Blitzed

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Blitzed Page 31

by Norman Ohler

Paris

  Allied liberation, 187

  German invasion, 83, 85

  Parkinson’s disease, 178

  Patient A. See Hitler, Adolf

  Patient B. See Braun, Eva

  Patient D. See Mussolini, Benito

  Patient X. See Ribbentrop, Joachim von

  Paulus, Friedrich, 125

  Pemberton, John, 229 n3

  people’s drug. See Pervitin

  performance-enhancing drugs

  methamphetamine as, 32, 34, 36, 233 n53

  Pervitin as, 32, 34, 36, 38–39, 46–47, 53–54

  search for, 5, 28–29

  Pershing II rockets, 258 n41

  Peru, cocaine exports, 9

  Pervitin

  addiction concerns, 51, 59–60, 62, 99–100

  advertising campaign, 31–32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 46

  as appetite suppressant, 85, 86

  availability in Germany, 60

  BBC feature on, 98

  in chocolates, 34, 35, 233 n56

  consumer use of, 32, 34, 59–60, 100, 100n

  Conti’s concerns about, 98–100, 143–44

  in “D I” to “D X” drugs, 194

  in “D IX,” 193

  dosage, 32, 34, 36, 37, 47n, 64, 84, 86, 88, 232 n49

  for fatigue, 40, 42, 50, 58, 234 n8, 245 n30

  German civilian use of, 100, 254 n6

  German Navy’s tests of, 202–5

  German Navy’s use of, 198, 199, 244 n30

  Hitler’s use of, 213

  legislation concerning, 1, 100

  Luftwaffe’s use of, 92–94, 97, 98, 188, 214, 240 n119

  medical indications for, 32, 33

  molecular structure, 29, 29

  as mood enhancer, 52, 58, 235 n37

  morphine comparisons, 188

  overdoses, 50–51, 61

  patent, 29

  as performance enhancer, 32, 34, 36, 38–39, 46–47, 53–54

  potency, 232 n47

  price, 47n

  production, 2, 64, 65–66, 67

  reducing fear, 37

  scientific studies, 36–37, 46–47, 48–49

  self-experimentation among scientists, 36

  side-effects, 46–47, 50–51, 64, 88–89, 118–19

  testing of, 202–5, 257 n37

  tolerance threshold, 245 n31

  as truth serum, 209n

  Waldmann’s warnings about, 241 n141

  women’s use of, 59

  Pervitin, German Army’s use of

  Ardennes offensive, 63, 69–72, 236 n49, 237 n64

  concerns about, 54, 57–58, 60, 62

  as crucial to the war, 101, 102

  dependencies, 89

  distribution, 73

  dosage, 64, 84, 86, 88

  8th Panzer Division, 53

  factory order size, 65

  for fatigue, 40, 42, 50, 53, 63–64

  final phase of war, 187–89

  IV Army Corps, 54

  France, Battle of, 83–85, 84

  by leaders, 143–44

  by medical officers, 50–51

  IX Army Corps, 53

  ordered by officers, 88–89

  Poland, invasion of, 51–54, 63–64

  prophylactic use, 57–58

  side-effects, 88–89

  Soviet Union, attack on, 112, 118–19

  “stimulant decree” (1940), 61, 63–64

  Sudetenland, 234 n11

  3rd Panzer Division, 52

  to treat wounded, 188

  “The Pervitin Problem” (Speer), 99

  pharmaceutical industry, birth of, 7

  Philopon/Hiropon, 29n

  physicians. See doctors

  physiology, as discipline, 44

  plant-based healing substances, 256 n36

  Plötner, Kurt, 209–11

  “The Poisonous Mushroom” (Der Giftpilz), 19

  Polamidon, 140

  Poland, invasion and occupation of, 51–54, 63–64, 121

  Pontarlier, France, 85–86

  potassium cyanide, 223

  Prague, German invasion of, 38

  prescription narcotics, required reporting, 15–16

  Prinz Eugen (heavy cruiser), 244 n30

  Project Chatter, 211

  Proof of Aryan Ancestry (Ahnenpass), 18

  propiophenon, 232 n46

  Prostakrinum, 114

  Prostrophanta, 150

  Psicain, 251 n137

  Püllen, C., 36–37

  R

  racial hygiene, laws concerning, 17, 18, 19

  RAF (Royal Air Force), 82, 92–93

  Ranke, Otto F.

  on cocaine addiction, 240 n126

  inventions, 44

  late phase of war, 255 n14

  and Morell’s Vitamultin, 91

  Pervitin, German Army’s use of, 57–58, 61, 63–64, 83–86, 88–89

  Pervitin, personal use of, 58–59, 89

  on Pervitin as mood enhancer, 58, 235 n37

  Pervitin investigations, 46–47, 48–49, 50–52

  postwar life, 255 n14

  as Research Institute of Defense Physiology director, 44–47, 50–52

  Rauschgiftbekämpfung (war on drugs), 15–18

  Red Army. See Soviet Union

  Das Reich, 214

  Reich Central Office for Combating Drug Transgressions, 16, 17–18, 19

  Reich Committee for the People’s Health, 17

  Reich Health Office (Berlin), 17, 59–60, 62, 233 n56, 241 n138

  Reich Opium Law (1941), 1, 100

  Reko, Viktor, 231 n35

  Research Institute of Defense Physiology, 44–47, 50–51

  Reynaud, Paul, 75

  Rhine Valley, as Chemical Valley, 9

  Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 149, 166–67

  Richert, Hans-Joachim, 197, 199, 202–3, 205

  Riefenstahl, Leni, 95, 148, 149

  Roma, in concentration camps, 121, 200

  Romania, threatened break with Hitler, 146

  Rome, bombing of, 138

  Rommel, Erwin, 62, 74–76, 84, 85, 125, 140

  Römpp, Hermann, 185

  Rosenberg, Alfred, 128

  Rostock, Germany, 121

  Royal Air Force (RAF), 82, 92–93

  Rucksack Principle, 238 n75

  Rundstedt, Gerd von, 188

  Russla (anti-louse powder), 128

  S

  SA (Brownshirts), 13

  Sachsenhausen concentration camp

  description of, 199–200

  detainees, 200

  drug experiments on detainees, 201–5, 202, 204

  execution of Soviet prisoners of war, 200

  shoe-walking unit, 200–201

  Savage, Charles, 210–11

  Scharnhorst (battleship), 244 n30

  Schaub (Hitler’s adjutant), 22–23

  Schenk, Ernst Günther, 213

  Schmeling, Max, 22

  Schoen, Rudolf, 36

  Scho-Ka-Kola, 233 n56, 244 n30

  Schramm, Percy Ernst, 108

  Schultesteinberg, Ottheinz, 118–19

  Secret State Police. See Gestapo

  Sedan, France, 70–72

  Seehund (mini-U-boat), 197, 198, 199, 205–8, 206, 255 n18, 256 n28

  Sertürner, Friedrich Wilhelm, 6, 163

  7th Panzer Division, 62, 74–75

  sexually transmitted diseases, 20, 22–23

  shoe industry, 200–201

  Sinti, in concentration camps, 121, 200

  Skorzeny, Otto, 194, 196, 199, 213

  slivovitz, 135, 248 n76

  Sobibór (extermination camp), 120

  Solmmen, Georg, 27n

  Soviet prisoners of war, execution of, by Germans, 200

  Soviet Union, advance toward Germany, 151, 215, 221–22, 224

  Soviet Union, German attack on

  attritional warfare, 119

  German advance, 125

  German headquarters, 110

  goal, 113

  Hitler’s division of f
orces, 122–23

  Hitler’s “fanatical resistance,” 117–18

  Kharkov, control of, 129–31

  Kursk battle, 135

  Moscow offensive, 116–17

  Pervitin use, 112, 118–19

  planning, 101, 110

  Soviet defense and counteroffensives, 111–12, 117, 145, 146

  Stalingrad, 134

  speedball, 162–65

  Speer, Albert

  at Berghof, 148

  Hitler’s grandiose ideas, 123, 124

  Hitler’s successor, 172

  as Morell’s patient, 149

  at Wolf’s Lair, 121, 191

  Sperling, Dr., 94

  SS

  extermination through labor, 201

  and German Navy’s search for wonder drug, 194, 196, 199

  methamphetamine use, 34

  Pervitin use, 88

  Russian war, 239 n113

  suicides, 225

  Vitamultin use, 90–91, 239 n113

  Waffen-SS, 88, 213, 225, 239 n113

  Stalin, Joseph, 113n, 125n

  Stalingrad, 125, 134

  Stauffenberg, Claus Schenk Graf von, 153–54, 182

  Steinhoff, Johannes, 240 n119

  Steinkamp, Peter, 72

  Stockhausen, Colonel, 86

  Strophanthin, 150

  Strughold, Hubertus, 45, 258 n41

  strychnine, 169, 170, 171

  Stumpfegger, Ludwig, 179, 221

  Stuttgart, British bombing of, 121

  Sudetenland, invasion of, 234 n11

  suicide, following Hitler’s, 225

  superbunker (Wolf’s Lair), 175, 183

  Swift (company), 128

  synthetic alkaloids, 47, 50

  synthetics, development of, 28

  T

  Temmler, Theodor, 2, 5

  Temmler Company. See also Pervitin

  company growth, 28

  current status, 2, 4, 5

  head pharmacist, 28–29

  location, 2, 188, 254 n6

  as Nazi drug lab, 3, 5

  performance-enhancing drug, search for, 28–29

  Pervitin patent, 29, 31

  Pervitin production, 2, 64, 65–66, 67, 187–88, 241 n138, 254 n6

  sugar-coating room, 30

  Tempelhof Chemical Factory, 2

  Testoviron (sexual hormone), 114

  Thyssen, August, 149

  tiredness. See fatigue

  Tonophosphan (metabolic stimulant), 114, 115

  Treblinka (extermination camp), 120

  U

  U-boats, 191–92

  Udet, Ernst, 95–98, 96

  Ukraine

  retreat from, 145

  slaughterhouses, 128–30, 250 n118

  Ukrainian Pharma-Works, 129–33, 247 n74

  United States

  Civil War medicine, 7

  Cold War, 258 n41

  German declaration of war against, 119–20

  space program, 258 n41

  U.S. Secret Service, 106–7, 138, 139, 210–11

  V

  V2 rocket, 258 n41

  Venice, production of medications, 6n

  Versailles Treaty, 8, 9, 37

  Vin Mariani, cocaine in, 7

  Vinnytsia, Ukraine, 120–29

  vitamins

  Hitler’s injections of, 26, 112

  Morell as pioneer of, 22, 89–91

  Vitamultin

  contents, 239 n109

  Göring’s wife’s use of, 149

  Hitler’s use of, 112, 115, 146–47, 150

  marketing strategy, 89–91

  as reward, 132

  Volksdroge.See Pervitin

  Vyazma, Russia, 117

  Vzvad, Russia, 118

  W

  Waffen-SS, 88, 213, 225, 239 n113

  Wagner, Richard, 187

  Waldheim mental hospital (Saxony), 231 n31

  Waldmann, Anton, 62, 63, 85, 241 n141

  Walter White (TV character), 5

  Wannsee Conference (1942), 120

  war on drugs, 15–18, 20

  Warlimont (German officer), 154

  Warsaw, Soviet seizure of, 215

  Weber, Bruno, 209, 210

  Weber, Professor (cardiac specialist), 245 n35

  Weber, Richard, 149, 171, 247 n75, 250 n116

  Wehrmacht. See German Army

  “Werwolf” (Nazi headquarters in Ukraine), 120–27

  White, Walter (TV character), 5

  Whitman, Walt, 191

  Wirsting, Hermann, 231 n31

  withdrawal, compulsory, 16

  Witte (German naval physician), 245 n30

  Wochenschau (newsreel), 80

  Wolf’s Lair (Wolfsschanze), 109

  arms conference (1944), 191

  assassination attempt on Hitler, 153–58

  closure of, 183

  Hitler’s routine, 114, 134

  location and description of, 109–11

  move from, 121

  Reichs- and Gauleiter, meeting of, 142

  Russian campaign, headquarters for, 110–13

  security measures, 159, 160, 175, 183

  women

  Pervitin production, 64, 65, 67

  Pervitin use, 59

  wonder drug. See miracle drug

  World War I. See First World War

  X

  “x” (medication), 141, 150, 152, 153, 154, 155

  Z

  Zuckmayer, Carl, 97

  About the Author

  NORMAN OHLER is an award-winning German novelist, screenwriter, and journalist. He spent five years researching Blitzed in numerous archives in Germany and the United States, and spoke to eyewitnesses, military historians, and doctors. He is also the author of the novels Die Quotenmaschine (the world’s first hypertext novel), Mitte, and Stadt des Goldes (translated into English as Ponte City). He was cowriter of the script for Wim Wenders’s film Palermo Shooting.

  Learn more at www.normanohler.com

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  Follow us for book news, reviews, author updates, exclusive content, giveaways, and more.

  Footnotes

  * Methamphetamine in its pure form is less harmful than the crystal meth produced in often amateurish illegal laboratories, where it is mixed with poisons such as gasoline, battery acid, or antifreeze.

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  * * *

  * The forerunners of these companies were the Christian monasteries, which produced medications on a large scale even in the Middle Ages, and exported widely. In Venice (where the first coffeehouse in Europe opened in 1647), chemical and pharmaceutical preparations had been manufactured as early as the fourteenth century.

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  * The foundation of the NSDAP on February 24, 1920, took place in a beer hall, the Hofbräuhaus, in Munich. In the early days, alcohol played an important part in the masculine rituals of the far-right party and its SA. This book barely touches on the role of alcohol in the Third Reich, because it deserves a discussion in its own right.

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  * * *

  * Etymologically, the term comes from the Dutch droog, meaning “dry.” During the Dutch colonial age, this referred to dried luxuries such as spices or tea. In Germany all pharmaceutically usable (dried) plants and plant parts, mushrooms, animals, minerals, etc., were called Drogen (drugs), and the word later came to be applied to all remedies and medications—leading to the word Drogerie, meaning a pharmacy.

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  * * *

  * The building was “Aryanized,” having been previously owned by the Jewish banker Georg Solmmen.

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  * After the war Hauschild became one of the leading sports physiologists in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and in the 1950s he and his institute at the University of Leipzig provided the impetus for the GDR’s doping program, which made the worker-and-peasant state an athletic giant. In 1957 the inventor of Pervitin was awarde
d the National Prize of the GDR.

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  * * *

  * It was on sale there under the trademark Philopon/Hiropon, and later used by kamikaze pilots in the war.

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  * This is approximately the quantity taken in a typical contemporary dose of crystal meth.

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