Norman Ohler BLITZED Drugs in Nazi Germany Translated by Shaun Whiteside Contents 1 Methamphetamine, the Volksdroge (1933–1938) 2 Sieg High! (1939–1941) 3 High Hitler: Patient A and His Personal Physician (1941–1944) 4 The Wonder Drug (1944–1945) References Bibliography Picture Credits Acknowledgements Follow Penguin ABOUT THE AUTHOR Norman Ohler was born in Zweibrücken in 1970. He is the author of three novels, Die Quotenmaschine (the world’s first hypertext novel), Mitte and Ponte City as well as two novellas. He was co-writer of the script for Wim Wenders’ film Palermo Shooting. He researched Blitzed in numerous archives across Germany and the United States. www.normanohler.com PENGUIN BOOKS BLITZED ‘Blitzed is making me rethink everything I’ve ever seen and read about WWII. It emotionally and technically makes sense of previously unexplainable aspects of that war. It makes me want to revisit other books on it with the hindsight of knowing these newly exposed truths. It was terrific!’ Douglas Coupland ‘Shocking revelations’ Gavin Jacobson, New Statesman ‘Remarkable … retells the history of the war through the prism of the pill … it has an uncanny ability to disturb’ Roger Boyes, The Times ‘A huge contribution … remarkable’ Sir Antony Beevor, BBC Radio 4 ‘The astonishing and hitherto largely untold story of the Third Reich’s relationship with drugs, including cocaine, heroin, morphine and, above all, methamphetamines (aka crystal meth), and of their effect not only on Hitler’s final days – the Führer, by Ohler’s account, was an absolute junkie with ruined veins by the time he retreated to the last of his bunkers – but on the Wehrmacht’s successful invasion of France in 1940 … if Blitzed is gripping, it is also convincing … Blitzed looks set to reframe the way certain aspects of the Third Reich will be viewed in the future’ Rachel Cooke, Guardian ‘Lively, provocative’ Richard Overy, Literary Review ‘The abiding image of this engrossing book is a remarkable one: Europe being dragged through hell by a fanatic to whom sobriety had become as foreign as empathy’ Rob Doyle, Irish Times ‘Mordant humour … Exhaustively researched’ The New York Times ‘Bursting with interesting facts’ Vice ‘A daring new book’ James Rothwell, Daily Telegraph ‘Norman Ohler has written an illuminating account of the gobsmacking extent to which military strategy in the Third Reich relied on drugs’ ShortList ‘A fascinating, most extraordinary revelation’ BBC World News ‘The Nazis were all on drugs! So far, so sensationalist but German writer Norman Ohler’s absorbing new non-fiction book, Blitzed, makes the convincing argument that the Nazis’ use of chemical stimulants … played a crucial role in the successes, and failures, of the Third Reich … a fascinating new book’ Esquire ‘Now the true scale and escalation of Hitler’s drug addiction has been laid bare’ Sara C. Nelson, Huffington Post ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR Shaun Whiteside has translated widely in both French and German, including Sybille Steinbacher’s Auschwitz: A History. A political system devoted to decline instinctively does much to speed up that process. Jean-Paul Sartre