ADOLF HITLER survived an assassination attempt in 1944 with the help of penicillin made by the Allies, a microbiologist in the UK claims. If the Nazi leader had died from bacterial infection of his many wounds, the second world war might have been over a year earlier, saving millions of lives, says Milton Wainwright of the University of Sheffield, a noted historian of microbiology.
In a paper to be published soon in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Wainwright reveals first-hand evidence that Hitler was treated with penicillin by his personal doctor, Theo Morrell, following an assassination attempt in which a bomb in a suitcase exploded next to Hitler鈥檚 desk. Hitler was badly hurt, fleeing the scene with his hair and trousers on fire, a badly bleeding arm and countless wooden splinter wounds from the oak table that probably saved his life.
Wainwright found confirmation that Morrell gave Hitler antibiotics as a precaution in a recent translation of Morrell鈥檚 own diary. 鈥淚 happened to be reading it for interest when the word penicillin jumped out at me,鈥� he says. He then set about trying to establish where Morrell might have got the drug.
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At the time, penicillin was available only to the Allies. German and Czechoslovakian teams had tried without much success to make it, Wainwright says, but the small quantities that were available were weak and impure. 鈥淚t鈥檚 generally accepted that it was no good,鈥� says Wainwright.
He reasons that Morrell would only have risked giving Hitler penicillin to prevent infections if he were confident that the antibiotic would cure, not kill the German premier. 鈥淢y research shows that Morrell, in a very dodgy position as Hitler鈥檚 doctor, would only have used pure stuff.鈥� And the only reliable penicillin was that made by the Allies. So where did Morrell get it?
Wainwright鈥檚 investigations revealed that Allied airmen carried penicillin, so the Germans may have confiscated some from prisoners of war. The other more likely source is from neutral countries such as Spain, which received penicillin from Allied countries for humanitarian purposes, perhaps for treating sick children.
鈥淚 have proof the Allies were sending it to these countries,鈥� says Wainwright. 鈥淚鈥檓 saying this would have got through in diplomatic bags, reaching Hitler鈥檚 doctor and the higher echelons of the Nazi party.鈥� So this was almost certainly pure, Allied penicillin.鈥�
鈥淲e can never be certain it saved Hitler鈥檚 life,鈥� says Wainwright. But he notes that one of Hitler鈥檚 henchmen, Reinhard Heydrich, otherwise known as the 鈥淏utcher of Prague鈥�, died from blood poisoning after surviving a car-bomb assassination attempt. 鈥淗air from his seat went into his wounds and gave him septicaemia,鈥� says Wainwright. Morrell may have been anxious to ensure that Hitler avoided the same fate.