If NAZI Germany had of won the war, Hitler would not have lived to have seen 1964. Adolf Hitler was a very sick man (I mean physically, by the way) and would have died by natural means in the late 1940's, early 1950's at the latest.
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Hitler wasn't ill before the war, but he got ill during the war because of too much work, too little sleep, quack doctors etc.
Yes, but if he had won the war, there had to have been a war, and therefor he still would have gotten sick. Herman Goering probably would have been the leader of Nazi Germany had the Nazi's won the war, providing he hadn't had a heart attack or something. If that were so, Rudolf Hess may have been the man, or even Hidrick Himmler.
shareIn the book Germany turns the tide of the war in 1942-43, so Hitler's health would have been sufficient then. But in the movie, Germany doesn't turn the tide until 1944, by then Hitler would indeed have been too sick to live to 75.
And there is no way Stalin could have lived to 85 like in the movie, he suffered from exhaustion and heart/lung problems from stress, drinking and smoking too much.
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That's difficult to say since Hitler was on so many drugs, but to be fair, Mao Zedong had heart and lung problems, plus syphilis during his later years, and he stayed alive for years.
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I'm not sure, how far along was Hitler's Parkinson's disease? If Germany didn't turn the tide until June of 1944 (according to the movie) Hitler would have been a wreck by then (not to mention losing on the Eastern Front)
In the book, Germany starts to win in the spring of 1943, I assume his health was better then.
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True, but MacArthur and Ali didn't/don't have the emotional instability of Hitler. When he was winning in 1940-42, Hitler was totally intoxicated with himself, then by 1943-44 his inner circle noticed how drained he was.
So by the movie's timeline, I think by June of 1944, Hitler's health would have been very bad. But in the book's timeline of spring 1943, I think he would have made it.
> Hitler may have had Parkinson's disease in the last year or two of his life, but if he had won the war I think he could have survived into the 1960s (when he would have been in his 70s).
I really doubt it. I saw a documentary on this a while back, in which Abraham Lieberman, a neurologist, presented his analysis of Hitler's medical condition. Among other things, he states that Hitler had Parkinson's for a lot longer than the the last couple of years of his life. I'm just repeating what he said, but it sounds pretty convincing to me. Briefly, his arguments are ...
1) In the 1930s and 1940s, there was no treatment for Parkinson's. If you were diagnosed with it, it was a death sentence, and the only choice you really had was to start putting your affairs in order.
2) Parkinson's is one of the few diseases that can be accurately diagnosed without a personal examination of the patient, if sufficient other evidence is available. In Hitler's case, the Nazis were very careful to not allow any film that showed a less-than-healthy Fuhrer ... but they weren't 100% effective. In particular, there's a film of Hitler meeting with a bunch of Swedish diplomats near the end of the war, in which he walks down a line of people, shaking hands with each in turn. He's in his mid fifties, but his face looks like that of a man with health problems in his seventies -- a somewhat vacant stare, slack muscles, etc. He's stooped over. He doesn't walk normally, but shuffles. At one point, when he's moving from diplomat to diplomat, he turns briefly away from the camera, and as he does, his left hand comes into view and is gyrating wildly. This film (states Lieberman) is enough in itself to diagnose Hitler with Parkinson's. My comment -- I've seen the Swedish film, but can't find a link to it to present here. But if you've ever seen "Der Untergang" (titled "Downfall" for its release in English-speaking countries), Bruno Ganz does a good job of portraying these symptoms. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/)
3) Analysis of films of Hitler at various times shows some dramatic changes in his behavior. Many mannerisms that might strike a modern viewer as particularly Hitlerian -- gesturing only with his right hand while giving a speech; grasping his belt with his left hand while giving the Nazi salute with his right hand; standing with his right hand clasped over his left; keeping his left hand in his pocket while standing and talking to someone -- began in the mid-1930s. Prior to that time, Hitler used his left arm and hand normally -- he gestured with both arms while speaking, etc. Furthermore, these mannerisms can be understood as mechanisms to hide a tremor.
4) In the mid-1930s, Hitler was in his middle forties. Parkinson's is usually an "old person's disease," but developing it at a younger age isn't exceptionally rare, it's just unusual (maybe 10% of Parkinson's patients).
Lieberman's conclusion -- Hitler had Parkinson's, and had it for quite a while; his first overt symptoms began in the mid-1930s. I found an article in which Lieberman discusses this, available on the web at http://www.emergemd.com/bniq/toc.asp?quarterly_ref_id=11-3
Now, let me throw out an idea ... I don't know if Harris was aware of Hitler's Parkinson's disease when he wrote Fatherland -- I do know that during my undergrad days, some time before Harris wrote his book, there was speculation in one of my textbooks that Hitler had "general paresis" (a consequence of long-untreated syphilis), so it was hardly a secret that Hitler had some sort of grave medical problem toward the end of his life. Maybe Harris speculated as you did, that Hitler, relieved of the stress of war, might have bounced back from whatever was crippling him. Or maybe ...
In the book, it's clear that Hitler is rarely seen. Maybe it's not really Hitler? Maybe those in Hitler's inner circle realized that the Fuhrer was losing it, found someone who looked a lot like Hitler, quietly disposed of the real Hitler, and brought out the double for the occasional photo op.
I like how Harris keeps Hitler hidden during most of the book, until the very, very end.
In Fatherland's world, Hitler may well have been dead, evidence being Hitler's appetite for public appearances. In the book Hitler is said to only make an occasional cameo on his balcony, which seems odd considering his flamboyant personality.
My guess is that the surviving Nazis knew that only Hitler, or rather the idea of Hitler, could keep Nazi Germany functioning, so they keep the myth going that he's alive.
Nazism has the biggest cult of personality of any of the totalitatartian systems, since it was Hitler that pretty much took them from obscure hoodlums to leaders of Germany. Even Stalin had to give credit to Lenin and Marx, whereas Hitler played all the parts.
wouldnt winning the war have helped Hitlers mental and physical health dramatically?
shareThe impression I got from the book was that Hitler was basically a figurehead at the time of the book (1964) and it's Heydrich who is really running things at that point.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6533152/1/Payback
Heydrich died in Czechoslovakia in the Spring of '42 as a result of a targeted assassination by the British and Czechs using Czech ex-pats to do the killing.
What would the war turning in Germany's favor in 1943 or 1944 have done to stop Heydrich's death in 1942?
Though I do agree that had he lived and Germany defeated England etc. Heydrich would have eventually taken control of Germany.
My bad. I was misremembering part of the plot from James Hogan's "The Proteus Operation" (which would make for an excellent movie, but I digress) and conflating it with part of the plot of "Fatherland."
In the Hogan book, it is Heydrich who essentially deposes Hitler (Heydrich is not assassinated in the book) and takes over control of the Greater German Reich.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6533152/1/Payback
No, you were correct, in the "Fatherland" movie they refer to Heydrich being alive and I believe being Reichsfuhrer (Himmler's old position) and I was just questioning how the author could explain how Heydrich escaped the Czech assassination.
It's possible I suppose he (Harris) could have used Heydrich's survival as the catalyst for the Nazi victory. In many ways Heydrich was the "brains of the outfit" in the early war years and his survival could have avoided many of the mistakes Hitler made from '42 on.
I'll have to check out "The Proteus Operation" sounds intriguing.
Hm. then it sounds like there is yet another difference between the book and the movie. In the book (to the best of my recollection) Hitler is still in power in 1964 and Heydrich is never mentioned at all, not even in passing. It sounds like the producers of the movie either didn't care about or didn't realize the ramifications of making that kind of change from the original source material when making the movie.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6533152/1/Payback
In the book (to the best of my recollection) Hitler is still in power in 1964 and Heydrich is never mentioned at all, not even in passing.
Sorry, but "no." Heydrich is mentioned several times in the book, and while the POV character (Xavier March) never sees him, it's clear that he's still alive. Other characters (e.g., Nebe, Krebs) who are in a better position to meet Heydrich personally do so, and March hears about it from them. One example -- Nebe tells March about a meeting in which they ponder why Globus is so intent on March's destruction. Nebe and Heydrich conclude that obviously Globus fears that March has information that is damaging to him. They have to keep Globus happy, but also want to know what this information might be, so they decided to give March a week to make his case, and if he cannot at the end of that time, Globus can have him.