Blitzed

Highlights

• On one hand, the Nazis presented themselves as clean-cut and enforced a strict, ideologically underpinned anti-drug policy with propagandistic pomp and draconian punishments. In spite of this, a particularly potent and perfidious substance became a popular product under Hitler. This drug carved out a great career for itself all over the German Reich, and later in the occupied countries of Europe. Under the trademark ‘Pervitin’, this little pill became the accepted Volksdroge, or ‘people’s drug’, and was on sale in every chemist’s shop. It wasn’t until 1939 that its use was restricted by making Pervitin prescription-only, and the pill was not subjected to regulation until the Reich Opium Law in 1941. Its active ingredient, methamphetamine, is now either illegal or strictly regulated,1 but, with the number of consumers currently at over 100 million and rising, it counts today as our most popular poison.

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• On 10 August 1897 Felix Hoffmann, a chemist with the Bayer company, synthesized acetylsalicylic acid from willow bark; it went on sale as Aspirin and conquered the globe. Eleven days later the same man invented another substance that was also to become world famous: diacetyl morphine, a derivative of morphine – the first designer drug. Trademarked as ‘Heroin’, it entered the market and began its own campaign. ‘Heroin is a fine business,’ the directors of Bayer announced proudly and advertised the substance as a remedy for headaches, for general indisposition and also as a cough syrup for children. It was even recommended to babies for colic or sleeping problems.

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• This didn’t change after the First World War. While France and Great Britain were able to acquire natural stimulants such as coffee, tea, vanilla, pepper and other natural medicines from colonies overseas, Germany, which lost its (comparatively sparse) colonial possessions under the terms of the Versailles Treaty, had to find other ways – stimulants had to be produced synthetically. In fact, Germany was in dire need of artificial assistance: the war had inflicted deep wounds and caused the nation both physical and psychic pain. In the 1920s drugs became more and more important for the despondent population between the Baltic Sea and the Alps. The desire for sedation led to self-education and there soon emerged no shortage of know-how for the production of a remedy. The course was set for a thriving pharmaceutical industry. Many of the chemical substances that we know today were developed and patented within a very short period of time. German companies became leaders in the global market. Not only did they produce the most medicines, but they also provided the lion’s share of chemical raw materials for their manufacture throughout the world. A new economy came into being, and the picturesque Rhine Valley became a Chemical Valley of sorts.

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• Forty per cent of Berlin doctors were said to be addicted to morphine.

  NoteFollowing WW1

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• The myth of Hitler as an anti-drug teetotaller who made his own needs secondary was an essential part of Nazi ideology and was presented again and again by the mass media. A myth was created which established itself in the public imagination, but also among critical minds of the period, and still resonates today. This is a myth that demands to be deconstructed.

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