitler,’ he said. He turned the diary so that Stuart could read it more easily. ‘Saw M.F. First impression of him shocking. Complains of headaches, stomach pains. Also ringing in the ears. Neurotic.’

Max Breslow went into the kitchen to make more coffee. Boyd Stuart turned the sheets to find Dr Morell’s first physical examination of Hitler. The report was dated January 3, 1937, and the medical took place at the Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat near Berchtesgaden. The doctor noted that, according to the patient, he had not submitted himself to a physical examination since he left the army in 1918. The record showed that Hitler-now referred to as ‘patient A’-weighed 67.04 kilos and stood 175.26 cm tall. Blood group A. The examination showed no abnormalities: pupillary reflexes were normal, good coordination, normal sensitivity to heat and cold and to sharp and blunt touch. His hair was dark and thinning slightly, and his tonsils had been removed when he was a child. A scarred leg was the result of shrapnel during the First World War. A badly mended fracture of the left shoulder blade-resulting from a fall when the police fired upon the Nazis during the 1923 putsch- had left patient A with a stiff shoulder so that he could neither rotate nor abduct his upper arm.

Curious, thought Stuart, that, had his right shoulder been affected instead, there could have been no Nazi salute. He turned the page.

The patient complained of severe stomach cramps and Morell found a swelling at the place where the stomach joins the duodenum, as well as the left lobe of the liver. When he touched the region of the kidney, the patient complained of slight pain. Patient A was also suffering from severe eczema on the left leg and was having difficulty wearing high boots. ‘Necessary for parades and rallies,’ Morell had noted in fountain-pen ink which had faded to a very pale shade of blue.

Now the file was given over to letters concerning Hitler’s diet. His other physicians-Professor Bergmann of the Charité Hospital, Berlin, and Himmler’s SS medical officer in chief, Ernst Grawitz-had cut patient A’s eating down to dry wholemeal bread and herbal tea, while treating him with lotions and ointments. Morell changed this to a more varied vegetarian regime.

The next letter was on the headed notepaper of the Bacteriological Research Institute at Freiburg and was signed by Professor A. Nissle, its director. It reported dys-bacterial flora in the specimen of excreta sent there by Morell, who had not named the patient. Nissle advised that the patient should be given ‘Mutaflor’ to replace coli bacilli. Morell adds a note about a preparation of vitamins, heart and liver for the patient. To be put into unmarked containers. ‘Vegetarian patient,’ Morell wrote on his instructions to the pharmacist. ‘Make no mention of the animal origins of this prescription.’ All Morell’s notes at this time were on notepaper of the Berghof. Clearly Morell had taken up residence there.

‘Can’t tear you away from it, can we?’ said Stein. He chuckled with satisfaction.

‘I want to know the end of the story,’ said Stuart. ‘Did the handsome young doctor cure his famous patient? I’m a sucker for the nurse romance.’

‘Dr Morell was fat and ugly,’ said Max Breslow. ‘Hitler said that if Morell could cure his eczema and make him better within a year, he’d be given a fine house.’

‘What happened?’

Breslow said, ‘Morell pumped Hitler full of a medicine he’d invented himself. Vitamultin he called it: every kind of vitamin together with calcium, ascorbic acid and caffeine and so on… you’ll find the formula in his papers there. He marketed some of his compounds later, and made a fortune, they say.’

‘And Hitler got better?’

‘Dextrose and hormones and lots of sulphanamide drugs kept Hitler feeling very well. For years he didn’t even have a virus infection. Whenever he was going to make a speech, Morell gave him an extra dose of glucose and stuff to pep him up. Hitler was pleased. You’ll find the carbon of a letter that Morell sent to say thank you for the house on the island of Schwanenwerder. Hitler kept his promise.’

‘And this documentation continues right through the war?’ said Stuart. ‘It’s priceless stuff.’

‘Hitler seldom let Morell out of his sight. And Hitler confided in this man. From time to time the stomach cramps returned. Morell makes a note of the fact that Hitler dated his trouble from the summer of 1934. A cryptic pencil annotation, in Morell’s writing, records that this was the time when Hitler had his best friend Röhm executed. Morell gave Hitler more and more powerful medicaments, like intramuscular injections for the gastric wall, and combined these with medicine that would make some of the vegetarian stuff he ate easier to digest.’

‘But why is all this sort of material in the medical file?’ said Stuart. ‘Why keep a carbon of a letter about the house he got from Hitler?’

The coffee machine in the kitchen hissed steam and switched off. Breslow fetched the fresh jug of coffee before answering. ‘Perhaps Morell had literary ambitions.’

‘A biography of Hitler by his private physician?’ said Stuart.

‘Churchill’s physician published such a book,’ said Breslow. ‘It was a best seller, as I remember.’

‘And no historian has ever seen this material?’ said Stuart.

‘No one knows it exists,’ said Stein. [1]

‘It was taken to the Kaiseroda mine?’ said Stuart.

‘This is what makes it so interesting,’ said Max Breslow. ‘Our film, I mean,’ he added hurriedly.

‘Yes, of course, the film,’ said Stuart. ‘You mean you have access to other material like this?’

Stein nodded and rummaged around the wrappers in the almost empty box of chocolate-coated cherries until he found one. He chewed into it and smiled as he saw Boyd Stuart’s look of consternation.

‘I’m afraid he’s quite right, Mr Stuart,’ said Max Breslow. ‘For better or for worse, reputations are going to be turned upside down.’

‘Hitler and Churchill, you mean?’ Stuart asked.

‘Drink your coffee and have one of those delicious chocolates,’ Max Breslow told Stuart. ‘We have done enough for one night.’

Stuart had a feeling that there were no chocolates left, and that Max Breslow already knew that.

The Marina del Rey provides a luxurious and convenient base for yacht owners who have business in Los Angeles, says one of the brochures. It is crammed tight with magnificent boats and surrounded by modern apartment buildings, as well as restaurants and discos, and has the swanky yacht club as a centrepiece. A Marina address is all you need to attract a lot of wisecracks about the swinging bachelor life. Certainly the Marina del Rey is a place where the number of people dressed in yachting attire greatly exceeds the capacity of the yachts. But Boyd Stuart liked living on the boat. It was near Culver City, Century City and Beverly Hills and conveniently close to Highway 1 which would take him to Malibu, to Santa Barbara, and beyond.