Nazi Germany proclaimed from the outset that it intended to break with the moral and physical degeneracy of the Weimar Republic. The Hitler Youth were to provide the younger generation with physical exercise, military drills, and long hikes over the mountains, replacing sex, drugs, alcohol, dance halls, and the “negroid” music of jazz and swing.
Ohler’s book claims not only that German soldiers and civilians commonly used methamphetamine, but that Hitler was a drug addict
This contrast is vividly captured in a scene from the movie “Cabaret,” where the sleazy world of singer Sally Bowles is abruptly interrupted by a uniformed troop of young Nazis singing an aggressively nationalistic version of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” in an outdoor café. At the apex of this self-proclaimed moral renewal was Hitler, who publicly demonstrated his purity and self-sacrifice for the Fatherland as a non-smoking, vegetarian teetotaler, celibate, and without a personal life, as far as the public was concerned.
However, according to the German writer Norman Ohler, this public image, like so many other aspects of Nazi propaganda, was far from the truth. Ohler, who has diligently researched in the German federal archives and other relevant collections, presents a picture of an entire nation high on drugs. He argues that the use of methamphetamine was common, particularly in the form of “Pervitin.” The drug, he says, was manufactured in huge quantities: for instance, 35 million tablets were ordered for the western campaign in 1940. This seems impressive until you consider that more than two and a quarter million troops were involved, averaging around 15 tablets per soldier for the entire operation. Given the focus on supplying tank crews with the drug, the vast majority of troops did not take any at all.
Ohler goes further, claiming that methamphetamine use was universal among the civilian population of Germany. He asserts that for the ordinary person, Pervitin became a routine “grocery item” well before the war. “‘Germany, awake!’ the Nazis had ordered. Methamphetamine made sure that the country stayed awake.” He writes that the “doping mentality” spread into every corner of the Reich, allowing individuals to function in the dictatorship.
This sweeping generalization about a nation of 66 to 70 million people has no basis in fact. No doubt some Germans took, or were prescribed, opium derivatives for medical conditions or to alleviate the stress of living in a country under intense aerial bombardment by mid-1944. But to claim that all Germans, or even a majority, could only function on drugs in the Third Reich is wildly implausible.
What’s more, this narrative is morally and politically dangerous. Ohler suggests that Germans were not really responsible for supporting the Nazi regime or failing to rise against it because they were drugged. This implication, among others, has contributed to the book’s bestseller status in Germany. Ohler also provides a detailed account of the drug regime administered to Hitler by his personal physician Theodor Morell, especially during the war. His medication, particularly Pervitin and Eudokal (an analgesic morphine derivative), propelled Hitler into a delusional state where defeats and disasters were brushed aside as irrelevant. Hitler’s “chemically induced confidence” hardened his resolve and led him to reject all thoughts of compromise, dismissing generals who suggested tactical withdrawals.
Ohler asserts that Hitler’s genocidal aggression was fueled not only by hatred of Jews and Slavs but also by continual methamphetamine abuse. He argues that Hitler was a drug addict who, in the end, was not responsible for his actions, and that the similarly drug-addicted German people failed to realize the scale of the disaster and crimes into which they were being led.
While Ohler briefly acknowledges the moral implications of his argument, his disclaimer that Hitler’s drug use did not impinge on his decision-making is contradicted by the rest of the book. This echoes claims made by some old Nazis, who argued that Hitler saved Germany but went mad during the war.
Ohler’s previous publications have been novels, and in the German edition of this book, he points out that “writing history is never just science, it’s also always fiction.” He employs a “skewed perspective” to recast our understanding of Hitler’s behavior, involving massive exaggeration based on spurious interpretations of the evidence. For example, whenever Morell notes injecting Hitler with an unnamed substance (marked “X” in his notebooks), Ohler assumes it was an opiate. Yet Morell, concerned to stay alive should Hitler die, always recorded when he provided opiates to Hitler. These instances were very few, and Hitler’s contempt for Hermann Göring’s morphine addiction suggests he was not an addict himself. Moreover, the physical deterioration observed in Hitler in his last months is more likely due to Parkinsonism, as concluded by many writers.
Authors like Henrik Eberle and Hans-Joachim Neumann in “Was Hitler Ill?” and Fritz Redlich in his medical investigation have provided thorough readings of Morell’s notebooks that contradict Ohler’s claims. They, along with Werner Pieper in “Nazis on Speed,” put the military use of methamphetamine into perspective. Ohler’s skill as a novelist makes his book more readable than these scholarly investigations, but it’s at the expense of truth and accuracy, a price too high in such a historically sensitive area.
Richard J Evans’s books include “The Third Reich in History and Memory” and “The Pursuit of Power 1815-1914.” “Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany,” translated by Shaun Whiteside
