Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was high on drugs and encouraged his soldiers to do crystal meth during his reign, an explosive new book claims.
With records from Hitler’s physician Dr. Theodor Morell, author Norman Ohler contends that the dictator relied on a cocktail of drugs, including cocaine, heroin, morphine and crystal meth.
Hitler was a junkie right up until he retreated to his bunker for the last time in 1945 and killed himself, Ohler claims.
“I could detect three stages of Hitler’s intoxication from (1936 to 1941),” Ohler told BBC Radio 4.
“He took vitamins and glucose intravenously in high dosages, I don’t know if that’s considered drug consumption already, and when the war against Russia turned bad in October 1941, he turned to steroids and hormone products, liver extract of pigs and stuff like that.
“Pretty unsavory things got into his veins.”
Ohler said Hitler started abusing opiates around 1943.
“His favorite drug was Eukodal, a cousin of heroin that has a much higher potential of making you euphoric,” he said.
Ohler’s book, “Blitzed,” claims Hitler’s soldiers also went on drug-fueled rampages.
The soldiers’ drug of choice was Pervitin, known today as crystal meth, and Ohler said it was the one thing that helped them overcome exhaustion.
“The abuse of crystal meth by the German army shows enemy number one was not the British, French or Russians, it was fatigue,” Ohler told BBC Radio 4.
“The German army was trying to win the battle against sleep, it’s why they used methamphetamines.”
“At the beginning, it worked wonders in the attack on Poland and the Western Campaign against France and Great Britain, you can see exactly how methamphetamine was used.”
Ohler said just before Hitler’s western offensive on May 10, 1940, 35 million dosages of Pervitin were given out to soldiers.
Pervitin was as easy to get as any other medicine until 1939, and Ohler told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle it became the drug of choice in Berlin.
“Like people drink coffee to boost their energy, people took loads of Pervitin across the board,” Ohler said.
The company that patented Pervitin in 1937 wanted it to rival Coca-Cola.
Ohler told Deutsche Welle the drug would keep the army up for days and it was used for the first time when Germany invaded Sudetenland and Poland and again when Germany attacked France in 1940.
Ohler told Deutsche Welle that Hitler didn’t really take Pervitin himself, and mostly used Eukodal.
“In the fall of 1944, when the military situation was quite bad, he used this strong drug that made him euphoric even when reality wasn’t looking euphoric at all,” Ohler said.
“The generals kept telling him, ‘We need to change our tactics. We need to end this. We are going to lose the war,’ and he didn’t want to hear it.”
“He had Dr. Morell give him the drugs that made him feel invulnerable and on top of the situation.”
While it was widely known that soldiers took Pervitin, and it was very much accepted, nobody really knew that Hitler was abusing opiates in private.
Ohler said, however, that a lot of people suspected he was keeping some kind of secret.
“There were some attempts to make Morell uncover what he gave Hitler, but he refused. It was a secret between those two men,” he said.