World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseTheodor Gilbert Morell was the second son of a school teacher. He eventually went on to study medicine in Grenoble and Paris then was trained in obstetrics and gynecology in Munich. By 1913 he was licensed as a medical doctor, and went on to establish his own practice by 1915. During WW1, he served on the front lines as a medical officer. After the war, he made his fortune by offering alternative medicine for the wealthy and privileged. He was so demanded that not even the Shah of Persia and the King of Romania were able to persuade him to become their personal physician. In Apr 1933, he joined the Nazi party and was introduced to Heinrich Hoffman whose assistant was Eva Braun. Through Braun, Morell was introduced to Adolf Hitler.

ww2dbaseAt that time, Hitler was suffering from a particularly troublesome skin rash and intestinal gas. Morell promised a cure within a year. Whether or not he actually cured the cause of the conditions was questionable, but he was so valued by Hitler that he remained with him nearly until the end of WW2 for Germany. Other top leaders in Germany such as Albert Speer and Hermann Göring considered Morell a master of quackery, but did not share the feeling with Hitler. Dr. Karl Brandt also had his suspicions of Morell, but that feeling might have originated out of competitiveness as Brandt was Hitler's other personal physician.

ww2dbaseMorell was perhaps best remembered as a doctor who gave Hitler a daily regiment of various vitamins, stimulants, and narcotics (though not all drugs he had given to Hitler were considered narcotic at the time); he was often attributed as the cause of Hitler's later dependency on methamphetamine. On 22 Apr 1945, however, Hitler dismissed Morell fearing that other German leaders might persuade Morell to give Hitler a strong dose of drugs to knock him unconscious. Hitler had legitimate reasons for believing so. At the time Berlin was nearly surrounded by the Russians, and the German leader refused to leave the city for Berchtesgaden to carry on the war; a strong injection would have been an easy way to forcibly remove Hitler from Berlin. After dismissal, Morell left Berlin on one of the last westward flights out of the city. He was captured by the advancing American forces soon after.

ww2dbaseThe overweight Morell died of a stroke in captivity in May 1948.

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4.  C. Peter Chen says:
12 Dec 2016 10:22:05 AM

Thank you, the typographical error on his name has been corrected.