Blitzed
Drugs in the Third Reich
HarperCollins · Print & ebook · March 6, 2018
A New York Times bestseller, Norman Ohler's Blitzed is a "fascinating, engrossing, often dark history of drug use in the Third Reich” (Washington Post).
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- Who it’s for
- A history of the Third Reich’s drug use, where proclaimed purity meets widespread consumption.
- Themes
- Drug use in Nazi Germany, Methamphetamine and wartime campaigns, Hitler's drug dependence
- Genres
- World War II: European Theater, German History, Fascism & Totalitarianism
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A New York Times bestseller, Norman Ohler's Blitzed is a "fascinating, engrossing, often dark history of drug use in the Third Reich” (Washington Post). The Nazi regime preached an ideology of physical, mental, and moral purity. Yet as Norman Ohler reveals in this gripping history, the Third Reich was saturated with drugs: cocaine, opiates, and, most of all, methamphetamines, which were consumed by everyone from factory workers to housewives to German soldiers.
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In fact, troops were encouraged, and in some cases ordered, to take rations of a form of crystal meth—the elevated energy and feelings of invincibility associated with the high even help to account for the breakneck invasion that sealed the fall of France in 1940, as well as other German military victories. Hitler himself became increasingly dependent on injections of a cocktail of drugs—ultimately including Eukodal, a cousin of heroin—administered by his personal doctor. Thoroughly researched and rivetingly readable, Blitzed throws light on a history that, until now, has remained in the shadows. “Delightfully nuts.”—The New Yorker
Purity, Unsettled
A history of the Third Reich’s drug use, where proclaimed purity meets widespread consumption.
Come here for
- A less familiar angle on World War II history
- Drug use among civilians and soldiers
Expect
- A thoroughly researched, readable history
- An uneasy contrast between purity rhetoric and drug use
Where it sits
| German History | 73% |
|---|---|
| World War II: European Theater | 57% |
| Fascism & Totalitarianism | 42% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Eastern European History
- German History
- World War II History
- Authors
- Norman Ohler
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Published
- March 6, 2018
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Drug use in Nazi Germany · Methamphetamine and wartime campaigns · Hitler's drug dependence
- Reading lane
- Eastern European History