
Blitzted: The Third Reich as a Society on Drugs - Hooke
http://www.harrowell.org.uk/blog/2016/10/10/blitzed-the-third-reich-as-a-society-on-drugs/
======
Synaesthesia
Funny that it doesn't mention the Allied use of amphetamine, which was far
greater, and the subsequent prescription blitz in the US, where 1 in 10 people
were taking amphetamines by the 1960's. Now there was a society on drugs.

"While consumption levels among each of the particular services remains
elusive, I have been able crudely to calculate the (previously undisclosed)
overall U.S. mil- itary consumption of amphetamine from the $877,000 worth of
Benzedrine purchased from SKF by the government in the course of the war
years. Applying the most conservative assumptions in the calculations, for
instance, that the government paid regular bulk wholesale price for 10 mg
pills, yields an estimate that the American military must have bought at least
250 million Benzedrine Sulfate tablets. The true figure is most likely double
that number, around 500 million tab- lets in the course of the war, allowing
for procurement pricing and the fact that the military mostly used 5 mg
tablets rather than the stan- dard 10 mg prescription tablets (and it could
easily be higher still if other conservative assumptions are relaxed).63 This
estimate of 250–500 million tablets in total corresponds very roughly to a
consumption rate of 10–20 government-supplied amphetamine tablets per year per
American serving in combat theaters for the years 1942–45. Although well below
the scandalous 30–40 tablets per serviceman per year con- sumption rate in the
Vietnam conflict, it is still several (two to four) times the comparable
British figure of about 5 tablets per serviceman per year, and roughly
equivalent to the German methamphetamine consumption rate at its peak, the
Blitz year of 1940."

Quoted from "On Speed, the many lives of Amphetamine" by Nicholas Rasmussen.

~~~
yorksranter
That would be because the book I reviewed is about Nazi Germany.

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bbctol
I try to be skeptical about these sorts of explanations, but that might just
be to stave off paranoia. What will be the amphetamines/leaded glass/DDT of
today? Will future generations look back and say "of course the early 21st
century was insane, they were all overdosing on sugar and caffeine!"

~~~
zinssmeister
I think humans when exposed to new technology tend to do stupid things for a
while until they get smarter and figure out what to actually do. The early
decades of the 20th century brought many new and powerful abilities, mostly
fueled by the combo of war and technological advancements. It wasn't clear to
leaders then that giving soldiers meth or even taking it yourself wasn't such
a smart move.

Humans are much smarter today (about substance abuse) and we are slowly
walking down the list eliminating over-use of less damaging substances like
sugar, caffeine. Products like coca cola are facing a huge consumption gap in
certain, very developed areas.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I'm with you on the sugar, but caffeine? From the (very thorough) Wikipedia
page, it appears that there are as many good side effects of caffeine (such as
lower risk of certain cancers, Alzheimers and diabetes) as there are bad ones.

~~~
zinssmeister
I think caffeine is great in the right dosage and setting (recreational). I
don't advise using it at work if you are after high productivity
[http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/spiderdrugs.htm](http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/spiderdrugs.htm)

~~~
mancerayder
It's a fascinating study, but the problem with extrapolating to humans is that
spider brains are closer to a more basic stimulant-response behavior than we
are.

On the other hand, spiders DO build web 'sites' and await food delivery...

~~~
digi_owl
Never mind that the reason plants produce caffeine is that it is useful as a
pesticide.

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Theodores
This was an excellent review of a book that has been given standard reviews
elsewhere. I may be buying this book.

The content reminds me of the documentary film 'Spin':

* Using the 1992 presidential election as his springboard, Springer captures the behind-the-scenes maneuverings of politicians and newscasters in the early 1990s. Pat Robertson banters about "homos," Al Gore learns how to avoid abortion questions, George H. W. Bush talks to Larry King about Halcion—all presuming they are off camera. Composed of 100% unauthorized satellite footage, Spin is a surreal expose of media-constructed reality.*

Yep, H W Bush was on Halcion, not good!!!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(1995_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_\(1995_film\))

A highly recommended film given the election season and on youtube too:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlJkgQZb0VU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlJkgQZb0VU)

~~~
gozur88
>Yep, H W Bush was on Halcion, not good!!!

Benzodiazepines are the very least of the drugs US presidents have taken over
the years, and they're fine if you don't abuse them.

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h4nkoslo
Meanwhile in the US, depending on which set of numbers you believe, something
like 13-20% of the US population (including perhaps as many as 25% of women)
are dosing on antidepressants.

[http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-
abstract/246755...](http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-
abstract/2467552#joi150128r27)

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/women-and-
prescript...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/women-and-prescription-
drug-use_n_1098023.html)

~~~
hackaflocka
Surprised it's that low. I read somewhere that 50% of women are on anti
depressants.

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glhaynes
There was a 40 minute interview with the author on a recent episode of Dan
Snow's History Hit podcast. [http://www.historyhitpodcast.com/blitzed-drugs-
in-nazi-germa...](http://www.historyhitpodcast.com/blitzed-drugs-in-nazi-
germany-norman-ohler/)

~~~
westiseast
I listened to that as well. It was interesting to hear Snow's scepticism about
it, and also his respect for the guys archival research (which would probably
answer a lot of the scepticism on this thread too).

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eth0up
Remotely apropos, and slightly interesting:
[https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/30/philippine-president-
im...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/30/philippine-president-im-like-
hitler-but-i-want-to-kill-millions-of-drug-users-duterte/)

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anexprogrammer
Interesting to compare the discussion of a couple of weeks ago when the
Guardian reviewed the same book:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12575020](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12575020)

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ChemicalWarfare
I've never seen any "hard evidence" on this - but some sources I've read also
mention steroid usage by the German troops (synthetic testosterone was
invented by the Germans in 1935).

~~~
tomcam
Testosterone is mentioned in the article, though unclear if it was synthetic.
It's also mentioned that the trippy Dr. Morelo, who went on to be Doctor to
the Stars in the U.S., needed a constant supply of animal glands.

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anabis
Probably a detail previously considered too minor for foreign consumption.

Imperial Japan also made use of meths, called "ヒロポン" at the time.

~~~
schoen
The linked article says that German scientists "pinched" methamphetamine from
Japan; does that mean it was originally invented there?

Wikipedia says it was "first synthesized in 1887 in Germany" by a Romanian
scientist and then "in 1893 by Japanese chemist Nagai Nagayoshi".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#History.2C_soc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#History.2C_society.2C_and_culture)

Maybe the Germans learned the synthesis that they ended up using from Japanese
research, despite being familiar with the substance before?

~~~
gozur88
It says the Germans synthesized _amphetamine_ , while Nagayoshi synthesized
methamphetamine.

There's a separate wiki page for "history and culture of substituted
amphetamines" that gives a bit more detail than the main article, though not
on this particular point.

~~~
schoen
Oh, thanks! I missed that.

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B1FF_PSUVM
> It fit with a society built on hyper-motivation.

Rings a bell.

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skylan_q
I'm willing to believe anything bad about the Nazis. Upvoted!

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serg_chernata
They mention slaughterhouses in Ukraine. Does anyone know why Ukraine of all
places?

~~~
whybroke
It was part of a Nazi plan called "Lebensraum" where people of the wrong
ethnic group would be killed, those of slightly wrong groups would be enslaved
and those of the correct group would be indoctrinated into Nazi values.

All vaguely steaming from looking at British, French and Spanish colonies were
large numbers of their ethnic groups had taken hold.

Also in the '30s Italy invaded Ethiopia and Japan invaded Manchuria to create
belated empires though with less overtly genocidal intentions.

(However dry the above description, I personally do not want to suggest that
the Nazi project is equivalent to those other nation's actions)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskommissariat_Ukraine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskommissariat_Ukraine)
[2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum)

~~~
protomyth
"Japan invaded Manchuria to create belated empires though with less overtly
genocidal intentions."

Given the number of people the Japanese killed at Nanking[1] alone, I don't
think this is a true statement. This site[2] (at and edu) puts it around 6
million total.

1)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre)

2)
[https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM](https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM)

~~~
optforfon
The rational for killing the local population is fundamentally different

Nanking was massacred as punitive action for resistance, not as a means of
creating space for the Japanese. They Japanese _did_ have "colonists" in
Manchuria, but if you know any geography that's nowhere close to Nanking.

~~~
protomyth
6 million killed is a lot of punitive action and the second link is more than
Nanking.

~~~
gozur88
That was six million from the 1937 to the end of the war, and it includes
things like death from disease and forced labor. It's not that the Japanese
had a plan to exterminate the Chinese. It's that they viewed the Chinese as
inferior to themselves and didn't care about Chinese deaths.

The Germans (or at least, the Nazis) had a plan, on paper, to kill everyone in
the east and replace them with Germans. Hitler was a Malthusian who believed
populations would grow until resources were exhausted, he viewed non-Germans
as competition for those resources, and he thought birth control and abortion
would reduce genetic competition and make the German race weak (like the
French...). So the only solution was to kill everyone who wasn't German.

Here's a quote from Himmler's wiki page: "It is a question of existence, thus
it will be a racial struggle of pitiless severity, in the course of which 20
to 30 million Slavs and Jews will perish through military actions and crises
of food supply." This was all planned out, and it was going to be on top of
the deaths that actually occurred.

~~~
protomyth
> It's not that the Japanese had a plan to exterminate the Chinese. It's that
> they viewed the Chinese as inferior to themselves and didn't care about
> Chinese deaths.

I regard it as a distinction without a difference. Six million people are dead
because of Japan's actions. Without intervention, that number would have
continued to climb.

~~~
whybroke
Certainly considering the uncountable victims, quibbling over semantics might
seem absurd.

But I think it is very productive to look very closely at the exact rhetoric
that caused murderous excesses of WWII with a view toward prevention.

After all, both Germany and Japan were not very unusual in the generations
before the war. And are today among the most charmingly pacifist countries on
the planet.

But somewhere in the 1930s their leadership whipped their people into a
murderous frenzy using what looks like different rhetoric (and with absurdly
primitive media technology too). It would be informative to know exactly how
and that I suggest requires looking closely at the details of the propaganda.

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NicoJuicy
Down for me:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.harrowell.org.uk/blog/2016/10/10/blitzed-
the-third-reich-as-a-society-on-drugs/)

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Frompo
Amazing text!

