1/ I did some light Third Reich reading so that you don't have to!

Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich is a single-angle take on the impact of pharmaceuticals in interwar and intra-war Germany —both Hitler as an individual and the society/war effort generally.

2/ Though the book contains some great nuggets, the author editorializes and takes journalistic liberties that are at times egregious… It’s bearable because he’s also done some good original research and made a few “discoveries” in the archives that had (according to him) been

3/ overlooked. For instance, Ohler (a native German) found mistranslations of the sloppy handwriting of Dr. Morell (Hitler’s personal physician) that when corrected provide a better understanding of Hitler’s daily injections. Most notedly, when he started being administered

4/ Eukodal, a heroin cousin similar to modern oxycodone.

Hitler's daily regimen ranged from speculative pig-thyroid steroids and liver extracts (severely based) to daily glucose and vitamin injections, to later oxy-like opiates and intranasal cocaine.

Highlights of book:

5/ German Engineering

What is the engineer’s solution to the problem “we now have few colonies to supply us with commodities to make caffeinated beverages (ex coffee and tea)? —Find a proxy stimulant, and make it in a lab!

6/ I find the creation of the German pharmaceutical methamphetamine industry as a result of losing colonial possessions post-WWI particularly fascinating.

7/ Dunkirk
Why was the Dunkirk evacuation allowed to happen? The most common explanation for the German advance stopping short of Dunkirk was that Hitler felt overextended and wanted to cover his flanks, and was additionally convinced to let Goring show what could

8/ be done from the air… While no doubt true in part, an additional explanation presented by the book is that the Blitzkrieg had been running on Pervitin tablets (German brand name methamphetamine) issued to soldiers and had advanced five days and nights without stopping… They

9/ were literally burned out, running on fumes.

Methamphetamine Fueling Blitzkrieg + The Blitz

The Wehrmacht was supplied with hundreds of millions of Pervitin tablets in advance of the invasions of Poland and France. Rommel was known to love it himself and for his troops.

10/ Interpreting the breakneck advance of the Nazi panzer divisions as both tactical and chemical is a new angle I had yet to learn about. Totally speculative, but look for the sunken cheekbone stimmed-out look in photos of German tankers, even Rommel himself.

11/ One of the things the French couldn't grasp during the surprise advance through the Ardennes was that the Panzer divisions simply didn't stop... there was no time to coordinate a counteroffensive against a force that didn't appear to stop to sleep. Chem/Energetic Superiority.

12/ The story is similar re the use of stimulants to fuel night bombing raids during the latter portion of the Battle of Britain. Both sides were using stims, but the Brits only used amphetamine salts (adderall), not methamphetamine (Pervitin).

13/ Like any other “single-angle” historical approach, confirmation bias seems to encourage Ohler to try to understand as much as he can about inter/intra war Germany through a chemical lens (which is wrong, for the same reason any single-aspect approach is wrong). Overall, the

14/ read is short enough to tolerate Ohler’s editorializing and speculation on the Führer’s inner states. I found it to be a thoroughly fun read.

Chemicals are TOOLS. They are here to serve, can be used to great effect, but eventually the price must be paid. FIN

15/ Let it be known that the Wehrmacht was WINNING THE WAR on all fronts until the point in 1940 when the more Puritanical faction in the Nazi leadership got worried about "muh heart problems" and clamped down on Pervitin rations for soldiers. Correlation? Causation? >:)

16/ Never read a book with more solidly interesting information in it that made me yell to no one (from my bed) "I GET IT. OKAY. I GET IT. hiTLoR wAs baD."

Close second = War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War by John Dower, ("we get it, aMerika iz raycis")