How did German and Soviet soldiers communicate outside of combat. Artem Drabkin I fought in the SS and the Wehrmacht
Such a story, probably, could only come up with scriptwriters of melodramas - a Soviet girl and a German prisoner of war fall in love with each other without memory, but meet again only after seventy years of separation. For Zhanna Vorontsova from Nizhny Novgorod, this story became a reality - her lover, 95-year-old Wolfgang Morel, came to her, an 87-year-old pensioner, from Germany.
"Look into my eyes and everything will be fine"
Going on a date, Wolfgang is nervous, probably much more than in his youth. He combs his gray hair, pins a badge with two flags - Russia and Germany, on the lapel of his jacket, buys a large bouquet of roses.
My eyes are already a little wet, - Wolfgang Morel admits a little clumsily, but almost without an accent. No wonder - after all, he had been waiting for this meeting all his life!
Wolfgang met Zhanna in the spring of 1947 - the girl then led a concert in a prisoner of war camp, which he was. He was taken prisoner near Moscow, and the first thought of the young German soldier then was - he must shoot himself! Fortunately, his gun misfired, and the Soviet soldiers saved him from the second attempt. Morel was brought to Nizhny Novgorod and literally re-educated - the young man quickly realized the whole essence of fascism and even engaged in enlightenment among his comrades, struggling with the remnants of fascist ideology. As an exceptionally positive prisoner of war, he was even allowed to sometimes move around the city without an escort. And he, taking advantage of this, ran on dates to Jeanne!
Seventeen year old beauty! It was the first girl that attracted me so much. And I have never seen one like this again, - said Wolfgang Morel in an interview.
The first meeting between Zhanna and Wolfgang took place in the Lenin House of Culture, a now abandoned but still magnificent building. Young people went there to dance, and Wolfgang almost fainted from hunger.
I only remember how we dance, Zhanna looks at me and says: “Look into my eyes, and everything will be fine!” Herr Morel recalls.
"No wonder I then had a crush on him!"
Zhanna Vorontsova is now 87 years old. The health of the pensioner is not the same, she moves with great difficulty, she recently lost only son- but as soon as she heard that Wolfgang, her beloved Volodya, as she called him, was coming to her, the elderly woman rushed to preen. After all, this meeting is also the most important for her.
He's a hundred and five years old. Well, you have to go crazy to decide to go from Germany to Russia! Jeanne is amazed. “It’s not in vain that I fell in love with him so much, not in vain!
Although Zhanna knew perfectly well that Wolfgang was German, she introduced him to her friends as a Latvian student. Just in case - you never know.
The happiness of the lovers turned out to be short-lived - in the same 1947, Wolfgang Morel was deported. And in Germany - that is, there was no chance to continue communication at all. Parting, almost not believing in the possibility of a new meeting, Zhanna nevertheless asked Wolfgang in verse to promise that someday they would see each other again.
On a new first date, Wolfgang Morel presented French perfume to his beloved. He admitted that he always dreamed of doing this, but in captivity he did not have such an opportunity, and after deportation he did not know how to find Zhanna. And then he married a German girl, life went on as usual, but the beautiful Komsomol member no, no, and yes, it popped up in my memory. Morel spoke about this in his memoirs, and caring readers helped him find old love.
Memoirs of former German prisoners of war in the book
05.09.2003And in the third school today they presented the Russian-language version of Fritz Wittmann's book "A Rose for Tamara". Fritz Wittmann is a former prisoner of war. And Tamara is a collective image of Russian women. Those who helped German prisoners to survive during the war in camps and hospitals. Fritz Wittmann collected the memoirs of 12 German soldiers into one book.
"In marching columns, poor old women often put a piece of bread or a cucumber into their pockets," this is an excerpt from the memoirs of former prisoners of war. In the territory Vladimir region there were many camps and hospitals for captured Germans. To fully understand why Russian women treated the then enemies with such care, the veterans of the German army still cannot understand. The book "A Rose for Tamara" absorbed the memories of former prisoners of war. They don't like to talk about the war. The book contains the memoirs of 12 German soldiers. Only two of the authors attended the presentation. They still remember the Russian language. It had to be studied in the camps. Wolfgang Morel in July 1941 was drafted into the Wehrmacht at the age of 19. In January 42 he was taken prisoner. And then eight years of captivity. But first there was a hospital. Where Russian female doctors nursed them in the same way as Russians. The hospital was located in the school building. In the neighboring wards, there were also wounded, but Russian soldiers.
Wolfgang MOREL, one of the authors of the book "A Rose for Tamara": "Some were very friendly. They gave us a cigarette. They deliberately lit it to give us. Others were wrong or negative, but they were in the minority."
Wolfgang does not like to meet his former brother-soldiers. They, remembering the war, speak badly about Russia. Wolfgang loves our country and knows our people. In the camps he had to work for chemical production. Wolfgang came home to Germany only in September 49.
My name is Wolfgang Morel. It is a Huguenot surname because my ancestors came from France in the 17th century. I was born in 1922. Until the age of ten, he studied at a folk school, and then for almost nine years at a gymnasium in the city of Breslau, now Wroclaw. From there, on July 5, 1941, I was drafted into the army. I just turned 19 years old.
I avoided labor service (before serving in the army, young Germans were required to work for six months for the Imperial Labor Service) and was left to myself for six months. It was like a breath of fresh air before the army, before captivity.
Before you got to Russia, what did you know about the USSR?
Russia was a closed country for us. The Soviet Union didn't want to keep in touch with the West, but the West didn't want contacts with Russia either - both sides were afraid. However, back in 1938, as a 16-year-old boy, I listened to a German radio station that broadcast regularly from Moscow. I must say the programs were not interesting - solid propaganda. Production, visits of leaders and so on - this was of no interest to anyone in Germany. There was information about political repression in Soviet Union. In 1939, when there was a turn in foreign policy when Germany and the USSR signed a non-aggression pact, we saw Soviet troops, soldiers, officers, tanks - it was very interesting. After the signing of the treaty, interest in Soviet Union. Some of my school friends started learning Russian. They said this: "In the future we will have close economic relations and we must speak Russian."
When did the image of the USSR as an enemy begin to take shape?
Only after the start of the war. In early 1941, relations were felt to be deteriorating. There were rumors that the USSR was going to stop exporting grain to Germany. wanted to export their grain.
How did you perceive the beginning of the war with the Soviet Union?
Feelings were very different. Some believed that in a week all enemies in the East would be destroyed, as happened in Poland and in the West. But the older generation took this war with skepticism. My father, who fought in Russia in the first world war was convinced that we would not bring this war to a happy end.
At the end of June I received a letter in which I was ordered to be at the barracks of a military unit at such and such an hour on such and such a date. The barracks was located in my hometown so it wasn't far to go. I was trained as a radio operator for two months. However, at first I played tennis more. The fact is that my father was a famous tennis player and I myself started playing at the age of five. Our tennis club was located near the barracks. Once in a conversation, I told the company commander about this. He really wanted to learn how to play and immediately took me with him to training. So I left the barracks much earlier than the others. Instead of drill training, I played tennis. The company commander was not interested in my drill training, he wanted me to play with him. When training in the specialty began, the games ended. We were taught to receive and transmit on the key, taught to eavesdrop on enemy conversations in English and Russian. I had to learn the Russian signs of the Morse code. Every sign Latin alphabet is encoded by four Morse characters, and Cyrillic - by five. It wasn't easy to master it. Soon the training ended, the cadets of the next set came and I was left as an instructor, although I did not want to. I wanted to go to the front, because it was believed that the war was about to end. We defeated France, Poland, Norway - Russia will not last long, and after the war it is better to be an active participant in it - more benefits. In December, soldiers from the rear units were assembled throughout Germany to be sent to Eastern front. I filed a report and was transferred to a team to be sent to war.
We drove to Orsha along railway, and from Orsha to Rzhev we were transferred to transport Yu-52s. Apparently, replenishment was urgently needed. I must say that when we arrived in Rzhev I was struck by the lack of order. The mood of the army was at zero.
I ended up in the 7th Panzer Division. The famous division commanded by General Rommel. By the time we arrived, there were no tanks in the divisions - they were abandoned due to lack of fuel and shells.
Have you been given winter gear?
No, but we received several sets of summer. We were given three shirts. In addition, I received an additional overcoat. And after all in January there were frosts under forty degrees! Our government slept through the onset of winter. For example, the order to collect skis from the population for the army came out only in March 1942!
When you arrived in Russia, what struck you the most?
Space. We had little contact with the local population. Sometimes they stopped in huts. The local people helped us.
From our group, skiers began to be selected for operations behind enemy lines - it was necessary to connect to enemy communication lines and listen to them. I did not get into this group, and on January 10 we were already on the front line as a simple infantryman. We cleared roads from snow, fought.
What was fed at the front?
There was always hot food. They gave chocolate and cola, sometimes liquor - not every day and limited.
Already on January 22, I was taken prisoner. I was alone in the outpost when I saw a group of Russian soldiers, about fifteen in winter clothes on skis. It was useless to shoot, but I was not going to surrender either. When they came closer, I saw that they were Mongols. They were considered especially cruel. There were rumors that they found mutilated corpses of German prisoners with gouged out eyes. I was not ready to accept such a death. In addition, I was very afraid that they would torture me during interrogation at the Russian headquarters: I had nothing to say - I was a simple soldier. Fear of captivity and a painful death under torture led me to the decision to commit suicide. I took my Mauser 98k by the barrel, and when they approached about ten meters I put it in my mouth and pulled the trigger with my foot. The Russian winter and the quality of German weapons saved my life: if it weren’t so cold, and if the parts of the weapons weren’t so well fitted that they froze, then we wouldn’t be talking to you. They surrounded me. Someone said "Hyundai hoch". I put my hands up, but in one hand I held a rifle. One of them approached me, took the rifle and said something. It seems to me that he said: "Rejoice that the war is over for you." I realized that they are quite friendly. Apparently I was the first German they saw. I was searched. Although I was not a heavy smoker, I had a pack of 250 R-6 cigarettes in my satchel. All smokers received a cigarette and the rest was returned to me. I then exchanged these cigarettes for food. In addition, the soldiers found a toothbrush. Apparently they encountered her for the first time - they looked at her carefully and laughed. One elderly soldier with a beard patted my overcoat and dismissively threw: “Hitler”, then pointed to his fur coat, hat and respectfully said: “Stalin!” They immediately wanted to interrogate me, but no one spoke German. They had a small dictionary, which included a chapter on "interrogation of a prisoner": "Wie heissen Sie? What's the last name? - I called myself. - "What part" - "I don't understand." During the interrogation, I decided to hold on to the last minute and not reveal the number of my unit. After a little torment with me, they stopped the interrogation. An elderly soldier who praised his uniform was ordered to accompany me to the headquarters, which was six kilometers away in a village we had left two or three days ago. He was skiing, and I was walking on one and a half meters of snow. As soon as he took a couple of steps, I remained many meters behind him. Then he pointed to my shoulders and the ends of the skis. I could have punched him in the temple, taken the skis and run away, but I had no will to resist. After 9 hours in 30-40 degree frost, I simply did not have the strength to decide on such an act.
The first interrogation at headquarters was conducted by the commissar. But before I was called for interrogation, I was sitting in the hallway of the house. I decided to take a moment and shake out the snow that had accumulated in my boots. I managed to take off only one boot when an officer of a heroic appearance addressed me, dressed in an astrakhan cape. In French, which he spoke better than I, he said: "It's lucky that you were captured, you will definitely return home." He distracted me from shaking the snow out of my boots, which later cost me dearly. We were interrupted by an interpreter shouting from behind the door: “Come in!”. The offer of a light snack was accepted by my empty stomach immediately. When black bread, bacon and a glass of water were handed to me, my hesitant glance caught the commissar's eyes. He motioned to the interpreter to taste the food. "As you can see, we're not going to poison you!" I was very thirsty, but instead of water there was vodka in the glass! Then the interrogation began. I was again asked to give my last name, first name, date of birth. Then came the main question: What military unit? I refused to answer this question. . The blow of the pistol on the table made me come up with an answer: "1st Division, 5th Regiment." Complete fantasy. Not surprisingly, the commissioner immediately exploded: "You're lying!" - I repeated. - "Lies!" He took a small book in which the divisions and their regiments were apparently recorded: “Listen, you serve in the 7th Panzer Division, 7th Infantry Regiment, 6th Company.” It turned out that two comrades from my company had been taken prisoner the day before, and they told me in which unit they served. This ended the interrogation. During the interrogation, the snow in the boot, which I did not have time to take off, melted. I was taken outside and taken to a neighboring village. During the transition, the water in the boot froze, I stopped feeling my toes. In this village I joined a group of three prisoners of war. For almost ten days we walked from village to village. One of my comrades died in my arms from loss of strength. We often felt the hatred of the local population, whose houses were destroyed to the ground during the retreat in the implementation of the scorched earth tactics. To angry shouts: "Fin, Fin!" we answered: "Germanic!" and in most cases locals left us alone. I had frostbite on my right foot, my right boot was torn, and I used the second shirt as a dressing. In such a pitiful condition, we met the film crew of the film magazine "News of the Week", past which we had to walk several times in deep snow. They said to go and go again. We tried to hold on so that the idea of the German army was not so bad. Our "provisions" on this "campaign" consisted mainly of empty bread and ice-cold well water, from which I got pneumonia. Only at the Shakhovskaya station, restored after the bombing, did the three of us get into a freight car, where an orderly was already waiting for us. During the two or three days that the train traveled to Moscow, he provided us with the necessary medicines and food, which he cooked on a cast-iron stove. For us it was a feast, while there was still an appetite. The hardships we have experienced have taken a toll on our health. I suffered from dysentery and pneumonia. Approximately two weeks after the capture, we arrived at one of the freight stations in Moscow and found shelter on the bare floor near the wagon coupler. Two days later, we couldn't believe our eyes. The sentry put us in a white, six-seat ZIS limousine, on which was painted a red cross and a red crescent. On the way to the hospital, it seemed to us that the driver was deliberately driving in a roundabout way to show us the city. He proudly commented on the places we passed: Red Square with Lenin's mausoleum, the Kremlin. Twice we crossed the Moscow River. The military hospital was hopelessly overflowing with the wounded. But here we took a bath that had a beneficial effect on us. They bandaged my frostbitten leg and hung it over the tub with lifting blocks. We never saw our uniform again, as we had to put on Russian clothes. We were sent to the boiler room. There were already ten completely exhausted comrades there. There was water on the floor, steam escaping from leaky pipes in the air, and drops of condensate crawled along the walls. The beds were stretchers raised on bricks. We were given rubber boots so we could go to the toilet. Even the orderlies who appeared from time to time were in rubber boots. We spent several days in this terrible dungeon. Feverish dreams caused by illness drag on memories of that time… After five or maybe ten days, we were transferred to Vladimir. We were placed directly in the military hospital, located in the building of the theological seminary. At that time there was no prisoner-of-war camp in Vladimir where we could be accommodated in the infirmary. There were already 17 of us and we occupied a separate room. The beds were covered with sheets. How did you decide to place us together with the Russian wounded? A clear violation of the ban on contact. A Russian friend of mine, who by the nature of his activity was studying the fate of German prisoners of war in Vladimir, admitted to me that he had never seen anything like it. Archived Soviet army in St. Petersburg, he came across a card from a filing cabinet documenting our existence. For us, this decision was a great happiness, and for some even salvation. There we felt treated as if we were our own, in terms of medical care and living conditions. Our food was not inferior to the food of the Red Army. There was no security, but despite this, no one even thought about escaping. Medical examinations took place twice a day, for the most part they were carried out by female doctors, less often by chief physician. Most of us have suffered from frostbite.
I already got there. My appetite disappeared and I began to put the bread that was given to us under the pillow. My neighbor said that I was a fool and should distribute it among the others, since I am not a tenant anyway. This rudeness saved me! I realized that if I want to go home, I have to force myself to eat. Gradually I started to improve. My pneumonia gave up after two months of treatment, including cupping. Dysentery was taken by the horns by intramuscular injection of potassium permanganate and the intake of 55% ethyl alcohol, which caused indescribable envy of others. We were treated like sick people. Even the slightly injured and slowly recovering were exempted from any work. It was performed by sisters and nannies. The Kazakh cook often brought a full portion of soup or porridge to the brim. Only german word, which he knew was: "Noodles!". And when he said it, he always smiled broadly. When we noticed that the attitude of the Russians towards us was normal, then our hostile attitude diminished. This was also helped by a charming female doctor, who, with her sensitive, restrained attitude, treated us with sympathy. We called her "Snow White".
Less pleasant were the regular visits of the political commissar, who arrogantly and in every detail told us about the new successes of the Russian winter offensive. A comrade from Upper Silesia - his jaw was crushed - tried to transfer his knowledge of Polish into Russian and translated as best he could. Judging by the fact that he himself understood no more than half, he was not at all ready to translate everything and instead scolded the political commissar and Soviet propaganda. The same one, not noticing the game of our "translator", encouraged him to translate further. Often we could hardly contain our laughter. Quite different news reached us in the summer. Two hairdressers said in great secrecy that the Germans were standing near Cairo, and the Japanese had occupied Singapore. And then the question immediately arose: what awaits us in the event of a passionately desired victory? The commissar hung a poster over our beds: "Death fascist invaders!" Outwardly, we were no different from the Russian wounded: white underwear, a blue dressing gown and house slippers. During private meetings in the corridor and the toilet in us, of course. the Germans were immediately recognized. And only a few of our neighbors, whom we already knew and avoided, such meetings aroused indignation. In most cases, the response has been different. About half were neutral towards us, and about a third showed varying degrees of interest. The highest degree trust was a pinch of shag, and sometimes even a rolled cigarette, lightly lit and handed to us. Suffering from the fact that shag was not part of our diet, passionate smokers, as soon as they regained the ability to move around, set up duty in the corridor to collect tobacco. The guard, who changed every half an hour, went out into the corridor, stood in front of our door and drew attention to himself with a typical movement of the smokers' hand, "shooting" chinarik or a pinch of shag. So the problem with tobacco was somehow solved.
What conversations were going on between the prisoners?
Conversations between soldiers at home were only on the topic of women, but in captivity, topic No. 1 was food. I remember one conversation well. One comrade said that after dinner he could eat three more times, then his neighbor grabbed his wooden crutch and wanted to beat him, because in his opinion it would be possible to eat not three, but ten times.
Were there officers among you or were there only soldiers?
There were no officers.
In the middle of summer, almost everyone was healthy again, the wounds healed, no one died. And even those who recovered earlier still remained in the infirmary. At the end of August, an order came to be transferred to a labor camp, first in Moscow, and from there to the Ufa region in the Urals. After an almost heavenly time in the infirmary, I realized that I had completely lost the habit of physical work. But parting became even more difficult because I was treated here kindly and mercifully. In 1949, after spending almost eight years in captivity, I returned home.
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Claus Fritzche
The pilots do not see how their comrades die. When the plane with the crew does not return, the others have a glass of champagne in the evening, standing for one minute, and that's it.
Klein Erich
In 1944, the German soldiers were completely demoralized. There was a terrible overstrain, there were many suicides in the active army, especially in the area of Mogilev, Minsk and Berezino. There are many swamps in that region, and at that time there were a lot of partisans who attacked the German troops in small groups, drove them into impenetrable swamps, from which it was impossible to get out on solid ground, so many could not break through to Minsk, many simply set off on the run. The troops were left without support. And so it went until East Prussia itself.
Otto Georges
In January 1944, we were sent to Italy, to Cassino, because the 29th division was withdrawn from the front, and the 15th division was completely defeated. We had to relieve the 15th division. We were on alert, and we were transferred to Tuna by ferry. The 211th Infantry Regiment was already in Cassino, and we were further south. There was a state of emergency, and all the units that were thrown at Tuna. What happened there is just scary to tell - how much artillery was there! We thought that we would throw them down again, but 64 of their warships were in the port - and they defeated us. In the swamps near Rome, our tanks got stuck, and the planes attacked us from above. We outnumbered the British somewhat, but we could not do anything against the naval artillery, it was terrible. When the situation stabilized, we descended to Cassino. The whole world was in Cassino, even Indians!
Diener Manfred
All neighboring villages had already been bypassed, all the dogs already knew me, and I caught cars and hitchhiked to distant villages, 30 to 40 kilometers away. With us, if you vote on the road, not a single pig will stop, but in Russia everyone has always stopped. Once I was driven by a Russian police captain. He asked me: "German?" I said yes, woennoplennyi. Then he asked: "Fascist?" I said yes. He said you are a fascist, I am a communist, okay, and gave me a glass of wodka to drink. Then again, after the third glass, I passed out. He pulled me out of the car and went to do his terrible deeds. On the way back he picked me up and took me to the camp. I told him that I didn’t need to go to the camp, I needed to join my brigade, in the camp they had already caught me and beat me. But he took me to the camp and gave the watchman a bottle of vodka so that he wouldn't beat me.
Burkhard Erich
We froze and died from wounds, the infirmaries were overcrowded, there were no bandages. When someone died, no one, sadly, did not even turn in his direction to somehow help him. Those were the last, saddest days. No one paid any attention to either the wounded or the dead. I saw how our two trucks were driving, the comrades hitched on them and drove behind the trucks on their knees. One comrade fell off, and the next truck crushed him, because he could not slow down in the snow. It was not something amazing for us then - death became commonplace. What happened in the cauldron for the last ten days, with the last who remained there, is impossible to describe.
Schillinger Rupert
Only squad commanders had submachine guns. The Russians were incredibly superior to us in some things. Russian submachine guns worked in the winter, while the German ones froze. The Russians had one brand of cars. When a car broke down, the Russians could always take parts from another car, and we had great amount different brands of cars and it was very difficult to repair them.
The Mystery of Doctor Morel
Dr. Theodor Morel was Hitler's personal physician for many years. A huge number of rumors and suspicions are associated with his name. Most observers considered him a charlatan. He had bad manners, slovenly dress, and was an alcoholic. At one time there were hints of his Jewish origin. But careful investigation concluded that the venerable doctor was of purely Aryan origin.
Why did Hitler, who was famous for being extremely picky in people, choose a man who did not arouse sympathy from anyone? Did this doctor not contribute to the gradual transformation of the Fuhrer into a mental and physical invalid, unable to accept right decisions? It is believed that after the declassification of some secret documents, it became possible to answer these questions.
The American Glen Infeld, who had access to archival materials of the Third Reich, in his book The Secret Life of Hitler, in particular, writes:
“Morel was the type of person who usually disgusted Hitler. He was very fat, swarthy, had greasy black hair and wore glasses with thick, convex lenses. But even worse physical characteristics there were personal manners that absolutely did not correspond to the Hitlerite nervous model. A bad smell constantly emanated from him, and his inability to behave at the table became a byword. However, one thing testified in his favor: by the end of 1937, thanks to the medicines prescribed by the "dick doctor", Hitler felt well for the first time after several years of indisposition. The Fuhrer decided that he could ignore Morel's shortcomings if he could cure him.
At the very beginning of 1937, Morel made a thorough examination of Hitler. The doctor concluded that his patient “suffered from gastritis problems and from a wrong diet. Swelling noted in the lower abdomen; the left half of the liver is enlarged; right kidney hurts. Eczema was noted on the left leg, apparently associated with indigestion.
Morel quickly prescribed the so-called mutaflor, one or two capsules taken daily for a month after breakfast. Hitler's digestive system began to function more normally, the eczema disappeared after six months, and he began to get better. The Fuhrer was pleased. In September, he invited Morel as a guest of honor to a party rally, at which Hitler was able to wear boots for the first time after many months, getting rid of eczema.
The use of Mutaflor did not cause controversy in medical circles, but some of the other remedies prescribed by Morel were frankly surprising. For example, to relieve gas problems in the stomach, he prescribed Dr. Koster's anti-gas pills, two to four after a meal. The composition of these pills was the subject of great controversy in the medical community, and perhaps their side effect on Hitler changed the course of history.
But in 1937 the Fuehrer was grateful for the relief brought to him by the medicine. According to him, Morel was the greatest medical luminary in the Third Reich, and in the next eight years, despite the growing criticism of the doctor throughout Germany, Hitler did not change his mind. Wherever Hitler went, Morel also went there. The more pills Morel gave him, the happier Hitler felt. And he never got tired of saying that Morel - only person keeping promises. Morel told Hitler that he would cure him within a year, and did so. Hitler did not realize then that the treatment, which at first brought such good results, would eventually contribute to his physical collapse.
The name of Unity Mitford is associated with the beginning of a strange story, the details of which have not yet been fully disclosed. Unity was an English aristocrat and a close friend of Hitler. She enthusiastically shared his ideas, bowed before him and sought to help rapprochement between Nazi Germany and England. When, on September 3, 1939, France and England declared war on Germany, she realized the futility of her efforts. Unity Mitford went to the Munich park - the English Garden and shot herself in the head. Suicide attempt was unsuccessful, but the wound led to paralysis nervous system. For several months, the Fuhrer's English admirer was in an unconscious state. Hitler sent the best doctors to her, including Morel, but all efforts were in vain. In the end, he arranged for her to be sent home to England via neutral Switzerland. Morel was assigned to accompany the unfortunate suicide. A trip to Switzerland in December 1939 was a turning point in the life of Adolf Hitler, although neither he nor Morel understood this.
After Unity Mitford was placed in the care of a waiting English doctor, Morel took a few days off. Zurich at that time was teeming with agents of all kinds intelligence services but he ignored this fact. The vain Morel decided that it would be nice if Swiss medical circles knew that he was Hitler's personal doctor. One of those to whom he told about this immediately contacted Allen Dulles, who was already actively involved in American intelligence activities and often visited Switzerland. Fearing that Morel would be suspicious of the meeting with the American, Dulles sent his man to him - a former police officer from Munich, so that he would "make friends" with the unsuspecting doctor. This German agent of the Americans inquired about the pills (against the accumulation of gas in the stomach) prescribed to Hitler and discovered that Morel was interested in opening a company in Switzerland producing this medicine. Morel was no longer satisfied with the purchase from the outside: he wanted to earn some extra money. Dulles managed to organize the business in such a way that his agent, together with the greedy Aesculapius, opened a small pharmaceutical company.
From the first day of the new company, the slow poisoning of Hitler began. Doses of strychnine, which was part of the tablets, gradually increased. But it wasn't until late 1944, when Dr. Karl Brandt and Dr. Erwin Giesing became suspicious, that they analyzed it and the secret was revealed. However, Hitler did not believe their statement and ... both vigilant doctors fell out of favor.
There was at least one other person who did not trust Morel and was highly suspicious of him. In an interview dated September 4, 1948, Eva Braun's mother, Frau Franziska Braun, said in part:
“Everyone hated Morel, and even Eva tried to get rid of him. She called him a charlatan. I often heard Eva tell the Fuhrer that Morel's injections were poisoning him, but Hitler did not agree. He always replied that he felt great after the injections. In my opinion, Dr. Morel was a British agent who wanted Hitler to be unable to think realistically and make the right decisions."
Frau Braun was close to the truth. Morel was an unwitting instrument of the allies. His Swiss "friend" American agent, in addition to strychnine, added atrophy. When he later met with Morel in Switzerland, he recommended that he use other drugs to treat Hitler. By 1944, Morel prescribed 28 (!) Medicines for the Fuhrer. Some of them were taken daily, others only when needed ... The constant use of drugs for many years, encouraged by an agent from Zurich, led to an imbalance in Hitler's mental balance ...
Eva Braun once complained:
“I don't trust Morel. He is such a cynic. He's experimenting on all of us like we're guinea pigs..."
Already by 1942, it was clear to his generals and inner circle that physical and mental changes had taken place with Hitler. Himmler no longer considered him normal and even asked his personal physician, Dr. Felix Kersten, if he thought the Fuhrer was mentally ill.
Theodor Morel's pills and injections slowly but surely destroyed the Fuhrer's body. Perhaps in the "drugs" one should look for an explanation of his many irrational orders, and they explain the loss of his connection with reality? And, who knows, maybe this minister of medicine, tempted by a small gesheft, unwittingly played a fatal role in the life of not only Adolf Hitler, but the entire Third Reich.