Blitzed

Drugs in the Third Reich

De: Norman Ohler, Shaun Whiteside - translator, Claire Bloom - director

Narrado por: Stefan Rudnicki

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 listenable, Blitzed throws surprising light on a history that, until now, has remained in the shadows.

©2017 Norman Ohler (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

A bus driver in Knoxville, TN recommended this

If you read "The Butchering Art" you know about the "cadaver hill" at the University of Tennessee. I asked the bus driver where it was and a discussion ensued. He read "The Butchering Art" (he does Kindle), so told me about "Blitzed" thinking I'd like it. Puts the European Theater of WWII in a new perspective.

Really Great Book

This book is well written and narrated revealing one of the most astounding chapters in history which we were not taught in school. It’s insane to realize that the massive Third Reich agenda and all it wrought was directed by a delusional Meth, cocaine and opiate fiend who lived in a drug induced imaginary world in a lightless damp and cramped series of cement bunkers, serviced by a dim-witted quack doctor aka dealer for 5 years, during which the subject transformed from healthy and young looking to a used up wrinkled non functional husk, veins collapsed all body functions stopped lying on a field cot unable to poo, painfully passing foul wind and writhing in agony safe for brief periods where the doc is still able to fund a vein to inject into. All the while the surrounding advisors and handlers acting like all was fine. Of course there’s a dark part too. The rampant use of meth, cocaine, morphine and oxycodone by all members of the 3rd Reich from the SS to field soldiers to the teenage youth brigade to concentration camp prisoners used mercilessly as test subjects forced to March 60 miles as part of testing new drug formulation efficacy....it goes on and on. A fascinating read but also a scary warning of nature of cults - drug induced sycophants following a charismatic but demented leader in what is ultimately a death cult which only continues as long as the unlimited access to the most pharmaceutically pure hard drugs remains available. Death to their targets, innocent citizens caught in crossfire, industrialized mass murder techniques, all in pursuit of an occult driven goal of eugenics and the fabricated Aryan dream. Ultimately Death to the perpetrators, by their own hand. Yes this stuff really happened, I tell myself. It’s absolutely the most insane real-life story imaginable. My God.

Entertaining and Interesting

Great book with a unique approach that keeps your interest from start to finish. Would recommend even for those who are not usually into WWII history.

Essential to an understanding of Hitler’s war

Brilliantly researched, ‘Blitzed’ completes an understanding of the German war effort that was ultimately nothing without its drugs- the endurance of the army, the fanaticism and charisma of the leadership, and the illusory altered states that stubbornly prolonged the doomed war are all explained in this book. Essential!

Fantastic!!

Many things I did not know happened during World War II. What a fantastic in-depth book, taking a look at the life of why World War II was created. I sure hope there are more on their way! Thank you very much!