The Torch Magazine

Seig High!
Psychostimulants and Opioids
in World War II

by John Elrick

Adolf Hitler died a ruined junkie. The German army's greatest successes were fueled by stimulants. These claims, put forth by Norman Ohler in his 2016 book Blitzed and by Sam Taplin in the AHC documentary High Hitler and His Nazi Supersoldiers, are based on data mined from sources in the National Archives. While these claims are controversial and stand out from earlier observations concerning the war, they have the advantage of explaining some of the gaps in our understanding of the rise and fall of the Third Reich.

And the Third Reich has long been something we are keen to understand. The writers of the Star Trek episode "Patterns of Force" (in which Capt. Kirk's old history professor John Gill has refashioned one planet's society along Nazi lines) capture the aura of perverted mystique which surrounds Nazi Germany:

KIRK: But why Nazi Germany? You studied history. You knew what the Nazis were.
GILL: Most efficient state Earth ever knew.
SPOCK: Quite true, Captain. That tiny country, beaten, bankrupt, defeated, rose in a few years to stand only one step away from global domination. (Lucas)

When that episode was written, World War II was still fresh in the minds of the world. The definitive history of the war, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, had been in print for fifteen years. Memoirs of German leaders such as Heinz Guderian and Albert Speer were either in print or about to be, and movies dramatizing the defeat of the Nazi forces were a Hollywood staple.

These stories were all a desperate attempt to answer a gnawing question: how was it possible that a nation such as Germany—home to Bach and Beethoven, the inventor of social security, an educated industrial powerhouse steeped in a halo of iron will and discipline—should have turned their focus to the industrialized slaughter of human beings, a process made so efficient as to have claimed 11.5 million lives?

Pervitin

     In 1977, John Toland wrote a three-inch-thick biography of Adolf Hitler. Buried inside the book are a handful of references to the Fuhrer's personal physician, Dr. Theodore Morell. Although these references mention vitamin and hormone-based injections given to Hitler, Toland makes no further allusion to pharmacological interventions. One would believe that the Nazi war machine was driven by sheer will and the unflagging determination of humans pushing themselves to the limit.

     In 1985, Dr. Ernst Gunther Schenck published his opus, a book based on a close reading of 15,000 pages of microfilm taken from the papers of Morell, in which he discussed many of the supplements and vitamin mixtures administered to Hitler. Buried in those pages was a tiny comment, easily overlooked: "I suspect they [the mixtures] included, on some occasions, Pervitin, the use of which I strongly opposed" (Breo).

     This innocuous comment casually introduced the modern reader to a compound synthesized by chemist Friedrich Hauschild at Temmler. The compound, Pervitin, reached the market in 1938. Sold without a prescription, it was touted by Temmler as a pick-me-up more effective than a cup of coffee without any negative side effects. It was consumed by night shift workers and new mothers both; a solution for long nights and too little sleep. It was even packaged into a chocolate called Hillebrand and marketed directly to women.

     The drug was the subject of multiple studies published in 1939, all of which, while cautioning on the unknown long-term effects, reported generally positive results from use. In late 1938, Pervitin found its way into the sight of Otto Ranke, Leiter of the Academy for Military Medicine in Berlin. After testing it on himself, Ranke became enthusiastic about the potential for Pervitin for treating exhaustion during prolonged combat conditions. The Wehrmacht became so interested in the compound they supplied 35 million doses to the troops during the invasion of France and another 29 million tablets during the opening phases of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.

     According to Taplin, the Allies first became aware of the potential of Pervitin in 1941 after a German aircraft was shot down over England and an inspection of the pilot's survival gear uncovered a tube containing a number of tablets wrapped in gold foil. The tube was labeled Pervitin, and the instructions cautioned against a number of potentially dangerous side effects. These side effects are much better understood today after decades of experience with long term use of the drug. Temmler called it Pervitin. We know it as crystal meth.

     It is here that the works of Ohler and Taplin take up the thread. Until Ohler's book, any academic focus on the role of Pervitin halted at one name, Leonardo Conti, Reichsgesundheitsführer (Reich Health Leader) of the Nazi Party. Conti had taken a hard line against Pervitin after the first negative side effects began to emerge in 1941. He found it contrary to the Nazi positions on racial purity and convinced the Reich Minister of the Interior to categorize the drug as an illicit substance. Further, Snelders and Pieters state army health inspectors gave strict instructions to medical officers to restrict use of the drugs during both the French invasion and Barbarossa.

     Conti's stance and the actions of the German government argue that the role of methamphetamine in the German military ended at this point. Ohler and Taplin, however, have taken the position that it did not. The genie was out of the bottle, and no amount of posturing would put it back in. Pervitin had become an essential element of survival in a war Germany could not win. Ohler cites the letters of Heinrich Boll, a wartime gunner who was later named a Nobel Laureate for literature. In one letter home Boll asks his parents, "Please remember to send me, at the next opportunity, an envelope containing Pervitin." The matter-of-fact tone of the request implies how integrated the use of the drug was to German society at the time.

     Another story tells of a wounded German soldier, captured at Stalingrad, whose Pervitin supply enabled him to survive the grueling march in captivity in minus 38 degree Celsius temperatures with little to eat. "Ultimately I walked as if in trance," he recounted later, "my wounded legs moved automatically, I didn't feel the cold anymore, nor hunger and thirst" (Snelders and Pieters, 692). Apparently, even after being cut off from supplies for several months in conditions requiring every edge to survive, the soldier still had a significant supply of Pervitin left. This piece of evidence is an indicator of how much of this drug was supplied to German soldiers up to the surrender at Stalingrad in February 1943.

     A further example of the role Pervitin played in aiding the German soldier is the story of Captain Hans von Luck who, while transferring from the Eastern Front to the Africa Corps, told his driver: "We'll drive without stopping until we're out of Russia. We'll relieve each other every 100 kilometres, swallow Pervitin and stop only for fuel" (Snelders and Pieters, 692). In another case, a group of 500 German soldiers, surrounded by the Red Army, used Pervitin to aid their escape through temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius. A doctor recounted how the men, marching through waist-deep snow, were collapsing at midnight. After taking Pervitin, the men "began spontaneously reporting that they felt better. They began marching in orderly fashion again, their spirits improved, and they became more alert" (Ulrich).

     Successes such as these were overshadowed by the horror stories surrounding the negative consequences of methamphetamine abuse: paranoia, hallucinations, and loss of empathy. One case involved a Waffen-SS unit at the siege of Leningrad. After pumping themselves full of Pervitin to prepare for an expected Soviet attack, the stoned soldiers began firing wildly at imaginary targets until they had exhausted their ammunition. The Red Army marched over the position the next day; the defenders were senseless and defenseless.

     Taplin reported in his documentary that Temmler produced 600,000 tablets in one day in 1943, an amount well under the maximum estimated production capacity of over 800,000 tablets per day, but shockingly high compared to the levels reportedly used by the German army by that point in the war. Further, Defalque reports that the amount of Pervitin the Allies discovered in the Kreigsmarine's medical depots after the war hint at an intensive use of the drug. Therefore, it is possible production continued to climb, although the fragmentary documentation which survived the hostilities makes it difficult to determine overall production figures.

Eukodal

     Ohler further documents a second drug which, evidence indicates, was first administered to Hitler sometime in 1943. The drug, Eukodal, was given to combat severe stomach pains on July 18, 1943; this date is the first time that Morell's documentation mentions the drug in connection to Patient A, his code for Hitler. The Eukodal injection was a desperate measure by Morell when his traditional vitamin and glucose injections failed to ease the Fuhrer's pain. Hitler rebounded in time for an historic meeting with Italian dictator Mussolini, where he proceeded to dominate the conversation with enthusiasm, utterly convinced that the Axis powers would triumph. Mussolini, who had intended to convince Hitler that Italy leaving the war was best for all, found himself instead backing Hitler; albeit with much less enthusiasm than his fellow dictator.

     Eukodal would become a near daily tonic for the Fuhrer, following him until the final days in Berlin. We know Eukodol as Oxycodone. Ohler's theory proposes that this regimen of opioid kept Hitler in a state of euphoria and fueled his delusions concerning the prospects of Germany. Prior to the war, Hitler had been near manic-depressive, with mood swings on a weekly basis. Morell's injections of various barely understood concoctions helped keep him in an elevated mental state. As Eukodal had been available since the early 1930s, whether or not Morell incorporated this drug silently into his star patient's treatments earlier than 1943 remains an open question.

     There is another story which raises evidence of earlier use of either Pervitin or Eukodal. On March 15, 1938, the President of Czechoslovakia, Emil Hacha, collapsed during a state visit after being presented demands for a de facto capitulation. The agitated Hitler called for Morell to revive the man and, after a cursory examination, Morell injected Hacha with an unidentified concoction which was likely the same as he gave the Fuhrer in the past. Hacha arose as if from the dead, with such energy that he began to resist the demands of Hitler. The question of what, exactly, Morell gave Hacha will remain a mystery, yet it is a provocative glance into the power system of Nazi Germany and the times.

Alcohol

No discussion of the role intoxicants played in the Third Reich could be considered complete without examining one of the oldest military pharmaceuticals: C2H6O or alcohol. Lukasz Kamienski digs deeply into the rich history of the use of alcohol in war, tracing back to beer and wine in ancient times. Fermented beverages have multiple advantages when it comes to warfare. In small doses, alcohol is a stimulant, numbing fear and increasing bravado, both essential in battle. In larger doses, alcohol acts as a depressant, allowing soldiers to escape the horrors of close quarters combat. Another bonus is that alcoholic beverages pack dense calories in a form which resists spoilage and bacterial contamination.

It is no wonder that alcohol plays such a large role in the history of warfare, with ancient Greek texts recounting the wine-soaked celebrations after the only slightly less inebriated preparations for battle. In the words of Victor Davis Hanson,

It may be naive to assume that the Greek hoplite, who drank daily both at home and while on the march, would not realize that an extra cup or two of wine at his customary last supper might stanch his fear, dull his sensitivity to physical injury and mental anguish, and make the awful task of facing an enemy phalanx that much easier.

Wine and beer both had the distinct advantage of being safer to drink than the likely contaminated local water. As Kamienski says, "wine, with its germicidal properties, helped protect the health of legionaries and frequently saved their lives." Thousands of years later, the British empire was built on rum for much the same reasons, providing bacteria-free drinking for their navy as well as some of the largest concentration of calories: one liter of rum carries a staggering 4,000 calories.

     During World War II alcohol fulfilled a more sinister purpose, helping SS Einsatzgruppen teams carry out the execution of women and children one bullet at a time. Westermann recounts that, although abstinence from alcohol was considered one of the nine virtues of the SS man, it was used as both a reward and incentive for participation in killing actions. Stripped of their inhibitions by binge drinking, Gestapo officials were well known to carry out killing sprees in the wake of official executions. Postwar testimony from a former policeman concerning actions of Ukrainian auxiliaries during a mass killing stated that all the men were drunk. According to Westermann: "He recalled that drunken auxiliaries grabbed infants and toddlers by the legs and tossed them into the air before shooting them down like 'clay pigeons,'" Westermann further cites the commentary of Werner Schönemann of Einsatzkommando 8: "We have to carry out this unhappy task, shooting all the way to the Urals. As you can imagine, it's not pretty and one can bear it only with alcohol."

     There is no lack of evidence that alcohol played a vital role in removing any remaining inhibitions the SS men may have had about committing cold blooded murder. What is lacking is evidence of the role of Pervitin in the slaughter. Given the prevalence of Pervitin among German military and civilians, it would be difficult to believe that the SS did not have access. Indeed, there is specific reference to the use of special tablets containing a mixture of Pervitin, cocaine, and oxycodone by Otto Skorzeny's SS commandos in the Serbian mountains during the winter of 1944-1945. As a documented side effect of methamphetamine usage is loss of empathy and increased aggressiveness, one may postulate that the use of Pervitin by SS death squads would certainly not have been an impediment to their duties.

     The Japanese military also made use of alcohol and methamphetamine. Kamikaze pilots would be pumped up on sake and given amphetamines before flying to their deaths. The numbing effects of ethanol coupled with the high from speed helped erase the natural fears which would prevent the performance of their duty to deliberately crash their bomb and fuel laden aircraft into enemy ships, resulting in possible enemy fatalities while ensuring their own death.

Allies

British and American forces also tapped into amphetamines, albeit in much smaller quantities and using Benzedrine. The Allies began investigating amphetamines after learning of the German use of Pervitin during the invasion of France. This drug was examined as a means of remaining alert during prolonged missions and also for increased confidence, aggression, and "morale." Estimates of supply during the war were 72 million tablets for Great Britain with a similar amount supplied to the United States (Durham). The drug was used by the RAF and was supplied to the U.S. Army in the form of packets of six Benzedrine pep pills per soldier. Benzedrine played a role during the invasion of Tarawa. and paratroopers used it during D-Day in June 1944.

Conclusion

As the conflicting evidence continues to flow into the history books, one thing is clear: both stimulants and opioid drugs played a far greater role in the events of World War II than has previously been told. Certainly, the atrocities committed by the Nazis cannot be pinned on pharmaceutical interventions any more than they can be blamed solely on mental issues or distortions of reality. Yet to dismiss the potential role of dangerous brain altering compounds does nothing to aid in understanding and preventing future problems. In the middle east today, Captagone, the grandchild of Pervitin, has already been implicated as a major factor in the excesses and brutality of Islamic State fighters. The use of pharmaceuticals for creating the perfect killing machine are a part of human history and will be part of the future. If for no other reason than to help us build knowledge to protect ourselves, we must make the effort to separate fact from fantasy.

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Author's Biography

    John Elrick holds a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership and has published papers in topics such as organizational systems and economics. He has been an avid student of the history behind the rise and fall of Nazi Germany for over forty years.

    Currently, he is a Senior Systems Analyst with Westat, a Rockville, Maryland based research firm and is a Business Subject Matter Expert working with Nexford University.

    "Seig High!" was delivered to the Winchester Torch Club on June 8, 2018.

    He may be reached at john.elrick@gmail.com.