Crystal meth May 1940
In his bestselling book, “Der Totale Rausch” (The Total Rush)—recently published in English as “Blitzed”—Ohler found that many in the Nazi regime used drugs regularly, from the soldiers of the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) all the way up to Hitler himself. The use of methamphetamine, better known as crystal meth, was particularly prevalent: A pill form of the drug, Pervitin, was distributed by the millions to Wehrmacht troops before the successful invasion of France in 1940.
And that’s how the troops were able to keep going all day and all night, which the French had not expected and thus had not prepared for. Bam, game over.
Developed by the Temmler pharmaceutical company, based in Berlin, Pervitin was introduced in 1938 and marketed as a magic pill for alertness and an anti-depressive, among other uses. It was briefly even available over the counter. A military doctor, Otto Ranke, experimented with Pervitin on 90 college students and decided, based on his results, that the drug would help Germany win the war. Using Pervitin, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht could stay awake for days at a time and march many more miles without resting.
Carrying all that heavy equipment. It couldn’t be done without the drug.
A so-called “stimulant decree” issued in April 1940 sent more than 35 million tablets of Pervitin and Isophan (a slightly modified version produced by the Knoll pharmaceutical company) of the pills to the front lines, where they fueled the Nazis’ “Blitzkrieg” invasion of France through the Ardennes mountains. It should be noted that Germans were not alone in their use of performance-enhancing drugs during World War II. Allied soldiers were known to use amphetamines (speed) in the form of Benzedrine in order to battle combat fatigue.
Better living through chemistry.
I wonder if being high on crystal meth is in part responsible for the trope of the enraged and hyper Nazi soldier?
Certainly a lot of especially deranged and violent crime is committed by P users.
This really throws into doubt the results of previous conflicts. There is some thought to stripping some nations of their gold medals. Fortunately, with modern anti-doping measures, wars are fought on a much more level playing field.
I wonder if that German pharmaceutical performance enhancement was extended to horses as well. Though we might think that the German Blitzkrieg was made up entirely of grinding, churning Panzers on the ground and screaming Stukas in the sky, the German army still relied heavily on horse drawn transport:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_World_War_II#Germany
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-wwii-german-army-was-80-horse-drawn-business-lessons-from-history/
Apropos of nothing, I’ve recently come to learn that “Blitzkrieg” wasn’t actually used by Germans to describe their way of war; it was rather invented by the Allies and popularised by historians from the victorious countries. German military theorists from before Germany was, strictly speaking, a country called Prussian tactics “Bewegungskrieg”, which can be translated as “war of movement”. There is a pretty unbroken line of innovation from Freddy the Great and his cavalry officers to Rommel and Guderian on this score.
The French actually had more and better tanks, armoured trucks, and other logistical equipment; it’s been argued that Barbarossa began with more French tanks than with proper Panzerkampfwagens. But the Germans had a long tradition of rewarding initiative among junior officers and tolerating insubordination as long as it produced results, and the Germans had many, many more field radios than the French or BEF (to say nothing of the poor BeNeLux countries).
Thus the Allies had (some) world-class equipment, but they were stuck with outdated communications equipment and an ossified doctrine which relied on top-down orders that could take more than a day to arrive from where the commands were issued to the forward command posts. These factors, combined with the drugs, meant that these command posts were often overrun before the commands could arrive. Rommel, especially, took fantastic risks with his “Ghost Division”, outrunning his own supply and communication lines and capturing enough prisoners that he could have been overrun with a mutiny or with a well-timed escape to friendly territory on more than one occasion.
I love synchronicity (The Police songs too!). I was just watching the Netfix series WWII in color and the first episode covered this subject more than I had ever read in 45 years. I have been an avid reader of WWII history almost since I learned to read because my parents kept a lot of books on the shelves in my bedroom. Back in the ’70s Time/Life book series were popular* and I devoured the series on WWII to the point where I snagged them from the mail before my dad knew about them. So I’m always pleasantly surprised what I learn from that period.
The methamphetamine use was briefly mentioned back then, but only in passing and not as a major factor. It’s fascinating now that it all makes a huge amount of sense how the Germans did so much so fast against a materially superior force. One good thing about getting older is how much more interesting history gets because of the knowledge and experience I’ve gained, even from completely unrelated sources. For instance I understand the effects of meth much better thanks to Breaking Bad.
* Popular to me at least :^)
Good to get another plug in for Blitzed. The author also explores the possible extent of pharmaceutical influence on tactical and strategic decision making. Both the Polish and French campaigns were undertaken with a recklessness that is absolutely shocking.
The Germans were not ‘ready,’ by their own standards, for either project. Without the industrial base of Czechoslovakia, neither campaign would have been possible…Thanks Neville. And, thereafter, the invasion of the USSR could not even have been contemplated without the trucks captured in the fall of France.
The second half of Blitzed details the horrific medical history of Hitler himself. Ohler has dug much farther than previous historians. There are quibbles that he might be overconfident in his interpretation. But Hitler was absolutely awash in bizarre potions and heavy-duty drugs.