He gradually lost touch with reality – his delusions and fantasies causing him to be dangerously reckless. Unlike Stalin, who was happy to leave running the war to his Generals, Hitler wanted to be in charge of everything. The largest and most interesting part of this book looks at Patient A, or Hitler, and his relationship with his personal physician, Dr Theodor Morrell. Too late, Ranke saw the danger signs of addiction and side effects, but by then the army were marching for days and, while witnesses saw the invaders as virtually super-mensch, the troops themselves also began, dangerously, to believe in their own image. Indeed, the author suggests that the real enemy were not the British or Russian troops, but tiredness, and Pervitin offered a cure for exhaustion. Ranke was involved in suggesting the drug could boost the performance of the army, which were under incredible pressure to perform, with Hitler making unprecedented demands. Pervitin is linked to a senior staff doctor, named Professor Dr Otto F Ranke, director of the Research Institute of Defence Physiology. Now, it is better known by the name of crystal meth.

It was known as the ‘people’s drug’ and was said to banish sleep and hunger, while promising euphoria. So widespread was this drug that it was even included in chocolates, advertised for housewives needing a little help to cope with the housework. Ohler examines the use of a drug, called Pervitin, in particular. Nowhere were the 1920s more roaring than in Berlin – cocaine and morphine were available over the counter and cheaper than alcohol, and everyone was escaping reality, particularly since life in the Weimar Republic, with its mass unemployment and hyperinflation, was such a nightmare! Then these drugs started to be outlawed for obvious reasons (physical/mental health damage, addiction, death, etc.) and the Nazis came to power in 1933, supposedly ushering in an era of abstinence and sobriety. In the following year German exports of opium accounted for 40 percent of the global market, while just three German companies controlled 80 percent of the worldwide cocaine market.

Farben was created out of an amalgamation of many different companies.

In 1925 the immensely powerful chemical and pharmaceutical corporation I.G. Although the National Socialist Party presented themselves as clean cut, and Hitler praised abstinence, it is clear that much of the Nazi hierarchy, including Hitler himself, were very reliant on drugs and, indeed, that their use was widespread both in the armed forces and in civilian life. In this captivating account of drug use in the Third Reich, author Norman Ohler takes us on a journey through the history of Germany and explains how, and why, it became a center of pharmaceutical research.

Blitzed by Norman Ohler