Hitler's Health Problems
By: Brock Turner
Introduction
Hitler was a really strange man. Many people think he was just a mad insecure man, but why? What mental illnesses and hardships did Hitler face throughout his life that made him the Adolf Hitler we know about today.
Hard childhood
Hitler had a very rough childhood, he went through a series of events that were really tough to get through. First of all, his father died when he was fourteen years old. Even after his father died he still felt pressure from his father and family, because he grew up in Austria his family expected him to fight for Austria in WWI. But for reasons unknown to his family and historians he fought against Austria with Germany. When he was sixteen two years after his father died he had severe lung infections. This caused him to do poorly in school so he dropped out at age sixteen. Following that in the December of 1907 Hitler's mother died of lung cancer after an operation by Dr. Edward Bloch a doctor who served the poor and was Jewish. After WWI because of feeling disowned by his family he changed his name. Adolf Hitler’s name was actually Adolf Schnickleberger until the end of WWI. As bad as this sounds what is worse is what bad habits he had in his adult life to deal with the stress of his childhood.
Drug addictions
Hitler had many drug addictions that we would consider bad on today’s standards but in the 1940’s they were looked at as more of a pain killer because doctors did not know how bad cocaine was for your body at that time. The worst thing Hitler was addicted to cocaine. At first Hitler took cocaine to deal with the excruciating pain from his lung infections and sore throats he had all of the time, but after some time he had gotten addicted to it. So his physicians reduced the amount he could take. Also Hitler had chronic bowel syndrome that made him have to pass gas periodically. To deal with this problem his doctors put him on twenty-eight different medications to help with his problem. Since Hitler took these medications periodically throughout the day and week. Some of his his ranting speeches he gave could have been given when he was high on either cocaine or his medication pain killers. He took all of these things just because of all of the health problems he had in his adult life.
Illnesses
Hitler had many diseases throughout his adult life that doctors in the 1930's-1940's did not know how to treat such as Parkinson's. Which is a brain disease that causes an unstable nervous system. This made him tremble and have spasms if he didn’t take cocaine. Historians have seen that Hitler would usually clutch a shaft in his left hand for stability. Hitler is also in some videos you can see that he had a shuffle walk and stumbled from time to time. Hitler also had troubled Libido. That is a bad sex drive that some historians believed lead to depression in his later life. Him and his wife both slept in separate beds in separate rooms. Again Hitler took a number of medications on top of having these diseases, which back in the 1930’s and 1940’s these medical drugs were very powerful and by today's standards very dangerous to take.
Conclusion
All of these terrible things are what made Adolf Hitler the powerful tyrant we hear about today. Although even with all of these diseases and problems he had, that is still no excuse for what he did to Germany and millions of other people throughout WW II.