Blitzed: Drugs In Nazi Germany Quotes
"National Socialism was toxic, in the truest sense of the word."
"The Nazis presented themselves as clean-cut and enforced a strict, ideologically underpinned anti-drug policy with propagandistic pomp and draconian punishments."
"Methamphetamine, with its dangerously powerful kick, is used as a party drug, for boosting performance in the workplace, in offices, even in parliaments and at universities."
"The term ‘Droge’ – drug – which at one point meant nothing more than ‘dried plant parts’ was given negative connotations."
"The only way to Paradise is snorting and injecting!"
"The path taken by the authorities in their so-called Rauschgiftbekämpfung, or ‘war on drugs’, lay less in an intensification of the opium law, than in several new regulations which served the central National Socialist idea of ‘racial hygiene’."
"The Jew has used the most refined means to poison the mind and the soul of German people, and to guide thought along an un-German path which inevitably led to doom."
"The world war was lost, and everything seemed permitted: the metropolis mutated into the experimental capital of Europe."
"We live in an energy-tense time that demands higher performance and greater obligations from us than any time before."
"Voluntary dependence is the finest state. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe"
"Anyone who seeks to eliminate fatigue with Pervitin can be quite sure that it will lead to a creeping depletion of physical and psychological performance reserves, and finally to a complete breakdown."
"The serious nature of the times should forbid all German men and women from devoting themselves to questionable pleasures. The personal example of the rejection of drugs is more necessary and appropriate today than it has been in the past."
"The Wehrmacht cannot renounce a temporary increase in performance or a defeat of fatigue, even through the use of medication."
"Pervitin is a medication that removes the need to sleep by stimulating the central nervous system. Performance enhancement beyond waking performance cannot be attained."
"Perhaps France died in 1940: their defeat against the Germans came after only eleven days, the country has never recovered from that humiliation."
"In the given terrain and with the given strength of the forces – particularly in terms of artillery – it cannot be solved. We have to resort to unusual means and bear the associated risk."
"The overcoming of sleep can in certain situations be more important than concern for any related harm, if military success is endangered by sleep."
"Success lies in speed. The important thing is to keep surprising the defender."
"The pugnacious desire to defeat the enemy in chivalrous combat will never fade."
"Blitzkrieg was guided by methamphetamine. If not to say that Blitzkrieg was founded on methamphetamine."
"This time vitamins and glucose didn’t work as they had done before."
"Nervously and with excessive haste Morell prepared a mixture of Vitamultin and calcium."
"Patient A had to keep to his bed and didn’t appear during the military briefing."
"Dictator unfit for service: a sensation in operational headquarters."
"‘Führer very irritable,’ Morell wrote that evening."
"The injections started working; the dysentery was vanquished."
"The old conflict between him and the General Staff flared up again."
"He divided the troops up to conquer Leningrad in the north, cutting the Soviet Union off from the Baltic."
"This crisis deeply affected the doctor and his concept of ‘immediate recovery’."
"Morell became a typical proponent of polypragmasia."
"Morell barely made any diagnoses, but instead constantly added to his ‘basic medicinal treatment’."
"Even though he didn’t eat meat, Hitler surely could no longer be considered vegetarian."
"From autumn 1941 onwards, more and more highly concentrated animal substances began to circulate in his bloodstream."
"The purpose of these supplements was to compensate for states of psychological and physical exhaustion."
"This approach to the dictator’s health could be compared to using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut."
"In the few walks that Hitler still took in the fresh air, the doctor always went with him."
"The consistency with which this long-term medication was applied is apparent from a train journey in August 1941."
"The injections increasingly determined the course of the day."
"Hitler’s natural immune system was soon replaced by an artificial protective shield."
"This made Morell increasingly indispensable."
"Morell was essential to the dictator, and wouldn’t leave him even at military briefings."
"Every word uttered at the military briefings was now being recorded in shorthand."
"Hitler had been a military dilettante since the order to halt at Dunkirk; now he became a fantasist."
"In the summer of 1942 Hitler’s absorption of injections rose to such a level that Morell had to put in a special order for syringes."
"A week later Patient A asked his personal physician for advice."
"Morell refused: for him, Cardiazol, a circulatory stimulant for which it is difficult to give precise dosages, was too risky for Hitler."
"Morell had understood the message: his boss was asking for stronger remedies to help calm his nerves over the intensifying crisis in Stalingrad."
"You must be healthy, you must stay away from that which poisons your bodies. We need a sober people!"
"The war against the Russians would somehow be won."
"In his own words, with Operation Barbarossa he felt as if he were ‘pushing open a door to a dark room never seen before, without knowing what lies behind it’."
"Tragic that the Führer is closing himself off from life like this, and leading such a disproportionately unhealthy existence."
"Hitler’s method now became rigidly fixated on genocide."
"To keep the chimneys of the extermination camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibór, Chełmno (Kulmhof), Majdanek and Bełz.ec smoking for as long as possible: to hold all positions – until all the Jews were dead."
"Patient A, who was radically distancing himself from the human conventions of living, was determined to bring his war on the defenceless to a satisfactory conclusion."
"I envy you for being able to experience the great world-historical events in the Führer’s headquarters."
"May it be granted to him to preserve perfect health, so that he receives the strength to achieve even his last goals for his people."
"The newly appointed armaments minister, Albert Speer, described the new headquarters in the Ukraine as an ‘arrangement of bungalows, a small pine forest, a park-like garden’."
"The stumps of the felled trees were painted green to match the landscape, the car parks were shadily protected in the undergrowth."
"Hitler christened his new headquarters for mass murder ‘Werwolf’, or Werewolf, a somewhat suitable name for this zone of unreality."
"Here Hitler, with billions of crazed bacteria in his gut, could go on fearing microbes while his soldiers in the steppes and marshes of Russia became acquainted with infectious diseases from Volhynia fever to tularaemia and malaria."
"By now Morell was essential to the dictator, and wouldn’t leave him even at military briefings."
"His whole face burnt dark red, great burns on his forehead, severe pains."
"He was a person who continually needed artificial charging. In a sense Morell’s drugs and medicines replaced the old stimulus of mass ovations."
"The more chaotic the progress of the war, the more often the frozen livers thawed during transport."
"The resulting concoction was released into the Reich and to the Wehrmacht: the auto-immunological downfall."
"Hitler’s appearance is rather deceptive in regards to his health. If one looks at him only fleetingly, one has the impression that he is in excellent physical condition. But this is not in fact the case."
"The man whose goal it was to save his people, and furthermore to shape the face of the continent, is entirely averted from the everyday joys and bourgeois comforts of life."
"When used as an instrument of power, questioning is like a knife cutting into the flesh of the victim."
"The military leadership takes the view that in this war, if required, damage as a result of powerful medications must be taken into account."
"Mental reservations ceased to exist. Emotions of hatred and revenge could always be brought to light."
"In all subjects unpleasant disturbances occurred after taking one to two tablets."
"In the midst of chaos, a telephone that never rang."
"A classic case of actio libera in causa: he could go on taking as many drugs as he liked to keep himself in a state in which he could commit his crimes."
"Even the most upstanding characters will not baulk at swindling and deceit."
"Under Allied questioning after the war, Hitler’s second surgeon sketched the medical development as follows: until 1940 Hitler looked much younger than he really was, but after that he had aged rapidly."
"The worst thing that could happen to a dealer happened to Morell. His source had run dry."
"For four to five days the patient has been extremely pensive and has a weary, exhausted appearance."
"He wants to try and manage without tranquillizers."
"The Führer is acting rather strangely towards me, short and in an irritable mood."
"I’m not doing politics any more. It repels me so much."
"I will leave all the men of history behind me. I want to be the greatest, even if the whole German people perishes in the process!"
"Go home, take off your uniform and act as if you’ve never seen me!"
"His body felt numb, as if he were no longer present in it."
"The sight of Hitler now only caused revulsion or at best pity."
"Everything weighed upon him all of a sudden, and as an infinitely heavier burden than before – naked as he was without the hormones of happiness."