Hitler’s fear of illness revealed in doctor’s letters

ADOLF HITLER’S fear of illness has been revealed in unearthed letters.

Carl Otto von Eicken, a German ear, nose and throat specialist, treated the dictator for voice problems for 10 years from 1935, the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper reported yesterday.

Letters from the doctor to a cousin were discovered by Robert Doepgen, von Eicken’s great-great-grandson, who found them when researching family archives. Von Eicken died in 1960.

Richard J Evans, a specialist in German history, vouched for their authenticity, the paper said.

The letters show Hitler’s fear of serious illness. “If there is something bad, I absolutely have to know,” he told the doctor after their first consultation in May 1935, according to the letters.

They also show the importance that Hitler attached to his voice, which he used in speeches to whip up support for his regime. The letters reveal that one operation to remove a polyp was postponed until after a speech, as von Eicken advised him he needed to rest his voice after the procedure.

In his letters von Eicken never questioned that he treated a man whose actions led to the death of millions in the Second World War, the newspaper said. When asked by Russian interrogators after the war why he didn’t kill Hitler, von Eicken said: “I was his doctor – not his murderer.”