BLITZED: DRUGS IN NAZI GERMANY PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Norman Ohler,Shaun Whiteside | 368 pages | 06 Oct 2016 | Penguin Books Ltd | 9780241256992 | English | London, United Kingdom Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany PDF Book Ranting, raging, increasingly out of control, a dictator and a despot, possibly insanely evil. Ohler then delves into the descent of Hitler himself into hard drug use. There's also a lot of detail on Hitler's own drug regime, all administered by his personal physician Theodor Morell, who was Hitler's constant companion. N azi Germany proclaimed from the outset that it was going to break with the moral and physical degeneracy of the Weimar republic. Evans 30 May German , English. View 1 comment. View all 21 comments. His medication, above all Pervitin and Eudokal, an analgesic morphine derivative, propelled Hitler into a world of delusion in which the defeats and disasters of the last two years of the war could be brushed aside as irrelevant. Put today's news in context and see highlights from the archives. Despite Der Fuehrer's official and hypocritical pretence of abstemiousness, he did eat meat, and he did drink, and he did have a mistress. Ohler, who has diligently researched in the German federal archives and other relevant collections, presents a picture of an entire nation high on drugs. This book is to history what Fox News is to journalism. Hitler, shot up by Morel with a stew of vitamins and hormones and drugs, needing an even greater boost, eventually got hooked on Eukodal, whose active ingredient is an opiod called Oxycodon, synthesized from the raw material of opium. Indeed, the author suggests that the real enemy were not the British or Russian troops, but tiredness, and Pervitin offered a cure for exhaustion. The next month, the troops moved on to Holland, Belgium, and finally France. Red, white and blue tubes of pills, sold under the trade name Pervitin, caught the attention of a doctor at the Academy of Military Medicine in Berlin, who would oversee the logistics of ferrying millions of pills to troops. Is that really your conclusion from reading this? Blitzed , by Norman Ohler, a German journalist, novelist, and screenwriter, is equally fasci Very rarely does a book come along that is, for me, a complete paradigm shift on the Third Reich and the Second World War, but this is one of two I've read in the past several years that have both enlightened and challenged my thinking. But again, the Parkinsons theory is sketchy. Norman Ohler born 4 February is a German New York Times bestselling author, novelist and screenwriter, best known for his book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany , which has been published in over 30 languages. Theodor Morell. The use and abuse of Eukodal was widespread among the Nazi leadership. Had the bullet not killed him, then no doubts his love for Narcotics would have done, that or execution. The use of methamphetamine for example was the norm, Ohler argues, particularly in the form of Pervitin. Suffering from a drug hangover and looking more like a zombie than a great warrior, he had to recover from the side effects. Nazi ideology was fundamentalist in its antidrug stance. Ohler manages to break a lot of new ground in a well-worn subject, and his argument is clear and convincing: the "blitzkrieg" that so stunned Poland and France in was not the result of any fiendish Hitlerian plan, but the product of large amounts of meth. While other drugs were banned or discouraged, methamphetamine was touted as a miracle product when it appeared on the market in the late s. The use of methamphetamine, better known as crystal meth, was particularly prevalent: A pill form of the drug, Pervitin, was distributed by the millions to Wehrmacht troops before the successful invasion of France in Mar 19, Sebastien rated it liked it. Even after another dictator would have recognized that victory was impossible, this genocidal maniac remained convinced of Germany's eventual triumph, producing erratic, illogical strategies and behaving in an unhinged, suspicious way towards others. Start your review of Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany. Ohler reveals late-war Hitler as a craven addict, receiving multiple daily injections from his personal doctor who filled his veins with everything from bull testicle hormones to methamphetamine. And then how this business became incorporated into daily life. Few drugs have received a bigger stimulus from war. While covering the history of drug use in the Third Reich, Ohler presents three detailed case studies he also touches on a number of others : the effect of mass Pervitin use on the invasion of France Pervitin is basically crystal meth , the use of stimulants by the German Navy, and, overriding it all, the case of "Patient A" - Adolf Hitler, who was turned into what can only be described as a junkie by his personal physician Theodor Morell, who was always ready with a hypodermic. The Holocaust was the driving force behind Hitler's Russian strategy from the start. I know I'll never see this period of history in the same way. High on Pervitin, German tank and artillery drivers covered ground night and day, almost without stopping. It seemed like a miracle at first and was taken by civilians and the armed forces alik Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany by Norman Ohler is a fascinating account of the role drugs played in Nazi Germany and which claims claims that German soldiers and civilians commonly used methamphetamine, and also that Hitler was a drug addict. Following the advent of Nazism, addiction continued to be viewed as curable for all. Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany Writer He bases this on Morell's personal notes and on archival materials recovered after the fall of the Third Reich. This research was fueled by revenues from the sale of morphine , an alkaloid found in opium , first identified by a German chemist in the early 19th century and patented by Merck soon afterward. Hitler, was portrayed as a vegetarian teetotaler who would not allow any foreign bodies to enter his system. When an outsider comes in with an open mind and different interests, the results can be fantastic and very illuminating. According to Norman Ohler in his book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany , when Hitler's drug supplies ran out by the end of the war, he suffered severe withdrawal from serotonin and dopamine , paranoia , psychosis , rotting teeth, extreme shaking, kidney failure and delusion. Norman Ohler born 4 February is a German New York Times bestselling author, novelist and screenwriter, best known for his book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany , which has been published in over 30 languages. Although this is an important scholarly study, completely endnoted, Ohler has done well to make it an easy read for almost anyone who might be curious about the topic. Like I expected, this was often a difficult read because of the disturbing subject matter, but the author is specific without being overly graphic or sensationalist, and uncovered an amazing quantity of unknown or neglected historical facts through his archival research. As such Blitzed will force a wider reinterpretation of several key events during the Second World War. In this fascinating account of drug use in the Third Reich, author Norman Ohler takes us on a journey through the history of Germany and explains how, and why, it became a centre of pharmaceutical research. Ohler goes much further than claiming that methamphetamine was central to the German military effort, however. One could even buy boxed chocolates spiked with methamphetamine. Between the wars, Berlin, in particular, exploded in cultural excess and escapism, with drug use becoming prevalent. Methamphetamine was a legal prescription drug marketed as Pervetin produced by the Berlin-based Temmler pharmaceutical company and glowingly endorsed by addicted doctors. Ohler's account of Hitler and his drug use is quite fascinating, and seems solid. Other Editions 4. Hitler's drug use ratcheted up slowly, and mind-altering substances simply allowed him to remain in an evil fantasy world of his own making. Ohler describes the drug mixtures created that would have been fine for an addict like Hitler, but could not be tolerated by the average soldier. While at times the author's prose style errs in the direction of the "non-fiction novel," the book is otherwise very well researched and a joy to read. What was clear is that the energy and euphoria could last only so long before fatigue set in and German advances were hindered by the need to rest their soldiers. Then there was the legacy of his paternal grandfather, who fought for the Nazis in the Soviet Union. It was literally sped up by speed. View all 4 comments. Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany Reviews Goering was known even among his colleagues as an opiate abuser and a lush, and when he finally surrendered he was carrying a briefcase that contained 24,! View all 5 comments. He grew up with a palpable sense of the horrors of Naziism, learning an unflinching account of the war at school in what was then West Germany. Students, especially medical students, turned to the stimulant because it enabled them to cram through the night and finish their studies faster. Retrieved December 8, It should be noted that Germans were not alone in their use of performance-enhancing drugs during World War II. Raw materials more close at hand than the Golden Triangle or the mountains of Afghanistan. Ohler is explicit that drugs cannot explain Third Reich ideology, but their promiscuous use impaired and confused decision-making, with drastic effects on Hitler and his entourage, who, as the war turned against Germany, took refuge in ever more poorly understood cocktails of stimulants.