Serturner derived morphine from thickened sap of opium poppies in 1805

Merck began selling in 1827, and after injections invented in 1850 was used in Civil War

Drinks containing morphine and cocaine available at drugstores

Hoffman, chemist at Bayer Company, synthesized Aspirin from willow bark and heroin, a derivative of morphine

With small operations and low overhead, business boomed especially in Germany, with high stock of engineers, chemists, and education system

Germany lost colonial sources of stimulants after Versailles, so had to produce synthetic ones and soon became global leader

The Nazis “hated drugs because they wanted to be a drug themselves”; stigmatized and severely punished drug use after 1933

Hitler mythologized as anti-drug teetotaler without personal needs

Strict anti-drug measures used to deepen surveillance state and prevent addicts from marrying so as not to reproduce faulty genes

Jews depicted as pathogen or disease poisoning the Reich needing to be exterminated

Celebrity doctor Morell pioneered use of vitamins mixed with stimulants; Hitler made him personal physician

Inspired by US’s amphetamine Benzedrine at Berlin Olympic games, pharmacist Hauschild synthesized new methamphetamine Pervitin, like adrenalin but gentler and longer lasting

Meth’s long lasting effects kill nerve cells, and once it runs out the hormones take weeks to resupply, leading to lack of drive and joylessness

Pervitin became widely used, assumed safe; marketed as slimming agent because it curbed appetite (meth chocolates: “Hildebrand chocolates always delight”)

Appeasement wouldn’t work because Hitler, a morphine addict, always needed more

Morell revived Czech president Emil Hacha, who had a heart attack before signing papers of capitulation, so he could sign them

According to studies Pervitin kept people from sleeping but didn’t make them cleverer, so it was considered ideal for soldiers

Blitzkrieg in France fueled by meth, including Rommel; French and British unprepared for constant attack

Propagated idea that Germans were superior beings reinforced by meth’s symptom of arrogance

Hitler’s inferiority complex made him distrust success of smarter generals

Luftwaffe’s Göring a morphine addict and felt victory shouldn’t be left to army, so convinced Hitler to halt Dunkirk advance

“Gröfaz” German soldiers’ derogatory acronym for Nazi propaganda’s term for Hitler as “greatest commander of all time”

Morell created new vitamin combo Vitamultin, which had unremarkable elements but was marketed solely to Hitler and generals; when Luftwaffe medical chief rejected them Morell got Goring to fire him

Word about Pervitin spread in late 1940 and Reich health fuhrer Conti fought to have it eradicated under Reich opium law, but war needs made it essential

Pervitin of no use on Russian front, which was attritional

Hitler had “severed relations with geopolitical reality” by declaring war with US; out of touch in bunker

Mid-1943 started taking Eukodal (oxycodone), twice as powerful as morphine, created euphoric state higher than heroin

Hitler was doped up for Valkyrie explosion so didn’t have pain despite busted eardrums and splinters

Giesing, ear nose throat specialist summoned after Valkyrie in July 1944, prescribed cocaine, which “erases self-doubt and encourages megalomania”

Hitler consented to full-body examination to get more cocaine from reluctant Giesing

Erected “pharmacological barricade” around himself, within “deluded totalitarian system”

“His drug use did not impinge on his freedom to make decisions. Hitler was always the master of his sense, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He acted always in an alert and cold-blooded way. Within his system, based from the beginning on intoxication and a flight from reality, he acted systematically and with terrible consistency to the end. He was anything but insane.”

Used death camp prisoners to test new endurance pills and cocaine-spiked gum, kept awake and marching

Started running out of supplies and withdrawing in early 1945