by Norman Ohler
Paris
Allied liberation, 187
German invasion, 83, 85
Parkinson’s disease, 178
Patient A. See Hitler, Adolf
Patient B. See Braun, Eva
Patient D. See Mussolini, Benito
Patient X. See Ribbentrop, Joachim von
Paulus, Friedrich, 125
Pemberton, John, 229 n3
people’s drug. See Pervitin
performance-enhancing drugs
methamphetamine as, 32, 34, 36, 233 n53
Pervitin as, 32, 34, 36, 38–39, 46–47, 53–54
search for, 5, 28–29
Pershing II rockets, 258 n41
Peru, cocaine exports, 9
Pervitin
addiction concerns, 51, 59–60, 62, 99–100
advertising campaign, 31–32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 46
as appetite suppressant, 85, 86
availability in Germany, 60
BBC feature on, 98
in chocolates, 34, 35, 233 n56
consumer use of, 32, 34, 59–60, 100, 100n
Conti’s concerns about, 98–100, 143–44
in “D I” to “D X” drugs, 194
in “D IX,” 193
dosage, 32, 34, 36, 37, 47n, 64, 84, 86, 88, 232 n49
for fatigue, 40, 42, 50, 58, 234 n8, 245 n30
German civilian use of, 100, 254 n6
German Navy’s tests of, 202–5
German Navy’s use of, 198, 199, 244 n30
Hitler’s use of, 213
legislation concerning, 1, 100
Luftwaffe’s use of, 92–94, 97, 98, 188, 214, 240 n119
medical indications for, 32, 33
molecular structure, 29, 29
as mood enhancer, 52, 58, 235 n37
morphine comparisons, 188
overdoses, 50–51, 61
patent, 29
as performance enhancer, 32, 34, 36, 38–39, 46–47, 53–54
potency, 232 n47
price, 47n
production, 2, 64, 65–66, 67
reducing fear, 37
scientific studies, 36–37, 46–47, 48–49
self-experimentation among scientists, 36
side-effects, 46–47, 50–51, 64, 88–89, 118–19
testing of, 202–5, 257 n37
tolerance threshold, 245 n31
as truth serum, 209n
Waldmann’s warnings about, 241 n141
women’s use of, 59
Pervitin, German Army’s use of
Ardennes offensive, 63, 69–72, 236 n49, 237 n64
concerns about, 54, 57–58, 60, 62
as crucial to the war, 101, 102
dependencies, 89
distribution, 73
dosage, 64, 84, 86, 88
8th Panzer Division, 53
factory order size, 65
for fatigue, 40, 42, 50, 53, 63–64
final phase of war, 187–89
IV Army Corps, 54
France, Battle of, 83–85, 84
by leaders, 143–44
by medical officers, 50–51
IX Army Corps, 53
ordered by officers, 88–89
Poland, invasion of, 51–54, 63–64
prophylactic use, 57–58
side-effects, 88–89
Soviet Union, attack on, 112, 118–19
“stimulant decree” (1940), 61, 63–64
Sudetenland, 234 n11
3rd Panzer Division, 52
to treat wounded, 188
“The Pervitin Problem” (Speer), 99
pharmaceutical industry, birth of, 7
Philopon/Hiropon, 29n
physicians. See doctors
physiology, as discipline, 44
plant-based healing substances, 256 n36
Plötner, Kurt, 209–11
“The Poisonous Mushroom” (Der Giftpilz), 19
Polamidon, 140
Poland, invasion and occupation of, 51–54, 63–64, 121
Pontarlier, France, 85–86
potassium cyanide, 223
Prague, German invasion of, 38
prescription narcotics, required reporting, 15–16
Prinz Eugen (heavy cruiser), 244 n30
Project Chatter, 211
Proof of Aryan Ancestry (Ahnenpass), 18
propiophenon, 232 n46
Prostakrinum, 114
Prostrophanta, 150
Psicain, 251 n137
Püllen, C., 36–37
R
racial hygiene, laws concerning, 17, 18, 19
RAF (Royal Air Force), 82, 92–93
Ranke, Otto F.
on cocaine addiction, 240 n126
inventions, 44
late phase of war, 255 n14
and Morell’s Vitamultin, 91
Pervitin, German Army’s use of, 57–58, 61, 63–64, 83–86, 88–89
Pervitin, personal use of, 58–59, 89
on Pervitin as mood enhancer, 58, 235 n37
Pervitin investigations, 46–47, 48–49, 50–52
postwar life, 255 n14
as Research Institute of Defense Physiology director, 44–47, 50–52
Rauschgiftbekämpfung (war on drugs), 15–18
Red Army. See Soviet Union
Das Reich, 214
Reich Central Office for Combating Drug Transgressions, 16, 17–18, 19
Reich Committee for the People’s Health, 17
Reich Health Office (Berlin), 17, 59–60, 62, 233 n56, 241 n138
Reich Opium Law (1941), 1, 100
Reko, Viktor, 231 n35
Research Institute of Defense Physiology, 44–47, 50–51
Reynaud, Paul, 75
Rhine Valley, as Chemical Valley, 9
Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 149, 166–67
Richert, Hans-Joachim, 197, 199, 202–3, 205
Riefenstahl, Leni, 95, 148, 149
Roma, in concentration camps, 121, 200
Romania, threatened break with Hitler, 146
Rome, bombing of, 138
Rommel, Erwin, 62, 74–76, 84, 85, 125, 140
Römpp, Hermann, 185
Rosenberg, Alfred, 128
Rostock, Germany, 121
Royal Air Force (RAF), 82, 92–93
Rucksack Principle, 238 n75
Rundstedt, Gerd von, 188
Russla (anti-louse powder), 128
S
SA (Brownshirts), 13
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
description of, 199–200
detainees, 200
drug experiments on detainees, 201–5, 202, 204
execution of Soviet prisoners of war, 200
shoe-walking unit, 200–201
Savage, Charles, 210–11
Scharnhorst (battleship), 244 n30
Schaub (Hitler’s adjutant), 22–23
Schenk, Ernst Günther, 213
Schmeling, Max, 22
Schoen, Rudolf, 36
Scho-Ka-Kola, 233 n56, 244 n30
Schramm, Percy Ernst, 108
Schultesteinberg, Ottheinz, 118–19
Secret State Police. See Gestapo
Sedan, France, 70–72
Seehund (mini-U-boat), 197, 198, 199, 205–8, 206, 255 n18, 256 n28
Sertürner, Friedrich Wilhelm, 6, 163
7th Panzer Division, 62, 74–75
sexually transmitted diseases, 20, 22–23
shoe industry, 200–201
Sinti, in concentration camps, 121, 200
Skorzeny, Otto, 194, 196, 199, 213
slivovitz, 135, 248 n76
Sobibór (extermination camp), 120
Solmmen, Georg, 27n
Soviet prisoners of war, execution of, by Germans, 200
Soviet Union, advance toward Germany, 151, 215, 221–22, 224
Soviet Union, German attack on
attritional warfare, 119
German advance, 125
German headquarters, 110
goal, 113
Hitler’s division of f
orces, 122–23
Hitler’s “fanatical resistance,” 117–18
Kharkov, control of, 129–31
Kursk battle, 135
Moscow offensive, 116–17
Pervitin use, 112, 118–19
planning, 101, 110
Soviet defense and counteroffensives, 111–12, 117, 145, 146
Stalingrad, 134
speedball, 162–65
Speer, Albert
at Berghof, 148
Hitler’s grandiose ideas, 123, 124
Hitler’s successor, 172
as Morell’s patient, 149
at Wolf’s Lair, 121, 191
Sperling, Dr., 94
SS
extermination through labor, 201
and German Navy’s search for wonder drug, 194, 196, 199
methamphetamine use, 34
Pervitin use, 88
Russian war, 239 n113
suicides, 225
Vitamultin use, 90–91, 239 n113
Waffen-SS, 88, 213, 225, 239 n113
Stalin, Joseph, 113n, 125n
Stalingrad, 125, 134
Stauffenberg, Claus Schenk Graf von, 153–54, 182
Steinhoff, Johannes, 240 n119
Steinkamp, Peter, 72
Stockhausen, Colonel, 86
Strophanthin, 150
Strughold, Hubertus, 45, 258 n41
strychnine, 169, 170, 171
Stumpfegger, Ludwig, 179, 221
Stuttgart, British bombing of, 121
Sudetenland, invasion of, 234 n11
suicide, following Hitler’s, 225
superbunker (Wolf’s Lair), 175, 183
Swift (company), 128
synthetic alkaloids, 47, 50
synthetics, development of, 28
T
Temmler, Theodor, 2, 5
Temmler Company. See also Pervitin
company growth, 28
current status, 2, 4, 5
head pharmacist, 28–29
location, 2, 188, 254 n6
as Nazi drug lab, 3, 5
performance-enhancing drug, search for, 28–29
Pervitin patent, 29, 31
Pervitin production, 2, 64, 65–66, 67, 187–88, 241 n138, 254 n6
sugar-coating room, 30
Tempelhof Chemical Factory, 2
Testoviron (sexual hormone), 114
Thyssen, August, 149
tiredness. See fatigue
Tonophosphan (metabolic stimulant), 114, 115
Treblinka (extermination camp), 120
U
U-boats, 191–92
Udet, Ernst, 95–98, 96
Ukraine
retreat from, 145
slaughterhouses, 128–30, 250 n118
Ukrainian Pharma-Works, 129–33, 247 n74
United States
Civil War medicine, 7
Cold War, 258 n41
German declaration of war against, 119–20
space program, 258 n41
U.S. Secret Service, 106–7, 138, 139, 210–11
V
V2 rocket, 258 n41
Venice, production of medications, 6n
Versailles Treaty, 8, 9, 37
Vin Mariani, cocaine in, 7
Vinnytsia, Ukraine, 120–29
vitamins
Hitler’s injections of, 26, 112
Morell as pioneer of, 22, 89–91
Vitamultin
contents, 239 n109
Göring’s wife’s use of, 149
Hitler’s use of, 112, 115, 146–47, 150
marketing strategy, 89–91
as reward, 132
Volksdroge.See Pervitin
Vyazma, Russia, 117
Vzvad, Russia, 118
W
Waffen-SS, 88, 213, 225, 239 n113
Wagner, Richard, 187
Waldheim mental hospital (Saxony), 231 n31
Waldmann, Anton, 62, 63, 85, 241 n141
Walter White (TV character), 5
Wannsee Conference (1942), 120
war on drugs, 15–18, 20
Warlimont (German officer), 154
Warsaw, Soviet seizure of, 215
Weber, Bruno, 209, 210
Weber, Professor (cardiac specialist), 245 n35
Weber, Richard, 149, 171, 247 n75, 250 n116
Wehrmacht. See German Army
“Werwolf” (Nazi headquarters in Ukraine), 120–27
White, Walter (TV character), 5
Whitman, Walt, 191
Wirsting, Hermann, 231 n31
withdrawal, compulsory, 16
Witte (German naval physician), 245 n30
Wochenschau (newsreel), 80
Wolf’s Lair (Wolfsschanze), 109
arms conference (1944), 191
assassination attempt on Hitler, 153–58
closure of, 183
Hitler’s routine, 114, 134
location and description of, 109–11
move from, 121
Reichs- and Gauleiter, meeting of, 142
Russian campaign, headquarters for, 110–13
security measures, 159, 160, 175, 183
women
Pervitin production, 64, 65, 67
Pervitin use, 59
wonder drug. See miracle drug
World War I. See First World War
X
“x” (medication), 141, 150, 152, 153, 154, 155
Z
Zuckmayer, Carl, 97
About the Author
NORMAN OHLER is an award-winning German novelist, screenwriter, and journalist. He spent five years researching Blitzed in numerous archives in Germany and the United States, and spoke to eyewitnesses, military historians, and doctors. He is also the author of the novels Die Quotenmaschine (the world’s first hypertext novel), Mitte, and Stadt des Goldes (translated into English as Ponte City). He was cowriter of the script for Wim Wenders’s film Palermo Shooting.
Learn more at www.normanohler.com
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Footnotes
* Methamphetamine in its pure form is less harmful than the crystal meth produced in often amateurish illegal laboratories, where it is mixed with poisons such as gasoline, battery acid, or antifreeze.
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* The forerunners of these companies were the Christian monasteries, which produced medications on a large scale even in the Middle Ages, and exported widely. In Venice (where the first coffeehouse in Europe opened in 1647), chemical and pharmaceutical preparations had been manufactured as early as the fourteenth century.
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* The foundation of the NSDAP on February 24, 1920, took place in a beer hall, the Hofbräuhaus, in Munich. In the early days, alcohol played an important part in the masculine rituals of the far-right party and its SA. This book barely touches on the role of alcohol in the Third Reich, because it deserves a discussion in its own right.
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* Etymologically, the term comes from the Dutch droog, meaning “dry.” During the Dutch colonial age, this referred to dried luxuries such as spices or tea. In Germany all pharmaceutically usable (dried) plants and plant parts, mushrooms, animals, minerals, etc., were called Drogen (drugs), and the word later came to be applied to all remedies and medications—leading to the word Drogerie, meaning a pharmacy.
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* The building was “Aryanized,” having been previously owned by the Jewish banker Georg Solmmen.
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* After the war Hauschild became one of the leading sports physiologists in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and in the 1950s he and his institute at the University of Leipzig provided the impetus for the GDR’s doping program, which made the worker-and-peasant state an athletic giant. In 1957 the inventor of Pervitin was awarde
d the National Prize of the GDR.
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* It was on sale there under the trademark Philopon/Hiropon, and later used by kamikaze pilots in the war.
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* This is approximately the quantity taken in a typical contemporary dose of crystal meth.
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