Blitzed

About the book

Book author: Norman Ohler

This book describes WWII and Hitler in a completely different version from anything I’ve ever heard before. The real story is that Hitler and his generals all drug addicts. In fact, the whole German people was. The favourite volksdroge, amphetamine and cocaine, were widely accepted and consumed. Everyone was on it. It was a huge export! Germany were the drug dealers of the entire world because their pharmaceutical creation methods were the most sophisticated. Companies such as Merck and Bayer cooked up cocaine, opiates, and, most of all, methamphetamines, to be consumed by everyone from factory workers to housewives to millions of German soldiers.

Not only do we follow the journey of drugs in the population and in the Wehrmacht, but we follow Hitler’s habits closely through the journals of Dr Morell, Hitler’s personal physician. The reason why the story is relatively unknown is that his personal journals are scattered in several places, and they have only been “checked out” in some libraries a whopping 3 times before Norman found the material.

Reflection and takeaways

We follow the journals of Dr Theodor Morell. He was known for his unorthodox treatments. Please note the list containing things like Eukodal, Heroin, Pervitin (meth), Cocaine and such. This is an actual list of what was given to the Führer. Note the amounts. I had no idea it was this crazy. I assume most dictators do whatever they want, and are far from sober, but this… I had never heard of any of this in school. Nor seen it in any documentary.

It really kicked off when the Germans synthesized Pervitin – it’s pharmaceutical methamphetamine. Said to cure all ills. Sent to doctors, with the timeless dealer trick: the first dose is free. It’ll make you very productive and euphoric.. and is harmless.. (right?).

Pervitin was so popular (no wonder!) it was put in chocolates, a whopping 14mg/portion, which is 5 Pervitin pills. Recommendation in their performance society was to eat 3-9 of these. It was the perfect product for Germany: it was not for escapist pleasure, it was for physical and mental performance. It was a “superhuman drug” for the “superhuman race”.

Meanwhile, Morell started to treat Hitler for some of his problems. Morell didn’t shy away from injections. One fun story is Hacha, the Czechoslovakian President, had a heart attack during negotiations because they were so traumatic. Morell gave him some injections, he literally rose from the dead and signed papers. Next morning, Hitler invaded without a fight. It’s suspected this was meth.

The German soldiers LOVED Pervitin. This was the real secret sauce powering the Blitz. Military gave them out like candies. The soldiers could fight and push on for 3 days and nights without sleep and problems. In fact, they were encouraged to eat as much as they could tolerate. But after a couple of weeks on it, people had psychotic breaks. After a couple of years of being deployed and taking large amounts, people’s mental states broke down completely. Ranke, the Chief Medical Doctor of the Army, sent out a decree early in the war that said Pervitin was important and included it in the army kits.

Later, methed up nazi soldiers tore through France in a couple of days. Germany didn’t have to abide by “rules” or sleep. The entire invasion wasn’t really planned brilliantly the way you might think it was. They just let loose euphoric and methed up soldiers. They couldn’t even communicate with the Generals because there was no infrastructure for that. They just plowed through, everything moved so fast. Whatever they did worked so well they just kept going. Hitler got jealous that his Generals were independently winning the war – he himself was just a Lance Corporal in WWI. This was actually good because Hitler’s micromanagement is really what made the nazis lose the war. But more on that later.

Göring was a fan of morphine, so in order for him to appear important and in control, he sent out a “Halt!” order of the invasion of Dunkirk. They had a complete enclosurement of the entire British Army. This effectively led to a huge chunk of the British Army being able to escape through passenger boats, turning the tide of the war later. They would have been massacred otherwise, if it was not for Görings morphine-amplified ego.

Morell wanted to earn money and at this point had Hitler’s complete trust as his dealer/doctor. He started to create Vitamin pills (called Vitamultin) from all the animal leftovers in Ukraine (livers, bull testicles, bile extracts, pig pancreas testoviron and what not). Some of these were in pill forms, wrapped in gold, and given to the Führer, but most of it was IV. It was also dispensed to the army, making Morell very rich.

6 weeks before the Soviet Invasion, Pervitin was declared as crucial to the war effort. 100 Million doses were consumed at this point, 35 million were ordered by the army.

In the Wolf’s lair, Hitler was basically in his bunker, detached from the war, totally methed up with these cocktails administered for “physical and psychological exhaustion”. He was literally living in an alternate world, a “bubble” with his methed up generals. And obviously, he himself being very “fired up” and enthusiastic - an infectious trait to follow a leader with such enthusiasm. He literally believed he was winning, or couldn’t lose, because he was euphoric. In any case, he rarely went out of his bunker. Anyone speaking reality in the Wolf’s Den was instantly dismissed. Hitler was getting so many injections Morell ordered 20,000 needles just for the führer from the Engel Apotheticary right to Hitler’s quarters.

He became dependant on the injections: not only because drugs were all seriously addictive, but also because his immune system was completely trashed, and was non-functional without them. So Morell was indispensible. It was at the point where Hitlers train and entourage, with all the anti aircraft, had to stop for 8 minutes so that Morell could deliver the injections unperturbed.

So the real story of WWII is way, way more unhinged than I previously thought. It wasn’t just a bunch of crazy nazi sociopaths determined to “secure the future of the Aryan race” or whatever – it was methed up crazy nazi sociopaths trying to do it. It makes the whole thing even more sad, because the whole thing got warped to an even more unhinged state. No act is unthinkable when you’re on unhinged amount of drugs. Morell made Hitler even crazier than he already was. But on the other hand, he also kind of “killed him” with the injections, and the war effort ground to a halt because Hitler made crucial mistakes while being methed up and trying to micromanage his generals.

The Nazis did a lot of experiments with various substances: truth serums using mescaline, which the US happily resumed afterwards into MKUltra. They also tested their military hardware by giving prisoners meth and coke and letting them literally march until the gear broke down.

It got so crazy with the meth that at the end of the war, they built suicide submarines out of two stacked torpedos (but the top one had a plexiglass dome) for one methed up pilot to drive for a couple of days until he hit something.

The whole thing is almost too crazy to believe. I don’t know why they don’t tell people the real story about Nazi Germany.

Why did I pick it

Listened to a podcast by Norman. It was great, so I had to learn more. I’m so glad I did. This story changed a lot for me.

Verdict

4.8 /5 - Easily the best WWII book I have read; one of the better non-fiction history books. Recommend it greatly.