Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich

Ohler, Norman

ISBN 10: 1504799208 ISBN 13: 9781504799201

Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, 2017

Synopsis

[Translated by Shaun Whiteside]
[Read by Stefan Rudnicki]

A fast-paced, highly original history that uncovers the full extent of drug use in Nazi Germany from Hitler's all-consuming reliance on a slew of substances to drugs that permeated the regime and played an integral role in Germany's military performance and downfall in World War II.

The Nazi regime preached an ideology of physical, mental, and moral purity. But as Norman Ohler reveals in this gripping new history, the Third Reich was saturated with drugs. On the eve of World War II, Germany was a pharmaceutical powerhouse, and companies such as Merck and Bayer cooked up cocaine, opiates, and, most of all, methamphetamines, to be consumed by everyone from factory workers to housewives to millions of German soldiers. In fact, troops regularly took rations of a form of crystal meth -- the elevated energy and feelings of invincibility associated with the high even help to explain certain German military victories.

Drugs seeped all the way up to the Nazi high command and, especially, to Hitler himself. Over the course of the war, Hitler became increasingly dependent on injections of a cocktail of drugs -- including a form of heroin -- administered by his personal doctor. While drugs alone cannot explain the Nazis' toxic racial theories or the events of World War II, Ohler's investigation makes an overwhelming case that, if drugs are not taken into account, our understanding of the Third Reich is fundamentally incomplete. Carefully researched and rivetingly readable, Blitzed throws surprising light on a history that, until now, has remained in the shadows.

About this title

About the Author

Norman Ohler is a longtime journalist whose work has appeared in Der Spiegel, Stern, GEO, and other German publications. He is also the author of three novels, Die Quotenmaschine (the world's first hypertext novel), Mitte, and Stadt des Goldes, as well as two novellas. He was cowriter of the script for Wim Wenders' film Palermo Shooting. He spent five years researching Blitzed in numerous archives across Germany and the United States.

Narrator Bio: Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than three thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014 and was named one of AudioFile's Golden Voices in 2012.

Review

''Ohler's astonishing account of methamphetamine addiction in the Third Reich changes what we know about the Second World War ... Blitzed looks set to reframe the way certain aspects of the Third Reich will be viewed in the future.'' --Guardian

''Blitzed tells the remarkable story of how Nazi Germany slid towards junkie-state status. It is an energetic ... account of an accelerating, modernizing society, an ambitious pharmaceuticals industry, a military machine that was looking for ways to create an unbeatable soldier, and a dictator who couldn't function without fixes from his quack ... It has an uncanny ability to disturb.'' --Times (UK)

''A huge contribution ... Remarkable.'' --Antony Beevor, BBC 4 Today

''The picture [Ohler] paints is both a powerful and an extreme one ... Gripping reading.'' -- Times Literary Supplement

''A fascinating, most extraordinary revelation.'' --BBC World News

''Blitzed tells a deliriously druggy tale of the Third Reich.'' -- Paris Review

''Absorbing ... Makes the convincing argument that the Nazis' use of chemical stimulants ... played a crucial role in the successes, and failures, of the Third Reich.'' --Esquire

''An audacious, compelling read.'' --Stern (Germany)

''Bursting with interesting facts.'' --Vice

''Very good and extremely interesting -- a serious piece of scholarship very well-researched ... There have, of course, been other books that already argued that Hitler was effectively a drug addict at the hands of Dr Morell's pills and injections of amphetamines and other drugs. But Ohler takes the argument, to my mind, further and more convincingly.'' --Ian Kershaw, author of To Hell and Back and The End

Edition details

• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1504799208
• ISBN 13: 9781504799201
• Binding: Audio CD
• Language: English