No Way Out
Welcome to the No Way Out podcast where we examine the variety of domains and disciplines behind John R. Boyd’s OODA sketch and why, today, more than ever, it is an imperative to understand Boyd’s axiomatic sketch of how organisms, individuals, teams, corporations, and governments comprehend, shape, and adapt in our VUCA world.
No Way Out
Blitzed: The Methamphetamine-Fueled Blitzkrieg with Norman Ohler
How did methamphetamines fuel the Blitzkrieg and shape World War II? Join us as we uncover the startling revelations from Norman Ohler, author of "Blitzed," fresh from his impactful appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast. Norman provides a fascinating exploration of the German military's extensive use of Pervitin, a methamphetamine, during their rapid and aggressive campaigns. We contrast this with the outdated French strategies and their reliance on red wine, painting a vivid picture of how stimulants altered the course of warfare.
Dive deeper into the widespread adoption of stimulants across various military forces. Listen to gripping anecdotes about the British endorsement of amphetamines by Churchill and the ongoing use of legal stimulants in modern special units. We discuss the critical balance between substance-induced performance and the essential need for rest and recovery, shedding light on the long-term impacts these practices have on soldiers' health and effectiveness.
Finally, discover the darker side of the Nazi regime's drug culture. We explore Hitler's dependency on various drugs administered by Dr. Theodor Morell and the pervasive use of stimulants within the Luftwaffe and Navy. Norman's insights from his recent visit to Granch Village offer new perspectives on Blitzkrieg strategies and the OODA loop, enriching our understanding of military history. This episode is a compelling blend of historical analysis, military strategy, and the human cost of war, promising to leave you both informed and intrigued.
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Hey, welcome back to no Way Out where we activate your OODA loop and help you unlock flow. Our guest today is a repeat guest. He was recently with us to talk about his book Tripped Mark and I heard him on the Joe Rogan podcast and clearly we want to ask him about that here in a second. But Mark and I realized we missed out on something and we had several listeners write to us and say, hey, can you have him back on and look back at Maneuver Warfare, blitzkrieg and make the connection between Pervitin and methamphetamines to what the Germans were doing then. Welcome back, norman Oler. How are you doing today, sir?
Norman Ohler:I'm good, I'm happy to be back. Thank you for inviting me again.
Ponch Rivera:Thanks for being here. First question hey, you were on Joe Rogan. You went down to Austin. What's that done to book sales familiarity with Tripped and Blitzed Any uptick on that?
Norman Ohler:Well, I was quite excited to go on Joe Rogan's experience because it's kind of one of the biggest stages you can go on in the world and you can speak freely for up to three hours. So that's a unique experience. It's a very interesting experience for me as an artist to have such a stage available. Obviously it also helped with the book sales. I mean, it was a fun experience overall. Joe was a great guy. I was treated very nicely in Austin. My popularity was rising afterwards, so I have no complaints whatsoever.
Ponch Rivera:So while I listened to that episode you were kind of pushing Joe around a little bit to talk about Blitzed and I was kind of wondering why that was so important to you. And then I realized it's very important to our listeners to understand the connection between John Boyd's Observer-Oriented Side Act, Loop Maneuver, Warfare, Blitzkrieg and Mark's on board to talk about that as well. But, Mark, I want to get your perspective on why this episode is going to be important to our listeners to our listeners.
Mark McGrath:Well, as you're pointing out, blitzkrieg was such a pivotal thing that John Boyd talked about in Patterns of Conflict, and the suddenness and the violence of speed of action and the things speed, I guess, apparently pun intended has always been of great interest. And, norman, I think what you've opened our eyes to is that there's probably other things about this story that we should take into consideration as we understand the context of history, because it does play such a central role in John Boyd's theory of attacking with a high tempo, going where your enemy is not going, and then to think that it would have been drug-fueled. It's fascinating to think about. I think that it's worth a discussion of really uncovering this very different perspective in the context of talking about Blitzkrieg, this very different perspective.
Norman Ohler:In the context of talking about Blitzkrieg yeah, I mean in Blitz I'm quoting one French philosopher who basically said that this was a war of the minds, this attack, and that the Germans had a different mindset than the French.
Norman Ohler:The French still had the mindset of World War I and they were actually still using the drug of World War I, which was red wine, which helped them in World War I, because that was a long war where you had to kind of stay in trenches for like months during the winter, so of course you're going to drink red wine in the evening or maybe even in the morning, you know. But that mentality didn't help the French in that Western campaign that the Wehrmacht did in May 1940, because they were already mentally fighting World War II or another war of the future, where the tanks were operating in the front lines and not in the back, and where an artificial stimulant like methamphetamine was used in order to prolong the window, the fighting window. So these were very new ideas, basically. So in a way the Germans won this campaign because, I don't know, you could say they were smarter or they had a better strategy, I guess, but it only worked, you know, for this particular situation.
Norman Ohler:The mistake then was and then they were suddenly dumber than the enemy, the Western or the Soviet enemies, from the German perspective, when they tried to, you know, do the same thing against the Soviet Union and then also in the long, you know process of World War II, also against the West. Blitzkrieg was the only chance of winning for Germany in this war, and that was connected to methamphetamine. As soon as a war theater turns into a long affair, the Germans basically had lost, and then the metham basically basically had lost, you know, and then the methamphetamine also doesn't help you anymore.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, yeah, we think about it. I mean, it's a lot of what we talk about too. That's sort of like a. What John Boyd talked about was the Blitzkrieg versus the Maginot line mentality and you know, as you say, the the, the Maginot line, represents sort of the World War, I way of thinking, and that's comfort and that's the way we've always done it.
Mark McGrath:And now I'm breaking out red wine and we're relaxed, whereas the other side was not relaxed and apparently could have been, because of drugs that don't help you relax but they had a completely different view be relaxed, but they had a completely different view on tempo and speed and shattering old paradigms of what was expected. So when they, as you say, I think you're spot on when you say that if the Germans were to win, the blitz was the way to do it, because everybody was absolutely stunned, they had no idea what hit them. And that's why, john Boyd, to do it, because everybody was absolutely stunned, they had no idea what hit them and that's why John Boyd talked about it, because you know, the other side did not realize what sport it was playing all of a sudden, because they had never seen anything like this before. And then there's a lot of research on letting the you know should they have let the British return to the United Kingdom or not, which they did, and we know the rest of the story.
Ponch Rivera:So, moose, my question is when you look back at Martin van Creveld's work and he looks at the different generals I think it's Heinz Guderian, am I getting that right? He talks about Wilhelm Keitel in there and several other generals. I do not recall from our joint professional military education any of our time in the archives that we saw the Pervitin come up anywhere, or methamphetamines, right, that's correct.
Mark McGrath:It never came up in the warfighting curriculum either.
Ponch Rivera:So, norman, can you walk us back through that history of how that started and which key generals from your recollection contributed to the idea of Blitzkrieg? And then, how did Blitzkrieg emerge from? Potentially this Pervitin?
Norman Ohler:well, um, methamphetamine was popular already in 1938 in germany and obviously used by the civilian population. Uh, all flights of life would use it to enhance work performance, or to enhance sexual performance, or to enhance nazi party performance at those endless meetings, or you know, methamphetamine was just used for all kinds of things. It was not considered a dangerous drug. It was marketed as pavitin. You could buy it in the pharmacy, you didn't need a prescription for it, and it was a good product, I mean a high quality product, by a german pharmaceutical company. It had two milligrams of methamphetamine per tablet and um, people loved it. I mean, it was like it was a big commercial success.
Norman Ohler:And there was a professor working in the institute for defense physiology. His name is otto ranke, and that his institute was part of the military military academy, military doctors academy, which was a part of the, of the um, the army, actually that, the army, that the, the, the ground troops of the, of the wehrmacht, and he was responsible for performance enhancement for the normal, you know, foot soldier, for the normal you know wehrmacht soldier. And he tried to. He saw as the biggest enemy of the soldier, of the German soldier, not the French soldier or the British soldier or the Russian soldier, but actually fatigue that is our enemy. We have to combat fatigue, and you know. He also heard about Pervitin, because everyone had heard about it in 1938 and he read the first studies that had been done at German universities on Pavitin, which methamphetamine, which seemed to prove that it does keep you from sleeping and also that it makes you less afraid like not fearless, but less afraid than if you're in a sober state and he became very interested in it. So he did tests with methamphetamine at his academy with young German medical officers and he found out, in like double blind tests that he did, that actually methamphetamine keeps you awake longer than caffeine and also than normal amphetamines, which is something that we take for granted today, but it hadn't been tested before. After the tests he did, he was sure that methamphetamine was a good drug for soldiers because it makes you have less inhibitions, less fear, you become more aggressive and you don't need as much sleep. So he thought that's perfect. Um. He also made more elaborate tests, like with um, people had to solve tasks that were more complex, and he found out that those tasks actually were completed worse than if you were not on methamphetamine. So something that is really challenging or you need a lot of your intelligence, for you cannot do that very well on methamphetamine.
Norman Ohler:And he actually concluded that that's perfect for the German soldier, because the German soldier shouldn't think too much, should just follow orders and perform whatever is told. And he thought methamphetamine is perfect for that. So he suggested it to the Surgeon General of Germany, his boss. But the boss still had the mindset of World War, I basically he didn't understand the idea of using an artificial stimulant. He just didn't get it. So he said, yeah, we're not going to do this. And this was before the attack on Poland. So the attack on Polandand which happened, uh, september 1st 1939, uh, still did not have methamphetamine as an official drug, uh, for the german soldier. But ranke was curious whether it was still used because people knew about it. So he he requested reports from the, from the polish front lines, from medical officers, about a possible use of pavitin and the effects, and he received a lot of reports which I you know quote in in blitzed. And the conclusion from these reports that he got was that it is actually good for fighting a war for the reasons that I already mentioned. And then he was actually able to convince his superior to now stock methamphetamine officially for the Wehrmacht.
Norman Ohler:Methamphetamine officially for the Wehrmacht. Every medical officer received it from the company Temmler which was manufacturing it in Berlin. They ordered millions of dosages to attack France. They ordered in total over 30 million dosages, which is quite a lot. Because I also looked at how it was distributed. It wasn't distributed evenly because you have quite a lot of soldiers attacking France over 1 million. But um, and the methamphetamine wasn't not every soldier received the same amount.
Norman Ohler:I found in the military archive of Germany. I found like which groups and which divisions and which weaponry was receiving most of the methamphetamine. And that was the tanks of the methamphetamine and that was the tanks. So that idea to use the tanks in the front line, kind of as an avant-garde unit of the whole thing, that worked well together with the methamphetamine that these tank divisions were receiving. For example, rommel's in America, known as Rommel in German, it's Rommel. Rommel's division received actually the most Pervitin. Rommel was a big Pervitin fan. He was using meth himself like standing in the tank with an open lid, standing like the tank was shooting left and right.
Norman Ohler:I mean the whole thing becomes a bit mad, you know, when the whole tank crews are on methamphetamine, and not only one tank, but like hundreds of tanks, tank crews are on methamphetamine and not only one tank, but like hundreds of tanks, everyone's on methamphetamine. You can imagine that creates a totally crazy behavior, movement, like they were not afraid anymore. They were, you know, doing stuff that usually you wouldn't do because it's too risky. They didn't wait for you know, the infantry or other you know the foot soldiers kind of to come after them. They just used the tank commanders used the tanks like race cars, basically racing through first Belgium and then France. And that completely surprised the Western allies, like they had no idea. They didn't understand basically what was going on. They thought that some, you know they did, they would, just they just gave up basically, I mean, there were they, there were battles obviously in the west and in that campaign, but not very many. You know it was the germans just took it. You know they just took france. So but but I must go back a little bit, because how was that policy actually implemented is quite interesting, and February 17th 1940 is a crucial date for that. That was a few months before the attack.
Norman Ohler:The attack was on May 10th 1940, and February 17th 1940, there was a so-called working breakfast in the Reichskanzlei in Hitler's chancellery in Berlin, because Hitler, after the success against Poland, wanted to attack the West. Only his generals didn't like that idea because they thought that they would lose because the French army, french military and British military had more men, better ammunition, better everything basically, and for a successful invasion into enemy territory you need like a three-to-one advantage. So the Germans actually had less. So that's what the generals said we cannot do this, we cannot attack. Hitler was really mad at his generals. His generals tried to actually overthrow Hitler. There was the coup idea which had some preparation in the winter of 1939, but then they were too scared and they didn't do it. Tension between Hitler and the high command, because high command basically said we're not going to attack the west because we're going to lose.
Norman Ohler:And then on February 17 1940 three tank generals visited Hitler because they had a plan how it could be successful. And those three generals were Guderian, rommel and von Manstein, like three kind of youngish, kind of rebellious, adventurous tank generals. And they said to Hitler during that breakfast, they said to him that we should use the tanks as they later used them, not as backup. They said tanks are fast. We're going to go in with the tanks and we're going to go through the Adene Mountains. We're going to go in with the tanks and we're going to go through the Aden Mountains.
Norman Ohler:That was the big, you know, idea, because the Maginot Line was in the south and the north of Belgium was in the north to the Aden Mountains. They're right in the middle, they're like the eye of the needle and they weren't heavily fortified because the allies Western allies didn't think that the German army would go through the eye of the needle. You know why would they go through the mountains? Ridiculous idea. Because it's so slow. You have to move, you know it's not easy, you know, to go through a mountainous terrain, you can, if you can, go around it. You're always going to go around it because in the mountains if you get stuck you're very easily destroyed, basically. So that's why the three generals said we cannot stop, we have to keep moving for three days and three nights. If we're able to keep that momentum, we're going to reach Sedan, the French border city, at the Mars River. We're going to cross the river, we're going to be in France, while the French troops will be basically east of us. They will be east of us at the Maginot, be basically east of us. They will be east of us at the Maginot Line and northeast of us in Belgium. We'll have passed them, run through their line, basically because the line is not secured at the Ardennes Mountains.
Norman Ohler:And Hitler loved this plan. This was what Churchill later called the Sickle Cut, and that was the big surprise. So Hitler understood the genius idea of this plan. The only problem was how do you keep the boys awake for three days and three nights? Because you know, if you try to stay awake just for one night, it's't really do it. But Hitler said, yeah, the German soldier can do anything. You know, he's so convinced of National Socialist ideology that he, of course, can stay awake when the order comes to stay awake. This is obviously a naive idea by Hitler. But then, you know, then Ranke's research with methamphetamine became so important, and suddenly that's why the Surgeon General changed his mind, because this was the chance. You know, you give the people methamphetamine, they can go through the mountains for three days and three nights, and that's exactly what happened, and that is what I guess you could call uncovered in blitz, or at least you know, narrated in blitz. That's what I think is the most fun.
Ponch Rivera:Well, there's two fun stories. You have two generals there. You said you had three generals Rommel, guderian, and this is 1940s.
Norman Ohler:From Manstein.
Ponch Rivera:Okay, A question to you on General Rommel, and that is Crystal Fox to Desert Fox. It's in your book. I never heard him called the Crystal Fox Mark. Have you heard him called that?
Norman Ohler:I call him the Crystal Fox.
Ponch Rivera:Okay and I was wondering where that came from.
Norman Ohler:Yeah, because he took a lot of crystal meth, that's why I'm asking you that Wow, that's it, okay, okay.
Norman Ohler:I mean Rommel. Also a lot of people, especially in the military, they tend to think that Rommel is a hero and was. You know is like the gave him the gun to shoot himself because they said he was part of the resistance against Hitler. So you know he has a heroic ending, I guess you could say, or at least you know, very dramatic. You know he was. He's a very interesting character.
Norman Ohler:But also Rommel, by developing such a liking to methamphetamineamine, is responsible for what some military historians describe as the first war crimes that were committed in World War II. And usually we associate the war crimes in World War II with the Eastern Front, with the Wehrmacht crimes that were done over there. But already in the attack on France war crimes were committed. Mostly this attack against France, as far as I can see, was how you? You know it wasn't. I mean, war is a very problematic thing but war crimes are usually not associated with that Western campaign.
Norman Ohler:But Rommel there's reports of Rommel being so high on meth that he is driving through a French village at night where the French army is actually camping. So they have to sleep because they just drank that three quarters of a liter red wine each man and they didn't expect Rommel to come, you know, because Rommel was still like hundreds of kilometers away when they reached that village. So they were still thinking, you know how slow a tank division is moving. So they were sleeping at night and Rommel suddenly charges through that village and shoots left and right at the sleeping French soldiers and shoots left and right at the sleeping French soldiers and runs over people with his tank. So completely goes mad, you know, and does set also a tone for what later happens on the Eastern Front. So Rommel has a lot of sides to him.
Ponch Rivera:Now, thanks for that backstory on the Crystal Fox. Like I, said yeah, that's the crystal fox, Like I said that's why I was like the crystal meth connection, connection to Desert Fox and all that. That's again a story that I never learned in our military studies.
Norman Ohler:I spoke to one soldier who was in the African theater fighting with Rommel theater fighting with Rommel, like Rommel was his superior, and he actually told me that they were using a lot of Pavitin in the desert in Africa at the time. Actually, the British were also using amphetamines. I mean, amphetamines are not as strong as methamphetamines. It's like, yeah, they're just not as strong, but they're kind of similar. Yeah, they're just not as strong, but they're kind of similar, like they're cousins amphetamine and methamphetamine. The word says it already. And the British had learned by the fall of 1940 that the Germans were using methamphetamine. There was an article in Corriera della Sera, an Italian newspaper, that talked about the methamphetamine use of the German pilots, of the Luftwaffe pilots. So the British started investigating this topic and came to the conclusion that they should also now use amphetamines. And Montgomery's men were using amphetamines. Men were using amphetamines. So you have the British on amphetamines, the Germans on methamphetamine, fighting in tanks in the desert. It's really mad actually.
Mark McGrath:What other copycatting the Germans could have been the only one doing this. So you give an example of the British were doing this. Were there any other cases of copycatting this particular practice that you're aware of?
Norman Ohler:I mean, no one copycatted methamphetamine, but the British did use amphetamines and also the Americans used amphetamines. They learned it basically from the British. I mean, the British had a real program that was sanctioned by Churchill and they were testing different substances, also methamphetamine. They just decided that methamphetamine is too strong for them. Um, or, I mean methamphetamine is also, you know, more demanding on the not too strong. I mean, that's a bit, it's a bit cheeky, but methamphetamine is stronger on the, on the. It takes a larger toll While the intoxication happens. It's stronger than just amphetamine. But to use methamphetamine over a long period of time is very depleting and the British realized this in the tests that they did before they ordered their men. I didn't know, I didn't research this as much as I researched the German side, but I know they had a program and they decided to use amphetamines. But, for example, I don't know whether it was compulsory to use it or how many people used it, but the British did use amphetamine after 1941, I think it was.
Ponch Rivera:So just a side note to some of the things you brought up and I mean no disrespect to the French military here 2010, 2011,. I was involved with coaching and training their Joint Forces Air Component Command and the hardest thing I had to do was explain how a clock works, that war continues 24 hours a day. I remember this, that here I am, this 04 lieutenant commander in the Navy, trying to explain that war continues when you go to bed and after you drink your wine.
Norman Ohler:They still don't know.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah. So I mean, that was my experience with them and the go pills never had to take them. I know they were made they, they were available um, you know, 20 plus years ago I don't know if they still are and I think they're, uh, more amphetamines than they are methamphetamines and I may be wrong on that but, mark, did you in the marines anything like that?
Mark McGrath:no, not to my knowledge. A lot of of coffee, a lot of chewing coffee beans too, if you thought that was going to work.
Ponch Rivera:So the idea of taking some type of stimulant in warfare, it's there.
Mark McGrath:Coffee was always abundant and I guess at the time that I was in, you were starting to see an uptick in things like, if you recall, ripped fuel. People were taking uh, ripped fuel, which I think was um, what it's called. It was called ripped fuel and there was uh, there was a substance that was in it and I can't think of what it was, but that became banned. Um, yeah, I don't recall the chemical name, but there was something ephedra, like pseudo, I think it was pseudo ephedra or something like pseudo fat, I guess that's like that, like ephedrine or something like that. That became banned. But then you started to see people this is kind of like when I was in, you know, like red bull came on the scene so people started taking red bull monster drinks. Those kinds of those types of things were just kind of becoming I mean, I had a reading.
Norman Ohler:I had a reading in la and after my my reading, a Navy SEAL approached me. He had listened to the reading and he said that he was in a similar unit than the unit that killed Osama bin Laden. And he said that those special units all take everything that is possible to take except illegal substances that you know is possible to take, except illegal substances. So right, every substance that is legal, like there's legal amphetamines and on the market in america are being used by these special units. Are you not aware of this or do you think he was not saying the truth to me?
Mark McGrath:it doesn't. I'm not, I don't have any personal experience with it. I mean it doesn't really surprise me.
Norman Ohler:I mean it seems like we have to be in action for, let's say, 60 hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we could see that, you know you cannot, you cannot afford to let down your performance. So you have to take, after you know, 20 hours. You have to take an upper. Yeah, yeah, so we see you know, obviously you rest for like two weeks or something.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, yeah, you to recover from this. So there's a downside, and I'm sure you'll get to that in the experience with the German military. I mean, this is not sustainable. And another thing we're not promoting the use of this by the way here on the show. So what is the downside of methamphetamines over time, and how did the German military experience that?
Norman Ohler:Well, the downside is that all these neurotransmitters that are released in the brain artificially through the methamphetamine kind of have to be restored or the brain has to replenish. The brain needs a rest. So you cannot, you can take methamphetamine and then you would, you know, you need to rest for like a couple of weeks and then you can take it again. If you take it too often, uh, it's just, it's just too hard, the brain cannot. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's like you burn too much fuel. You kind of replace it. Uh, you need time to replace it. So if you take, if you take too much of methamphetamine, um, you, you become quite depressive, uh, and you don't have any energy anymore. You only have energy when you like take another dose. So then you know, but it, you know, tolerance builds up. You need more and more for less and less effect.
Norman Ohler:So you can imagine how the german army, you know, felt after like two years of war on the eastern front. I mean I spoke front. I mean I spoke to one medical officer who was in Stalingrad and he, he still. I mean, when I met him he was over 90 years old, but he remembered quite vividly that he dished out Pervitin in Stalingrad, just so people would make it to the next day, basically. But he said we all knew that it's not gonna, you know, turn us into these super soldiers anymore, like we were in the attack on france. You know it. Just, they were so depleted by that time.
Norman Ohler:And you know also it, it kind of curbs your hunger, so it was also good. You know, if you're very hungry you take methamphetamine. You're not hungry anymore for at least eight hours, but obviously you need nutrition. So it's, I mean it, it's just a very unhealthy substance, I would say. I mean, if you have a certain task in the next, like 12 hours, like killing Osama bin Laden, maybe for that thing it's good. But you know, if you live a life as a human being, it's not really good to take methamphetamine.
Ponch Rivera:So you make a strong connection in the book.
Norman Ohler:It's not healthy for the organism.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, you make a strong connection in the book. I'm going to read it off Blitzkrieg was guided by methamphetamine, if not to say that Blitzkrieg was founded on methamphetamine. And that's from Dr Peter Steinkamp, a medical historian. So there's other folks that are saying there's a connection to this and, based on the conversation that you have with Joe Rogan and in your book and then what we're hearing today, we think there is a strong connection as well. Can you talk a little bit?
Ponch Rivera:we were talking about the connection between Blitzkrieg and methamphetamine. The next question is I'm interested in what was Hitler taking, if he was taking anything, and there's pictures of him going back I think you brought this up on Joe Rogan's podcast as well, and that's 1936 Olympics. What, if anything, was Hitler on then and after the war and during the war?
Norman Ohler:I mean, that is that is actually the fun. Second part of blitz is is kind of a biography of Hitler under through the pharmacological lens and, um, I had the idea to check out the papers of Theo Morel, who had been his personal physician, and they are stored at the Federal Archives in Germany and it's very funny that no historian actually looked at these papers, because Morel's papers are very interesting, are very interesting, um and uh, because they describe, like in detail, situations that are very, very, very juicy, like you really feel like the fly on the wall. So that was great material for for blitz. That actually made you know, it really made the book in a way, I think. So what actually happened, just to sum it up, is that Hitler was, you know, the leading proponent of the German anti-drug regime.
Norman Ohler:You know he was not using anything, not even coffee or cigarettes. He quit smoking, like in the 20s I think, and no alcohol, um, and that was a big part of the propaganda around hitler, that he's this pure being that's only there for his people. Um, also, no private life, like no private fun, basically, um, but he was like a health nut, like he, because he had to do so much for germany. He thought like you know, uh, his visions, you know. So he needed to be in the best health possible, you know, um, so he was. When he, when he met morel in 1936, morel was like a celebrity doctor in berlin and they met through a mutual patient, not a mutual friend, who had been a patient of Morel and a close friend of Hitler. That was Hoffman, hitler's photographer. Hoffman had a how do you say in English an STD, and he came to Morel. He had the clap.
Ponch Rivera:Yeah, came to Morel.
Norman Ohler:He had the clap, yeah right, and Morel was able to cure him. And then Hoffman said I have to introduce you to a special friend. And then there was spaghetti dinner in Munich where Morel actually suggested to Hitler that he should use probiotics, because Hitler had a problem with digestion. He was farting all the time and he wanted to get rid of this problem. And through the probiotics, which was like a new way, a new medicine still kind of avant-garde medicine today. So Morel was kind of an avant-garde doctor still, you know, kind of avant-garde medicine today. So Morel was kind of an avant-garde doctor.
Norman Ohler:Hitler's symptoms got much better so he appointed Morel as his personal physician. And Morel was also a vitamin specialist, which was also an unknown thing at the time. So Hitler loved, you know, all these new ideas. He thought it was great to receive vitamins from Morel. How he received them was a bit peculiar, because Morel was a specialist with syringes, like he gave his drugs through injections. So Hitler received, from 1936 onwards on, almost daily injections of vitamins and other like today we would call them food supplements, I guess. So Hitler became, you could say, addicted to the daily injections to always bring him to the best of his performance. And he was also. You know, I don't know, if you get addicted to vitamins, it's not really a big deal. I think if you take a lot of vitamins it's okay. You know, maybe it's even healthy. I mean, hitler was quite healthy until 41 in the campaign against Russia.
Norman Ohler:He had the so-called Russian flu, which basically confined him to the bed. He had high fever, diarrhea, he basically felt like shit. And it was a day when there was a very crucial military briefing about the advance of the German troops, because Hitler wanted to split the troops, go to Leningrad in the north and to the oil fields in the south, while his generals wanted to go for Moscow. They said we have to take Moscow. He said no, we're going to do it in another way. And this was a dynamic situation. So Hitler didn't want to stay in bed for these very important discussions with high command. So he said to Morel I need something stronger than vitamins. He was really feeling very, very bad. If you have a strong flu, you know, you know it's, it's quite, it's quite a severe disease actually. Um, people die from the flu, um.
Norman Ohler:So, uh, morel gave him a dolantin, which was a german opioid, and that was the first opioid that hitler received and that that effect was so puzzling to hitler. Like he receives the injection and 10 minutes later he gets out of bed and he walks into the briefing and no headache, no, like nothing, you know. He was like, he felt good and and so he was able to determine, you know, how the events would go. And he never forgot that experience and then asked for it more and more, and from 43 onwards, and especially in 44, he uses opioids a lot like. There's some periods where he uses them every other day. 20 milligrams of oxycodone, which was a german product at the time, called intravenously. Uh, that is a very, very strong high. So he basically changes from health nuts to opioid junkies.
Ponch Rivera:But nothing in. You know, I think there's a video of Hitler at the 1936 Olympics, shaking.
Norman Ohler:No, I think I somehow think that video is I don't know if it's a fake or it's like cut in a certain way, or but there's no indication that hitler was on drugs. Uh, 1936 at the olympics I mean, hitler was a freak, you know, maybe he was shaking because of some kind of suppressed sexual excitement or something because the germans were winning, I don't, yeah, but there's no indication that drugs were responsible for that.
Mark McGrath:Did Hitler have Parkinson's disease have you read that before which would cause that kind of shaking or whatever?
Norman Ohler:Well, I mean I studied, you know, morel's papers and Morel was the doctor and he wrote down everything he gave Hitler. And there's one only one time, quite late in the game, a few weeks before Hitler died, where he gave him a medicine against Parkinson. So that doesn't really lead me to the conclusion that was, uh, very visible in 44 and 45 came from drug withdrawal. Drug withdrawal because in 45 he did, he did go cold turkey, he didn't use um the opioid anymore. So I think that's a that's a more plausible explanation for for the tremor um. But I can't rule it out, you know, maybe he also had parkinson's. It's quite possible because he used a lot of also very strange hormone concoctions that morel created himself and autoimmune diseases could result from from such a consumption um.
Mark McGrath:So maybe he also had parkinson's well, you say too that morel kept very good records and uh, and on Wikipedia they show 34 different drugs that he himself annotated that he administered. Hitler like 34 different types of medications.
Norman Ohler:Yeah, quite a lot. It was a bit like Michael Jackson's doctor or Elvis Presley's doctor. Yeah, it's very unhealthy to take so many medications. Yeah, it's very unhealthy to take so many medications.
Mark McGrath:What's interesting is you mentioned the attempt on his life in 44. And it says that penicillin was a US Army experiment. So they interrogated Morel after the war.
Norman Ohler:How did you have access to penicillin if that was something that you administered to Hitler after the assassination attempt? Morel always claimed to be like a penicillin expert. It was a new thing and I mean it was actually a very decisive thing in World War II. But the Germans never really had penicillin. Morel tried to develop it but I think he failed miserably. As siemens, the german company, gave they. They had two electron microscopes back then and and one of these very precious you know instruments went to morel so he could do his penicillin research. But he never really. He never really succeeded with that and I was not aware that he gave penicillin to Hitler on July 20th 1944. But maybe he did have. He claimed sometimes to have it but it wasn't really effective.
Norman Ohler:So he doesn't, write about it in his notes. It was like maybe secret.
Mark McGrath:Like the topical powder, like you see in a lot of World War II movies where the medic or the corpsman would rip open a powder and like put the powder on them. I mean, maybe they got it off of allied you know, allied soldiers that were captured yeah, maybe it's quite possible so I'm curious, norman, what about U-boat and then Luftwaffe pilots?
Ponch Rivera:Were they involved in any of the Pervitin? Did they have access to it?
Norman Ohler:Yeah, the Luftwaffe had quite a lot of Pervitin. They even had a rehab program which the Army didn't have, because the problem for the Luftwaffe in the air battle against Great Britain was that they had less pilots, less planes. The planes were not as good, still they wanted to win. So what do they do? The pilots just have to fly more missions, and that was done through Pervitin, that's so. I mean, göring was a big drug user who was the head of the Luftwaffe. He was a morphine addict. I mean he didn't, you know, but I think that vibe, you know that Goering vibe was kind of penetrating the whole, you know, apparatus of the Luftwaffe. Also, ernst Udet, the number three of the Luftwaffe, was a Pavitin addict. Actually, he killed himself on Pavitin in Novembermber. I think it was 41, maybe it was 40. I don't want to say anything wrong. You have to read it in. In blitz I described the suicide and what. What actually happened there. Sure, I mean, the luftwaffe was, uh, was a house full of drugs, drugs basically, um, and the, the, the the navy always portrayed itself as kind of the cleanest of the three. You know, uh, army, uh navy, luftwaffe, like the cleanest also in the sense of the least nazi. You know, type part of the of the german wehrmacht was, was the navy? Maybe they were, I mean, but still you know, I I researched a little bit what they did in in 44 because um and I I had seen reports before that whole uh, u-boats, uh and and battleships were on pabitin and they were using quite heavily, using stimulants quite heavily, which is kind of you can kind of imagine it in a submarine where you have to. It's really a high-pressure area where you have to perform extremely well. So I guess the tension, the water pressure and the mental tension is so intense that uh, I I guess it would be it's. I'm not surprised that people would use drugs in such a situation to kind of cope with with with their surroundings, and there are reports that um, pevitin was used a lot.
Norman Ohler:But what I wanted to talk about is the so-called search for the wonder drug, which Hitler called wonder weapons. With these mini submarines they intended to turn the war around because they would sink all the Allies' ships, because these mini submarines could kind of sneak close to a big American or British battleship and then, through a torpedo, sink it. The only problem for these missions was that only one person, or sometimes two people were in these mini submarines and they were in there for up to like a week and they couldn't sleep, obviously, because then they would die. So the Navy tried to develop a new drug and they tested different drug combinations. Drug and they tested different drug combinations, like combination of uh cocaine, methamphetamine, uh, oxycodone, like they mixed them together, like they tried different mixes and then like a speedball, like like what john belushi did, like a speedball yeah right, speedballs, and how they, how they tested it was, they hired, um, they paid the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen.
Norman Ohler:Sachsenhausen had a unit of inmates, of prisoners, like, if prisoners went against the rules within the concentration camp, they were punished, and one form of punishment was um, the in germans called the schuhläufer commando, which is the shoe runners uh unit. Uh, it was a unit of inmates that had to test uh, new soul shoe soles because germany was running out of like leather and stuff, so they had to develop different materials for shoes, and concentration camp inmates were testing those. And then the navy hired this unit, paid the ss to be able to use this unit and gave these poor inmates that had to test the german shoes which, and they tested it by by walking, you know, they walked for like 12 hours in a certain like area of the camp. They had to work in circles and they looked at how the soles of the shoes were reacting to that, you know stress. They didn't care about the feet of the inmates, it was just about the material of the shoes that would then, you know, should later, you know, become the material for boots for the German soldiers.
Norman Ohler:So the Navy hired this Schulläuferkommando, and so then these people also got drugs. So some got cocaine, some got methamphetamine, some got a combination of speedball, and then they looked like what combination would be the best and actually one combination won and then they gave that combination to their own people who were manning the mini submarines. And then these poor young 18-year-old guys received the strongest drugs that were ever produced, probably on the planet up until this day, sitting in there like mini submarines trying to turn the war around and mostly just sank and died.
Ponch Rivera:That's unbelievable.
Norman Ohler:Again, these are yeah, that was actually like a lot of military people in Germany when they couldn't believe it when they read Blitz, because that is a story that no one really knows about and also historians don't know about it. So I'm curious. It's very, very well documented.
Ponch Rivera:So let's talk about that. So historians miss this, and at least from our understanding of warfare and our you know, we lived in this space for a long time. We've been through different schools on this. This is the first time we've ever heard this through your book and through you. I'm curious. One how did the historians miss this, or did they miss it? And then two, can you talk about how difficult it was for you to piece this together when you went into the different archives?
Norman Ohler:I mean, there is a historian employed by the German army, the Bundeswehr as it is called today. He's stationed in Munich and he knows about it. He actually wrote a book about these, that what I just told you, these uh, that what I just uh told you. So he was, um, he knows about it, but he, he wrote a book that maybe, you know, 100 people read or 200 people like, uh, it's, it's a great book, but no one knows about it. But he was very open to discuss his findings with me.
Norman Ohler:And then I did more research by going back into the archives, because when you're in the archives often you don't find everything. Like he didn't find everything, but he found quite a lot and he helped me to find even more. So you can just go to the archives. Anyone could actually do that. But you have you know, you have to know maybe the name of the doctor that was responsible for the Navy to do that program, which was Otsechowski is his name. So then you can go to the archive and say to the archivist I want to have the papers of Otsechowski. He was in this and that unit during that time and then the archivist can start digging. But if you don't really know what you're looking for. It's very difficult. So that historian working for the Bundeswehr, he helped me to find more. So you know, people help you and then with that help you continue the research and you find things that people haven't found. Yeah, that's kind of how it works.
Mark McGrath:What was the year that this was all declassified? Find things that people haven't found, or yeah, that's kind of how it works. What was, what was the year that? What was the year that this was all declassified?
Norman Ohler:I don't think it was ever classified, because in germany we think that the wehrmacht is a very bad organization, so that we don't really keep any. You know not, there's no secrets that we want to keep. We want to reveal it all, we want to look at it. So also that organization doesn't exist anymore, so they cannot protect their files by themselves. So you know, we can basically see everything that happened in World War II that the Germans did. We can, you know everything.
Ponch Rivera:that's document is open for anyone to see I know you had to do it on on your book tripped, where you you did some research here in the us was was that the same on blitz, or is that just only in like going to universities, like to begin and other places in germany to do the research?
Norman Ohler:well, for tripped. I did quite a bit of research at the sandos archives. Uh well, now it's the Novartis archives, one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world, because they had. They found LSD in 1943. And that was a different experience because it's a company archive, it's not an official archive, so they can actually hide things from you. They don't have an obligation to show you everything.
Norman Ohler:But a democracy basically has the obligation to to be transparent, unless you know it touches military secrets that the country needs or wants to keep secret for maybe future things, I don't know. Or you know because you know they just want to keep it secret. I guess the military has the right to do that, um, but you know there's no big difference between the united states and germany. Basically the archives are open, okay. I mean, maybe there's more classified stuff in america, um, because we in germany we had this like break in history, like germany after 45 is a different country than germany before, so so Germany after 1945 does not protect any files that originated in Germany before that. So maybe the German archives are really the easiest to use in the world, maybe.
Ponch Rivera:Okay, well, norman, hey, I want to thank you again for coming on on such short notice. We were so excited to go back and look at a few things with you that we missed in the first episode with you.
Mark McGrath:Do you?
Ponch Rivera:have anything else you want to.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, I, it is an interesting. It's a, it's a mind opening topic for a lot of reasons. I mean it. It also, I think, talk. We're talking about human performance in nonlinear chaotic environments and where humans are under a lot of stress and duress and have to get things done. And there's also, in this case, you know, there's an extreme dark side to it.
Mark McGrath:It is interesting that when you look at the study of Blitzkrieg, you know not because of your work, I mean people can take a look at as a as a different perspective. Um, I guess also too, I mean, when you go back and you look at one of the uh comments that john boyd had made in patterns of conflict, there was a, there was a quote that I had I was going to pull up, but it was basically saying you know, he would have these areas where he'd say, raises the nagging question. And one of the nagging questions was how do blitzers keep this pace? And you didn't answer.
Norman Ohler:Now we know, yeah yeah, yeah, and now we know we got it so you had the impression that I was uh on the on the rogan show. I was trying to talk about blitz while he was trying to talk about tripped or yeah, I just noticed.
Ponch Rivera:So I I love the episode, by the way. And then you, you, you wanted to go well, let's go deeper. And then, and what I got from that is you, you brought Joe along to go into blitz, and I think that's where the the you, where my eyes just went. Whoa, we missed this. How did we miss this?
Mark McGrath:Yeah, I saw it too and I felt that Tripped was taking a lot of the conversation. And then it kind of came back to Blitz. And then when Punch and I talked about it just because Blitzkrieg again as a study is so much a part of the warfighting curriculum, just because of this such a monumental event, but this adds to it I don't think that this necessarily like what's studied in Blitzkrieg, I don't think it takes away from sort of the decision-making and all the other things that go into it that Boyd was studying and unraveling. I think that it just adds a lot more perspective. It adds another perspective which makes it even more interesting and unique.
Ponch Rivera:So I want to offer up something here. Mark and Norman, there's a connection here. So you're on a show with Joe Rogan, who has a background in fighting right. Right Fighters use observer-oriented side-act loop quite often to understand how to create situational awareness, how to create mismatches, how to deceive people, how to use their strengths over their opponent's weaknesses. That's everything we just talked about with Blitzkrieg. That's why John Boyd picked up on it. So there is a very interesting connection here to human performance. That goes back to human performance and what you shared with us in the story you just shared and, of course, in blitz. So I want to make sure you could see that connection there and why this is important right, thank you.
Norman Ohler:Well, it was great to talk to you again.
Mark McGrath:Thanks again yeah, we really enjoyed it, norman. Uh, we really appreciate it, and I I think I told you I um I you know I live in Granch Village. I went around the corner of Bedford's, two blocks from me, and I did find the safe house that you talked about last time. Yeah, so All right.
Ponch Rivera:Well, thanks again. Thanks for being on no Way Out, where we can help you activate your OODA loop and, of course, help you find flow. And, norman, I think you really uh brought us some new insights today and our listeners some insights that I don't think. Uh, hopefully they'll. They'll be coming to you and asking you for help either at the joint professional military education, a university here in America that study in Blitzkrieg. I think they need to hear the story and I think they need to reach out to you so you can talk to them. So, once again, thank you for being on our show.
Norman Ohler:I'm preparing my keynote. I'm ready to talk. Thank you for having me have a good day.
