Blitzed

by Norman Ohler

  Ranke declared the war on exhaustion to be his main concern. In the spring of 1938, a year and a half before the outbreak of war, he read the Temmler pharmacist Hauschild’s hymn of praise to Pervitin in the Klinische Wochenschrift and his ears pricked up. A claim preyed on his mind: supposedly this substance helped subjects achieve a 20 percent increase in lung capacity and absorb greater amounts of oxygen—standard measurement parameters at the time for increased performance. He decided to explore the subject in depth, testing a rising number of medical officers—90 at first, then 150; he organized voluntary blind tests, giving them Pervitin (P), caffeine (C), Benzedrine (B), or placebos (S, for Scheintablette). Test subjects had to solve math and logic problems through the night until 4 p.m. the following day. The results seemed unambiguous; at around dawn the “S men” had their heads on their desks, while the “Pervitin gang” were still manically working away, “fresh-faced, physically and mentally alert,” as the experimental record has it. Even after over ten hours of constant concentration they still felt “that they wanted to party.”9

  But after the test sheets were evaluated, not all of Ranke’s findings were positive. Procedures that demanded greater abstract achievements from the cerebellum were not performed well by consumers of Pervitin. Calculations might have been carried out more quickly, but they contained more mistakes. Neither was there any increase in capacity for concentration and attention during more complex questions, and there was only a very small increase during less high-level tasks. Pervitin kept people from sleeping, but it didn’t make them any cleverer. Ranke concluded without a trace of cynicism that this made it ideal for soldiers, according to results gathered from what was probably the first systematic drug experiment in military history: “An excellent substance for rousing a weary squad. . . . We may grasp what far-reaching military significance it would have if we managed to remove natural tiredness using medical methods. . . . A militarily valuable substance.”*10

  Inspired by this result, Ranke suggested a larger series of tests be carried out on regular units.11 To his surprise, the request fell on deaf ears. In the Bendlerblock office complex, the seat of the General Army Office (and today the Federal Ministry of Defense), the possibilities, and dangers, of the drug were ignored. While the ambitious scientist Ranke was already imagining the soldier of the future whose equipment would also include synthetic alkaloids—which attacked the center of the brain in a way that wasn’t yet understood12—his superiors, military bureaucrats in the medical inspection unit, hadn’t quite reached this level of sophistication. They were still wondering whether it was better to give the troops brown bread or white bread—while Ranke had long since moved on to brain food. He had predicted what the Berlin doctor and author Gottfried Benn, trained in the days of the Kaiser at the predecessor to the Military Medical Academy, wrote a few years later: “Powerful brains are strengthened not with milk, but with alkaloids. Such a small organ, and so vulnerable, that has managed not only to comprehend pyramids and gamma rays, lions and icebergs, but to produce and to imagine them, cannot be watered with groundwater like a forget-me-not, not while there’s so much that’s already stagnant.”13 Benn wrote this in his essay “Provoked Life”: “the provocations” are the changes in the neuronal streams, new thoughts, fresh ideas, sparked by unconventional food for the brain.

  In the first systematic drug tests in military history, the guinea pigs were given placebos (“S”), Benzedrine (“B”), caffeine (“C”), or Pervitin (“P”).

  Pervitin in the fight against sleep: “a valuable substance for the military.”

  Knowledge of Pervitin and its striking effects spread fast through the young medical officers. Under severe pressure in their difficult medical studies, they soon expected genuine miracles from the supposedly performance-enhancing substance and began to take more and more. This made them forerunners of the students of today at universities all over the world, among whom the use of performance pills like Ritalin and amphetamine derivatives is widespread. It was only when Ranke found out about this trend, which he had sparked in part with his tests, and learned that a room had had to be set out at Munich University for “Pervitin corpses” (fellow students who had overdosed and had to rest till they came around), that he became aware of the danger. He was forced to acknowledge that the consumption of high doses was already common in the run-up to exams at his Military Medical Academy. The results from those under the influence left much to be desired, and a concerned colleague wrote: “In the cases in which an admission of drug assistance was made, the result of the examination was extraordinarily poor.”14

  Ranke hastily canceled another Pervitin experiment planned for 1939, and sent a letter to the other Institute directors at the Academy warning about possible dangers of addiction and urging them to forbid Pervitin completely at the academy.15 But Ranke couldn’t get rid of the ghosts he had summoned up: methamphetamine spread like wildfire and would pass through every barracks gate over the next weeks and months.

  The last few days of peace passed. The medical officers were preparing themselves for their approaching deployment in Poland and bought up everything in the pharmacy, as Pervitin wasn’t officially supplied by the Wehrmacht, or at least not yet. Ranke could only look on. Less than a week before the start of the war he wrote to a military general surgeon at High Command: “Of course it’s a double-edged sword, giving the troops a different medicine which cannot be restricted to emergencies.”16 The warnings came too late. An uncontrolled large-scale test began: without instructions as to the correct dosage of the upper, and supplied with huge quantities of it, the Wehrmacht fell upon its unsuspecting Eastern neighbor.

  Robots

  “I am the driver of a hospital train and am often exposed to great stress. Your pills have proved their worth with both me and my staff.”—“Difficulties seem easier to overcome.”—“Now I am fresh again.”17

  The reports by the medical service on methamphetamine use in the attack on Poland, which began on September 1, 1939, and sparked the Second World War, fill whole dossiers in the Freiburg Military Archive. A jumble of garbled depictions, the records hold no claims to being complete or representative. But they were all that Ranke, who had been appointed advisory defense physiologist of the Army Medical Inspection Service at the beginning of the war, had to work on. There was no planned investigation—because the substance had not been deployed in a planned way, but randomly, according to the whim of the relevant commander, medical officer, or individual soldier.

  When crossing the grand river Vistula in Poland, the 3rd Panzer Division swerved at Grudziądz in the direction of East Prussia and advanced from there toward Brest-Litovsk, reporting the following: “Often there is euphoria, an increase in attention span, clear intensification of performance, work is achieved without difficulty, a pronounced alertness effect and a feeling of freshness. Worked through the day, lifting of depression, returned to normal mood.”18 War was seen as a task that needed to be worked through, and the drug seemed to have helped the tank units not to worry too much about what they were doing in this foreign country, and instead let them get on with their job—even if the job meant killing: “Everyone fresh and cheerful, excellent discipline. Slight euphoria and increased thirst for action. Mental encouragement, very stimulated. No accidents. Long-lasting effect. After taking four tablets, double vision and seeing colors.” Even slight hallucinations, clearly perceived as pleasant, enchanted the men, soon to be heady with victory: “The feeling of hunger subsides. One particularly beneficial aspect is the appearance of a vigorous urge to work. The effect is so clear that it cannot be based on imagination.”19

  One senior lieutenant reported on his own good experience of the substance: “No side-effects, no headache, no roaring in the ears, intellect wide awake.”20 For three days and three nights, in a convivial mood, he engaged in negotiations with the Russians in Brest-Litovsk. It was a matter of dividing up the country. When he encountered Polish defenders on the way back the methamph
etamine put him “particularly on the ball.”21

  For many soldiers, the drug seemed to be an ideal companion on the battlefield. It switched off inhibitions, which made fighting easier—whether it was night marches, before which the upper was consumed by “all drivers and leaders at midnight to sharpen their attention,” removing stuck tanks, shooting, or “performing other automatized maneuvers.”22 In every aspect of the attack, which led to the deaths of 100,000 Polish soldiers and, by the end of the year, 60,000 Polish civilians, the drug helped the aggressors to work “without any sign of tiredness until the end of the mission.” It provided that extra portion of energy which made everything that much easier. A medical officer from the IX Army Corps raved: “I’m convinced that in big pushes, where the last drop has to be squeezed from the team, a unit supplied with Pervitin is superior. This doctor has therefore made sure that there is a supply of Pervitin in the Unit Medical Equipment.”23

  A medical report from the 8th Panzer Division on using Pervitin as a stimulant: “Own experience very favorable. . . . Effect on depressed mood excellent.”

  “An increase in performance is quite evident among tank drivers and gun operators in the long-lasting battles from 1 to 4 September 1939 and the reconnaissance division, which has used this substance with great success on tough long journeys at night, as well as to maintain and heighten attentiveness on scouting patrol operations,” another report read. “We should particularly stress the excellent effect on the working capacity and mood among severely taxed officers at divisional headquarters, all of whom acknowledged the subjective and objective increase in performance with Pervitin.”24

  This “heightened attention” didn’t only apply to tank drivers. One senior military doctor wrote: “Motorcyclists were expected to make quite enormous efforts in great heat, severely dusty conditions, and on bad roads, on prolonged journeys which lasted from early in the morning until late in the evening, and from Silesia through Bohemia–Moravia and Slovakia almost as far as Lemberg [Lwów] in Poland. The tablets were distributed without indication of their purpose, but their striking effects soon made it clear to the crews what purpose they were supposed to serve.”25 Teutonic Easy Riders with drugs from Temmler and goggles by Ranke.

  If Pervitin was unavailable, it was assumed that the soldiers in question faced a greater threat. A senior staff medic reported regretfully: “Among the drivers many accidents, mostly attributable to excessive fatigue, could have been avoided if an analeptic such as Pervitin had been administered.”26 Crystal meth to avoid road accidents? Really?

  There were critical voices too. The army doctor for the 6th Army (which was later to perish at Stalingrad) assembled several reports from subordinate medical officers and wrote to Ranke: “These contradictory reports make it clear beyond any doubt that Pervitin is not a harmless medication. It does not seem at all appropriate for it to be handed out at random to the troops.”27 So some people clearly held reservations about the use of this stimulant. Still, curiosity had been awakened. The concluding sentence of the report from the IV Army Corps states: “To continue the experiments . . . a larger quantity of Pervitin tablets is required.”28

  Burnout

  Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, after the invasion of Poland. Initially no shots were fired in the West. Instead the adversaries watched each other, motionless, for months. No one wanted to fight. The shock of the First World War, with millions of soldiers slaughtered, was still lodged in the memory. Banners were hung at the front lines: “We won’t shoot unless you shoot first.”29 It would be wrong to speak of belligerence or nationalist pride on either side, unlike the situation in 1914. “The Germans started the war,” the historian Golo Mann writes, “but they weren’t keen on it, not the civilians, not the soldiers, least of all the generals.”30

  One person saw things differently. Hitler wanted to attack France as quickly as possible, ideally in the autumn of 1939. But there was one problem: the Western Allies clearly had superior equipment and greater armed forces. Contrary to what Nazi propaganda told the outside world, the Germans did not have superior armies. Quite the opposite—after the Polish campaign their equipment urgently had to be renewed. Most divisions had poor equipment, barely half of it suitable for use.31 The French Army, on the other hand, was considered the strongest in the world, and Great Britain, through its global empire, had access to infinite resources for its war economy.

  The figures spoke volumes: on the German side there were just 3 million soldiers, while the Allies had a good million more. In many categories the Allies outclassed the Wehrmacht.32

  A general rule of thumb in military strategy is that an attacker must be superior by 3:1 to be able to carry out a successful invasion. No wonder then that the Wehrmacht High Command struggled to devise a successful plan. Hitler refused to acknowledge these realities and was convinced the Aryan warrior’s soul would achieve dominance against the odds. Again and again, mistakenly inspired by the military’s doped performance on the Polish campaign, he spoke of “miracles of courage of the German soldier.”33

  In fact, even the dictator was clueless. The French and British declaration of war had caught him off guard; until the last moment he had hoped the West would react to the invasion of Poland in the same way as it had reacted to the absorption of Czechoslovakia. But that was not the case, and suddenly, unprepared, Germany had to fight a war against the whole of Western Europe. Hitler had maneuvered the Reich into an impossible situation, and his back was against the wall. His chief of the General Staff, Franz Halder, warned: “Time, generally speaking, will work against us if we don’t exploit it as much as we can. Economic means on the other side are stronger.”34 What was to be done? Apart from rashly facing his opponents down, Hitler had no ideas. The Wehrmacht High Command, given to sober, mathematical planning, was horrified. The Bohemian lance corporal with his erratic ideas and volatile intuitions was not well thought of among the Prussian chiefs of the General Staff, and was often dismissed as a military dilettante. An inadequately prepared attack could only lead to another defeat, as in the First World War. So strongly was this felt that a coup was even planned against the dictator to prevent his rushing into war: Walther von Brauchitsch and Halder decided to arrest their Führer if he gave an order to attack. After Georg Elser’s unsuccessful attempt on Hitler’s life on November 8, 1939, in the Munich Bürgerbräukeller, there was a general crackdown and tightening up of security and these plans would be dropped.

  Then, in the autumn of 1939, a crucial meeting was held between two senior officers. They came up with a daring concept. Erich von Manstein, a fifty-two-year-old general from Berlin with an irascible temperament and permanently flushed cheeks, had a discussion with an East Prussian tank general, Heinz Guderian. The Wehrmacht’s only chance, they reasoned, might lie in pushing a lightning armada of tanks through the supposedly impassable Belgian Ardennes Mountains to reach the French border city of Sedan within a few days, and then charge all the way to the Atlantic Coast. As the Allies were anticipating an attack farther to the north and were massing their forces there, such a Sichelschnitt (“sickle cut” was how Churchill later referred to it) might outsmart and encircle most of the defending forces.

  Among the German General Staff the foolhardy suggestion prompted only a shaking of heads. Tanks were still seen as ungainly monsters, which might come to the aid of other branches of the armed forces but could not lead a moving attack in autonomously acting units, particularly through difficult, mountainous terrain. The sketched invasion plan was seen as simply insane, and in order to thwart the risk-taking von Manstein, the General Staff moved him to the Baltic port of Stettin, far from the potential battle zone. Hitler’s chief of the General Staff kept coming up with new excuses in response to Hitler’s constant pressure to begin fighting. The bad weather alone was mentioned dozens of times as a reason for not attacking. The Wehrmacht Oberkommando argued that it only had what was called “fine weather weaponry”—and it needed
a cloudless sky for the Luftwaffe.

  So at first the Western Front fell into an enchanted slumber. When Ranke visited the baroque town of Zweibrücken, close to the border with Lorraine, anti-tank obstacles loomed, but the squaddies spent most of their time playing card games, smoking their cigarette rations—seven a day—kicking footballs about, helping with the potato harvest, and practically lulling the French, only a few miles away, into a false sense of security with their peaceful bearing.

  But that didn’t mean that the Germans weren’t ready to switch to a different tempo at any moment. In their trouser pockets they always had their pep pills at the ready. Ranke quickly established that “a very large proportion of officers carries Pervitin on their person. . . . The favorable effect was confirmed by all those asked, both motorized troops and members of other parts of the troops.”35 They knew that the fighting could begin at any moment. When that happened they had to be on top form and wide awake. No wonder they already practiced extensively with meth.

  Alarmed at its prophylactic use, Ranke wrote: “The question is not whether Pervitin should be introduced or not, but how to get its use back under control. Pervitin is being exploited on a mass scale, without medical checks.” He urged the introduction of guidelines and an instruction leaflet, to regulate application of the drug and “make the experiences of the East [Polish campaign] lessons for the West.”36 However, none of these measures were enacted. How casually Pervitin was thought of, and how widespread its use was, is also apparent in the fact that Ranke himself took it regularly and freely reported the fact in his wartime medical diary as well as in letters. He eased an average working day with two Temmler tablets, using them to overcome his work-related stress and improve his mood. Even though he knew about the dangers of dependency, he, the self-appointed expert on Pervitin, drew no conclusions about his own use of the substance. For him it remained a medication that he took in whatever quantities he saw fit. If he experienced side-effects, he did not acknowledge them as such but deluded himself: “In spite of Pervitin, from eleven o’clock in the morning I increasingly suffer from headaches and digestive problems.” He wrote bluntly to a colleague: “It distinctly revives concentration and leads to a feeling of relief with regard to approaching difficult tasks. It is not just a stimulant, but clearly also a mood-enhancer. Even at high doses lasting damage is not apparent. . . . With Pervitin you can go on working for thirty-six to fifty hours without feeling any noticeable fatigue.”37