History 101:
Book Review: Blitzed - Drugs in Nazi Germany By Norman Ohler Part 2
Im Back after a Break and today I'm bringing you a more positive, second part, review of Blitzed by Norman Ohler. In this part I will be exploring Pervitin as a branded, popular drug in Nazi Germany.
Yes, I know. Maybe I was a little harsh in my last part about the book and its MAJOR flaws but I think it was vital to explain why this book doesn't sit well with me and many other historians. Blitzed also has many intriguing endorsements such as Ian Kershaw; "Very good and extremely interesting- a serious piece of scholarship",who is probably the worlds best Hitler historian. Antony Beevor also commented; "A remarkable scoop, demonstrating that HItler was a far worse junkie than we had even imagined... an eye opener",who is a renown WW2 historian. So therefore I promise in this part of my book review the comments will be somewhat more positive... I hope.
Ohler paints an elegant picture of this supposed wonder drug and its rapid rise to fame. He likes to refer to it as the 'Volksdroge' or 'peoples drug' like 'volksgemeinschaft', which meant 'peoples community' and was the Nazis idea of having all classes in a community as one. Every one helping out and working hard, all for the Nazi regime. If one was pure German and supported the Nazis and worked you would have been rewarded with free holidays or money towards a new Volkswagen (see where the name came from), however this never really happened. It helped put the Socialism in National Socialist, kind of. wether it was commonly known as the 'Volksdroge' or if Ohler just uses it as a play on words I'm not entirely sure but it does seem to slot in rather nicely with all the other Nazi 'Volks' or 'peoples'. My inkling is that it may be a pun judging that one of his later chapters is 'Sieg High!'.
Even on the first page Ohler makes these marvellously ludicrous statements such as; "Under the trademark 'Pervitin', this little pill became the accepted 'Volksdroge', and was on sale in EVERY chemists shop in Germany. Maybe it was, Maybe it was the paracetamol of the Third Reich, of course with different affects. The colloquial name-dropping of Pervitin in all sorts of everyday life really does baffle my mind, how this drug really was everywhere! That millions were taking it because it was the norm, the thing to do when you were under stress or fatigued. One pop of this and your life will be back to normal. Work will seem like a stroll in the park? of course! PERVITIN buy it now at your local chemist. Its got this Orwellian ring to it. Believable? it could be.
One negative, is the question of scale! This is also the most disputed topic surrounding the book, which is debated by historians. Ohler really doesn't supply enough evidence of Pervitin being a 'volksdroge'. Im not taking away his expertise and years of research on this topic, which i have very little of in comparison, but i would love to see documents, files, pictures, personal accounts, even objects that could prove this tale of the Third Reich. Yes there are a couple of these source forms however not enough! many reasons could explain the lack of facts so I'm not going to jump the gun and write this book off as a load of rubbish, even though reading back through does make me contemplate this path.
So, with most of the population on crystal meth surely at some point there must have been a problem? Seeing as the drug was so accessible and abided with the law. Kids may have even taken it. Well, Ohler touches on this by explaining the shortages of the pills as the war went on due to the lack of factories and raw material. Logistics in Germany were also shot to shreds. Even on pills the population would have completely capitulated. Pervitins side effects were listed as; insomnia, headaches, dizziness, tremors, stomach disorder, tremors. Even worse though was the withdrawal from methamphetamine; seizures, comas, coronary artery disease (form of heart failure), High blood pressure, diabetes, severe anxiety. The list goes on and on. So with the lack of pills the population would be worse coming off them so quickly when the supply stopped! Ohler, in my opinion doesn't touch on this enough. Yes he damns the drug and talks about its horrible effects but really doesn't take this into consideration when mentioning an entire population. Casually dropping the odd line; 'Doping mentality spread into every corner of the Reich' and 'National socialism in pill form'. Yes, these lines are very nice and sit well on first read however when they sink in they just don't add up.
Blaming Germany's lack lustre factory and industrial speed from 1943 onwards, purely on withdrawal from Methamphetamine because the whole population were addicted, doesn't correlate. There are also many other reasons about Germany's war machine malfunctions. After all this though I still hold this book in high regards. Maybe I just want to believe in this pharmaceutical Third Reich. Is Blitzed just us humans looking for a logical explanation to the Third Reich's success in many areas, which governments these days have come no where near? That Nazism, as I hate to admit, showed the world that far right systems can be crazily powerful, for all the wrong reasons. We want to find an excuse so we can damn the far right but we shouldn't. We would admit they did the odd thing that revolutionised our world for the better, usually in engineering. by all means damn their racist scummy policies and stupid beliefs. Sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, racism, the list goes on and on and on. Cons outweigh the pros don't get me wrong, however maybe historians should stop creating fanatical stories of supposed logic to explain the alien world, to us liberals, of the Third Reich.
Thanks for reading! That whole positive thing went out the window! This blog felt like a bit of a tangent! however there is yet one more meaty part left in this book review, where I will be giving my opinions on the last part of the book, Drugs and Hitler. stay tuned for part 3 soon. also the domain for this blog has changed to www.history101.co.uk incase any of you were wondering.
History 101:
Enquires: theverybesthistory101@gmail.com
Twitter: @TheVBhistory101
[I do not own these photos]
Book Review: Blitzed - Drugs in Nazi Germany By Norman Ohler Part 2
Im Back after a Break and today I'm bringing you a more positive, second part, review of Blitzed by Norman Ohler. In this part I will be exploring Pervitin as a branded, popular drug in Nazi Germany.
Yes, I know. Maybe I was a little harsh in my last part about the book and its MAJOR flaws but I think it was vital to explain why this book doesn't sit well with me and many other historians. Blitzed also has many intriguing endorsements such as Ian Kershaw; "Very good and extremely interesting- a serious piece of scholarship",who is probably the worlds best Hitler historian. Antony Beevor also commented; "A remarkable scoop, demonstrating that HItler was a far worse junkie than we had even imagined... an eye opener",who is a renown WW2 historian. So therefore I promise in this part of my book review the comments will be somewhat more positive... I hope.
 |
| packaging and pills |
Ohler paints an elegant picture of this supposed wonder drug and its rapid rise to fame. He likes to refer to it as the 'Volksdroge' or 'peoples drug' like 'volksgemeinschaft', which meant 'peoples community' and was the Nazis idea of having all classes in a community as one. Every one helping out and working hard, all for the Nazi regime. If one was pure German and supported the Nazis and worked you would have been rewarded with free holidays or money towards a new Volkswagen (see where the name came from), however this never really happened. It helped put the Socialism in National Socialist, kind of. wether it was commonly known as the 'Volksdroge' or if Ohler just uses it as a play on words I'm not entirely sure but it does seem to slot in rather nicely with all the other Nazi 'Volks' or 'peoples'. My inkling is that it may be a pun judging that one of his later chapters is 'Sieg High!'.
 |
| Lady eating Pervitin chocolates |
One negative, is the question of scale! This is also the most disputed topic surrounding the book, which is debated by historians. Ohler really doesn't supply enough evidence of Pervitin being a 'volksdroge'. Im not taking away his expertise and years of research on this topic, which i have very little of in comparison, but i would love to see documents, files, pictures, personal accounts, even objects that could prove this tale of the Third Reich. Yes there are a couple of these source forms however not enough! many reasons could explain the lack of facts so I'm not going to jump the gun and write this book off as a load of rubbish, even though reading back through does make me contemplate this path.
So, with most of the population on crystal meth surely at some point there must have been a problem? Seeing as the drug was so accessible and abided with the law. Kids may have even taken it. Well, Ohler touches on this by explaining the shortages of the pills as the war went on due to the lack of factories and raw material. Logistics in Germany were also shot to shreds. Even on pills the population would have completely capitulated. Pervitins side effects were listed as; insomnia, headaches, dizziness, tremors, stomach disorder, tremors. Even worse though was the withdrawal from methamphetamine; seizures, comas, coronary artery disease (form of heart failure), High blood pressure, diabetes, severe anxiety. The list goes on and on. So with the lack of pills the population would be worse coming off them so quickly when the supply stopped! Ohler, in my opinion doesn't touch on this enough. Yes he damns the drug and talks about its horrible effects but really doesn't take this into consideration when mentioning an entire population. Casually dropping the odd line; 'Doping mentality spread into every corner of the Reich' and 'National socialism in pill form'. Yes, these lines are very nice and sit well on first read however when they sink in they just don't add up.
Blaming Germany's lack lustre factory and industrial speed from 1943 onwards, purely on withdrawal from Methamphetamine because the whole population were addicted, doesn't correlate. There are also many other reasons about Germany's war machine malfunctions. After all this though I still hold this book in high regards. Maybe I just want to believe in this pharmaceutical Third Reich. Is Blitzed just us humans looking for a logical explanation to the Third Reich's success in many areas, which governments these days have come no where near? That Nazism, as I hate to admit, showed the world that far right systems can be crazily powerful, for all the wrong reasons. We want to find an excuse so we can damn the far right but we shouldn't. We would admit they did the odd thing that revolutionised our world for the better, usually in engineering. by all means damn their racist scummy policies and stupid beliefs. Sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, racism, the list goes on and on and on. Cons outweigh the pros don't get me wrong, however maybe historians should stop creating fanatical stories of supposed logic to explain the alien world, to us liberals, of the Third Reich.
Thanks for reading! That whole positive thing went out the window! This blog felt like a bit of a tangent! however there is yet one more meaty part left in this book review, where I will be giving my opinions on the last part of the book, Drugs and Hitler. stay tuned for part 3 soon. also the domain for this blog has changed to www.history101.co.uk incase any of you were wondering.
History 101:
Enquires: theverybesthistory101@gmail.com
Twitter: @TheVBhistory101
[I do not own these photos]
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