Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich

German journalist and novelist Norman Ohler presents a historical investigation into the pervasive role of drugs in Nazi Germany, arguing that methamphetamine, opioids, and cocaine shaped both the Third Reich's military campaigns and the personal conduct of Adolf Hitler. Drawing on archival research in Germany and the United States, including the fragmented medical records of Hitler's personal physician, Ohler traces a narrative running from the birth of Germany's pharmaceutical industry to the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery in April 1945.

Ohler opens by identifying a central paradox: while the Nazi regime publicly enforced strict anti-drug ideology, it simultaneously fostered mass production and consumption of methamphetamine. Sold under the trademark Pervitin by the Temmler factory in Berlin, the pill became Germany's accepted Volksdroge, or "people's drug," available without prescription until 1939. Ohler traces Germany's pharmaceutical dominance to the early nineteenth century, when companies like Merck and Bayer became global leaders in opiates and cocaine. Drug use flourished openly during the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), and the Nazis positioned themselves against this culture, promising ideological intoxication through rallies and propaganda instead. After seizing power in 1933, the regime implemented repressive anti-drug laws entwined with racial hygiene ideology, while anti-drug policy merged with anti-Semitic propaganda equating Jews with poison.

Against this backdrop, Ohler introduces two figures whose stories form the book's spine. The first is Dr. Theodor Morell, a Berlin society doctor. In 1936, after treating the official Nazi photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, Morell met Hitler and diagnosed his chronic stomach problems as abnormal bacterial flora. Appointed Hitler's personal physician, Morell administered several intravenous injections daily from 1937 onward, focusing on immediate symptom relief rather than diagnosis. Hitler grew dependent on these shots and on Morell himself.

The second figure is Dr. Fritz Hauschild, Temmler's head pharmacist, who in 1937 developed a new methamphetamine synthesis patented as Pervitin. The drug stimulates the release of dopamine and noradrenaline, producing euphoria, alertness, and sustained energy, but at higher doses can damage nerve cells. Pervitin spread rapidly across all social classes, used by secretaries, factory workers, doctors, and members of the SS, the Nazi paramilitary organization. Ohler characterizes it as "National Socialism in pill form" (39).

Pervitin's migration into the military came through Professor Otto F. Ranke, director of the Research Institute of Defense Physiology in Berlin. After systematic tests in 1938, Ranke concluded that Pervitin was "a militarily valuable substance" (47) that kept soldiers awake far beyond normal limits. In 1940, facing materially superior Allied forces, the Wehrmacht, Germany's armed forces, adopted a plan by generals Erich von Manstein and Heinz Guderian for a daring armored thrust through the Ardennes forest in Belgium. On April 17, the Wehrmacht issued the "stimulant decree," the first document in military history officially sanctioning drug use by an armed force, and ordered 35 million Pervitin tablets for the army and the Luftwaffe, the German air force.

On the night of May 10, 1940, thousands of soldiers took Pervitin en masse. After three sleepless days, German forces crossed the Meuse River at Sedan, France. Guderian refused orders to halt and charged toward the Atlantic coast, gaining more territory in 100 hours than Germany had won in four years of the First World War. The speed of the Blitzkrieg, or "lightning war," overwhelmed French defenders. However, Hitler undermined his own campaign at Dunkirk by issuing a halt order, influenced by Hermann Göring, who held the rank of Reich Marshal, Germany's highest military title. Over 340,000 Allied soldiers escaped. The Luftwaffe subsequently lost the Battle of Britain, Germany's first major defeat.

The book's central investigation concerns the drug regimen Morell administered to Hitler from 1941 onward. Ohler argues that prominent biographers mention Morell only in passing, failing to connect Hitler's decline to his drug consumption. After retreating to the Wolf's Lair, a bunker complex in East Prussia, to direct the invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler became increasingly isolated. When standard treatments failed in August 1941, Morell began administering an escalating cocktail of over 80 substances, including animal-derived steroids and hormones from bulls' testicles, uterine blood, and bulls' prostates. This polytoxicomania, or multi-drug dependence, made Morell indispensable: The injections changed daily so that Hitler never perceived dependence on any single substance. Ohler connects the escalating drug use to deteriorating military decisions, including Hitler's order forbidding retreat on the Eastern Front and Germany's declaration of war on the United States in December 1941. Morell also exploited his position to build a pharmaceutical empire using factories confiscated from Jewish owners in occupied Czechoslovakia.

The critical escalation came on July 18, 1943. With the Wehrmacht reeling from defeat at Kursk and the Allies landing in Sicily, Hitler was doubled over with pain before a meeting with Benito Mussolini, Italy's Fascist dictator and Germany's chief ally. Morell administered Eukodal, an opioid containing oxycodone. The transformation was immediate: Hitler talked nonstop for three hours, preventing Mussolini from discussing Italy's withdrawal from the war. Eukodal became a regular feature of Hitler's treatment, with 24 documented administrations by the end of 1944 and likely more hidden behind Morell's cryptic notations.

Following the failed assassination attempt of July 20, 1944, ear specialist Dr. Erwin Giesing treated Hitler's burst eardrums with a 10 percent Merck cocaine solution, administering it over 50 times across roughly 75 days. Hitler told Giesing that on cocaine he felt "considerably lighter and carefree" (160) and requested daily applications even after his injuries healed. Simultaneously, Morell doubled the Eukodal dosage. The combination created what Ohler calls a classic speedball, a mix of stimulant and opioid producing extreme euphoria. On September 16, 1944, after a cocaine application, Hitler conceived a second Ardennes offensive despite overwhelming Allied superiority. When Giesing and Hitler's surgeon Karl Brandt accused Morell of poisoning Hitler, chemical analysis cleared Morell, and Hitler dismissed his accusers.

Ohler also documents the German Navy's desperate search for a "wonder drug" to sustain crews of mini-submarines on multi-day missions. Combinations of Eukodal, cocaine, and methamphetamine were tested, producing severe side effects and catastrophic casualties. In November 1944, the navy tested these substances on prisoners at Sachsenhausen concentration camp, forcing inmates to march through the night on massive doses of cocaine and methamphetamine. No navy medical personnel were among the accused at the Nuremberg doctors' trials.

In early 1945, British bombing destroyed 70 percent of the Merck Company's facilities, cutting off supplies of Eukodal and cocaine. After January 2, Eukodal disappeared from Morell's records. Hitler's withdrawal symptoms intensified: worsening tremors, failing kidneys and circulation. On March 19, he issued the Nero decree, ordering the destruction of all German infrastructure. On April 21, Hitler fired Morell. In his final days in the bunker, Hitler distributed cyanide capsules, married his longtime companion Eva Braun, and dictated a testament blaming Jews for Germany's destruction. He died by suicide on April 30, 1945. Morell was captured by the Americans, released in 1947, and died on May 26, 1948.

Ohler concludes by insisting that while drugs cemented Hitler's detachment from reality and sustained his delusional confidence, they did not cause his ideology or diminish his guilt. "Hitler did not murder because he was living in a haze," Ohler writes. "He remained sane until the end" (185-186). Ohler frames Hitler's case as one of actio libera in causa, a legal concept holding that a person who freely enters an impaired state remains responsible for actions committed in that state.