This programme analyzes the very latest neurological research into Shell Shock and trauma, it retraces Hitler’s time as a frontline soldier, and examines the medical history of Hitler’s gas poisoning and his period at a psychiatric wartime hospital that the Nazi Party later tried to cover-up; and it explores an American top-secret report from 1943 to discover how Hitler’s war experiences led to him suffering what some historians believe to be an extreme psychological disorder, Hysterical Blindness, known today as Conversion Disorder.
Dr David Lewis - Founder and Director of Research at the independent research consultancy Mindlab International
Dr David Lewis Chartered Psychologist is founder and Director of Research at the independent research consultancy Mindlab International. He obtained his doctorate at the University of Sussex where he lectures in clinical psychology and psychopathaolgy. He has written widely on the history of the third Reich and conducted significant research into the treatment administed by Dr Edmund Forster for his publication The Man Who Invented Hitler.
Piet Chielens - Coordinator of the In Flanders Fields Museum
Piet Chielens is Coordinator of the In Flanders Fields Museum, Belgium. He recently managed an exhibition of the effects of gassing in World War One. He is co-author of "Unquiet Graves / Rusteloze Graven Guide: Execution Sites of the First World War in Flanders"
Professor Richard J. Evans - Regius Professor of History and Chairman of the Faculty of History at Cambrudge University
Professor Richard J. Evans is Regius Professor of History and Chairman of the Faculty of History at Cambridge University. Between 2003 and 2008, he published a three-volume history of the Third Reich. Drawing on years of experience as a leading scholar of German history, Evans wove together one of the most extensive and comprehensive histories of the rise and fall of Hitler’s regime ever produced by a single scholar.
Professor Simon Wessely - Director, King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London
Professor Simon Wessely MA, BM BCh, MSc, MD, FRCP, FRCPsych, F Med Sci. Vice Dean, Academic Psychiatry, Teaching and Training: Institute of Psychiatry Head, Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry Director, King’s Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London.
Simon Wessely is Professor of Psychological Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at King’s and Maudsley Hospitals. His research interests are in the grey areas between medicine and psychiatry, clinical epidemiology, psychiatric injury and military health. He has published over 550 papers on many subjects and co-authored Shell Shock to PT:; Military Psychiatry from 1900 to the Gulf War. Beginning with a series of multi disciplinary studies into Gulf War Illness, he has also studied psychological stressors of military life, PTSD, risk communication, risk and benefits of military service, screening and health surveillance within the Armed Forces, social and psychological outcomes of ex service personnel, and historical aspects of war and psychiatry. He is Director of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research Unit at King’s College London. In 2006 the unit published the first results of a study of the physical and psychological health of 12,000 UK military personnel, half of whom have served in the Iraq conflict.
Terry Charman - Senior Historian at the Imperial War Museum London
Terry Charman is Senior Historian at the Imperial War Museum in London. He studied Modern History and Politics at the University of Reading and while there interviewed Adolf Hitler’s architect Albert Speer. He specializes in the political, diplomatic, social and cultural aspects of the World Wars, and wrote “The German Home Front 1939-1945? and “Outbreak 1939: The World Goes To War
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party commonly known as the Nazi Party.
Dr Edmund Foster
Dr Foster diagnosed Adolf Hitler during World War 1.
In 1908, Hitler's mother died. After his mother's death, Hitler spent four years living on the streets of Vienna, selling postcards of his artwork in an attempt to make a living
In May 1913 Hitler attempted to avoid military service and fled Vienna for Munich, the capital of Bavaria, following a windfall from a dying Aunt. Around January the police came to the house and presented a draft notice from the Austrian government. Hitler faced a fine and a year in prison if found guilty for evading conscription. He was arrested and taken to the Austrian consulate however, when he reported for duty in Salzburg Hitler was deemed "unfit...too weak...and unable to bear arms."
Hitler endured and survived four years of World War I. During this time, he was awarded two Iron Crosses for bravery.
Hitler was a serial prankster who enjoyed playing practical jokes on his senior staff. He would often have someone call a minster reporting news that Hitler was furious with that minister whilst he listened in on the conversation, giving further instruction to drive the minister to panic. However, a prank famously backfired when he sent Ernst Hanfstaengl (a close member of Hitler inner circle) into Spain on a plane full of Gestapo, and made him believe he was being parachuted into Spain on an extremely dangerous diplomatic mission. Hanfstaengl took an opportunity while refueling to board a train to Switzerland, and before anyone could tell him about the prank he was successfully on his way out of Germany.
Hitler’s handwriting was impeccable. When famous psychologist Carl Jung analyzed Hitler’s handwriting in 1937, he remarked: “Behind this handwriting I recognize the typical characteristics of a man with essentially feminine instinct.”
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