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welcome to the human experience of live

show we have an incredibly entertaining

show for you planned for you guys today

so sit back grab a drink enjoy this

conversation my guest for today is mr.

Norman Oller

Norman Oller is a journalist novelist

and screenwriter his articles have been

printed in many high-level publications

today we’re gonna be covering his first

non-fiction book titled blitzed drugs in

the Third Reich a book that looks at how

methamphetamine was utilized by the Nazi

war machine his book has since gone

international bestseller and has been

translated into over 25 different

languages Norman it’s a pleasure sir

welcome to hxb thank you for having me

it’s good to be on your show yeah thanks

so much for making the time for this

it’s pretty late for you over there

you’re based in Berlin isn’t that right

yeah it’s midnight here in Berlin

there’s a rain shower coming down

because it was a very hot day so I think

everyone in the city is still awake

because it’s just been too warm and it’s

actually the shortest night of the year

tonight okay I mean that sets the stage

for sure what why don’t you why do you

paint a little picture about your

background you know get us started into

how how you decided to write this book

as well please I always wanted to write

something about those dark Nazi times

because it’s the most fascinating

in our history well at least no German

history but I never really knew what to

write about it and so much has been

written about it

so it’s kind of kind of hard to figure

out what would take you wanna you want

to go into so when I spoke to my

grandfather when I was a teenager about

the so called Third Reich that right by

the ways it was a Nazi propaganda term

so I actually don’t like to use it that

often when I first spoke to him about it

asking him what his role was and heard

stories of a country that was ruled by

an orderly leader and a system that was

very disciplined and Nazi myths like

that that he was still transporting in

the late 80s I thought that really at

one point I want to have a closer look

at this but as I said before I didn’t

really know what I should what I should

examine until about when was that like

fired no no longer ago nine years ago a

friend of mine told me that the Nazis

used all these drugs and it was

completely contrary to what my

grandfather has always told me would

like if you listened to his stories and

then you hear my friends saying the

Nazis used all these drugs it didn’t

match up so I was I started to do

research well first of course first of

all I asked my friend why what makes you

say that

what what gives you this impression and

my friend who told me this he’s a DJ in

Berlin and he’s quite knowledgeable

about drugs and also about Nazi

Germany’s interested in history but how

would he make the connection that there

had been a lot of drug use and he told

me this very unusual story he said that

a friend of his an antique dealer in

Berlin had found an old medicine cabinet

in an old East Berlin apartment which

had a couple of packages of medicine

called pervitin inside and this friend

of mine

he swallowed some of these pills and

said that they still had a very potent

effect on him so this is kind of curious

story that there was a medicine called

pervitin and that it was that these

pills even though they were 70 years old

were still having a stimulating effect

that kind of got me interested and then

I researched what was the content of

pervitin and then it got really

interesting because the content of

perversion is methamphetamine so I had

to conclude that methamphetamine had

been used in Nazi Germany in a normal

medicines that were being that were

being sold apparently legally sold and

that got my research started hmm okay

and I mean you you sure did

I mean in the opening pages of your book

you you went and visited the the temblor

Factory right yeah Temne was the

manufacture of methamphetamine it was a

at the time medium sized pharmaceutical

company in Germany that actually became

a large pharmaceutical company in

Germany because methamphetamine was such

a successful product when they started

out with developing methamphetamine they

had no idea actually what it really was

they just realized that if you take it

you feel somehow energized and to be

energized was the big buzzword of those

times I guess just like it is today I

mean we all need as much energy as we

can the whole day in order to perform at

our best so this was a really true in

Nazi Germany so tamela put created or

paid for a huge advertisement campaign

they thought methamphetamine could

become as popular as coca-cola which was

the number one drink in Nazi Germany not

only because it was brown which was the

colour of the Nazis but also because it

gave you that can extra a little boost

so Tamara thought with methamphetamine

you got a much bigger boost so they they

advertised

across the board and it did become a big

success to the company and 1938 it came

on the market and it quickly flooded

Nazi Germany so that’s in Nazi Germany

methamphetamine was illegal very popular

product so this is a very unusual

situation I thought Soperton was the

brand name what was the active

ingredient in perfect end

methamphetamine oh okay

and I mean you if we just take a step a

little bit back I mean was this

available over-the-counter without a

prescription yes it was when the Nazis

took power in 1933 one of the first

things they did was to outlaw all drugs

they were they posed as the first

anti-drug government in Europe claiming

that the Jews in Germany the the

minority of the Jews they were all into

drugs and this is poisoning the German

people so they they kind of used

anti-drug policy as a policy to to

outlaw or to criminalize Jews and and

and and and other people that they that

they didn’t like the irony then is that

in 1938 as I mentioned before

methamphetamine comes onto the market

and is not recognized as a drug it’s

it’s seen as something like aspirin or

something like like a coffee coffee in a

pill form so you could just go to any

pharmacy and buy a thousand packages of

methamphetamine there’s no problem with

that children could buy it that no one

thought it had it would be regulated

yeah so this was so methamphetamine in a

way substituted all those drugs that the

Nazis had made illegal so it was like a

cure-all for so many different things

yeah it was it was supposed to be good

against hay fever against a flu

against fatigue obviously it was used

for losing weight because you can’t

really you’re not really that hungry and

methamphetamine I suppose it was

supposed to be good for the for the sex

drive so it was also used as like type

of stimulant private stimulants it was

really used was at praise to be good for

basically anything the cure-all as you

said hmm so if you were to compare prep

attend to the methamphetamine on the

street today what would be the potency

comparison if we were to analyze that

well one pill of pervitin contained

three milligrams of methamphetamine and

methamphetamine orally and it was

produced by tenly and uh i suppose very

good conditions it was a professional

pharmaceutical company making very pure

methamphetamine so that’s very different

from the street crystal meth that is

cooked in and I don’t know yeah

trailer parks or whatever it’s cooked or

slums and check in the Czech Republic if

we talk about Europe so I guess taking a

line of crystal meth is much more

dangerous than swallowing a pill of

perverting at the time because the the

substance was controlled it was you know

it was every pill at the same amount and

it was you know clean and the quality

was assured all of that stuff so I guess

for crystal meth consumer these days it

would have been it would be a dream to

take a perverted bill of course

perverted methamphetamine was addictive

at the time just like it is today so it

was a very dangerous pill but this was

not realized for quite some time

so for a few years pervitin was on the

market and people became addicted

without really knowing it I mean they

appreciated the product and they took

more and more but people weren’t so

aware of the problem of addiction I mean

addiction was connected to morphine and

cocaine but if people use perverting

they never thought that would that would

also create an addiction that changed a

little bit later during during the

so-called Third Reich it’s really

fascinating to go over the history of

when this drug was sort of invented and

and was available so so readily who was

professor rank he was sort of the

driving force of getting the German army

army to make use of burton specifically

what did what role did professor rank a

play in this process well rank

pronounced danke in german but we can

call him rank that’s fine

rank was the professor of physiology

employed by the german vm a– their

mother’s the german army at the time his

job was to find ways to improve the

performance of the german soldier so he

was responsible for making suggestions

such as should the soldiers eat white

bread or brown bread or what kind of

cloth should the uniform be made of when

they fight in tropical in the tropical

climate so he was concerned with all

kinds of things and one of his main

interest was to combat fatigue because

he said and he wrote about it even

before parrot in before I discovered

perverted he wrote that a tired soldier

is not a good soldier he because the

tired soldier doesn’t shoot accurately

anymore and it’s not good in combat and

unfortunately human beings do get time

in the evening or after a lot of hours

of daytime we just we humans do get

tired so he thought wouldn’t that

wouldn’t be great to find a way to make

a soldier combat ready for like 24 hours

and then when pervitin

came on the market and people talked

about it and you know probably some

friends of his talked about it or he had

you saw an ad by the Temne company and

in the subway car in berlin or it’s not

clear how he first heard about 13 but 13

was very known in 38 in germany there

was even chocolate on the market that

was laced with methamphetamine so he

knew about it and he then started doing

some research and there were some

universities in germany that had done

exam research on methamphetamine and

that and they some some of these papers

that had been written on methamphetamine

had included the fact that

methamphetamine makes you less tired so

he became ranked became very interested

in methamphetamine and did tests among

young medical officers in his Institute

and concluded after he had done these

tests with with these with these young

students giving them either

methamphetamine cough caffeine or

placebos he found out that the people on

meth were actually able to stay awake

longer and he was in he was thrilled

with those results and he suggested this

to his superiors he said we have to use

this this will give us an advantage over

our enemies because at the time no one

had thought about using something like

methamphetamine to keep a soldier from

sleeping I mean that was in a way a

genius idea that he had so he he he made

it his job to make sure that

methamphetamine would be introduced to

the German army and that’s how the army

became interested in the medication

okay so so so fast-forwarding a little

bit in April 1940 the World War two

kicks off in 1938 or so right – starts

September 1st 1939 a churning attack

Germany attacking Poland and in April

1940 the stimulant decree was issued so

that that was sent out to all the

medical doctors in the army advising

them on how to use methamphetamine what

what information did the D Creek contain

what it was in this decree that that

people needed to know well when rank

suggested that methamphetamine should be

used on a large scale this was in summer

39 just before Germany attacked Poland

his superiors had no clue really what he

was talking about the German Surgeon

General he basically declined that he

said that this was not really of concern

to the German army to now use Parrott

and he didn’t really he didn’t get it

basically and then when Germany attacked

Poland and Anka wrote to all the medical

officers in the field asking them to

report back to him their experiences

with pervitin

because he knew that many medical

officers brought pervitin on a private

basis they had they just bought it from

from pharmacies and distributed it but

there was no regulation and for ranky

that was in a way a nightmare because he

knew that methamphetamine is a strong

drug and to have millions of soldiers

out there in the field fighting a lot of

them using a very strong drug without

any regulation for him that was a very

risky thing so before Germany attacked

France he again made the point and he

said we have to regulate this and we

have to actually stimulate the the

consumption of methamphetamine and this

had to do with the strategy that Germany

was applying in their attack on the

Western Allies in their attack on

Belgium the Netherlands and France which

started in May 1940

because that attack was the real it was

the the it it was the the the blueprint

for the so-called blitz blitz creek

blitz creek is a german invention which

which translated means speed war so the

idea is to overrun the enemy within a

short period of time the first couple of

days you you advanced so quickly into

enemy territory that the that the enemy

forces are overwhelmed and are beaten

within the within the span of like it’s

a week or two that was the bed was the

plan that they implied in France and

they wanted to go through the are

Denton’s which is a mountainous terrain

and in Belgium that the French and the

British didn’t really defend because

they thought no army could go through

this very difficult terrain especially

not with tanks because you have to move

very slowly and you have to rest at

night and it would be for an army would

be very dangerous to go through that

terrain but this was exactly what the

Germans did and with the help of

methamphetamine they didn’t have to rest

at night so they were able to race

through those mountains within three

days and three nights without stopping

reaching friends within those three days

and three nights one of the British and

French allies were still in the north of

Belgium expecting the attack of Germany

to come from there so the Germans

completely surprised the West and they

were only able to do that because they

were taking thirty five million dosages

of methamphetamine so that whole

advancing army did not need to sleep for

several days and nights so Rankin was

envisioning that he said because

detected that the plan had already been

laid out in February and February Hitler

had decided we will go through the

addendum ount ins our soldiers will not

sleep because there’s yet that German

superheroes who don’t need to sleep the

generals all said well they have to

sleep they’re just human beings and then

right then

Franky’s our kind of came because he

said well I have something that can turn

them into those super humans that don’t

need to sleep so he wrote down the what

you mentioned the stimulant decree which

is a two page paper it’s the first paper

in medical in in military history that

describes how a whole army should use a

very powerful synthetic stimulant in

this case methamphetamine it describes

to the medical officers what officers

what is methamphetamine namely a

stimulant that keeps you that keeps you

from sleeping that keeps you awake and

then describes also some other effects

that happen on methamphetamine for

example that you become more aggressive

that you lose some of your fear some of

your inhibitions so it it kind of

explains the medical officers what

methamphetamine is and how much they

should give out they should start with

the pill then they should give the next

pill after six hours and they should

give the next pill after another six

hours so this was three pills in the

span of twelve hours which is nine

milligrams of pure methamphetamine which

is quite a lot and certainly enough to

to make a soldier aggressive and

functioning and well make the whole war

machine well-oiled hmm okay so I mean

different branches of the the military

were taking different amounts right I

mean how many how many total dosages

would you say went out did you say

millions of dosages of this drug went

out well there’s a paper in the military

archives of Germany which gives the

exact number of pills that were honored

by the V AMA from the Temne company and

these are 35 million dosages just for

this Western campaign there are no

records of how many pills of those 35

million were actually taken I assume

that most of them were taken because

there’s a lots of reports of how the

drug was distributed so it’s it’s pretty

clear

that the pills were distributed to the

tank troops especially because the

German strategy was to use the tanks as

the leading weapon in the attack which

was a very unusual tactic usually the

tanks would stay behind the infantry

would would race forward and the

artillery would fight and then the tanks

would kind of come from the back but the

Germans

kind of reversed that that line up and

said we’re gonna use the tanks kind of

as race cars they should race into enemy

territory as fast as they could and as

far as they could and tanks actually are

quite fast machines so that’s what what

the Germans did and with so the tank

troops basically were all messed up and

in fact didn’t stop racing until they

had reached the Atlantic so when they

had after three days and three nights

reached the French border town of sedan

they should have stopped this was

Hitler’s plan we get there and then we

stop and we regroup and then we see how

the battle continues but they were so

hopped up that they just continued to

race forward through the whole country

of France until the reach day of the

Atlantic that basically couldn’t stop

anymore they were just fighting and

conquering and there were an unstoppable

unstoppable force and the first rumors

of the unbeatable Vama made their rounds

the French became really scared that

basically gave up very quickly the

Belgium forces gave up the Dutch forces

gave up nothing could stand in the way

of those crazy German of this crazy

German war machine that was fuelled with

drugs but also that had a brilliant

strategy so you cannot say that it was

just the drugs that made the German

victory in the West it was the drugs

combined with the strategy with the

extremely good training of the soldiers

with the the Luftwaffe coordinating

their attacks with the tanks on the

ground so the overall package was was

very effective

but the drug methamphetamine played a

crucial role in this in this setup okay

a question just popped up in our chat

box I think it’s relevant here did the

soldiers have a crash after they took

all this stimulant to March for three

days and any health effects for them

well one of the most famous tank

generals his name is GU de Leon he he

had had the idea of this campaign

through the addendum Alton’s together

with Rommel and fun launched and these

three kind of unconventional tank

generals suggested that to hit that coup

de Leon after France was taken said to

his man on record he said quote I have

asked you to stay awake for three days

and three nights you managed to do so

for 17 days and 17 nights

this is act this is of course a crazy

number even on methamphetamine I think

it’s impossible to stay awake for such a

long time but I think they did stay

awake for a very long time and then had

short breaks of rest and sleep and then

again they would go for a very long

period of time so that’s what Guderian

means with these 17 days and 17 eyes

were basically they they had hardly any

pause so it is of course no surprise

that after those few weeks they did

crash they they came down big time but

at that time France was already beaten

so the victory was theirs and then they

could really rest and and ranky drove to

the front because he wanted to see how

his perverted how his idea basically

worked how his pervitin worked and he

took photos and first I was surprised

when I saw those photos that he took of

soldiers because he photographed

sleeping soldiers only so all the photos

he took in France were of sleeping

German soldiers so they were just

sleeping then for days and nights they

just they just had to kind of regain

their their energy by sleeping but this

was not a problem because French France

was already beaten so you can see that

pervitin really works in a

you know in a war that only lasts for

like two three weeks there were some

casualties on top of just sleeping some

officers died but only like a handful so

methamphetamine increases your heart

your heart starts racing so some of some

officers actually had heart attacks and

died but really not many and Ronco

reported this and the army said well

this is unfortunate obviously but it’s

just a few men so this is nothing

compared to the overall you know

glorious victory we have just achieved

we have to take these casualties into

account mm-hmm and I mean we’re talking

about methamphetamine what effect is it

having on the brain when you’re taking

it methamphetamine

lets your brain release a lot more

neurotransmitters than the brain usually

releases or you could say in a situation

of extreme danger your brain will

release everything it has to put you on

the highest alert it can put you if you

are attacked

now if you’ve walked through the woods

and a bear attacks you this is a this is

a methamphetamine moment in a way

without taking methamphetamine you’re

fully you’re fully there trying to

figure out how can I get out of the

situation or how can I beat the bear or

how can I run away and if you take

methamphetamine even if you sit in a

chair at home it kind of simulates a

similar situation so methamphetamine

puts it kind of energizes you but for

high-cost obviously because after a

while you have to replenish you have to

take a rest your brain has to replenish

those neurotransmitters at that they

have to be read it has to refill

basically sure so so it doesn’t really

make sense to take methamphetamine

sitting in a chair doing nothing and be

totally overexcited

but it does make sense for fighting a

fighting soldier

and that’s why the Nazis were the first

army in the world to take

methamphetamine but in a way they set

the example other armies have very

carefully studied what the Germans did

and have found their own stimulants to

supply to their soldiers in order to

also make them more combat ready but the

Germans really we’re the first Army to

do so and for the for the first two

years of the of world war two they were

the only ones because it took the Allies

a while to realize what’s going on here

hmm yeah that was that was my next

question actually was you know let’s say

that a German plane goes down the Allies

discover pervitin a in the plane and I

mean how when did the allit did the

Allies ever dose their soldiers with

drugs has this been recorded at all yeah

absolutely right German planes were shut

down over England and British the Brits

found methamphetamine in in those planes

and examined it and also had knowledge

obviously of amphetamines because mfit

amines which in the streets liner is

called speed was already available

before methamphetamine was coming on to

the market and fed Amin Benzedrine as it

was as the brand name was was an

American product benzene was an American

product of the 30s and which was still

sold you know decades later the beatnik

generation they always talk about the

Benzedrine pills that they pop so also

the Brits knew that what stimulants are

but methamphetamine was a stronger drug

so they examine it and they they

wondered whether they should also use it

for their pilots then decided against it

because they thought it’s too strong the

side effects are too strong but they

they realized that maybe they have to do

something at least so they they decided

to use amphetamines later in the war for

their pilots and also for their ground

troops

so when German troops and the British

troops Montgomery and

battle in North Africa

Ramos people on meth and Montgomery’s

people are on speed okay okay so we’re

starting to paint a picture of what was

going on during World War two and I mean

the huge role that methamphetamine was

playing in in the blitzkrieg and how you

know how it was driving the the German

forces right so there there was a point

in in the war the blitzkrieg reached

done Dunkirk and but they were they

failed to to trap the the the British

soldiers were trapped and they they

failed to attack the Germans failed to

attack what what role did the

methamphetamine play in this scenario

well before I mentioned that the tank

generals were unstoppable

they just raced and raised and raced

through enemy territory until they

reached the the Atlantic coast and Don

Kirk is on the Atlantic coast it was the

last port that the the German forces had

not taken yet so it was the last point

that the Allies could use the the

British army could use to flee back to

to Great Britain but the Germans could

have easily taken the port and destroyed

the whole British Army and they would

have won World War two already at this

point but Hitler made a fatal mistake

yeah I mean it was a good mistake but

for the Nazi war machine it was a fatal

mistake he ha he he ordered the so

called he issued the so called halt

order hail to the field he ordered the

German tanks to not take Dunkirk this is

a an order that has puzzled historians

since the order was given out I mean the

British couldn’t believe that luck the

German tanks could have destroyed them

and they just stopped and waited for the

British to enter Dunkirk and then

evacuate by way of of ships

through the channel back into back to

Great Britain what is an explanation for

this halt order is that Hitler felt

extremely uncomfortable with the tank

general’s racing faster than he could

orchestrate the campaign he was he was

sitting at at his at his in his map

house looking at the map of France and

his adjutant just told him where the

troops were and Hitler was always be

high lacking lacking behind he was not

controlling the campaign any more so

giving talent attempts to stop now was a

way for him to get back in control so he

was a serious control freak so having

control of his army was more important

to him than letting his army go and

destroy the enemy the second point is

that Goering number two in the Nazi

state and head of the Luftwaffe the Air

Force and going was a morphine addict he

regularly used morphine since 1923 so he

often was not in the most realistic

mindset that you can imagine but he was

often in a trance like more morphine

induced a state and he had the

completely impractical idea that the

British forces should be finished off by

his forces by the Luftwaffe not by the

ground troops not by the tank generals

he said to Hitler if you let these tank

generals finish the job now they will

get too powerful and you will lose power

but if you let me do the job with my

Luftwaffe we can say this is all our

genius work together and this is a much

better way to finish off this campaign

and Hitler believed Gerling which was a

big mistake and the British could flee

back to Great Britain could re regroup

and the war continued okay

so dr. marell was a really interesting

character in in the war what

what part did he play in regards to

Hitler and and the treatment for Hitler

Morel was a celebrity doctor in Berlin

treating actresses and aristocrats and

wealthy people he was a dr. feelgood and

in 1936 he treated the photographer of

Hitler and photographer of Hitler that

guy called Hoffman was so happy with the

treatment of Morel that he introduced

Hitler and morale because Hoffman knew

that Hitler was suffering from severe

stomach cramps all the time

bloating and gas and Hitler really had

problems with this extreme pain and

Morel was able to cure that very quickly

because Morel was very liberal with

applying a drug called Yuka doll Okada

the main ingredient in a kadhai is

oxycodone it’s a it’s an opioid that

Morel was liberally very liberally

applying and if you have stomach cramps

and you inject oxycodone those crimes

immediately go you don’t have that you

don’t have that problem anymore

and Hitler immediately was cured of his

severe pain and mate morale his personal

physician this was in 1936 so and from

1936 to 1945 Morel was the personal

physician of Hitler and basically didn’t

leave his side any more stayed with him

every day gave him injections every day

and this very much changed the way or

the the character and personality of

Hitler who had always been very proud to

be a teetotaler and abstinent person

that didn’t even drink coffee

no alcohol vegetarian a total health

freak but this changed in a big way when

morale became his personal physician hmm

so so the first thing that dr. Morell

treated Hitler for was his cough right

and what were there other things that

dr. Morell was treating Hillier for well

hit the morel basic usually didn’t treat

people for any diseases Morel treated

people so they would feel better because

if you inject oxycodone in a very high

dosage it’s stronger than heroin you

have an extremely strong high so hit

experience this high and wanted to

repeat this high because he liked it and

he became addicted to opioids so Morel

didn’t really treat him against any

diseases except that the the bloating

and the stomach problems but what really

happened is that Hitler became dependent

on those at daily injections by his

personal physician hmm there was this

video that I saw I think it was on

Twitter or something where Hitler is at

the Olympics I think and he’s rockin in

his chair really quickly it was was

Hitler on pervitin as well was he on

methamphetamine as well it’s not clear

whether he was on methamphetamine as

well Morel took notes every day and his

notes are all kept in the federal

archives in Germany and to study these

notes is actually a big task because

there a lot there are lots of notes and

they’re complicated and there but they

they and they but they can be deciphered

and I I spent a lot of time with these

notes and only in one occasion does

Morel write down that he gives Hitler

methamphetamine that he actually injects

Hitler with methamphetamine which is

quite strong to be get injected with

pure methamphetamine but he only does

this one time or he

rights this one time but what he does do

is morale develops a medicine that he

produces himself he has a he has a

pharmaceutical company himself and he

produces a medicine called Vita mu teen

which is a supplement you could say of

several vitamins so he kind of invented

the vitamin supplement this was his idea

and said if you take this every day you

won’t be sick at all and it’s good for

you and this despite this Vita mu teen

that he developed he developed a special

form of this vitamin teen for Hitler it

was always wrapped in gold and foil and

Hitler received one of these supplements

each day for with lunch so whenever he

ate a lunch

there was a vita more teen next to his

plate and there was there’s one report

of an SS doctor that gets ahold of one

of these gold and this golden wrapped

vita machine and lets them have has them

examined in a lab and the lab results

shows that these vitamin supplements

contained methamphetamine but i did not

see this lab report because

unfortunately or I don’t know if it’s

unfortunate fact is that the SS doctor

lost this report so we cannot really be

sure if methamphetamine really was

included in vitamin teen but it’s it’s

possible and it I would say it’s

probable but as a historian or as a

researcher I cannot say that it’s

guaranteed that he used methamphetamine

as well it’s guaranteed that he used

lots of drugs especially opioids which

also make you euphoric if you take them

in high dosages intravenously you also

took quite a bit of cocaine whether he

did take methamphetamine as I just said

is unclear okay so other than

Cain and meth and and unsure about

methamphetamine and the the opioid you

could all what what else was he taking

that well I mean cocaine and and heavy

opioids is already quite a lot but but

he took in fact over 90 medications on a

regular basis including some crazy stuff

like the extracts of testicles of bulls

to increase his stamina he took he

really liked picks liver extract which

in a way doesn’t make him a vegetarian

anymore he actually uses a lot of

hormones that are harvested from

slaughtered animals at the time I mean

it sounds it sounds crazy but at the

time people did believe that animal

hormones and probably still people

believe that today eating things like

liver like it’s kind of old school to

eat liver but people eat liver because

people say it’s full of neutrons and it

it probably is but to get like a liver

extract injected into your veins is

somewhere I considered as crazy

sure and but Morel did this on so Hitler

received a lot of steroids hormone

preparations his his drug cocktail is

completely insane and is the absolute

opposite of being an absent person which

was the very image that he tried to

portray the whole time to the to the

world especially to the German people

what’s the bunker mentality that that

Hitler had and do you think the drugs

that he was on affected his reasoning

and and you know the reason that the

bunker mentality happened or existed for

him

well he’s thinking in a way never

changes Hitler is a racist

criminal already when he’s a when he’s

already in the 20s when he writes his

hateful book mine Kampf which is a

racist book which already outlines his

policies and I do not think or at least

there’s not there are no records that at

this time he was using drugs to come up

with these ideas so we cannot really say

that drugs form his racist look on the

world but we can say that he later on

especially as the war turns very bad for

him and for Germany he uses lots of

euphoric making stimulants especially

the opioids in order to keep his

confidence and as there’s a few notes by

Morel they’re typical notes read like

Fela fearless leader that’s other hit

that was called Fela has to go into very

important military briefing about

difficult situation on the Eastern Front

needs needs something to boost his

performance for this important meeting I

inject you could all twenty milligrams

Fela extremely happy after injection

goes into meeting comes out of meeting

tells me meeting weren’t really well

because of application of the medication

so Hitler used the drugs to kind of keep

his keep his keep his way never never

questioned himself never change his way

of thinking so the drugs he used the

drugs to stay narrow mind it in a way

that’s why uses very specific drugs he

uses he doesn’t use like he doesn’t

smoke weed in order to kind of have new

creative ideas it I certainly didn’t do

that he takes drugs that kind of keep

him on track and keep him functioning so

the drugs

do play they don’t change his thinking

but they do play away in his

decision-making because staying on track

for Hitler means removing yourself more

and more from reality because reality

outside was changing the war was

changing it was going bad for Germany

Hitler was on the wrong track but he

kept staying on track that is the bunker

mentality he didn’t really look at the

world at the war situation with a clear

head said he didn’t rationally

rationally discuss with his generals

what they should do in 43 and 44 when

the Soviet Union was becoming the Red

Army of the Soviet Union was becoming

more and more powerful advancing towards

Germany Hitler just stayed in his bunker

the bunker be his head was the bunker he

just he just he just said yeah we never

gonna you know we’re never gonna retreat

we’re the superhumans we’re gonna win

there’s no question about this anyone

who doubts this will be shot so this was

all bullshit but this is but this is

what he what he state what he stayed

true to and this led to the final defeat

of Germany so 1945 the was when World

War two ends in late 1944 the Allies

decided to bomb pharmaceutical factories

in Germany how did this affect Hitler

supply and you know what what did he

have to do because of this well Hitler

had become physically addicted to

oxycodone so you could by the end of

1944 he used it every other day in the

fall of 1944 in a dosage of 20

milligrams injected intravenously this

is a very high dosage which makes you

very high and it also makes you

extremely addicted so you cannot stop

using it problem for him was that when

the merck company company that still big

player today who was who had the patent

on you potala oxycodone at the time gets

destroyed in an air raid by the

air force in December 1944 Uchitel

suddenly it’s not available anymore to

Hitler I mean morale probably had a few

you know amped ampules left but he did

have a huge supply because he would

always whenever he needed it he would go

to one pharmacy in Berlin the Engel a

partaker and he would get his supplies

from that pharmacy but suddenly this

pharmacy couldn’t get the supplies

anymore from the factory so a prompt

this was a problem for Hitler and Morel

tried to combat this problem solve his

problem in the beginning by sending out

his aides on motorcycles through

bombed-out girl in racing from one

pharmacy to the next trying to find the

last you know supplies of oxycodone but

at one point there was just none to be

found anymore which created an awkward

situation in the bunker I hit that being

a junkie by now not having his fix

anymore the relationship between the two

men soured and in late April 1945 Hitler

fired Morel it was very very angry at

Morel and this was very unusual to fire

someone out of the bunker because Hitler

was happy for anyone who would stay with

him in the bunker in those last days but

he did fire Morel kicked him out of the

bunker because Marella couldn’t supply

the drug in him or that he made it

addicted to wow it’s such a fascinating

story I can I can see why the book

became so popular I mean it’s it’s

highly intriguing the whole story

hearing about it and from the historical

perspective it’s it’s a it’s a crazy

story I mean when I researched it myself

if I found it extremely interesting

because it does give you the whole the

whole narrative of of world war ii under

a new angle and it it tells a new story

but it’s still the same story that it

that the old story that we knew just

becomes more plausible we understand it

better and it becomes more vivid more

colorful that’s why I think the book is

very successful

and is of interest to people all around

the world yeah so after the war ended

what happened with burbot and it stayed

in use for a little while right it did I

mean many soldiers who returned home

we’re still addicted to it or used to it

tenly still produced it in in February

1945 – still produced millions of pills

so when Germany collapsed in May 1945

those pills that were still out there

flooded the black market they were very

popular on the black market in Berlin

and in other cities we have the

phenomenon that women cleared away all

the rubble in in the destroyed German

cities they are called rubble women and

these rubble women also used them per

button in order to have that boost of

energy because there was not a lot of

food at the time so people and they had

just experienced the most horrible war

in human history their cities have been

had been destroyed no food

totally difficult very difficult living

conditions and then they have to really

labor hard in order to rebuild the

country so keratin was still helpful

because it does give you an extra boost

even though if you then you know you

might completely crash but without

perfect in you know they wouldn’t have

he probably wouldn’t have even gotten

out of bed anymore so it was it was

still popular a product and it was

actually manufactured in Germany all the

way up until 1980 but its popularity

really was during Nazi times and then in

into the 50s what you said about Hitler

it wasn’t like he was going out like

searching for himself you know he wasn’t

like Hitler was trying to drink

ayahuasca or something he was just he

was focused on his mission which was

conquering the world right

yes the Nazis and Hitler used a lot of

drugs but a certain certain types of

drugs they didn’t use and this was the

helis antigenic drugs or psychedelic

drugs or marijuana they didn’t use those

drugs because those drugs chained did

they make you more aware of yourself and

ayahuasca is considered by many people

to be very healthy substance to take

because it connects you to your body to

your mind to your soul this was not

something that Hitler was interested in

it was interested in conquering killing

you know very different things

you hear the war machine not in

psychedelic experiences not at all

normal this was a fascinating read my

friend where can people find the book

where can people find more of your work

you can find the book in any bookshop of

the United States

you couldn’t it was very easy to get a

hold of blitzed the book you could also

follow me on Instagram Norman Oller you

can follow me on Twitter you will get

more information on my work and also on

the next book which is called the

Bohemians which will come out in the

United States in June 2020 so stay tuned

and as we all should at all times right

is there a website that people can go to

where where most of your work is or just

the social media platforms yeah you can

go to Norman nola.com and you will find

my books and my work and some of the

film work that I’ve done so that also

gives a good impression of my work Norma

nola.com

okay guys you heard it here the book is

called Blitz

drugs in the Third Reich my guest Norman

Oller written by my guest Norman Oller

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