‘Blitzed’: Turns Out the Nazis Were Junkies
A review of ‘Blitzed’, by Norman Ohler; Allen Lane, 2016.
Adolf Hitler was a teetotaller and vegetarian who once called a meat dish ‘corpse food’. He was also, as it turns out, a junkie. This, in any case, is one of the claims made by Norman Ohler in Blitzed, which throws light on the widespread use of drugs, meth in particular, across the Third Reich. Despite the Nazi obsession with purity, drugs were used by and promoted to just about everyone, says Ohler, from women hoping to impress a first date to sleep-deprived soldiers and the Führer’s high command.
All this is quite interesting, but not as interesting as the central question Ohler’s book asks: To what extent were drugs responsible for the direction of the German war effort? Some of the more striking episodes of the Second World War seem more comprehensible in light of the fact that vast quantities of drugs may have been taken by those involved. The successful German campaign in France, for instance, which involved deploying tanks to lead, rather than follow, the rest of the army. The tank column swept round the very costly Maginot Line on France’s eastern border and cleared the way for the infantry behind.
To what extent were drugs responsible for the direction of the German war effort?
Certainly Ohler contends that drugs were to thank for some of the earlier successes of the Germans. The French, like the British, had greater economic power than the Germans in virtue of holding colonies across Africa. They also had over a million more troops than their German counterparts. Yet the Germans pulled off astonishing upsets, overrunning France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg in six weeks. Ohler believes they received more than a little help in the form of an over-the-counter methamphetamine called Pervatin, which helped tank commanders stay awake and act with a bravery that bordered on recklessness.
Much of the book concerns an intriguing character named Theodor Morell. Now Theodor was an ambitious man who rose to prominence as a ‘master of injections’, if you can believe such a thing once existed. It was said that in his hands, you would not even feel the needle, which were much bigger things back then. Theodor also came up with injectable concoctions to treat almost any ailment. Following a chance meeting with Hitler, he became the Führer’s personal physician and reportedly saw him at least every other day from 1939 to 1945, which was a great deal more often than anyone else. Meanwhile, he used his position to buy pharmaceutical companies across the expanding Third Reich and build a drug reich of his own.
Hitler became so dependent on Theodor Morell and his toxic cocktails of meth, cocaine, heroine, and other substances, that within a few years Theo had almost wholly lost his freedom.
Hitler became so dependent on Theodor Morell and his toxic cocktails of meth, cocaine, heroine, and other fun substances, that within a few years Morell had all but lost his freedom. He and his injections were needed so often that he could not even go to his brother’s funeral. Ohler argues that Hitler’s decision-making and staying power in the latter years of the war were greatly affected by the drugs Morell was giving him, and that serious dependency was guaranteed by the sheer quantity of the stuff going into his veins several times a day. If you have seen the clip of Hitler praising a group of boys from the Hitler Youth, one hand behind his back so that no one sees it shaking, you will find it hard to disagree.
The problem posed by a book like Blitzed is the same one that arises whenever Hitler’s psychology is questioned seriously. If Hitler was an addict, or schizophrenic, or whatever, is he less responsible for his crimes? Ohler does not indulge an affirmative answer. High or sober, he says, Hitler had the same personality, the same instincts, the same twisted vision for the future of Germany. His drug use had no bearing on his culpability. Still, I wonder whether this riveting subplot of the Second World War has not been studied until recently due to fears on the part of those who might undertake such research that they would be accused of making Hitler seem almost like a victim. Norman Ohler, in any case, should be congratulated for turning his research into this absorbing topic into a very readable narrative.
