The Gassy Führer
Adolf Hitler, aside from being a genocidal megalomaniac with a flair for bad moustaches and worse decisions, was also — somewhat less famously — a man tormented by his own bowels. His insides were a battlefield long before the rest of Europe followed suit. According to his personal physician, Dr. Theodor Morell — a man whose medical credentials were roughly on par with a caffeinated goat armed with a syringe — the Führer suffered chronic and severe gastrointestinal misery.
Daily symptoms included severe bloating, cramps, indigestion, excessive flatulence, and a digestive rhythm that swung between constipation and diarrhoea like a sadistic metronome. The man who dreamt of global domination was regularly undone by beans.
Naturally, the treatments were as unhinged as the man himself. Morell dosed him with Atropine, belladonna extract, Mutaflor (a probiotic), and even strychnine — yes, actual strychnine — in low doses. Because what’s a bit of poison between fascists?
His diet didn’t help either. Despite his reputation as a vegetarian, Hitler reportedly consumed obscene quantities of peas and beans, effectively turning his colon into a wind tunnel. And while he distrusted most doctors, he trusted Morell far too much.
It’s a petty footnote, perhaps, but a satisfying one: the image of one of history’s most reviled figures trying to deliver a grandiose rant while being betrayed by his own lower intestine. There’s no profound moral to draw here — just a useful reminder that even the worst monsters are still sacks of meat, poorly maintained.
If only more of them had followed suit. The problem with fascists is they never seem to die of their own nonsense when it would be convenient. Imagine a world in which history’s tyrants quietly succumbed to the very absurdities they imposed on others — not through grand assassinations or international tribunals, but via tragic accidents of their own delusion.
Mussolini overdosing on bull testosterone mid-demonstration of his morning turds,[1] Himmler electrocuted by his own bone-measuring contraption during a lavender oil cleanse,[2] and Idi Amin choking on raw milk halfway through a séance with the ghost of William Wallace.[3]
It’s not justice. But it would’ve saved us all a great deal of time.
Because unfortunately, history has a terrible habit of letting its worst characters linger just long enough to wreak irreversible havoc — bloated, constipated, and full of self-belief. Evil that flares and dies becomes a story. Evil that sticks around becomes a government department.
That’s the trouble, really. The truly vile don’t just exist — they persist. Like pop-up ads for crypto scams or glitter you spilled fifteen years ago and still find in your shoe. They endure not because they’re clever or charismatic, but because they refuse to sod off. They double down while everyone else is too tired, stunned, or mortally polite to intervene.
They linger because they won’t bloody leave. And by the time you realise you’ve let a tapeworm move in, it’s already redecorated and appointed itself Minister of Culture.
But here’s the thing: they’re not gods. They’re not monsters. They’re not even especially original. They’re just bags of meat with slogans and Twitter accounts, held together by ego and whatever supplement stack they’re peddling this week. They are ordinary men (and let’s be real, they mostly are…), made dangerous only by how many people are willing to believe otherwise.
And that, is why we mock. Not because the threat isn’t real — but because they are. Flesh and hormones, petulance and posturing. Mockery breaks the spell. It takes the puffed-up spectacle of authoritarian grandeur and pokes a hole straight through it, letting the gas escape. Because once you’ve imagined them on the loo live-streaming to their fanbase while battling gastrointestinal collapse, it gets harder to fear them as avatars of destiny.
It’s not about disrespect. It’s about disarming the myth — taking what looks like power and revealing the smallness beneath. The terrifying becomes ridiculous. The grandiose becomes pathetic. These men don’t tower above us; they bumble. They sulk. They sweat through ill-fitting suits, forget their lines, and get angry when the teleprompter doesn’t flatter them. Some are orange-tinged and allergic to facts, some oddly fixated on cartoon bears and allergic to dissent, some covered in milkshake and allergic to democracy. They are not titans. They are needy, petty, profoundly ordinary men, inflated by spectacle and shielded by fear. Laughter brings them back down to eye level — where they belong.
This is what humour can do. It reminds us that these men are stoppable, beatable, and — above all — beatable by ordinary people. By laughter. By courage. By refusing to buy the act.
History doesn’t need heroes. It just needs enough people willing to point and say, loudly enough, "You absolute tit."
That’s how it starts.
Because imagine if they'd laughed — not nervously, not behind closed doors, not with that strained political smirk — but properly. Out loud. At volume. If someone, somewhere, had stood up in 1923 and said, "You’re not a visionary. You’re just a fart in jackboots," maybe it would’ve shaken the spell. Maybe fewer people would’ve raised their arms in salute. Maybe fewer uniforms would’ve been stitched. Maybe fewer trains would’ve run on time to places no one came back from.
We’ll never know what might have changed. But we do know this: today’s demagogues rely on the same sleight of hand. They bellow and bluster and hope we’ll mistake volume for vision. The sooner we laugh — clearly, confidently, collectively — the harder it becomes for them to finish the act.
Humour doesn’t erase the danger. But it does make it human. It pulls back the curtain, shows the wires, spoils the illusion. And in a world increasingly full of overinflated egos in suits that might just be the first, best step toward deflation.
And that, is how we stop it starting again.
Footnotes
Mussolini did in fact receive regular testosterone injections to maintain his image of virility and dominance. He was obsessed with bowel movements, reportedly timing and inspecting them with great pride, even showing them off to aides as a symbol of his physical vitality.
Heinrich Himmler was deeply immersed in pseudoscience. He endorsed homeopathy, mysticism, and racial theories so absurd they make phrenology look rigorous. His SS-sponsored research sought to link bone structure with race, including experiments using chicken bones to trace ancestry. He was also known to favour herbal and alternative treatments, rejecting conventional medicine.
Idi Amin drank raw milk by the gallon, believing it made him strong and spiritually connected. He styled himself as a prophet and mystic, claiming spiritual insight and declaring himself the uncrowned King of Scotland — an identity he took seriously enough to address in speeches and supposed visions. The William Wallace detail is poetic licence, but honestly… not much of a stretch.
