‘Can you read German, Mr Stuart?’

‘Well enough,’ said Stuart. Breslow nodded and exchanged a significant glance with Stein. The British would not be so foolish as to send a man who could not read German fluently.

‘Have you ever heard of Dr Morell?’ said Stein. ‘Dr Theodor Morell?’

‘Hitler’s personal physician?’

‘Good,’ said Stein, as a school teacher might approve the unusually bright answer of a backward pupil. He began removing from the metal box cardboard covers containing varying numbers of documents. ‘Not only Hitler’s personal physician but a man upon whom Hitler totally depended, who went everywhere with him and had even more influence on him than Martin Bormann. Hitler told everyone that Dr Morell had saved his life over and over again.’ Stein tapped the pile of papers. ‘These are Dr Morell’s medical files on his patient Adolf Hitler!’

Boyd Stuart picked up the top folder. The papers smelt musty and stale. They were not in chronological order. This file was dated January 1943. At the top corner someone, perhaps Morell himself, had scribbled in pencil, ‘The great disaster at Stalingrad ’. There was a log of medical prescriptions and injections, beginning with anti-depressants and sedatives. There was a note about the first use of prosta-crinum-manufactured from seminal vesicles and prostate glands-and an extra page, added at some later date, said that from this time onward the patient was given this drug every other day until the end of his life. There was a carbon copy of a long letter from Dr Morell to Hitler’s tailor, explaining that the Führer could not any longer endure bright light. Notes and a drawing, fixed to the page by means of a paperclip which had rusted and eaten deep into the paper, showed how the peaks of the Führer’s caps must henceforward be made larger.

Stein watched Boyd Stuart’s face as he flipped quickly through the medical file. ‘You find it interesting, eh?’ Nervously Stein reached for another of the chocolate-coated, brandied cherries and popped it into his mouth.

‘Where does it all start?’ said Stuart, turning the heavy dossiers over on the low coffee table at which the three men sat.

‘Here,’ said Max Breslow. He moved coffee cups and an ashtray to make more space. ‘But Hitler only comes in at the end of it.’

The file he had selected was a slimmer one, and quite different from the Chancellery file covers. Once red in colour, it was now faded to pink. It bore Dr Morell’s name and fashionable Berlin address on the cover in elegant script printing. The contents too were different: heavyweight stationery with engraved headings. Even the file cards were printed with Morell’s name and Kurfürstendamm address, although some of the patients were indicated only by initials. It was a precaution particularly important in a medical practice that specialized in treating venereal diseases and catered to some of Germany ’s most wealthy and famous personalities. Here were Berlin ’s nobility and industrialists and stars of the Berlin stage, film and theatre.

‘Hoffmann,’ said Stein pointing to a sheet. ‘Hitler’s personal photographer and a close friend.’ He picked up an ancient manilla envelope and took from it a desk diary. It had been used as a physician’s appointments book. It was dated 1936. ‘This is how Dr Morell first met Hitler,’ Stein said. ‘Hoffmann was sick-H.H. are Hoffmann’s initials, M.F. is Mein Führer-look at that!’

Morell had written, ‘Met M.F. at Hoffmann’s home, Munich.’ Then a page or so later, ‘M.F. provided his personal aircraft for professional visit to H.H. in his Munich home.’

Again Stein turned a page of the diary. ‘Now we come to Morell’s first professional opinion of Hitler,’ he said. He turned the diary so that Stuart could read it more easily. ‘Saw M.F. First impression of him shocking. Complains of headaches, stomach pains. Also ringing in the ears. Neurotic.’

Max Breslow went into the kitchen to make more coffee. Boyd Stuart turned the sheets to find Dr Morell’s first physical examination of Hitler. The report was dated January 3, 1937, and the medical took place at the Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat near Berchtesgaden. The doctor noted that, according to the patient, he had not submitted himself to a physical examination since he left the army in 1918. The record showed that Hitler-now referred to as ‘patient A’-weighed 67.04 kilos and stood 175.26 cm tall. Blood group A. The examination showed no abnormalities: pupillary reflexes were normal, good coordination, normal sensitivity to heat and cold and to sharp and blunt touch. His hair was dark and thinning slightly, and his tonsils had been removed when he was a child. A scarred leg was the result of shrapnel during the First World War. A badly mended fracture of the left shoulder blade-resulting from a fall when the police fired upon the Nazis during the 1923 putsch-had left patient A with a stiff shoulder so that he could neither rotate nor abduct his upper arm.

Curious, thought Stuart, that, had his right shoulder been affected instead, there could have been no Nazi salute. He turned the page.

The patient complained of severe stomach cramps and Morell found a swelling at the place where the stomach joins the duodenum, as well as the left lobe of the liver. When he touched the region of the kidney, the patient complained of slight pain. Patient A was also suffering from severe eczema on the left leg and was having difficulty wearing high boots. ‘Necessary for parades and rallies,’ Morell had noted in fountain-pen ink which had faded to a very pale shade of blue.

Now the file was given over to letters concerning Hitler’s diet. His other physicians-Professor Bergmann of the Charité Hospital, Berlin, and Himmler’s SS medical officer in chief, Ernst Grawitz-had cut patient A’s eating down to dry wholemeal bread and herbal tea, while treating him with lotions and ointments. Morell changed this to a more varied vegetarian regime.

The next letter was on the headed notepaper of the Bacteriological Research Institute at Freiburg and was signed by Professor A. Nissle, its director. It reported dys-bacterial flora in the specimen of excreta sent there by Morell, who had not named the patient. Nissle advised that the patient should be given ‘Mutaflor’ to replace coli bacilli. Morell adds a note about a preparation of vitamins, heart and liver for the patient. To be put into unmarked containers. ‘Vegetarian patient,’ Morell wrote on his instructions to the pharmacist. ‘Make no mention of the animal origins of this prescription.’ All Morell’s notes at this time were on notepaper of the Berghof. Clearly Morell had taken up residence there.

‘Can’t tear you away from it, can we?’ said Stein. He chuckled with satisfaction.

‘I want to know the end of the story,’ said Stuart. ‘Did the handsome young doctor cure his famous patient? I’m a sucker for the nurse romance.’

‘Dr Morell was fat and ugly,’ said Max Breslow. ‘Hitler said that if Morell could cure his eczema and make him better within a year, he’d be given a fine house.’

‘What happened?’

Breslow said, ‘Morell pumped Hitler full of a medicine he’d invented himself. Vitamultin he called it: every kind of vitamin together with calcium, ascorbic acid and caffeine and so on… you’ll find the formula in his papers there. He marketed some of his compounds later, and made a fortune, they say.’

‘And Hitler got better?’

‘Dextrose and hormones and lots of sulphanamide drugs kept Hitler feeling very well. For years he didn’t even have a virus infection. Whenever he was going to make a speech, Morell gave him an extra dose of glucose and stuff to pep him up. Hitler was pleased. You’ll find the carbon of a letter that Morell sent to say thank you for the house on the island of Schwanenwerder. Hitler kept his promise.’

‘And this documentation continues right through the war?’ said Stuart. ‘It’s priceless stuff.’