Stimulants Old School Speed.

[Nicomorphinist]

Lots of good info here already. I second the book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany if anyone has a specific curiosity about Hitler's drug use along with the SS and the general public of Nazi Germany. They were straight up selling Pervitin OTC to regular civilians at the time because it pushed the idea of Nazi Germany being strong and efficient. I honestly find it very interesting just how much the drugs of choice in a particular culture say about it.

As for Elvis I am pretty sure one of the many drugs he was scripted was Dexedrine. Here's a supposed scan of one of his scripts which includes it, although I can't vouch for its authenticity:

View attachment 16772

As for "white crosses" funnily enough one of my mates uses that slang for Amfexa brand dex because of how the pills look:

There are also a number of documentaries n the subject in English, German, French and other languages, including one titled High Hitler.

It seems to me that Hitler getting oxycodone all the time, and morphine and Scophedal on occasion and at least one dose of pethidine, that the meth overuse and strychnine he was damaging his nervous system above and beyond what he already had, so the narcotics side effect of loving everybody would not manifest. On the other hand, I would think that a 3000 mg a day DHC habit did to Göring what that drug does to most folks from the euphoria and sedation, and unless something new is found, he was much more guilty of cowardice, greed, and CYA than a lot of those folks -- in other words, he should have known better, and that makes it worse. I think he got a 135 on an IQ test in the calaboose in1946 and was in second place with Hjalmar Schacht being at 144 or thereabouts, and the latter was helping the underground as far back as the autumn of 1933 and was thrown into a camp for a time and IIRC never even belonged to the NSDAP so why he was in the dock with the captains of evil is beyond me.

There is a theory that Hitler sold his soul to Satan or was otherwise jumped by some kind of transcendently evil spirit or whatever in Linz on or about 10. January 1908 and the Old Boy came to collect on Walpurgisnacht 1945 (if he did not escape I suppose) . . . some credit the 1904 magick working at which Aleister Crowley officiated in Africa for opening a crack the door that goes to Hell, or a numinous realm not governed by the law of cause and effect, thereby starting the whole thing. After all, the Pope tried to do an exorcism on Hitler remotely once or maybe twice, saying that he was not able to accomplish it.

Whatever the case may be, it seems to me that the very worst a person can turn into without some kind of nefarious transcendent help is a Joseph Goebbels, Stalin, Osama bin Laden or Jerry Sandusky type, whereas Hitler and Himmler did have ultramundane help with their project although there were lots of people who helped who were not -- hence the banality of evil, which is the first principle and highest cause of many things we humans shouldn't do to each other and nature ranging from the quotidian to the megalomaniacal.

 

[Nicomorphinist]

Lots of good info here already. I second the book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany if anyone has a specific curiosity about Hitler's drug use along with the SS and the general public of Nazi Germany. They were straight up selling Pervitin OTC to regular civilians at the time because it pushed the idea of Nazi Germany being strong and efficient. I honestly find it very interesting just how much the drugs of choice in a particular culture say about it.

Perhaps because practically all of the semi-synthetics, levorphanol, pethidine, methadone, smack, morphine, dihydrocodeine, and many others were discovered there, there is also at least some local pride about narcotics and a much different culture, in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland to varying, still very high levels on top of the fact that the right to take narcotics is derived from the 1920 Österreichische Bundesverfassung as reinstated in 1955, and I am aware the Österreichische Verfassungsgerichtshof has ruled at least twice that Austrians have a right to take narcotics. There also underlying cultural factors at work as well

 

[Hodor]

Lots of good info here already. I second the book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany if anyone has a specific curiosity about Hitler's drug use along with the SS and the general public of Nazi Germany. They were straight up selling Pervitin OTC to regular civilians at the time because it pushed the idea of Nazi Germany being strong and efficient. I honestly find it very interesting just how much the drugs of choice in a particular culture say about it.

"Blitzed" ("der totale Rausch") sacrifices historical accuracy for storytelling though.

The author, Norman Ohler (who's a journalist and novelist, not a historian), seems to be trying to create this image of hordes of tweaked-out nazis acting like Khorne berserkers from being spun out on meth 24/7, when in reality their atrocities were the result of good old-fashioned "sober" sadism and bigotry.

While he certainly did do his research, his interpretation of the facts does not necessarily stand up to logic, or even basic math: 35 million Pervitin tablets distributed for the 1940 Western campaign may sound like a lot, but when you consider that this was an operation that involved over 2 million men, the number becomes far less staggering, coming down to just 14 pills per man. Even if they'd completely gobbled up all those 35M pills during the 6+ weeks of fighting, that comes out to a single pill every three days.
At another point, an officer requests 20,000 Pervitin pills for his Panzerdivision, a number which doesn't seem all that impressive when you consider that said Panzerdivision consisted of 15,000 men. So just 1.3 pills per man, even though tank crews were considered one of the "target demographics" for Pervitin.
He also mentions an incident in 1943 where the German fighter ace, Johannes Steinhoff, tries out pervitin for the first time and - knowing little to nothing about it - ends up taking several tablets at once, suffering symptoms of a mild meth overdose. If Pervitin use was really as commonplace and encouraged as implied in the book, you'd figure one of Germany's most prolific pilots and squadron commanders would have tried it before 1943, or atleast have been trained in how to use it.

Also, Pervitin was only available OTC from its introduction in 1938 to mid-1941, when it fell under the purview of the Opium Law. Even the nazis were well aware that it wasn't a panacea, with Reichsgesundheitsführer Conti warning that it was acceptable to use for allowing a pilot to keep on flying for two more hours, but not in cases where it was possible to remedy one's fatigue by simply catching some sleep, as the inevitability of the eventual crash should be obvious to any doctor (that said, of course those precautions do not apply to you when you're the Führer himself and you can just hire a sycophantic "Dr Feelgood" like Theodor Morell).

 

[Hodor]

Here is a pretty interesting German Pervitin story though:
Back in the 1930's the Germans (as well as other German-speaking mountaineers in Austria and South Tyrol) were making it a prestige project to climb a mountain called the Nanga Parbat (largely because the British were restricting access to a large part of the Himalayas, including Everest). While only the 9th highest mountain, the Nanga Parbat is an extremely difficult climb, possibly as hard as the infamous K2.

The German mountaineering scene naturally adopted a literal "do-or-die" attitude towards making the climb, leading to the loss of several expeditions consisting of their most elite climbers... which only made them want to keep trying harder, dubbing the Nanga Parbat the "Germans' Mountain of Fate". Then WW2 happened.
Post-WW2, the Germans decided to go back to killing themselves on this rock, mounting a major expedition in 1953... only for them to be forced to turn back 1300 meters below the summit. Well, not all of them turned back. The Austrian climber Hermann Buhl decided to just take some pervitin, wash it down with some coca leaf tea, and reach the summit on his own. Which, miraculously, worked. So remember kids: Doing the impossible is not about proper planning or teamwork - just take plenty of uppers, and you can do it all yourself

 

[Nicomorphinist]

Maybe the C-Jam content of the coca tea made the difference? To this day, lorry drivers and others in Peru and Bolivia and possibly elsewhere use the leaves and tea for this purpose, one theory being an extension of the use of ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, phenylpropanolamine, and formerly amphetamines as decongestants and anti-asthmatics allowing for deeper breathing, added to the caffeine-like vascular effect which amongst other things will combat the headaches. There is even an Austrian brand of 100 mg caffeine tablets which lists altitude sickness and the headaches caused by the Föhn wind as indications, and there is also the addition of caffeine to many brands of codeine and dihydrocodeine combination drugs, as well as specifically-formulated headache OTC drugs for headache, with paracetamol + aspirin + caffeine being a common recipe both with and without the codeine or DHC.

 

[Wilson Wilson]

"Blitzed" ("der totale Rausch") sacrifices historical accuracy for storytelling though.

The author, Norman Ohler (who's a journalist and novelist, not a historian), seems to be trying to create this image of hordes of tweaked-out nazis acting like Khorne berserkers from being spun out on meth 24/7, when in reality their atrocities were the result of good old-fashioned "sober" sadism and bigotry.

While he certainly did do his research, his interpretation of the facts does not necessarily stand up to logic, or even basic math: 35 million Pervitin tablets distributed for the 1940 Western campaign may sound like a lot, but when you consider that this was an operation that involved over 2 million men, the number becomes far less staggering, coming down to just 14 pills per man. Even if they'd completely gobbled up all those 35M pills during the 6+ weeks of fighting, that comes out to a single pill every three days.
At another point, an officer requests 20,000 Pervitin pills for his Panzerdivision, a number which doesn't seem all that impressive when you consider that said Panzerdivision consisted of 15,000 men. So just 1.3 pills per man, even though tank crews were considered one of the "target demographics" for Pervitin.
He also mentions an incident in 1943 where the German fighter ace, Johannes Steinhoff, tries out pervitin for the first time and - knowing little to nothing about it - ends up taking several tablets at once, suffering symptoms of a mild meth overdose. If Pervitin use was really as commonplace and encouraged as implied in the book, you'd figure one of Germany's most prolific pilots and squadron commanders would have tried it before 1943, or atleast have been trained in how to use it.

Also, Pervitin was only available OTC from its introduction in 1938 to mid-1941, when it fell under the purview of the Opium Law. Even the nazis were well aware that it wasn't a panacea, with Reichsgesundheitsführer Conti warning that it was acceptable to use for allowing a pilot to keep on flying for two more hours, but not in cases where it was possible to remedy one's fatigue by simply catching some sleep, as the inevitability of the eventual crash should be obvious to any doctor (that said, of course those precautions do not apply to you when you're the Führer himself and you can just hire a sycophantic "Dr Feelgood" like Theodor Morell).

You're absolutely correct the way the information is presented is sensationalised. If you read it as if it's a newspaper article in the knowledge that it is of course sensationalised, it still makes for a good read. Just do your own research and as you've done here, think through the given stats for yourself.

I personally didn't even know Pervitin was so readily available to the general population of Nazi Germany. I assumed it was a regulated prescription drug. Instead it was just openly sold at any pharmacy. The book also states that it was sold in chocolate, although when I did some searching for confirmation I didn't find much about that. Putting meth in chocolate is genius for a diet product though haha.

 

[Hodor]

I personally didn't even know Pervitin was so readily available to the general population of Nazi Germany. I assumed it was a regulated prescription drug. Instead it was just openly sold at any pharmacy. The book also states that it was sold in chocolate, although when I did some searching for confirmation I didn't find much about that. Putting meth in chocolate is genius for a diet product though haha.

As I said, it only used to be available OTC from its introduction in 1938 to becoming prescription-only in 1941. Germany's surgeon general / head eugenicist mass-murderer, Leonardo Conti, was highly critical of it. Also, the dose of methamphetamine in pervitin was actually pretty low - just 3 mg per pill. So those 35 million pills the Germans requisitioned for the 1940 Western campaign? That's just slightly more than 100 kilos of methamphetamine in total. To put it in perspective, earlier this year, the Australian Border Force confiscated 1.6 tons of meth hidden in a shipment of stereo speakers. Just imagine: that would have been enough meth to conquer the Netherlands, Belgium and most of France fifteen times over. Thank god for the ABF, else we'd all be speaking Australian

But yes, I recall hearing about meth-laced chocolate being distributed to pilots and tank-drivers ("Fliegerschokolade" / "Panzerschokolade"), though I've never seen the packaging.

 

[Meth novice 79]

This has probably already been said, I didn’t read all the posts.

Amphetamines were the original ‘speed’
There’s gossip that hitlers guys made it to keep his soldiers aggressive and full of energy.

I remember my uncles having it back in the 70’s. It made them really ‘busy’, they were always pulling their cars apart and putting them back together for no reason.
It was a pure white powder only slightly grittier than talc.

Then somewhere along the line a Japanese dude synthesised ephedrine from the plant ephedra, this became the original Methamphetamine and rather than being ‘busy’ it was said to give the user the ultimate concentration.
I don’t think I ever saw meth but it gets confusing from there cos crystal meth and ice came along and I don’t know the difference.

Essentially it’s always been the same product tho really. Al versions keep you awake for half a freaking century lol

 

[Anaxarchus]

The difference is one molecule. But is meth 1 molecule off from being Adderall? or is Adderall one molecule off from being meth? Eye of the beholder