How Nazi troops were high on ‘speed’

** CORRECTS DATE OF HITLER TAKING OVER TO 1933 NOT 1993 ** FILE** National Socialist troops with torches marching in Berlin to celebrate Hitler taking over the power on Jan. 30, 1933. In background the Brandenburg Gate. The 75th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's elevation to German chancellor on Wednesday is one the country would prefer to forget, but the ignominious event remains part of the weighted history that drives past and future generations to remember the victims of the Nazi regime and ensure their crimes cannot happen again. Hitler's accession to chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933 gave the Nazi party its "in" to eventually consolidate absolute control over the country in the months soon after, setting it on the path to World War II and the Holocaust that left millions of people dead. (AP Photo)

** CORRECTS DATE OF HITLER TAKING OVER TO 1933 NOT 1993 ** FILE** National Socialist troops with torches marching in Berlin to celebrate Hitler taking over the power on Jan. 30, 1933. In background the Brandenburg Gate. The 75th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's elevation to German chancellor on Wednesday is one the country would prefer to forget, but the ignominious event remains part of the weighted history that drives past and future generations to remember the victims of the Nazi regime and ensure their crimes cannot happen again. Hitler's accession to chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933 gave the Nazi party its "in" to eventually consolidate absolute control over the country in the months soon after, setting it on the path to World War II and the Holocaust that left millions of people dead. (AP Photo)

Published Jun 3, 2013

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London - Nazi troops were fuelled by more than Hitler’s rhetoric as they invaded swathes of Europe during the war – they were also high on drugs, a letter from the front line reveals.

Military doctors were handing soldiers and airmen an “alertness aid” – millions of pervitin pills, an amphetamine better known today as the illegal drug crystal meth.

In May 1940, a young soldier named Heinrich Boell – later one of Germany’s most famous postwar writers – wrote to his family complaining that he was exhausted by the war.

He said he had become “cold and apathetic, completely without interests” and asked if they could get him some more pervitin, explaining that one pill was as effective for staying alert as litres of strong coffee – and seemed to make all his worries disappear.

German soldiers nicknamed pervitin “Panzerschokolade”, or “tank chocolate”.

But 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.

“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.”

Hitler was given intravenous methamphetamine by his physician and the Nazis experimented with a number of other drugs, including a cocaine-based stimulant that was tested on concentration camp inmates. - Daily Mail

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