Dr. Frederick Redlich, 93; Used Medical Insight in Biography of Hitler
Dr. Frederick “Fritz” C. Redlich, former dean of the Yale University School of Medicine who wrote what he called a “pathography” -- or medical and psychiatric biography -- of Adolf Hitler, has died. He was 93.
Redlich, who also taught at the UCLA School of Medicine from 1977 to 1982, died Jan. 1 of congestive heart failure at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut.
Although he wrote or co-wrote half a dozen scholarly books, Redlich’s best-known work is “Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet,” published in 1998.
Redlich, trained in neurology and psychiatry, defined his “pathography” as “the life and character of an individual, as influenced by disease.” Proceeding like a detective, Redlich examined Hitler’s medical and psychological records -- most of them written in German -- including diaries of Hitler’s personal physician, Dr. Theodor Morell.
Although Redlich viewed Morell as a charlatan and pill-pusher, he disagreed with some scholars who have blamed Hitler’s actions on drug abuse. Redlich also debunked several prominent psychological diagnoses of Hitler as a sociopathic personality, borderline personality or schizophrenic.
Redlich identified Hitler’s three medical and psychological problems as Parkinson’s disease, coronary heart disease and giant cell arteritis, an autoimmune disease that causes chronic inflammation of the arteries, with headaches and visual problems. Redlich also wrote that Hitler suffered from spina bifida occulta, a condition that causes disfunction of the genitalia.
Although Hitler exhibited paranoia and other symptoms, Redlich concluded, “most of the personality functioned more than adequately.” The psychiatrist judged Hitler mentally competent to have stood trial at Nuremberg for his crimes, and said none of his medical or psychological problems accounted for why Hitler was “an evil man.”
The doctor said Hitler believed his condition was caused by syphilis, which he considered a Jewish disease, and “became possessed with the idea of saving the Germans, and eventually all of humanity, from the great scourges -- syphilis, Judaism and its offspring Christianity.”
Although most reviews of the book found it lacking in any final explanation for Hitler’s brutal behavior, a Washington Times reviewer called the volume significant for “its dispassionate, clinical examination of Hitler.”
Born in Vienna, Redlich earned his medical degrees at the University of Vienna. He immigrated to the United States in 1938, completed a residency in neurology at Boston City Hospital and joined the Yale faculty in 1942. A year later, he became an American citizen, then served a year in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II.
Considered a founder of social psychiatry, he wrote an important book in 1964 with August B. Hollingshead, “Social Class and Mental Illness,” which documented psychiatric problems in poverty-stricken inner cities. Redlich went on to help found the Connecticut Mental Health Center to aid the area’s poor.
He chaired the Yale psychiatry department from 1960 to 1967 and was dean of the School of Medicine from 1967 to 1972. After he retired from teaching at Yale in 1977, he taught at UCLA for another five years.
Redlich is survived by his wife, mezzo-soprano Herta Glaz; one son, Peter, from his first marriage; and one grandson. Another son, Erik, died two years ago.
