Blitzed
Subtitle: drugs in Nazi Germany
By: Norman Ohler ; translated by Shaun Whiteside
Contributors: Whiteside, Shaun, translator
Publisher: Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 360
ISBN-13: 9780241256992
Subjects: Politics and government; Drug abuse; Drug use; Nazis; History
Work titles: Totale Rausch
Description: "The Nazis presented themselves as warriors against moral degeneracy. Yet, as Norman Ohler's gripping bestseller reveals, the entire Third Reich was permeated with drugs: cocaine, heroin, morphine and, most of all, methamphetamines, or crystal meth, used by everyone from factory workers to housewives, and crucial to troops' resilience - even partly explaining German victory in 1940. The promiscuous use of drugs at the very highest levels also impaired and confused decision-making, with Hitler and his entourage taking refuge in potentially lethal cocktails of stimulants administered by the physician Dr Morell as the war turned against Germany. While drugs cannot on their own explain the events of the Second World War or its outcome, Ohler shows, they change our understanding of it. Blitzed forms a crucial missing piece of the story."
Notes: First published in German in 2015.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Translated from the German.
Table of contents: title: 1. Methamphetamine, the Volksdroge (1933-1938); title: 2. Sieg high! (1939-1941); title: 3. High Hitler: Patient A and his personal physician (1941-1944); title: 4. The wonder drug (1944-1945).