💭 Before and during World War II, Germany’s Nazi Party condemned drug use. But the book, “Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich,” claims German soldiers were often high on methamphetamine issued by their commanders to enhance their endurance. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler himself was a substance abuser. Author Norman Ohler joins “CBS This Morning: Saturday” to discuss his book.
In 1944, World War II was dragging on and the Nazi forces seemed to be faltering. Yet, in military briefings, Adolf Hitler’s optimism did not wane. His generals wondered if he had a secret weapon up his sleeve, something that would change the war around in the last second.
Author Norman Ohler tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that Hitler did have a secret, but it wasn’t a weapon. Instead, it was a mix of cocaine and opioids that he had become increasingly dependent upon. “Hitler needed those highs to substitute [for] his natural charisma, which … he had lost in the course of the war,” Ohler says.
Ohler’s new book, Blitzed, which is based in part on the papers of Hitler’s private physician, describes the role of drugs within the Third Reich. He cites three different phases of the Fuhrer’s drug use.
“The first one are the vitamins given in high doses intravenously. The second phase starts in the fall of 1941 with the first opiate, but especially with the first hormone injections,” Ohler says. “Then in ’43 the third phase starts, which is the heavy opiate phase.”
Hitler met a doctor called Theo Morell in 1936. Morell was famous for giving vitamin injections, and Hitler, with his healthy diet, immediately believed in this doctor and got daily vitamin injections.
But then as the war turned difficult for Germany in 1941 against Russia in the fall, Hitler got sick for the first time. He couldn’t go to the military briefing, which was unheard of before, and Morell gave him something different that day. He gave him an opiate that day, and he also gave him a hormone injection.
Hitler, who had suffered from high fever, immediately felt well again and was able to go to the meeting and tell the generals how the war should continue, how the daily operations should continue. And he was really struck by this immediate recovery from this opiate, which was called Dolantin. From that moment on, he asked Morell to give him stronger stuff than just vitamins. We can see from the fall of 1941 to the winter of 1944 Hitler’s drug abuse increases significantly.
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🛑 Anti-drug police in Peru have seized packages of cocaine with a picture of the Nazi flag on the outside and the name Hitler printed in low relief. The discovery was made on Thursday in the port of Paita, on Peru’s northern Pacific coast close to its border with Ecuador. (May 25)
Peru’s president Pedro Castillo was ousted by congress after he announced the immediate dissolution of the governing body.
Castillo was criticized for saying he would install a ‘government of exception’ to rule by decree hours before he was due to face an impeachment vote. He was accused of trying to seize power in a self-coup. MPs moved ahead with the trial, with 101 votes in favor of removing him, six against and 10 abstentions.
Protesters in Lima congregated to protest against and for Castillo.
Peru’s president dissolves congress hours before impeachment vote.
Dina Ercilia Boluarte has been sworn in as Peru’s first female president. Police arrested former President Pedro Castillo earlier after he tried to dissolve congress in an action the constitutional tribunal described as a coup. Boluarte was his vice president.