Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Nadelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the show
Speaker 1: where we talk about all things drugs. But any views
Speaker 1: expressed here do not represent those of I Heart Media,
Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed, as
Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not
Speaker 1: even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show
Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use
Speaker 1: any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners, There's been a
Speaker 1: book sitting on my shelf for a few years, Blitzed
Speaker 1: Drugs in the Third Reich, by a German award winning
Speaker 1: novelist and screenwriter and journalist named Norman Older. It also
Speaker 1: happens to be the book which I think more listeners
Speaker 1: of Psychoactive have suggested I do an episode on than
Speaker 1: any other. So we got in touch with Norman Olho
Speaker 1: lives in Berlin and asked him if he'd come on
Speaker 1: and talk about a book and so we can learn
Speaker 1: more about the remarkable story and history of the use
Speaker 1: of stimulants, speed and other drugs by the German military
Speaker 1: and other militaries, and also about Hitler and his personal
Speaker 1: use of these drugs. So Norman, thank you ever so
Speaker 1: much for joining me on Psychoactive. Thank you for having
Speaker 1: me on your podcast. I'm very happy to talk about
Speaker 1: this subject. So let's just get started, I mean, before
Speaker 1: we launched into what's going to happen during World War
Speaker 1: Two with the battle between the Axis and the Allies,
Speaker 1: between Germany and its allies and and Britain, the UK
Speaker 1: and eventually the Soviet Union. But let's set the context
Speaker 1: for this. And there's a sense of you know, vym
Speaker 1: Our Germany of the period of Germany before Hitler comes
Speaker 1: to power ninety three as being a fairly decadent period, uh,
Speaker 1: you know in Berlin. So if you could just set
Speaker 1: the stage for us about the nature of drug use
Speaker 1: before Hitler comes to power and how the Nazis approached that. Apparently,
Speaker 1: the puled Wima Republic which started in nineteen eighteen after
Speaker 1: Germany lost the First World War and ended in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three when the Nazis took power, so it lasted
Speaker 1: for about fifteen years. During that period, apparently there was
Speaker 1: quite a liberal approach to the usage of drugs. There
Speaker 1: were drug laws in place, but they were not enforced.
Speaker 1: There was no drug police in Germany, and Berlin became
Speaker 1: famous for basically it's drug culture. It was very cheap
Speaker 1: to acquire drugs. You could get a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: in the pharmacies, but there was also a huge black market.
Speaker 1: There was a big drug tourism coming into place, kind
Speaker 1: of like now. People from all over the world traveled
Speaker 1: to Berlin to go to the famous clubs and take drugs.
Speaker 1: It was kind of similar in the twenties. This also
Speaker 1: had to do with Lost War. Many german Men were
Speaker 1: addicted to morphine. They got morphine legally from the state
Speaker 1: and then they became addicted to it, and then they
Speaker 1: used heroin, for example, which was still a legal product
Speaker 1: manufactured by the company Baia, which also manufacturers still today aspirin.
Speaker 1: So heron and aspirin were their main success product. So
Speaker 1: themar Republic was, I guess uh, a free and liberal
Speaker 1: and a bit of a crazy time. And imagine cocaine
Speaker 1: plays quite a role in those days as well. Right,
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate party drug. It's popular, widely available, right,
Speaker 1: and yeah, apparently cocaine was quite on vogue at the time,
Speaker 1: you could buy it in restaurants from the waiters. There
Speaker 1: were movies made about cocaine, and cocaine wasn't so ostracized
Speaker 1: as it is I think rightly so today, but at
Speaker 1: the time it was considered to be like a like
Speaker 1: a high society drug. Also, Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis on cocaine,
Speaker 1: So using cocaine with kind of chic and maybe it
Speaker 1: would expand your mind, which I think it doesn't. But
Speaker 1: you know, cocaine was everywhere, I suppose in Berlin, in
Speaker 1: certain circles. And the Nazis hated this liberal approach to
Speaker 1: drugs because they propagated a clean Germany, a Germany without
Speaker 1: any poisons. And this was for them a holistic approach.
Speaker 1: I mean, the poisons could be racial, it could be
Speaker 1: racist that they thought were poisonous, that these could be
Speaker 1: substances that they thought were poisonous. So um an anti
Speaker 1: drug policy was in in in in an important part
Speaker 1: of the whole Nazi approach to policy making from the
Speaker 1: top in a way. I mean, Hitler himself is a teetotaler, right,
Speaker 1: doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, He's vegetarian, so part of his
Speaker 1: whole thing. I mean, on the one hand, there's his
Speaker 1: you know, infamous and horrific anti Semitism in mind comp
Speaker 1: and all of this. But there's another part of him,
Speaker 1: which is this kind of body purest which seems to
Speaker 1: you know, permeate some of the Nazi way of thinking
Speaker 1: about this right well not. The ideology was heavily into
Speaker 1: physical fitness, and that's why it was also an anti
Speaker 1: alcohol movement in a way, even though a lot of
Speaker 1: Nazis were drinking and never stopped drinking. But Hitler portrayed
Speaker 1: himself as this health freak in a way that would
Speaker 1: not put any poisons into his body. And he expanded
Speaker 1: this view into the idea of the body of a people.
Speaker 1: So the whole German people basically have one body. So
Speaker 1: you are not free to you know, poison your own body,
Speaker 1: because your body is part of a bigger body. Everyone
Speaker 1: is supposed to. This was called the health dictatorship. Everyone's
Speaker 1: supposed to live healthily, otherwise you'd endanger others ideas which
Speaker 1: actually are still popular today in in in completely different scenarios.
Speaker 1: But the Nazis were very much into this authoritarian approach
Speaker 1: to health and what to do to stay healthy, and
Speaker 1: Hitler was the shining example, and he really was not
Speaker 1: using any toxins until you know, much later, So in
Speaker 1: the beginning he was also the shining example in his
Speaker 1: own movement, because his own movement were basically all you know,
Speaker 1: when they first marched in Munich in Nree to take
Speaker 1: over power ten years before they managed to do so
Speaker 1: in the whole of Germany, they were all drunk. They
Speaker 1: were basically drinking the whole night in the Bavarian beer horn.
Speaker 1: In the morning they thought, now we're going to take
Speaker 1: over power, which miserably failed, and maybe that was one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why he does it from now on. Also,
Speaker 1: there will be no more drinking you know, rains and
Speaker 1: obviously no no other drugs. We have to be always
Speaker 1: you know, clear and clean and fit. M I mean,
Speaker 1: to some extent the anti alcohol thing. There was his
Speaker 1: broader sort of temperance movement in the Western world, where
Speaker 1: the US and parts of Scandinavy of Russia Canada actually
Speaker 1: went to some measure of alcohol prohibition and are broader temperance.
Speaker 1: Germany was not unique in this regard or the Nazis
Speaker 1: or Hitler even I mean, the anti alcohol thing was
Speaker 1: somewhat you know, consistent. But what was more distinctive right
Speaker 1: about Hitler was that in his focus on targeting the
Speaker 1: Jews and blaming the Jews for everything, right, he equated
Speaker 1: I think this is in your book. He equated Jews
Speaker 1: with pathogens and bacteria and poison, and they became equated
Speaker 1: in some form with bad drugs. Right. And then when
Speaker 1: the persecution begins after Hitler becomes to power in thirty three,
Speaker 1: it's Jews, it's gypsies what aren aw called roma, and
Speaker 1: it's drug users I guess, homosexuals and others who become
Speaker 1: part of the sort of broader demonized classes who are
Speaker 1: brain plained for bringing down the bringing down the country.
Speaker 1: Well that's exactly true. Um, you I have nothing to add, actually, okay,
Speaker 1: you just put it very very well. Well, let me
Speaker 1: shift to the other theme that's going on. Right. So
Speaker 1: you have this kind of drug culture in Weimar Germany,
Speaker 1: and then Hitler come into power in thirty three and
Speaker 1: a very strong anti drug thing mixed in with anti
Speaker 1: Semitism and anti other quote unquote deviant minorities. But you
Speaker 1: also have Germany which is this sort of industrial and
Speaker 1: also chemical powerhouse, Right, you have some of the leading
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical firms in the world, right, I think Mark which
Speaker 1: we all know about today, and Bear which you mentioned before,
Speaker 1: but also Tembler and Burringer. And Germany is the workshop
Speaker 1: of the world, you write in your book. You know,
Speaker 1: made in Germany is a guarantee of quality, especially for drugs.
Speaker 1: So tell us a little more about that pioneering role
Speaker 1: in global influence of the German pharmaceutical industry in the
Speaker 1: late nineteenth and into the twentieth century. Well, yeah, as
Speaker 1: you just said, this started already in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: Germany was um the biggest industry in Europe already, but
Speaker 1: it didn't have any colonies unlike France or Britain. And
Speaker 1: the need to consume stimulants, which for example, drove the
Speaker 1: British Empire into importing tea just to have this tea
Speaker 1: time at around four or five pm, which gives you
Speaker 1: like another boost or kick. Germany had to, you know,
Speaker 1: look for other ways to find stimulants. So what they
Speaker 1: did was to produce them pharmaceutically, and the late nineteenth
Speaker 1: century became very good time for German pharmaceutical industries because
Speaker 1: he didn't need a lot of raw materials. It basically
Speaker 1: needed brain power to develop medicines. So, as mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: heroin and aspirin were actually discovered within the same company
Speaker 1: and within the time span of ten days by the
Speaker 1: same chemist. So there was a lot of innovation going
Speaker 1: on in the pharmaceutical industry in German. Bear puts out
Speaker 1: aspen for a headache and heroin it could seemed thoroughly
Speaker 1: in a pill form as a cost the present, right,
Speaker 1: So they're pioneering in that area. Yeah, they were quite
Speaker 1: confident that heron would be a big seller, which it
Speaker 1: was in the beginning, and until people understood that it
Speaker 1: actually forms an addiction. The beginning, they weren't even concerned
Speaker 1: with this. They even suggested to give heroin to babies
Speaker 1: who cannot sleep. It only makes sense because heron apparently
Speaker 1: makes you, you know, relaxed and makes you fall asleep.
Speaker 1: But it was a bit of a problem for the
Speaker 1: Nazis because on the one hand, they didn't want people
Speaker 1: to use those drugs anymore. On the other hand, they
Speaker 1: wanted to boost the German pharmaceutical industry because they dependent
Speaker 1: on a working German economy. And we can see how
Speaker 1: they solved this dilemma for example, with the Temla company
Speaker 1: in Berlin, because they manufactured methamphetamine for the first time
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty six, came onto the market in night,
Speaker 1: and the Nazis simply said that this is not a drug.
Speaker 1: It's was totally illegal. So Temla could you know, make
Speaker 1: a huge profit from it. Yeah, I think you wrote
Speaker 1: there that they actually launched a major advertising campaign based
Speaker 1: upon Coca Cola's advertising campaign. Well, they thought that they
Speaker 1: had developed something similar to Coca Cola, but better. I
Speaker 1: mean the tastes, you know, there's no taste to it.
Speaker 1: It's just a pill. But it had a very refreshing
Speaker 1: effect on the consumers back in the days. And people
Speaker 1: back then didn't know, you know, they were like, we
Speaker 1: drink coffee all the time, or tea or very refined
Speaker 1: you know, tease, and we basically stimulate ourselves in the
Speaker 1: Western societies all the time. But in Germany and the
Speaker 1: thirties was a new thing. So there was suddenly this
Speaker 1: pill on the market which you took. It was pure
Speaker 1: meThe and phetomine. It was manufactured by a Berlin company,
Speaker 1: so there was a quality product. It was not high dosage.
Speaker 1: It was three milligrams, but still you could feel like
Speaker 1: you take a pill, you feel like a slow so
Speaker 1: you feel it coming on slowly and then you have
Speaker 1: like a boost your more targative, which was good at
Speaker 1: the time because you were Germany was just a capitalist country,
Speaker 1: so people were competing against each other, companies were competing
Speaker 1: with each other, so having this little booster of methemphetamine
Speaker 1: was considered to be very beneficial, and other countries didn't
Speaker 1: have this, so the German economy used the methemphetamine to
Speaker 1: produce more and be ahead in the race of the
Speaker 1: nations in Europe in the late thirties. Well, you also
Speaker 1: write about how you know I mean first when the
Speaker 1: campaign was launched by the manufacturer Tembler, they also directed
Speaker 1: the campaign at m d s and the doctors, suggesting
Speaker 1: they try it themselves, not unlike you saw it happen
Speaker 1: with oxycontent and Perdue Farm and other pharmaceutical companies in
Speaker 1: the US twenty I years ago, and I think they
Speaker 1: promoted it, which is oftentimes the case with any new
Speaker 1: drug as both the substitute for other things like alcoholic
Speaker 1: cocainet even opioids, and as a cure for addiction to
Speaker 1: those substances, right, and there was a broader kind of
Speaker 1: sexual connotation that helps sex and energy and performance and
Speaker 1: work and and all this sort of stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess in a way, you know, no society, or
Speaker 1: almost no society is going to be really drug free,
Speaker 1: free of all psychoactive drugs. To almost every society finds
Speaker 1: ways that are for the forbidden ones, and then the
Speaker 1: ones which are the sanctioned ones, the ones which are
Speaker 1: authorized or permitted. And for Germany, it sounds like the
Speaker 1: meth amphetamine, which I think marketed as pervitin, becomes that
Speaker 1: drug in the late nineteen thirties, you know, that's exactly true.
Speaker 1: I mean, it became very interesting even to the regime
Speaker 1: when um, someone who worked for the German army, professor
Speaker 1: called Ranca, realized that it decreases your need to sleep,
Speaker 1: and then he's he started, um, he started testing it
Speaker 1: on medical officers to find out whether this drug might
Speaker 1: actually be useful for the German army. And then matthan
Speaker 1: pheedom in, which before was making the German civilians civil
Speaker 1: society more productive, suddenly became a drug that the military
Speaker 1: took an interest in. M hmm. So you're describe in
Speaker 1: your book. You know this fellow Auto Rank who is
Speaker 1: the head of the Research Institute of Defense Physiology, and
Speaker 1: he's introducing it while at the same time using it
Speaker 1: and at the same time having certain qualms. And then
Speaker 1: you've sort of present his antagonist, Leo Conti, the health
Speaker 1: fear of the Reich right, who has you know, doesn't
Speaker 1: not formal authority over the military, but he's got the
Speaker 1: authority to regulator banned drugs for the broader society. So
Speaker 1: talk about some of that conflict and tensions within the
Speaker 1: military between these guys, and more broadly about whether or
Speaker 1: not to allow the use of meth amphetamine among the soldiers.
Speaker 1: No one thought that pevatine could have any side efactor,
Speaker 1: that there were any problems connected with pevteen. So also
Speaker 1: Ranka had no, we didn't have any second thoughts. He
Speaker 1: just read studies that decreases the need to sleep, and
Speaker 1: then he made um tests with medical officers and he realized, yes,
Speaker 1: they can stay awake for longer periods. So he got
Speaker 1: in touch with the surgeon general, the Nazi surgeon General,
Speaker 1: suggesting that it should be a regular drug for the
Speaker 1: for the German military, which it became in April nineteen forty,
Speaker 1: just before Germany attacked France, it was integrated and dished
Speaker 1: out to all the medical officers. They received a so
Speaker 1: called stimulant Decree which Ranko wrote, which described how many
Speaker 1: pills each soldier should take in the battle situation. And
Speaker 1: German military made good experiences with this drug. The German
Speaker 1: soldiers were very successful in the in these early campaigns
Speaker 1: in the West, and before that also in Poland were
Speaker 1: also matthem Phetamine was already used, but not officially yet.
Speaker 1: So for our listeners, they may they may not know
Speaker 1: the history of World War two all that. Well, the
Speaker 1: invasion of Poland in late nineteen thirty nine precipitates the
Speaker 1: beginning of World War two. I mean, the US has
Speaker 1: it entered for a couple more years until late forty
Speaker 1: one when we're attacked by the Japanese. But that's when Britain,
Speaker 1: France and the others enter. And you're saying that in
Speaker 1: that invasion the Poland by the Germans in late thirty nine,
Speaker 1: you're already seeing pervtin not amphetamine being used widely, but
Speaker 1: not with the official or specified encouragement of the senior
Speaker 1: military leadership. Is that right? Well, Ranco wanted it to
Speaker 1: be an official drug already in August nine, one month
Speaker 1: before the attack on Poland, but his supervisor basically didn't
Speaker 1: understand what he was talking about. A drug that's supposed
Speaker 1: to help on the battlefield, that was very new and
Speaker 1: advanced thinking that wasn't understood yet. But because pervyteen was
Speaker 1: quite popular, what was quite known in Germany, many soldiers
Speaker 1: just carried it in their pockets and when they were
Speaker 1: in the field in Poland, there's you know, there's many
Speaker 1: letters where they right back even to their parents saying
Speaker 1: send me more pavyteen I needed for my job here
Speaker 1: in the military. So Ranca also, you know, looked at these,
Speaker 1: he looked at how how did it work in Poland?
Speaker 1: And if he found out that it worked very well
Speaker 1: for the German army, And so what you're suggesting also
Speaker 1: if young soldiers are writing home, dear mom and dad,
Speaker 1: can you send me more of this meth amphetamine? At
Speaker 1: that point between ninete it was very culturally accepted, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was nobody saw much of a problem
Speaker 1: with it. No, no one saw a problem with it.
Speaker 1: It was basically like Coca cola. So why why would
Speaker 1: there be a problem. Whether you just go to the shop,
Speaker 1: which in that case was a drug store and you
Speaker 1: buy pavty and you take it and you're happy and
Speaker 1: in a better mood. And if your soldier, you can
Speaker 1: fight better because you have less fear when you're in
Speaker 1: mathem fhetamine. You're not afraid to go into dangerous situations.
Speaker 1: You have more you know, zest somehow, or more enthusiasm
Speaker 1: to fight other people, which is, you know, not a
Speaker 1: normal thing, you know, to fight other people. So it's
Speaker 1: better to be on drugs, I suppose, at least on mathemphetamine.
Speaker 1: So i'm I saw this and he read all these reports.
Speaker 1: He asked a lot of officers to send them reports.
Speaker 1: How was mathemphetamine used in the campaign against poland didn't work?
Speaker 1: Did increase the morale of the troops and mostly the
Speaker 1: feedback was positive. So he he again went to a
Speaker 1: supervisor before the French campaign and said, we have to
Speaker 1: make this drug official because then we could use it
Speaker 1: more efficient and this was done so when Germany attacked
Speaker 1: France on May ten, nineteen thirty five million doses of
Speaker 1: methamphetamine were given out and it enabled the German soldiers
Speaker 1: to fulfill what Hitler had ordered of the German troops
Speaker 1: which was too advance, very fast, advanced in a speedy way.
Speaker 1: That's why it was called the blitz Click the speedy war,
Speaker 1: and reached the French border city of Sudant within three
Speaker 1: days and three nights without stopping, without sleeping. This was
Speaker 1: a new tactic too, basically not sleep. This was no
Speaker 1: one had ever no army in the world had ever
Speaker 1: done this too, to march for three days and three nights,
Speaker 1: because no human being can stay awake for three days
Speaker 1: and three nights without an artificial stimulant, but with methamphetamine
Speaker 1: is actually possible. So the German army used this no
Speaker 1: longer time window of being able to be active to
Speaker 1: overrun the enemies which had to go to sleep. Actually,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, when RANKI gets interested in this, his
Speaker 1: initial interest, right is to find the drug encounters fatigue
Speaker 1: and exhaustion, which is seen as the number one enemy
Speaker 1: of sort of military efficiency both in the air and
Speaker 1: on the ground. Tank pilots, infantry, you know, fighter pilots, bombers,
Speaker 1: you name it. And so that's the focus. And presumably
Speaker 1: until that point soldiers had relied on coffee. Right in caffeine.
Speaker 1: I don't think have caffeine pills. Back then, they had
Speaker 1: relied nicotine is a bit of a stimulant. So obviously
Speaker 1: soldiers had used other stimulants. It's just that none of
Speaker 1: them seemed to compare to nothing amphetamine. Well, using stimulants
Speaker 1: is as old as you know, fighting a war. But
Speaker 1: as you said, there was never an effective and strong
Speaker 1: drug like methemphetamine. You just cannot compare smoking a cigarette
Speaker 1: or drinking alcohol to taking a high dosage of methamphetamine
Speaker 1: which releases all of your dopamine in the brain immediately
Speaker 1: and you just totally wired for a few hours. So
Speaker 1: this was a new type of stimulant, a much much
Speaker 1: more potent type of stimulant, which then gave the Germans
Speaker 1: an edge in these speedy campaigns. Yeah, you say in
Speaker 1: the book, and I apologize for my pronunciation of the
Speaker 1: German which I don't know, but that the German army,
Speaker 1: the Vermont, was thus the first army in the world
Speaker 1: to rely on a chemical drug, and that the Germans
Speaker 1: gained more territory in one hundred hours during that list
Speaker 1: Greek you know, west toward the Atlantic Ocean than they
Speaker 1: had in four years of World War One. So it
Speaker 1: was really I mean it sounds like that that campaign,
Speaker 1: that short campaign last thing with some weeks or a month.
Speaker 1: You know, we just had this absolutely stunning impact and
Speaker 1: in terms of having the Germans feel, my god, we
Speaker 1: are on top of the world, nobody can stop us,
Speaker 1: and of creating a sense of fear and intimidation among
Speaker 1: the French and the British and the Belgians and everybody
Speaker 1: else going my god, what has happened. We had more troops,
Speaker 1: we had more tanks, we had more planes, and now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Frances signing his surrender and Belgian
Speaker 1: and surrender, and the Brits are fling back home. And
Speaker 1: you're basically claim you make and I think which professional
Speaker 1: historians have you know, generally backed you up on this.
Speaker 1: You know that you make a powerful case that this
Speaker 1: could not have been possible without the use of that
Speaker 1: the amphetomy. Well, it's important to understand that simply feeding
Speaker 1: soldiers them phetamine doesn't automatically turn them into victorious soldiers.
Speaker 1: Um the strategy that the Germans had, which was to
Speaker 1: go through the Adenne Mountains and not attack from the
Speaker 1: north of Belgium, where Germany for example, had attacked in
Speaker 1: World War One. This was actually decisive because that enabled
Speaker 1: the Germans to be faster in France than the defending
Speaker 1: French and Belgian armies, which were you know, expecting the
Speaker 1: Germans to attack in Belgium. But this fast move, this
Speaker 1: thrust through the Adenne Mountains, it was only possible because
Speaker 1: of methamphetamine. So it was the combination of the strategy
Speaker 1: with the drug that was so successful. Umm. Yeah. Much
Speaker 1: of the credits given, I guess to two particular generals,
Speaker 1: Guderian and then probably the one German general that many
Speaker 1: Americans have heard of, Rammel. I mean, they just drive
Speaker 1: ahead NonStop, They and their troops driven to some extent
Speaker 1: by methi amphetamine. Hitler himself back home in Berlin is
Speaker 1: stunned by all of this. Darion and Ramel suggests that
Speaker 1: the tanks would be the avant garde of the campaign.
Speaker 1: So the tanks would be in the forefront of the
Speaker 1: of the front. You know, they would be not backing
Speaker 1: up the artillery like it was done in World War One,
Speaker 1: but they would have a completely different role this world,
Speaker 1: was to storm ahead and surprise the enemy. So this
Speaker 1: was actually the genius way of using tanks, and for example,
Speaker 1: the Americans have used the tanks in the similar fashion
Speaker 1: when they attacked Iraq. So this but this was a
Speaker 1: new way of using tanks. And I studied the distribution
Speaker 1: of the methemphetamine and I found, for example, that Rommel's
Speaker 1: tank division was using huge amounts of methamphetamine, and Romel
Speaker 1: also was a methamphetamine lover, so they just they would
Speaker 1: just you know, high on meth basically the whole time,
Speaker 1: storming ahead, doing things that no one had ever done
Speaker 1: on the battlefield, not waiting for other units to come
Speaker 1: and back them up, and then slowly moved together. They
Speaker 1: were just moving ahead, but still connected to the air force.
Speaker 1: So that the other very important tactical advantage the Germans
Speaker 1: had was to be able to link the Luftwaffer and
Speaker 1: the tank troops. So you had the storming tanks on
Speaker 1: the ground and the Luftwaffer in the air kind of
Speaker 1: you know, backing them up and making sure that their
Speaker 1: path is clear. And also the Luftwaffe was using huge
Speaker 1: amounts of pavteen, so the pilots could actually be more
Speaker 1: alert in the air for more hours. So these you know,
Speaker 1: pavoteen crazed pilots and pavoten driven tanks on the ground
Speaker 1: made this unbeatable their market phenomenon, at least in the
Speaker 1: so called blitz Creek. We'll be talking more after we
Speaker 1: hear this add So, I'm trying to get a understanding
Speaker 1: of what were the directives and understanding about how methamphetamine
Speaker 1: should be used, because if you start using it on
Speaker 1: a routine basis, or you start taking the amphetamine many
Speaker 1: hours before you're even going into combat, or you start
Speaker 1: increasing doses or you're developing tolerance, you can see all
Speaker 1: the ways in which this drug can you know, turn out,
Speaker 1: where the downsides can you know, turn against you, and
Speaker 1: where all the negative consequences of amphetamine use that are
Speaker 1: widely known around the world today begin to emerge. And so,
Speaker 1: I mean, did you have a sense of German leadership
Speaker 1: trying to get more discipline and rigorous about when and
Speaker 1: how fighter pilots, long distance pilots, tank commanders, tanking, you know,
Speaker 1: infantry should use the drug or is it always just
Speaker 1: kind of given out with a kind of you know,
Speaker 1: take two before combat type of message on it. I mean,
Speaker 1: in the beginning, the only regulation was the Stimulant Decree,
Speaker 1: which said to take two pills I think it was
Speaker 1: two hours before the beginning of combat and then take
Speaker 1: like another one if you feel the need for it.
Speaker 1: I mean it was. It gave some intervals for the
Speaker 1: for the doctors to use it, and apparently these these
Speaker 1: intervals were were good because it was successful. But the
Speaker 1: more that science knew about the drug, obviously the more
Speaker 1: there was talking about side effects, because we know today
Speaker 1: there are side effects. So this became known. But it
Speaker 1: took a while. I mean the drug came onto the
Speaker 1: market and thirty age it was used massively in the
Speaker 1: French campaign and forty and in forty one. This starts
Speaker 1: popping up. Actually already in the fall of there was
Speaker 1: this Leo Conti that you mentioned before, the the health
Speaker 1: purer of the Reich. You found out that it builds
Speaker 1: up tolerance and that addiction will come, and that it
Speaker 1: has negative side effects, et cetera. So Leo County warrant.
Speaker 1: The German military said, maybe in a blitz campaign this
Speaker 1: might work, but in a in a longer military conflict
Speaker 1: in Germany entered along a military conflict in the summer
Speaker 1: of night forty one, when it attacked the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: it might actually be of disadvantage because it wears people,
Speaker 1: wears them out if they used too much. They need
Speaker 1: to increase the dosage. People become depressed when they don't
Speaker 1: have to drug anymore. So County became the enemy of Pevty.
Speaker 1: He tried to stop it, and there's interesting correspondence between
Speaker 1: him and the Virmat's surgeon general claiming that the MT
Speaker 1: is doing whatever the MMA wants to do. Because County
Speaker 1: was was a minister, the secretary secretary of health basically,
Speaker 1: so he was responsed, well, not for the army, not
Speaker 1: for the military, but for you know, the normal civil
Speaker 1: German society. So the army said whatever, you know, decided
Speaker 1: we don't, We don't really care. We make our own
Speaker 1: we make up our own rules. And the RMAT was
Speaker 1: so drunk by these early victories that they thought, you know,
Speaker 1: we have such a wonderful pill in our hand. Why
Speaker 1: would we, you know, listen to some some secretary of
Speaker 1: health who tells us that maybe this would be dangerous.
Speaker 1: But if it turns out that when in fact, you know,
Speaker 1: Hitler decides to invade the Soviet Union in June forty one,
Speaker 1: Operation Barbarossa that turns into a war of attrition, and
Speaker 1: that's the place where pervatin that's amphetamine, is actually probably
Speaker 1: going to do more harm than good. Right. The attack
Speaker 1: on the Soviet Jinia was also planned as a speed war,
Speaker 1: as a blitz creek, because that was basically the only
Speaker 1: strategy that Germany had was to surprise the enemy and
Speaker 1: overrun the enemy within a very short period of time.
Speaker 1: Because basically Germany was economically not able to beat the
Speaker 1: whole world and beat every country. It's it's it's a
Speaker 1: ridiculous idea. It only was able to do these surprise
Speaker 1: attacks and the Soviet the attack on the Civiet Union
Speaker 1: was also a surprise attack. So Hitler basically that the thought,
Speaker 1: you know, when when no one expects us to do
Speaker 1: such a thing, we're going to do it. And hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions of pills of heavyteen were dished out, and
Speaker 1: it actually helped. In the beginning, I mean the first
Speaker 1: three months of the campaign, Germany was almost able to
Speaker 1: destroy the Soviet Union. They were very close to taking Moscow,
Speaker 1: but they just didn't manage to do it. And then
Speaker 1: when the Red Army was able to recuperate from the
Speaker 1: early losses, the Red Army was able to recuperate and
Speaker 1: to you know, throw new battalions into the into the battles,
Speaker 1: and then it became a long drawn out war and
Speaker 1: basically Germany was not able, would never have been able
Speaker 1: to sustain in that war and win that when that
Speaker 1: war and Pevytin basically but didn't play a role anymore.
Speaker 1: I talked to one medical officer which I could interview
Speaker 1: from my book, who was obviously an old gentleman. When
Speaker 1: I met him, he remembered quite well when he was
Speaker 1: in staling Grad and he gave out pevyteen still in Stalingrad,
Speaker 1: and he said to me that he knew that this
Speaker 1: was not turned around the battle or even the war,
Speaker 1: but at the time, you know that the soldiers were
Speaker 1: hungry and exhausted from years of fighting. So pevyteen gave
Speaker 1: them like a little extra energy. But then you know
Speaker 1: it was paid again with a higher price because after
Speaker 1: the war off it was even worse than before. So
Speaker 1: pevyteen in the long run didn't help the German They
Speaker 1: probably had negative effects, but even without those negative effects,
Speaker 1: the German army would not have had a chance to
Speaker 1: achieve what the leadership wanted them to achieve. Once you
Speaker 1: get past the initial pushing to the Soviet Union in
Speaker 1: four the one. It's hard to point a major campaigns
Speaker 1: where the use of methamphetamine made a significant difference. No,
Speaker 1: I think the significance kind of decreased after forty one,
Speaker 1: because then it became a long drawn out war and
Speaker 1: the speed really helps short term in the long drawn
Speaker 1: out or even the alcohol is better, like the Red
Speaker 1: Army always used vodka. You can drink vodka over years,
Speaker 1: and obviously you might become an alcoholic, but it's it's
Speaker 1: not the same as becoming a speedhead and needing to
Speaker 1: use methamphetamine the whole time. M So after forty one,
Speaker 1: probably the methymphetamine was not decisive anymore. You know, it's
Speaker 1: interesting I was reading while after I read your book,
Speaker 1: I was reading some other articles and scanning through some
Speaker 1: other books about the use of stimulants during war and
Speaker 1: both in your book and also you know, you point
Speaker 1: out that after this happens the British. You know, firstly
Speaker 1: they do these propaganda films that the only reason the
Speaker 1: Germans beat us is because they had these you know,
Speaker 1: hyper drugs that were helping them do what they do.
Speaker 1: But then the British start doing all their own sorts
Speaker 1: of controlled experiments, I think to an even greater degree
Speaker 1: than the German scientists had, and they're trying to figure
Speaker 1: out is this about just reducing fatigue and exhaustion. Is
Speaker 1: it about making people smarter, faster reflexes? Is it about morale?
Speaker 1: Is it about losing fear? And you can see all
Speaker 1: these debates among these different scientists in the UK and
Speaker 1: the US. The US develops benz adrina for another form
Speaker 1: of amphetamine somewhat similar to than meth amphetamine, to the
Speaker 1: perfect ten, and they start using it, right, I mean
Speaker 1: in the battle in North Africa, right, you know, Rammel's
Speaker 1: gone down to North Africa and now the British Senator
Speaker 1: General Montgomery, and he orders lots of benzadrine amphetamine for
Speaker 1: his troops. He sees it as building morale and giving confidence.
Speaker 1: The US starts using these We know the Japanese we're
Speaker 1: going big time to the use of these drugs as well,
Speaker 1: so they clearly it clearly begins to play a role
Speaker 1: for all the militaries. But what we also comes out
Speaker 1: in your book is that once you get past forty two,
Speaker 1: and especially as you get towards forty four and forty five.
Speaker 1: As things are increasingly turning against the Germans, against Hitler,
Speaker 1: against the access powers, you see people pushing not just
Speaker 1: for more pervatent, but you describe more and more using
Speaker 1: drug combinations, in particular a form of oxy code on
Speaker 1: that the Germans had created called you could all Right,
Speaker 1: which had been invented I think back around the days
Speaker 1: of World War One had become very popular and essentially
Speaker 1: relying increasingly on speedballs and such. So it seems that
Speaker 1: as things are getting worse and worse um for the
Speaker 1: German army, they're relying on an ever greater array of
Speaker 1: substances to try to deal with the prospects of defeat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they even came to trying to develop so called wonder
Speaker 1: drug because I was always talking about wonder weapons that
Speaker 1: they had up his sleeve, and to use some of
Speaker 1: these wonder weapons, new types of drugs were actually needed.
Speaker 1: Because one of his wonder weapons were the mini submarines,
Speaker 1: which he thought Germany would produce in mass amounts. They
Speaker 1: were met by one or two people, and when Germany
Speaker 1: had lost all its big U boats, um, these small
Speaker 1: mini submarines were still in the water trying to approach
Speaker 1: the Allied warships and then took these are like one
Speaker 1: or two person submarines with torpedoes attached. Basically there were many.
Speaker 1: Even then, you could sneak up to a big ship
Speaker 1: and and try to torpedo it. And for these missions,
Speaker 1: they were looking for a drug that would keep soldiers
Speaker 1: awake for five to seven days, which was even impossible
Speaker 1: with methamphetamine, so they tried to drug combinations. They combined cocaine, methamphetamine,
Speaker 1: you could all the oxycodon into a peal, which they
Speaker 1: called D nine Drug nine, and it just chose how
Speaker 1: desperate the German war effort became. I mean, it were
Speaker 1: essentially almost Kamakazi efforts, right, and then you were taking
Speaker 1: teenage soldiers, filling them with some combination of cocaine at
Speaker 1: the amphetamine and oxy codon, putting him into these little
Speaker 1: cubes where they could barely move around, and sending that
Speaker 1: on missions from which probably the majority would never return. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, the Germans officially never had suicide missions, but
Speaker 1: these these missions literally became suicide missions because not many
Speaker 1: of these young guys ever returned. The drugs itself that
Speaker 1: they had to take was so horrendous that they were
Speaker 1: lost control, they lost orientation, they didn't know anymore where
Speaker 1: they were going, and then they were just you know,
Speaker 1: destroyed by Western ships. So, Nora, I want to turn
Speaker 1: now in the last part of this discussion to Adolf
Speaker 1: Hitler and especially his relationship with a fascinating doctor named
Speaker 1: Theodore Morrell, who was a specialist and dermatological and sexually
Speaker 1: transmitted diseases, a pioneer and item in is, but also
Speaker 1: a bit of a quack, and he becomes this absolutely
Speaker 1: pivotal relationship for Adolf Hitler. And I think part of
Speaker 1: what your book did was to uncover evidence of the
Speaker 1: extent and depth of this relationship, both interpersonal and pharmacological,
Speaker 1: that no historian had fully appreciated before. So tell us
Speaker 1: something about that. No right historians have never really looked
Speaker 1: at the role that Dio Morrell played, even though his
Speaker 1: role is very interesting because my research showed that Morrell
Speaker 1: spent more time with it than anybody else and had
Speaker 1: quite a great influence on him. They were very close,
Speaker 1: they were friends, and they basically spent every day together.
Speaker 1: Um they first met in nineteen thirties six spaghetti dinner
Speaker 1: in Munich, where Morrell was invited by Hoffmann, who was
Speaker 1: the photographer of Hitler. Off One had been a patient
Speaker 1: of Morrel. He had contracted a sexually transmitted disease and
Speaker 1: Morrele cured him. So half One was very happy and
Speaker 1: he said, you have to meet my friend, and his
Speaker 1: friend was Hitler. So Morrel was sitting there at the
Speaker 1: dinner totally nervous, and Hitler had stomach problems always, he
Speaker 1: had problems with this digestion, and a Moral, who was
Speaker 1: not only into vitamins but also into probiotics, which was
Speaker 1: kind of new or very new at the time, suggested
Speaker 1: that Hitler would take a probiotic to help him with
Speaker 1: his digestion. And Hitler did this and it actually helped him.
Speaker 1: So he thought, this Morale is a is a great doctor.
Speaker 1: He achieved what no other doctor has achieved before. And
Speaker 1: he appointed Morrel as his personal physician n six and
Speaker 1: from that moment on the two men became almost symbiotic,
Speaker 1: saying English maybe ah. So from forty one Hitler followed
Speaker 1: Moral's suggestions to use a lot of vitamins and probiotics,
Speaker 1: and he was very healthy actually, even though the mode
Speaker 1: of application was a bit strange, perhaps because morel believed
Speaker 1: in injecting things. He said it's much faster than taking
Speaker 1: a medicine orally. Also, Hitler had his digestive problems, so
Speaker 1: also injecting was better for him, and Hitler became used
Speaker 1: to receiving his daily injection, and the injection had usually
Speaker 1: a cocktail of vitamins and blue cothes and maybe some
Speaker 1: other probiotic and things that would boost Hitler's health. And
Speaker 1: this worked quite well until one when he was in
Speaker 1: the heat of this campaign against the Soviet Union in
Speaker 1: August ninety one, he became ill for the first time
Speaker 1: him since Morrell was his doctor. He had the century
Speaker 1: which came with a high temperature and flu types symptoms.
Speaker 1: He felt very weak and he couldn't go to the
Speaker 1: military briefing, and he said to Morele, you have to
Speaker 1: give me something else, because he was Hitler was very
Speaker 1: much concerned with the general's acting on their own terms.
Speaker 1: If he wouldn't show up at the briefing, just like
Speaker 1: they did in the French campaign when they were just
Speaker 1: storming ahead, and he didn't understand anymore what was actually
Speaker 1: happening on the battlefield, so he ordered Morel to give
Speaker 1: him something stronger than just vitamins and morele for the
Speaker 1: first time gave him an opioid, and Hitler, who had
Speaker 1: developed his taste for strong acting injections, suddenly received an
Speaker 1: injection that was much more powerful than anything he had
Speaker 1: experienced before. And then he more and more asks morel
Speaker 1: to give him stronger stuff, stronger than just vitamins and
Speaker 1: morale being I guess you could call him an opportunist.
Speaker 1: He was also very He's much, very much. He was
Speaker 1: scared of his patient, patient A he called Hitler Adolf
Speaker 1: a number one patients, so he basically did was what
Speaker 1: his patient wanted. Hitler developed this term of immediate recoveries.
Speaker 1: So whenever Hitler after one felt a bit weak or
Speaker 1: insecure or tired, and he had to make big decisions
Speaker 1: which he always had to make in the war. Every
Speaker 1: day had to make more, you know, big decisions. So
Speaker 1: he said to Morrella, need you know, stronger and stronger medications.
Speaker 1: And Morrell basically delivered him these stronger medications and never
Speaker 1: try to protect his patient from becoming addicted or you know,
Speaker 1: using too many medicines. It sounds like, you know, every
Speaker 1: day is different in terms of what Morrel's giving Hill, right,
Speaker 1: he's playing around, not just with stimulants and opioids and
Speaker 1: other psychoactive chemicals, but he's also using steroids and hormones.
Speaker 1: He's designing things, he's invent think things. I mean, basically,
Speaker 1: Hitler is the guinea pig who he has to find
Speaker 1: a way to please day in, day out, and he
Speaker 1: gets caught almost in a catch twenty two where he's
Speaker 1: giving things that are making Hitler feel better but ultimately
Speaker 1: resulting in his long term decline in his health. But
Speaker 1: if he says no to Hitler, it endangers his relationship,
Speaker 1: if not potentially his well being in life. I mean,
Speaker 1: he really gets himself caught up into an impossible situation.
Speaker 1: It seems like, yeah, it was very difficult. He also
Speaker 1: complained a lot to his wife's He's saying, this is
Speaker 1: the most difficult patient you could imagine, And I think
Speaker 1: that's probably true because Nitla always thought he knows everything better,
Speaker 1: and he was kind of an amateur, a fan of medicine,
Speaker 1: so he's very interested in different developments, and so he
Speaker 1: was encouraging Morrel to develop these hormonal concoctions. For example,
Speaker 1: Morrell at one point at the monopoly on all the
Speaker 1: organs of all slaughtered animals in all of the slaughter
Speaker 1: houses of the Ukraine, which was a big deal because
Speaker 1: the Ukraine is a big country and there were big
Speaker 1: modern slaughter houses. And Morel got all the glands and
Speaker 1: all the organs and the blood and everything was separated
Speaker 1: during the slaughtering process and shipped to Morrel's company, which
Speaker 1: was based in occupied Czechoslovakia. And then he made these
Speaker 1: um these concoctions or like a pig's liver extract. And
Speaker 1: and when he made a new concoction, he first tested
Speaker 1: it on Hitler, and Hitler wanted to be the guinea pig.
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, tested on me. And even though Hitler
Speaker 1: is a vegetarian, he's taking all of these things that
Speaker 1: are coming from animal parts, knowing what you think, or
Speaker 1: not knowingly. Well, he he got concerned with this fact
Speaker 1: and he actually asked Morrell, can I Can I technically
Speaker 1: still be called a vegetarian? And Morel said yes, if
Speaker 1: you don't eat it, but if you actually get it intravenously,
Speaker 1: it was still a vegetarian, which is very strange, you know.
Speaker 1: But Hitler was fine with this argument, with this reasoning,
Speaker 1: and so Hitler actually consumed, you know, very intense animal products,
Speaker 1: and these animal products were not really tested on it,
Speaker 1: you know, anyone else except him, and if he liked it,
Speaker 1: then these products were legalized for the German population, also
Speaker 1: for the German army, because he does if it's good
Speaker 1: for me, it's good for the German people. So basically
Speaker 1: bypassing any type of bypassing any type of drug leglatory
Speaker 1: process that the German state would have had in place
Speaker 1: for the the German state had very strict you know,
Speaker 1: they had very strict regulations. So it was basically impossible
Speaker 1: after three to put a new product on the market
Speaker 1: because you know, he had to go through test phases
Speaker 1: and these test phase this couldn't be set up anymore
Speaker 1: because it was a total war situation. Morrell complained to it,
Speaker 1: like I said, I cannot put my new beautiful inventions
Speaker 1: on the market. And that's when Hitler said, okay, just
Speaker 1: we bypassed that. You just give it to me if
Speaker 1: I like it, and make a decree a few decree,
Speaker 1: and then it's going to be on the market. This
Speaker 1: was totally ridiculous way to to go ahead, but that's
Speaker 1: how it went ahead. And you know this, this is
Speaker 1: how the whole dictatorship went ahead. You know, Hitler was
Speaker 1: just deciding everything and obviously making many bad decisions. That
Speaker 1: that's why Germany, you know, catastrophically lost this war, because
Speaker 1: it was just one man thinking. Do you describe all
Speaker 1: these instances of his you know, telling Dr Morrell, give
Speaker 1: me something, I need something. I have a big meeting
Speaker 1: with the general staff or with my ministers or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you've got to get me up. And then he
Speaker 1: so he takes these things that make him feel kind
Speaker 1: of empowered and bold in the same way that prevoc
Speaker 1: perfect and had with the soldiers a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and obviously influencing the decision making he's doing, and I
Speaker 1: guess creating an ever greater laylevel of delusion about what
Speaker 1: his armed forces could achieve. What I spoke at length
Speaker 1: with Hans moms And, who was the leading historian on
Speaker 1: national socialism, and he thought that I somehow provided an
Speaker 1: answer to what historians have labeled as the delusion of Hitler,
Speaker 1: or how Hitler moreanma is removed from reality. And the
Speaker 1: drugs play quite an interesting part in this, because he
Speaker 1: created this artificial world that was you know, going through
Speaker 1: his blood. I mean, he was he he made sure
Speaker 1: that he would feel good and that he would think
Speaker 1: that he's ahead of everyone and always has, you know,
Speaker 1: the right correct decisions. But this was basically a drug
Speaker 1: delusion or a delusion in general, and he used drugs
Speaker 1: to you know, to keep this tunnel vision and to
Speaker 1: keep this delusion and by removing himself more and more
Speaker 1: from reality. Obviously, this had catastrophic effects for the German
Speaker 1: military because the generals were actually quite you know, they
Speaker 1: were very smart, they were trained, they were educated. They
Speaker 1: wanted to discuss the situation among themselves that make suggestions
Speaker 1: how to react to the situation on the battlefield, you know,
Speaker 1: what to do. But then there was this totally crazy
Speaker 1: hitler who just said no, no, no, you don't know anything.
Speaker 1: We'll do it like this, and he was micromanaging everything
Speaker 1: and he just he basically ran the whole thing against
Speaker 1: the wall. Let's take a break here and go to
Speaker 1: an ad you know, you talk about that. By forty two, also,
Speaker 1: what's happening as his decision making declines. But he's also
Speaker 1: rarely giving those incredibly charismatic speeches he used to give
Speaker 1: in the twenties and nineteen thirties, and that those speeches
Speaker 1: were on the one hand, and sort of intoxicant for him.
Speaker 1: I mean, they gave him this little I can relate
Speaker 1: to that as somebody who gave you know, hundreds, if
Speaker 1: not thousands of speeches. Doing that gives a kind of rush,
Speaker 1: a high. And for Hitler doing it, this extraordinary thing.
Speaker 1: There must have been that, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: he's more and more, you know, isolated. We sometimes talk
Speaker 1: about the role of drugs, set and setting in the
Speaker 1: issue of psychoactive drugs. It is not just the drug
Speaker 1: that has the impact, but it's the set and setting.
Speaker 1: And you describe him basically, you know, hunkering down in
Speaker 1: a place called the Wolf's Layer, essentially a large bunker
Speaker 1: complex I think in eastern Germany more or less for
Speaker 1: three years from the summer of forty one to forty four.
Speaker 1: So he's kind of isolated. He's meeting with his senior commanders,
Speaker 1: but he's not out there talking to the crowds. He's
Speaker 1: not getting that sort of feedback. Drugs are playing every
Speaker 1: greater role. And then in his own delusion, he sort
Speaker 1: of sees himself and this is your description of the book,
Speaker 1: as himself almost offering himself to the German people as
Speaker 1: they're intoxican, don't use psychoactive drugs. I am not the ideology.
Speaker 1: I am the national intoxicant. I mean, what you describe
Speaker 1: is a man just undergoing this, you know, sustained three
Speaker 1: year and then intensifying in the last year of the war,
Speaker 1: you know, decline and ever greater delusion, and generals being
Speaker 1: in fear of having to you know, even go in
Speaker 1: and see him. And Hitler is just being delusional. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I call us the bunker mentality in my book. I
Speaker 1: had also had a love for real bunkers, for concrete,
Speaker 1: so he put like seven meter thick wall concrete walls
Speaker 1: around him. And he also put these pharmacological walls around
Speaker 1: him so no one could touch him. Especially the opioid Coda,
Speaker 1: which now as markets oxicontin became his favorite drug because
Speaker 1: once he was high on it could he felt invincible,
Speaker 1: He felt good, He thought he could think clearly. He
Speaker 1: basically never came back into reality at a certain point
Speaker 1: in time. He never came down and like spoke to
Speaker 1: someone and asked him what's really going what's really happening here?
Speaker 1: That he was He was never in that state of
Speaker 1: mind anymore. And and this greatly differentiated um the dictatorship
Speaker 1: from for example, that the British establishment where people were
Speaker 1: the American establishment war establishment, where people were rationally discussing
Speaker 1: what's the best way to go ahead. There was never
Speaker 1: this pooling of you know, different you know, perceptions and
Speaker 1: in opinions. In Germany, it was just this one man
Speaker 1: deciding everything in this one man, you know, becoming more
Speaker 1: and more delusional and and and removed from reality. Well,
Speaker 1: it seemed in a way also both Stalin and Hitler
Speaker 1: essentially extraordinarily powerful sociopath um and making unilateral decisions and
Speaker 1: killing and executing people and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: But but Stalin, so far as we know, was not
Speaker 1: under the influence of powerful psychoactive drugs and growing drug
Speaker 1: dependency and the way that Hitler was. I mean, you
Speaker 1: also described in ninety three. You know, he tells Mussolini
Speaker 1: to come see him. The Allies have already attacked Italy,
Speaker 1: Rome's being bond. Mussolini comes to see Hitler, and Dr Morrell,
Speaker 1: you report in the book, has just given Hitler another
Speaker 1: injection to get him up for the meeting of Newssolini
Speaker 1: and Hitler just talks NonStop for three hours, right, mussolinial
Speaker 1: Duce doesn't even get a word in edgewise and concludes
Speaker 1: with some disastrous you know, military edict. I mean it's
Speaker 1: almost a comic. I mean it's a very sick and
Speaker 1: sad comedy, but parts of it almost sound that way.
Speaker 1: And starting as you mentioned, never used drugs. He was
Speaker 1: always uh, even though he was you know, mass murderer,
Speaker 1: but he was still you know, rationally made these decisions.
Speaker 1: He would very rationally approach the military theater, so he
Speaker 1: would let his generals do their job basically where Hitler would.
Speaker 1: He was not able to let anyone, you know, take
Speaker 1: any responsibility and make any big decision. That's where many generals,
Speaker 1: especially became more and more frustrated with Hitler and didn't
Speaker 1: want to go into the briefings anymore because they knew
Speaker 1: that they couldn't even they couldn't speak their mind. You
Speaker 1: know that. You also talked about all of the people
Speaker 1: and Hitler's revenue turning to Dr Morrel for their own medication.
Speaker 1: Industrialist senior you know, Nazi official, senior military officials, even ambassadors,
Speaker 1: some of them actually go to morale. You describe saying
Speaker 1: I got a meeting with Hitler coming up. Give me
Speaker 1: something to steal me for the meeting that's coming up. Um.
Speaker 1: And then of course Goring, who was the second most
Speaker 1: powerful person in the third right right, the head of
Speaker 1: the war economy, the head of the Luftwaffe, Hitler's designated
Speaker 1: number two. He'd a morphine addict for decades, which had
Speaker 1: not kept him from becoming enormously successful for a long time,
Speaker 1: but it sounds like in the last years of the
Speaker 1: war he kind of falls apart as well. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean this is not just a phenomenon of of Hitler
Speaker 1: becoming removed from reality. I think the generals of the
Speaker 1: Wehrmacht were still very rationally operating individuals, but higher echelon
Speaker 1: of the Nazi Party it was quite mad, actually. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look at these types of personalities, characters that
Speaker 1: were in the highest power places, Good and Gobbles, Himmler, woman,
Speaker 1: they were very strange people and and and and I
Speaker 1: mean the pressure also around them was incredible, and they
Speaker 1: were using quite a lot of drugs, all of them
Speaker 1: except Himler. Himler was doing two hours of yoga each
Speaker 1: morning in his office, but the other ones were basically
Speaker 1: also living in the make belief World governess was using
Speaker 1: heroin and morphine. Girling was a morphine addict. At one point,
Speaker 1: it became almost essential to become a patient of morale
Speaker 1: if you wanted to stay close to Hitler, because if
Speaker 1: you would not become a patient of morale, Hitler wouldlready
Speaker 1: see this as you might even be an enemy because
Speaker 1: you're not, you know, doing the same thing that that
Speaker 1: he would do. You don't, you wouldn't trust the doctor
Speaker 1: that he trusted. So it became also very political what
Speaker 1: Morrel did, and he became extremely busy actually as as
Speaker 1: the doctor of most of the higher Nazis. Right. But
Speaker 1: then there's this final chapter right July twentieth is the
Speaker 1: failed assassination attempt by Claus found Stauffenberg and his allies
Speaker 1: where they land up getting a bomb into a meeting
Speaker 1: with Hitler, who is severely wounded. Um and other other
Speaker 1: senior staff are killed, but Hitler survives and a new
Speaker 1: doctor I know the name, Geesing, Gysing Geesing, who's an
Speaker 1: e NC in your nose and throws doctor comes into
Speaker 1: the scene and he's somebody I mean, it's common in
Speaker 1: those days to use cocaine uh, you know, he was
Speaker 1: not unique in using cocaine for dealing with ear nose
Speaker 1: and throat troubles. It was a very common form of
Speaker 1: medication in those days and quite effective for most people. Um.
Speaker 1: But a kind of battle breaks out between Geezing and
Speaker 1: Morrel over who is going to be Hitler's doctor. Well,
Speaker 1: when Gezing applied cocaine to his Hitless nostrils, he realized
Speaker 1: quickly that Hitler appreciated the drug, not like a normal
Speaker 1: patient who would maybe say, oh, I'm happy I don't
Speaker 1: have such pain anymore, but Hitler immediately wanted more, and
Speaker 1: he was actually craving for the psychoactive effect of the drug.
Speaker 1: Keising realized this, um, and he realized more and more,
Speaker 1: you know, he realized that Hitler is it was like
Speaker 1: a drug connoisseur, and he likes to take drugs every day.
Speaker 1: And then Keissing became skeptical morel because Morrel would never
Speaker 1: really say what he gave Hitler, so there was no
Speaker 1: open communication between the doctors. So Keezing became very suspicious
Speaker 1: about Morale's behavior and was actually went to Himler said,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not good what what Morrel is doing. And
Speaker 1: at the time, Hitler had become so inefficient as a
Speaker 1: war leader that there were you know, hopes within the
Speaker 1: higher the highest ecologen of the party to remove Hitlin
Speaker 1: and have a new leader. So they Himmler, who was
Speaker 1: part of that group for a while. You thought, if
Speaker 1: we removed Morel, then we cut off Hitler from his
Speaker 1: drug supply, that would weaken Hitler and we can actually
Speaker 1: get rid of Hitler and and and start a new
Speaker 1: phase of the dictatorship um. So there was actually a
Speaker 1: so called I call it the doctor's war between Geazing
Speaker 1: and Morale. But in the end hit the one the
Speaker 1: doctor's war and fired Geazing, and because he was still,
Speaker 1: you know, the leader, all the other basically went quiet,
Speaker 1: and Morel's rain um continued. And at this point, I mean,
Speaker 1: Morrel is giving Hitler everything in the kitchen sink, right,
Speaker 1: I mean steroids, And this is ultimately I guess, giving
Speaker 1: speedballs that are combining cocaine or amphetamine with you could
Speaker 1: all the oxy code own maybe even barbiturous. I mean,
Speaker 1: Hitler is in a place where these the stuff that
Speaker 1: Morrel is giving him is on the one hand, more
Speaker 1: and more accelerating his death. Yet on the other hand,
Speaker 1: giving him these little bursts of energy so that he
Speaker 1: can still attempt to perform. We described also is that
Speaker 1: in his last year is basically Morrel becomes Hitler's most
Speaker 1: frequent companion, somebody he describes as his best friend. And
Speaker 1: Morrel essentially becomes a de facto prisoner of Hitler, basically
Speaker 1: forbidden to go away, to leave, to see his family,
Speaker 1: to anything, so that he can be available four seven.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of this little dance of decline while
Speaker 1: Morrel's giving Hitler the drugs to sustain his megalomania and
Speaker 1: avoid accepting the realities of the what's happening on the
Speaker 1: battlefield all around him. Absolutely, I mean, Morrel tried to
Speaker 1: remove himself at a certain point in time even from
Speaker 1: his duties and wanted his assistant doctor from his old
Speaker 1: Berlin practice to come and take over the job. But
Speaker 1: it was just wouldn't let that happen because he said,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if your assistant can give injections like
Speaker 1: you can. Because Morrell was supposed, you know, he was
Speaker 1: known to give the painless injection, which was not so
Speaker 1: easy at the time with the thick needles they had
Speaker 1: back then. Um so moral was had no idea how
Speaker 1: to ever get out of his job again, and he
Speaker 1: actually stayed with Hitler um almost until the very end.
Speaker 1: You describe Hitler just looking totally broken, like his vain
Speaker 1: shot track marks on his arm, and you make the
Speaker 1: point that the attempted assassin Stelfenberg. You say Stelfenberg hadn't
Speaker 1: killed him, but he had indirectly turned him into a
Speaker 1: drug addict. So it might be possible to say that
Speaker 1: Hitler was not truly addicted to drugs until just a
Speaker 1: few years before his death at the end of April,
Speaker 1: but by the end he was essentially a hopeless polly
Speaker 1: substance addict. Yeah, I men, It's interesting to look at
Speaker 1: what happened in the bunker in the last months of
Speaker 1: Hitless Rain, when Hitler's health was so destroyed by all
Speaker 1: these drugs that it became more and more in cape
Speaker 1: couple of you making the decisions that had to be
Speaker 1: made because this was the end phase of the war,
Speaker 1: and Hitler became more and more this ruling wreck who
Speaker 1: was just craving for the next fix, and then Morel's
Speaker 1: certain point in time decided not to give him the
Speaker 1: drug anymore. Especially the oikoldal suddenly stopped giving oiko do
Speaker 1: even though he had given it on regular in an
Speaker 1: irregular rhythm before. So it's interesting to speculate because Morrell
Speaker 1: didn't write down why he didn't give the opioid anymore.
Speaker 1: Why Morrel did that, So either Morrell didn't have the
Speaker 1: drug anymore. He decided that he has to save Hitler
Speaker 1: from from from his addiction by putting him called Turkey.
Speaker 1: But it certainly turned Hitler into, you know, even more
Speaker 1: of a wreck, because suddenly he didn't have the drug anymore,
Speaker 1: and he couldn't function anymore whatsoever. Mhm, And I guess
Speaker 1: those last days of his life. He lashes out at
Speaker 1: Morrel and fires him, and Morrell's even afraid he's going
Speaker 1: to have him executed, and I was having lots of
Speaker 1: other people executed at that point. Yeah, he fires him.
Speaker 1: In late April nineteen Goebbels had told him that Morrel
Speaker 1: had basically made him addicted to opioids, which Hitler must
Speaker 1: have known himself, because Hitler, as crazy as he was
Speaker 1: and as evil as he was, he still must have
Speaker 1: noticed that he developed a dependency on his doctor. But
Speaker 1: I think he suppressed his knowledge and Goebbels basically laid
Speaker 1: it out before him. He said, you have become addicted
Speaker 1: to opioids, and this is Morrel's fault, and that's why
Speaker 1: you're in such a bad shape right now. So Hitler
Speaker 1: actually says these words to Morele. You have been giving
Speaker 1: me opiods the whole time. Get out of the bunker.
Speaker 1: I don't ever want to see you again. And Morrel's
Speaker 1: totally crushed and he thinks now that the Nazis will
Speaker 1: hunt him down, make him responsible for destroying Hitler, which
Speaker 1: in a way he did. I mean, he really, he
Speaker 1: really contributed without wanting to do that, but he contributed
Speaker 1: a big, you know, part of Hitler's you know decline.
Speaker 1: So Morel flees to the south of Bavaria where he
Speaker 1: has a small research lab and just kind of waits,
Speaker 1: you know, for the ass killing squad to knock on
Speaker 1: his door and and and put a bullet in his head.
Speaker 1: But this never happens. Jeremany loses the war, and then
Speaker 1: in mid May n Morrel, still in the southern Bavarian village,
Speaker 1: is tracked down by US military and interrogated and then
Speaker 1: investigated for possible war crimes, which then he he was
Speaker 1: not because the Americans found out that what what did
Speaker 1: Morrel do? It basically poisoned Hitler didn't commit any war crimes.
Speaker 1: The only crime in a way that he committed was,
Speaker 1: you know, give drugs to Hitler, which is not it
Speaker 1: was not a crime in a way. It was certain
Speaker 1: very interesting behavior, which explains you know, some things about
Speaker 1: Hitlas rise and especially about Hitlas fall. M hm. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, let's just conclude then with a few reflections
Speaker 1: on this. And you know, before I do, I should
Speaker 1: just you know, reveal to you in the audience, you know,
Speaker 1: my own sort of personal connection to all of this,
Speaker 1: which was that, you know, I come from a Jewish family.
Speaker 1: My dad was born in Berlin in nineteen twenty eight
Speaker 1: and grew up there with his family until they were
Speaker 1: able to flee in nineteen thirty nine, just before the
Speaker 1: outbreak of World War Two, and so he was five
Speaker 1: when Hitler came to power. His father, the one I'm
Speaker 1: named after, Eric Nodelmann, you know, had fought for Germany
Speaker 1: in the First World War, had received the Iron Cross,
Speaker 1: and then in nineteen forty was living in France, and
Speaker 1: my grandparents had got and divorced and has picked up,
Speaker 1: sent to the French you know, detention camps, drawn cee
Speaker 1: and others, and then ultimately sent to al Wits where
Speaker 1: he's killed. So, you know, for me, there's a kind
Speaker 1: of personal connection to this. And lastly, when people asked
Speaker 1: me why I voted my life to, you know, working
Speaker 1: to end the drug war in the US and around
Speaker 1: the world, I mean, what I say is that it
Speaker 1: was my consciousness of the persecution of the Jews and
Speaker 1: of the nature of Jewish history and especially the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: you know, that sensitized me to things that resembled that
Speaker 1: sort of behavior in contemporary society. The war on drugs,
Speaker 1: although it did not approach the magnitude or evil of
Speaker 1: the Holocaust or some of the other greatest you know
Speaker 1: genocides that you know in history, that in fact, in
Speaker 1: many ways it did resemble those sorts of horrific campaigns
Speaker 1: that dehumanized people for one reason or another, and that
Speaker 1: employed in mass incarceration and massive police forces and all
Speaker 1: of this sort of stuff. So I'm just sharing that
Speaker 1: with you and with the audience. Um, but it's it's
Speaker 1: why reading your book was a you know, somewhat emotional
Speaker 1: engagement for me. As well. And the but for a
Speaker 1: question with Hitler, if Hitler had never met Dr Morrell,
Speaker 1: would he have been a healthier person? Would he have
Speaker 1: made it through the forty one and the way he
Speaker 1: did which he gave Morrell credit. I think I cannot
Speaker 1: imagine Hitler ever not having a tunnel vision and being
Speaker 1: a very closed minded racists person, completely convinced of his
Speaker 1: own right wing, right populist ideas. So Morrel was in
Speaker 1: a way perfect for him. I mean without Morele, maybe
Speaker 1: he would have crashed before, but I don't think he
Speaker 1: would ever have become more flexible in his thinking and
Speaker 1: in his decision making. That's why maybe the argument that
Speaker 1: Morrell ultimately destroyed Hitler is not really correct, because Hitler
Speaker 1: ultimately destroyed himself, and Morele just gave him the tools
Speaker 1: to actually be you know, quite active for a long time.
Speaker 1: I mean really bloody years of the war where nine four,
Speaker 1: nine five, when so many people died unnecessary deaths, and
Speaker 1: this was due to Hitler's you know stamina in a way,
Speaker 1: even after the bomb attack against him, he was in
Speaker 1: July where he was still going for almost another year.
Speaker 1: I would say morals medication actually did not help the world,
Speaker 1: but actually helped Hitler to keep running for quite a
Speaker 1: long time and commit incredible atrocity. So normally before we conclude, um,
Speaker 1: so what are you working on these days? Well, I
Speaker 1: got very interested in trying to find out how, you know,
Speaker 1: drugs have an influence on you know, history and historical processes.
Speaker 1: And then I looked at a certain drug that was
Speaker 1: developed or found um in three, which was LSD, and
Speaker 1: I decided to look at the very early years of
Speaker 1: LSD to figure out how it was developed, why it
Speaker 1: was not, why it did not become a normal medicine,
Speaker 1: and what actually went wrong with LSD and how can
Speaker 1: LSD um maybe be used nowadays. So this is, uh,
Speaker 1: this is a new book, especially basically a book about
Speaker 1: America and how American history was u shaped by this
Speaker 1: incredibly potent substance that suddenly was available norm and that
Speaker 1: sounds fascinating. I mean, obviously there's a whole post World
Speaker 1: War two history of the c I and others with
Speaker 1: their MK ultra, you know, investigations in giving LSD and
Speaker 1: other types of psychedelics to all sorts of people to
Speaker 1: see what types of possible uses they could have. An
Speaker 1: interrogating prisoners or motivating soldiers and all this sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: So I very much look forward to that book, and
Speaker 1: I just want to thank you ever so much for
Speaker 1: joining me on Psychoactive. Sure, thank you. If you're enjoying Psychoactive,
Speaker 1: please tell your friends about it, or you can write
Speaker 1: us a review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. We love to hear from our listeners. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to share your own stories, comments and ideas,
Speaker 1: then leave us a message at one eight three three
Speaker 1: seven seven nine six that's eight three three psycho zero,
Speaker 1: or you can email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot
Speaker 1: com or find me on Twitter at Ethan Natalman. You
Speaker 1: can also find contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures.
Speaker 1: It's hosted by me Ethan Naedelman. It's produced by Noham
Speaker 1: Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers are Dylan Golden,
Speaker 1: Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronovsky from Protozoa picture Is,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from my Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: me Ethan Edelman. Our music is by Ari Blucien and
Speaker 1: a special thanks to a bio sef Bianca Grimshaw and
Speaker 1: Robert Deep. Next week, we'll be talking about all things
Speaker 1: ayahuasca with one of the world's leading experts, Brazilian anthropologist
Speaker 1: Dr Bia Lobat. I got really, yeah, dedicated, and I
Speaker 1: just wanted to drink it and talk about it and
Speaker 1: think about it and talk to people. And naturally I
Speaker 1: became an anthropologist studying Ayahuaska because I was so interested,
Speaker 1: and I just decided that I wanted to go to
Speaker 1: the Amazon and visit the sources and go directly to
Speaker 1: the fields. And for me it has been like my
Speaker 1: main ally and friend. But I think that's you know,
Speaker 1: we have to be careful with those kinds of things
Speaker 1: because there isn't such a thing. You know. This is
Speaker 1: the one or the best, I mean, this is the
Speaker 1: one for me, or this is the one that now
Speaker 1: serves me better. And this is a friend, this is
Speaker 1: an allyed, this is a teacher, This is a kindred
Speaker 1: spirit that I am aligned with. Subscribe to Psycoactive now
Speaker 1: see it, don't miss it.