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Nazis on narcotics: How Hitler's henchmen stayed alert during war by taking CRYSTAL METH
Millions of pills labelled Pervitin dolled out to troops during war
Said it would help soldiers maintain 'wakefulness'
Drug was highly-addictive form of speed we know today as crystal meth
By Steve Robson
PUBLISHED: 18:02 GMT, 1 June 2013 | UPDATED: 18:57 GMT, 1 June 2013
Invading country after country at lightning speed, Hitler's army had Europe terrified during World War Two.
But, as a Nazi soldier's letter has revealed, it wasn't just the Fuhrer's fiery rhetoric which had his troops wired.
Military doctors were handing out millions of pills to the troops known as Pervitin.
The label claimed it was an 'alertness aid' which should be taken 'to maintain wakefulness'. We know it today as methamphetamine, or more commonly, crystal meth.
More than 200million pills were dolled out to the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe between 1939 and 1945. German soldiers nicknamed it 'Panzerschokolade' - meaning 'tank chocolate'.
In Britain, newspapers reported how the enemy was using a 'miracle pill.' Even Hitler himself was given intravenous methamphetamine by his physician Theodor Morell.
But the reality for many Nazi soldiers and pilots was the nightmare of an horrific drug addiction.
Although the stimulant allowed soldiers to maintain long periods of activity, the side-effects were serious.
They included dizziness, sweats, depression and hallucinations.
There were soldiers who died of heart failure and others who shot themselves during psychotic phases. In light of this, some doctors remained uneasy about giving out the drug.
Even Leonardo Conti, the Third Reich's top health official, wanted to limit its use, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
In May 1940, a young soldier named Heinrich Böll wrote a letter from the frontline back to his family complaining that he was exhausted by the war.
He said he had become 'cold and apathetic, completely without interests'. He asked his family 'Perhaps you could obtain some more Pervitin for my supplies?'
Böll explained that just one pill was as effective for staying alert as litres of strong coffee.
Better still, the drug seemed to make all his worries disappear and, for a few hours at least, he was happy.
Böll would later go on to become one of Germany's most famous postwar writers and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.
The Nazis also experimented with a number of other drugs which have remain popular among recreational users today.
Research by the German Doctors' Association also showed they developed a cocaine-based stimulant for its front-line fighters that was tested on concentration camp inmates.
Germany literary great Heinrich Böll wrote to his family about his need for more supplies of Pervitin during the war
Germany literary great Heinrich Böll wrote to his family about his need for more supplies of Pervitin during the war
'It was Hitler's last secret weapon to win a war he had already lost long ago,' said criminologist Wolf Kemper, author of a German language book on the Third Reich's use of drugs called Nazis On Speed.
The drug, codenamed D-IX, was tested at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin, where prisoners loaded with 45lb packs were reported to have marched 70 miles without rest.
The plan was to give all soldiers in the crumbling Reich the wonder drug - but the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, coupled with crippling Allied bombing, scotched the scheme.
'The Blitzkrieg was fuelled by speed,' said a pharmacologist. 'The idea was to turn ordinary soldiers, sailors and airmen into automatons capable of superhuman performance.'
Otto Ranke, a military doctor and director of the Institute for General and Defence Physiology at Berlin's Academy of Military Medicine, was behind the Pervitin scheme.
He found that the drug gave users heightened self-confidence and self-awareness.
On the eastern front, where the fighting was the most savage of the war, soldiers used it in massive quantities against an enemy that showed no mercy.
In January 1942, one group of 500 troops surrounded by the Red Army were attempting to escape in temperatures of minus 30 Degrees C.
'I decided to give them Pervitin as they began to lie down in the snow wanting to die,' wrote the medical officer for the unit.
'After half an hour the men began spontaneously reporting that they felt better.
'They began marching in orderly fashion again, their spirits improved, and they became more alert.'
WHAT IS CRYSTAL METH?
Methamphetamine is a highly-addictive, powerful form of the drug speed. In its crystalline form it is known as crystal meth.
It is usually smocked in a pipe, in the same way as crack cocaine, but can also be eaten, snorted or injected.
The drug as stimulant and induces a feeling of prolonged euphoria which can last for hours. Other effects include increased alertness, excessive sweating and loss of appetite.
It is an illegal class A drug. The maximum penalty for possession is seven years in prison but for supply it can be life.
THE NAZIS - PIONEERS OF RECREATIONAL DRUGS
As well as crystal meth, Nazi scientists took a keen interest in a number of other drugs which have since become popular recreational substances.
An experimental drug codenamed D-IX was based around cocaine and was found to give soldiers increased levels of endurance.
Nazi doctors hoped to mass produce the drug and hand it out to troops in 1944 but the war ended before they could execute the plan.
Research has also suggested that they experimented with the hallucinogenic LSD as a form of mind control.
Nazi scientists believed it could be used to enhance memory, control behaviour and help with interrogations.
Until recently, it was also believed that the German pharmaceutical company Merck developed ecstasy to suppress the appetites of soldiers in World War One.
But in 2006 the company trawled through its archives and claimed records showed it was synthesized by scientist Anton Köllisch in an effort to develop a medicine to prevent blood clots.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2334397/Nazis-narcotics-How-Hitlers-henchmen-stayed-alert-war-taking-CRYSTAL-METH.html#ixzz2V6N74R4U
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