It is believed that in the Third Reich there was a cult of health and authorities eradicated any substances that alter consciousness and harm the body. Indeed, under Adolf Hitler, cigarette advertising was limited at the state level, and morphine, heroin and cocaine, popular in the Weimar Republic, were declared "foreign, racially alien drugs." The idea that each person is the master of his own body has now become "Marxist-Jewish", and it has begun to be rooted out like the Jews. The "German" idea was that the bodies of German citizens belong to the family and the nation. But historians are often silent about the fact that, having declared a battle to nicotine and morphine, the Hitlerite elite did not fight with methamphetamine in any way, used it in full for military achievements and not only."Secret" publishes fragments of the book "The Third Reich on Drugs" by the German writer Norman Ohler (its translation was published at the end of 2016 by the publishing house "Eksmo") about how under Hitler the pharmaceutical companies got Germany hooked on methamphetamine *.
Change of power - change of drugs
The myth of Hitler as a teetotaler, an opponent of drugs who neglected his own needs, was an important part of the ideology of National Socialism and was constantly replicated by the media.
After coming to power on January 30, 1933, the National Socialists quickly stifled the entertainment culture of the Weimar Republic with all its openness and with all its inherent contradictions. Drugs were banned because they created completely different illusions, not National Socialist ones. There was no longer a place for "seductive substances" in a system where only the Fuehrer should seduce.
Already in November 1933, the Reichstag passed a law giving the right to place drug addicts in closed institutions for compulsory treatment for up to two years, and the time of their stay there could be extended indefinitely on the basis of a court decision. Doctors who used drugs were deprived of the right to engage in professional activities for up to five years. The need to preserve medical confidentiality in relation to patients who use illegal substances has been abolished.
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While the Weimar Republic favored gradual weaning from pain relievers, in National Socialist Germany the patient was deprived of pain relievers using intimidation methods, no matter what suffering he experienced. Typically, drug users ended up in concentration camps.
In addition, every German was required to "report on his relatives and friends suffering from drug addiction, so that they could be helped immediately." Card indexes were created, which made it possible to keep accurate records. In the early stages, the denunciations so often practiced by the Nazis in the fight against drug addiction became the main toolkit.
The principle of "the duty of maintaining health" was formulated, which provided for "the prevention of all possible threats to physical, mental and social health that may arise as a result of the abuse of drugs alien to the Aryan race, and alcohol and tobacco."
In the fall of 1935, the Healthy Marriage Act was passed, which prohibited marriage if one of those wishing to enter into it suffered from "mental disorder." Drug addicts automatically fell into this category. With no hope of recovery, they were labeled as "psychopathic." This law was intended to prevent "the infection of the partner and the inheritance of predisposition to addiction by children," because "the offspring of drug addicted people have a large number of mental disorders."
The fight against drugs as part of the anti-Semitic policy
The racist terminology of National Socialism has used images of infection, poison and toxins from the very beginning. Jews were identified with bacilli or microbes - that is, they were represented as foreign bodies that poison the Reich, weaken a healthy social organism, so they should be separated and eradicated.
The NSDAP's Office of Racial Policy stated that the Jewish character is inherently drug addicted: Jewish intellectuals from large cities use cocaine or morphine to calm their "constantly agitated nerves" and gain inner confidence. It was said about Jewish doctors that among them "morphine addicts … are especially common."
Drugs for the people
Under Goering's leadership, the Reich economy had to abandon the import of those types of raw materials that could be produced within Germany. Of course, this also applied to narcotic substances, because in their production the Germans still had no equal. Thus, although the Nazis' fight against drugs led to a significant decrease in the consumption of morphine and cocaine, the production of synthetic stimulants developed at a rapid pace, and the German pharmaceutical industry entered its heyday.
The number of workers at the factories "Merck" in Darmstadt, "Bayer" in the Rhineland, "Boehringer" in Ingelheim increased. The workers' wages were growing. Temmler also expanded its activities. Its chief chemist, Dr. Fritz Hauschild, obtained from the United States a very effective amphetamine called benzedrine - at that time this doping drug was still legal - which most directly affected the results of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
Hauschild improved the product and in the fall of 1937 discovered a method for synthesizing methamphetamine. Shortly thereafter, on October 31, 1937, Temmler announced the development of the first German methylamphetamine, far superior to the American benzedrine in potency, and then filed an application with the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin. Brand: Pervitin.
The management of the company sensed a huge profit and, using the services of the well-known Berlin advertising agency Mates and Son, carried out a promotion campaign unprecedented in Germany.
In the first weeks of 1938, when Pervitin began its triumphal march, posters appeared on poles, walls of houses, buses, subway trains and electric trains. Minimalist - in the style of that era - they contained only the name of the trademark of the product and the medical indications for its use: lethargy, apathy, depression. In addition, they depicted the characteristic packages of pervitin in the form of orange-blue tubes with the inscription obliquely. At the same time - another advertising gimmick - all Berlin doctors received letters from Temmler, in which they bluntly stated that the company's goal was to personally impress every doctor: if someone liked something, he would recommend it to others. The letter was accompanied by free pills with three milligrams of the substance, as well as a postcard for a reply with a postage stamp: “Dear Herr Doctor!Your experience of using pervitin, even not the most successful one, is of value to us, since it gives us the opportunity to differentiate the areas of its application. We will be very grateful for your message on the attached postcard. The new tool was being tested. Traditional drug dealer trick: the first dose is free.
The attached card stated that this remedy smooths out withdrawal symptoms from alcohol, cocaine and even opiates. That is, a kind of means that neutralizes the effects of drugs, which was supposed to replace all drugs, and especially illegal ones.
Pervitin became a symptom of the formation of an achievement society. There are even glazed pralines filled with methamphetamine on the market. For one unit of this pleasure, there were fourteen milligrams of methamphetamine - almost five times more than a single pervitin pill contained. "Hildebrandt-Praline always brings joy" - this was the slogan of advertising this very effective delicacy: Mother's little helper.
German army discovers German drug
Professor, Dr. Otto F. Ranke was 38 years old when he was appointed director of the Institute of General and Military Physiology - that is, he took a key position, even if no one knew about it then.
In an era when the army was perceived as a modern organization, and soldiers were called "living machines", Ranke's task was to protect these machines from wear and tear - that is, to maintain their performance. He had to lubricate the parts so that they worked smoothly.
Ranke proclaimed the fight against overwork as his main task. In early 1938, a year and a half before the start of the war, he read in the Clinical Weekly a hymn of praise to Pervitin, written by the chief chemist of the Temmler firm, Hauschild.
Ranke decided to study this issue as deeply as possible and attracted first 90 and then 150 future military doctors to conduct experiments on a voluntary basis. He gave them pervitin (P), caffeine © or dummy pills (S), and then all night long (and in the second experiment from 8:00 pm to 4:00 pm the next day) he forced them to solve math and other problems. By morning, the "S-people" were lying on the benches, those who took pervitin, "kept vigor, both bodily and mental," as stated in the protocol of the experiment. Even after ten hours of strenuous mental work, they felt that "they could very well go for a walk."
It is not surprising that the news of the century, which had an amazing effect, spread with lightning speed among future military doctors. Experiencing stress due to heavy training loads, they expected a miracle from this drug, which supposedly increased efficiency, and took it in increasingly large doses.
When Ranke found out about this development of events provoked by him, and also that a special room was taken at the University of Munich, where the so-called "pervitin corpses" came to life - students who went too far with the dose, he realized what a danger this drug poses.
Ranke canceled further experiments planned for 1939 and wrote a letter to the head of the academy in which he warned him about the dangers of developing addiction and insisted on a complete ban on pervitin within the walls of the academy. However, the spirits he summoned did not leave either Ranke alone, nor the Wehrmacht with him: methamphetamine spread like a forest fire, and soon no barracks gates could any longer hold back his pressure.
Peacetime was drawing to a close. Military doctors were preparing for the upcoming invasion of Poland and bought up all supplies of pervitin from pharmacies, which - as yet - was not officially supplied to the Wehrmacht.
An uncontrolled great experiment began. Lavishly supplied with a stimulant and not receiving any instructions as to its dosage, the Wehrmacht soldiers attacked their unsuspecting sober eastern neighbors.
* - pervitin (methamphetamine), heroin and cocaine are included in the lists of drugs, the circulation of which is prohibited or restricted in Russia
Julia Dudkina