So this might be the weirdest news I’ve heard today: Back during WWII, one group of British spies were hoping that pumping Hitler with with enough estrogen would calm him down enough to stop the whole mass genocide/take over the world kick he was on. There were undoubtedly plenty of “kill Hitler” plots circling around at the time (not to mention The Doctor’s efforts), but the logic behind this one is what catches our eye. Follow the jump to learn more about it.
Being the most reviled human in history, Hitler obviously took great care to craft his guard just so. Still, there were a few select British spies who were close enough to the dictator to sneak substances into his food. He still had taste testers, however, so whatever substance they chose had to be benign enough to go unnoticed. And so they chose estrogen.
The thought process behind this was that, if they could get enough of the hormone into his system, it would feminize him enough over several years that he would lose enough of the aggression he had against the world and stop trying to take it over/kill everyone in it. Because no woman in power‘s ever taken advantage of that power to kill large groups of innocent people, or anything.
Basically, they took a look at Hitler’s only surving relative, Pauline Hitler, who was a mild-mannered secretary, and figured that’s something like what he’d turn into if their plan succeeded, at least in terms of personality.
This discovery was made by Professor Brian Ford of Cardiff University, who unearthed a number of the “hare-brained schemes” while going through stacks of recently declassified files. On this particular plot, he says:
“They would smuggle oestrogen into Hitler’s food and change his sex so he would become more feminine and less aggressive. Their research had showed the importance of sex hormones — they were beginning to be used in sex therapy in London … it would have been entirely possible.”
So…There you have it. They thought giving Hitler some feminine feelings might mellow him out a bit. We call shenanigans.
(Photo via Venture Bros. Wiki)
