5 ms·
High Hitler: how Nazi drug abuse steered the course of history
- kaffeemitsahne 10y agoWhat a stupid pun.
- posterboy 10y agoBetteridge's Law still seems to apply, even if the question mark at the end is omitted.
- posterboy 10y agoTo the downvoters: The article is clearly sensationalist. I'm not saying the implication is wrong, I'm saying the article can't prove it. I expect the book won't contain precise source references either. Other books on the same topic have been criticized for unclear sources, as well. The endorsement by the person who inspired the author in the first place is not an independent opinion and thus clearly biased. > At a company called Temmler in Berlin, Dr Fritz Hauschild, its head chemist, inspired by the successful use of the American amphetamine Benzedrine at the 1936 Olympic Games, began trying to develop his own wonder drug – and a year later, he patented the first German methyl-amphetamine. So, it was initially developed by the Allies. It's fair to assume they used it, too. > Was Blitzkreig, then, largely the result of the Wehrmacht’s reliance on crystal meth? How far is Ohler willing to go with this? He smiles. “Well, Mommsen always told me not to be mono-causal. But the invasion of France was made possible by the drugs. No drugs, no invasion. Under the assumption that the Allies used stimulants, too, there is no advantage?
- skylan_q 10y agoReason cannot be applied here. It's all emotions and narratives. People will believe anything bad about the Nazis and nothing good no matter what. Silicon valley is actually politically tone-deaf and immature.
- jacob019 10y agoIt is not fair to assume that the allies used amphetamine just because an American pharmaceutical company was the first to market it commercially. It was not developed by "the allies". Amphetamine was first synthesized in 1887 in Germany by Romanian chemist Lazăr Edeleanu who named it phenylisopropylamine.
- AstralStorm 10y agoExcept it was a standard piece in a long range pilot package for a long, long time. (replaced only very recently) Ground troops were not issued due to cost. Allies did not have the chemical factories to make it cheap. They would be using the drugs on large scale if it was possible. Hitler's doctor-driven abuse is well documented. The side effects of long term use were not yet that well known.
- jacob019 10y agoAmerica would have had no problem mass producing amphetamine, it's much easier to make amphetamine than to enrich Uranium-235. It's quite a leap to assume that the allied troops would have all been on drugs if they could have been.
- Someone 10y ago"Ground troops were not issued due to cost" "Medical Science and the Military: The Allies' Use of Amphetamine during World War II" (http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/JINH_a_00212 http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/JINH_a_00212): "Although amphetamine was thoroughly tested by leading scientists for its effects in boosting or maintaining physical and mental performance in fatigued subjects, the results never provided solid grounds for approving the drug's use, and, in any case, came too late to be decisive. The grounds on which amphetamine was actually adopted by both British and American militaries had less to do with the science of fatigue than with the drug's mood-altering effects, as judged by military men. It increased confidence and aggression, and elevated “morale.”" I'm not sure whether that agrees or disagrees with what you say, and the article proper is paywalled. With that caveat, I read it as if they knew about it and were willing to use it, but didn't find the right mix (?yet?) to warrant large scale use. My guess is that the fact that they were winning the war also made them a bit more scrupulous in deploying it than the nazis were.
- olivermarks 10y agoAll this is pretty well known about drug use in WWII - this piece is written as if it's all an amazing discovery. Blitzkrieg was achieved with drugs, Allied bomber pilots were given amphetamines etc etc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_culture_of_substituted_amphetamines#Military_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_culture_of_substit...
- Semiapies 10y agoThe middle third or more of the 20th century is dominated by world leaders on these drugs, up to at least Kennedy.
- Someone 10y agoDrugging soldiers also wasn't new in WWII at all. Alcohol was used in navies the world around for centuries, tobacco and alcohol were used in the trenches of World War One. It also didn't end in World War Two. 'downers' and 'uppers' were used in Korea and Vietnam, and how do you think US pilots flew missions from Missouri to Tripoli and Afghanistan? Not only on a good night's sleep and fruit juice. That's even public knowledge. For example, http://usoonpatrol.org/archives/2014/11/13/b-2-pilot-flew-longest-combat http://usoonpatrol.org/archives/2014/11/13/b-2-pilot-flew-lo...: "In order to fight off the release of melatonin that comes at that moment, the flight doctor had given each crew member an approved “pick me up pill” to make sure everyone was alert going into combat"
- jacob019 10y agoA good read. Not exactly hacker news material, but I'm glad I read it. I had no idea that Hitler ran out of drugs two months before he killed himself. We all knew about drug abuse in the Third Reich, but the personal addiction of Hitler is less well known.
- skylan_q 10y agoNazi soldiers didn't eat. They subsisted on raping children! We must defeat Hitler now before it's too late!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- noinsight 10y agoThe ultimate performance enhancing drug the Germans prototyped was D-IX which was not mentioned in the article. Each tablet contained 5 mg of oxycodone, 5 mg of cocaine and 3 mg of methamphetamine, so it was potent stuff. > German researchers found that equipment-laden test subjects (inmates from Sachsenhausen concentration camp) could march in a circle for up to 90 kilometers per day without rest while carrying a 20 kilogram backpack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-IX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-IX