r/interesting • u/freudian_nipps • 8d ago
HISTORY Hitler tweaking during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin NSFW
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u/PartyMcFly55 8d ago
Don't do drugs kids. Definitely don't want to end up like this guy
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u/DickPin 8d ago
But the last thing he did do was kill Hitler.
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u/firelock_ny 8d ago
But then he killed the guy who killed Hitler!
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u/Independent-Bid-916 8d ago
But at least he killed that guy to make up for it.
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u/Sudden-Algae5235 8d ago
yeah but then he killed the guy who killed the guy who murdered the guy who killed hitler
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u/suxatjugg 8d ago
The more I learn about that guy, the more I don't care for him
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u/Zempshir 8d ago
Everyone thinks he was on meth but I think he just had to take a wicked piss and didn’t want to miss the Olympics.
All jokes aside, the video is sped up a lot from the original, which was actually published by the Nazis themselves. He doesn’t look very abnormal in the original video.
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u/lilicucu 8d ago
Hitler was known to abuse methamphetamines and amphetamines (speed). It was also given to German soldiers to increase their performance and decrease their fear.
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u/Ghost_of_Gumby 8d ago
Not just the Germans, everyone was using amphetamines. Germans were using Pervitin, Americans were using Benzadrine, etc.
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup 8d ago
Some were using nice calming opioids instead...
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u/Baldojess 8d ago
When you mix them together it's literally the best feeling in the entire world. I was addicted to shooting heroin and meth mixed together (aka Belushi's) for like 8 years. I'm 7 years clean but I still dream about it almost every night.
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u/Itsthematterhorn 8d ago
AYYYy i used to call them goofballs! i was a speedball addict myself. You are right, best feeling in the entire world. nearly lost my arm to it.
HOORAY for you and your clean time! I have six years in november.
I think about it constantly. And dream of it often.
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u/Baldojess 8d ago
I've heard people call them that! And congratulations on 6 years! My friend actually DID lose his right arm. He lost it to an awful infection from shooting up or picking at his wound or something. But yes, lost his entire arm and got clean and is doing amazing now. But damn I'm too vain, I'd be destroyed if I had lost my arm. He had an amazing attitude about it, I couldn't believe it. And right it's crazy how after all this time we still dream about it. That's crazy.
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u/antitrollpatrol 8d ago
Well done both of you. Most don’t make it out. You should be super proud of yourselves
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u/Causemas 8d ago
Gotta be hell
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u/Baldojess 8d ago
Yes lol. It's like I knowing I can never go back to my one true love but always being reminded of the love we shared.. 😂 jk. Kinda. But yeah I mean I have my family, my man, my pets, an apartment, a cute Jeep, a great job. I can't go back. I'm the most non-functional addict ever so I'll lose everything I have again if I ever started using again. I worked very very hard to get to where I am today so I just have to always remind myself and remember that. I'm actually heading out to group right now. I am graduating from my program completely at the end of this month! I got real lucky and got to go to the best program in my state when the judge told me I needed to go to treatment. They've been so freaking amazing. Basically I just won't have case management anymore or be required to do groups but I still can go to as many groups as I want to for the rest of my life and they'll always be there to help me whenever I need anything. It also means I won't be able to fall back on housing if something ever happened like me losing my job but I've been supporting myself for so long that hopefully I won't have to ever worry about that. It's still extremely scary though.
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u/GuiltyThing69 8d ago
Keep up the good work!
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u/Baldojess 8d ago
Thank you! I definitely will 😊
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u/GuiltyThing69 8d ago
I quit drinking alcohol 2 months ago and my life is still a fuckin mess but I'm making progress. It's just inspiring to hear stories like yours, thank you
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u/scuzzy987 8d ago
Find clean hobbies and clean eating to take it's place. Baby steps, it's worth it. You got this!
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u/Baldojess 8d ago
That's probably the hardest time. You can do it, just go day by day. As cliche as it sounds it's so true, one day at a time. When I went to treatment my plan was never to get clean. My real plan was to just get out of jail and finish probation so I could do whatever I wanted but then I just kept clean afterwards everyday just one more day one more day. Of course once you start feeling better physically you need to fill your time with productive activities. Get a job or something and go to groups or AA or whatever works for you. Spend time with family and friends and maybe start working out or eating better. You don't have to try to do it all at once but just add a little bit at a time and soon you'll have all these better habits and fill up your days with healthier things and find healthier ways to cope. 🩷 I wish you all the success 🥰
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u/HiiiTriiibe 8d ago
I found intermittent fasting helped me immensely when I quit drinking! It's not for everyone, but it not only helped me shed all the weight I gained from drinking, I'm now as fit as I was 10-15 years ago, and it also helped me have a point of focus and a means to help force a schedule upon myself that I could attach other activities and behaviors to and that helped me create a framework to live by, which has historically been a concept I hate. I'm now going on two years clean from drinking, and I'm working in a field I've always wanted to, I'm dating again, life is getting to be ok! Whatever path takes you to finding peace within yourself, stay the course and keep reminding yourself not just that you aren't drinking anymore, but why you aren't drinking anymore. What drinking took from your life and what you want back. Good things take time, and also make sure to be gentle with yourself, I think a lot of problem drinkers, especially myself, have a tendency to beat the absolute shit out of themselves but will be kind to others almost to a fault. So a big thing for me was to learn how to treat myself like I do for others. That shift honestly changed my life far more than quitting drinking, but drinking blinded me from following the path I needed to to get there.
Keep on going dude, it's not always easy, but lookin back now, I'm so glad I did what I did
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u/Lord_Bloodraven_11 8d ago
I know I’m just a stranger on the internet, but I’m proud of you. Keep it up!
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u/chipskylark123 8d ago
I did heroin for about 4 years. I never got into shooting up, and would only smoke crack with it once in a blue moon and I can relate to this.
When you catch a good nod, oh my god it’s like nothing else I’ve ever felt. Nothing matters. You become a puddle and everything is fuzzy and calm and nice for a minute.
Quitting was the hardest thing I ever did. Every morning you gotta look in the mirror and keep looking until you see something that’s worth saving. Keep it up. ❤️
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u/muted_physics77 8d ago
congrats to you for all the hard work you've done. You've come a long way
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u/marcuslattimore21 8d ago
💪💪💪💪nice fucking job my friend. To me... one of the biggest things was actually eating food. It is simple but amazing. Then realizing you're just as addicted to the set up and ritual of the process.
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u/Glum-Plum6441 8d ago
'Belushi's' were a mix of heroin and cocaine (they were referred to as speedballs but did not contain amphetamine). Everywhere I have ever been meth and heroin are referred to as 'goofballs'.
Source 20+ year addict, now clean for (almost) 5years and don't miss a f@ck!ng thing about it!
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u/HonorableMedic 8d ago
Feels great until your body starts falling apart from not being tired and being less susceptible to pain. I almost had to have my leg amputated because I had MRSA and let it go for so long. I don’t dream about it anymore because the feeling of being up for days with anxiety and paranoia far outweighs the initial few hours of bliss
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u/onarainyafternoon 8d ago
Belushi died from a speedball, which is heroin and coke.
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u/Baldojess 8d ago
Yeah idk why but they call meth and heroin Belushi's, I heard because he liked to mix heroin and meth. And speedball is usually coke and heroin people like to be specific sometimes, I called meth and heroin a speedball because it's a upper and a downer mixed in one shot. But I felt like if I said speedball everyone would come to correct me, which apparently they did anyways. 😂 Drug addicts call meth and heroin mixed in one shot Belushi's, idk why, I wasn't the one who made the name.
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u/ratbearpig 7d ago
“I'm 7 years clean but I still dream about it almost every night.”
First of all, good for you man. Second, it’s wild that you still have frequent dreams of about 7 years after.
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u/david43511 8d ago
lets not romanticize these drugs. they are terrible for you, and destroy lives.
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u/Techn028 8d ago
That doesn't sound romanticized, it sounds like a nightmare. Imagine forcing yourself off something and almost a decade later it still haunts you in your dreams..
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u/PizzaResident89 8d ago
That is the disease of addiction and that's why people who tame theirs deserve SOME recognition.
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u/DejectedTimeTraveler 8d ago
Both can be true. Lying about drugs disarms the fear. Once someone tries them and sees how awesome they are to start they refuse to believe anything outside of their personal experiences about them.
They are great. Until they aren't. And they won't be eventually.
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup 8d ago
We should never be afraid of the truth. So much unnecessary damage was done during the war on drugs by authorities thinking lies were a valid strategy. What the person you responded to was saying was their own personal experience, but you can read between the lines that the cost was very very high.
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u/justtobeherenotsure 8d ago
He's not romanticizing it. Otherwise he wouldn't say he's clean for 7 years
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u/Nervous-Deal-9271 8d ago
My favourite ww2 drug story was iirc about a finish soldier on the run (skis) from the Russians and took his whole squads methamphetamine supply.aimo koivunen was his name
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u/aibnsamin1 8d ago
These combat drugs are still used by modern armies although it isn't something widely advertised or always "officially" sanctioned.
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u/liveprgrmclimb 8d ago edited 7d ago
Yes. My buddy who was in a Marine tank battalion among the first groups entering Iraq said they were given some crazy drugs to be able to fight for 3 days and nights straight.
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u/Adrict 8d ago
One of my favorite bits of Post WWII knowledge is after the war, the US rounded up a lot of the amphetamines we aquired/produced and sold them off to the civilian market as pep pills or stored them away for possible future use, and promptly forgot about some of the stashes until the 60s-70s because of misfiled paperwork IIRC.
Then some serviceman opened up this locked and apperently abandoned "ammo" dump during a base review/inspection just to find dozens of tons of rotten, mouldering speed stacked up.
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u/Canes-305 8d ago
US pilots were still given “go pills” (amphetamines) up until 2002 when it is said to have played a part in US pilots bombing Canadian forces
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u/just-letmereadyacunt 8d ago
The use of amphetamines was cut after 1939 because soldiers using it became erratic and after it's use became useless for around 2 days of recovery.
The usage of performance enhancing drugs for the German army is greatly exaggerated.
The usage of other hard drugs for medicinal purposes was common however, like heroin or morphine, but that goes for all armies in ww2
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u/lehtomaeki 8d ago
Furthermore morphine is only as of recently getting phased out among modern armies, instead being replaced with fentanyl. As a bonus the fentanyl comes as easy to administer lollipops
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u/That_Routine_3976 8d ago
Yes but there's no evidence that Hitler was on amphetamines in 1936 and this clip is sped up. The book Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler is a fantastic read.
Hitler ended up as a junky but he was almost certainly completely clean when this video was shot.
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u/CatgirlFucker8008 8d ago
Yeah the drug he abused wasn't available until 1937 if I remember correctly. Funny to imagine him on meth here, but not accurate unfortunately.
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u/AdventurousTap2171 8d ago
This Hitler guy looks like a real jerk.
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u/Anen-o-me 8d ago
In his defense, he did kill Hitler.
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u/ProjectNo4090 8d ago
The whole Nazi party and military ran on methamphetamines. The post war withdrawal was probably awful.
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u/unbanned2009 8d ago
Meth withdrawal is basically you get real hungry and sleepy . Kinda pleasant when you’ve known worse. But they were also on opioids and well that’s hell
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u/alextruetone 8d ago
Hell for a little while. Nothing is worse withdrawal wise than Benzos imo. Maybe alcohol is up there too but I don’t think it takes as long.
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u/strangelyruined 8d ago
Alcohol withdrawal is horrific. I can’t speak to benzo withdrawals but I had multiple seizures coming off of alcohol back when I was still in active addiction. Amphetamine withdrawals just made me feel like a zombie.
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u/bloody_ell 8d ago
Funny enough, you use benzos to counteract alcohol withdrawal (librium).
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u/ProjectNo4090 8d ago
So what youre saying is do meth to counteract opioid withdrawal and then withdrawal from meth?
/jk
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u/unbanned2009 8d ago
Doing meth will help someone get through opioid withdrawal . It doesn’t magically erase the withdrawl symptoms though . Just in a way amps you up enough to fight through them . Plenty of people do this and sadly just end up addicted to meth
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u/ClavicusLittleGift4U 8d ago
Morell gave Hitler several drugs, but here it may have been the effect of his strychnine pills for his digestive issues. Even at low doses, it stimulates the nervous and muscular system, resulting in unvoluntarily cramping, agitation, stiffness and hypervigilance.
Towards the end of the Reich, Morell's personal writings and his accounts revealed Hitler even received at least 4 to 6 micro-injections by day of strychnine to hold against the pressure of the bombings and the Soviet progression.
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u/unbanned2009 8d ago
He’s geeking in the video. It’s identical to everyone else I’ve ever seen geeking on dope
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u/ChemicalRain5513 8d ago
The post war withdrawal was probably awful.
When you finally get sober and realise you invaded half of Europe and murdered millions of people...
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u/Away-Worldliness6812 8d ago
i miss him (norm, not hitler)
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u/Bannedagainnohomo 8d ago edited 8d ago
He's dead? I didn't even know he was sick! (Hitler, not Norm, RIP Norm)
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u/CantaloupeLazy1427 8d ago
Don’t just judge a man by a picture, judge by his actions
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u/Fleischer444 8d ago
Yeah I don’t like talking shit about people I don’t know but you might be right.
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u/Early_Librarian_1104 8d ago
He has done some good stuff like killing Adolf Hitler at the end of ww2.
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u/DSJ-Psyduck 8d ago
Bit late to the party then isent he? He could have don that in the start of the war!
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u/OkCandidate2541 8d ago
I read that it might be caused by his drug addiction.
Accurate?
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u/freudian_nipps 8d ago edited 8d ago
Absolutely. The old boy was on a cocktail of pills from morning to night, no doubt.
Edit: lol at these comments "he's just excited" "he's just autistic" "are you sure he was on drugs?" "the footage is sped up... but only him, not the others next to him and in the background" "he wasn't on drugs until later *stares boldfaced at video of tweaking hitler" Like really folks?
Edit2: yes, Hitler began his descent into heavy drug use upon meeting Dr. Morell 1936, here's some more info. This does not mean Hitler was sober before meeting Morell. Those incapable of nuance may miss this. Sorry to that military history bachelor who learned the wrong info in school
https://www.historyhit.com/did-hitlers-drug-problem-change-the-course-of-history/
Edit3: the video is not playing at 2x speed. Someone go run the vid through an editor and slow it down 2x. Footage from the early 1900's is a little quicker, by nature of the tech they used for filming. But this isn't double speed, you speculating reddit armchair historians.
I know redditors can't resist being insufferable contrarians, but at the cost of softening Hitler's public image? Really now, let's take a step back.
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u/alaric49 8d ago
I read that it also gave him horrible, notorious flatulence much to the dismay of his inner circle.
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u/loqi0238 8d ago
He already had stomach issues. Add stimulants and opiates, then stool softeners for the constipation opiates cause, and his bowels didnt know what to do.
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u/-Nocx- 8d ago
There’s a growing body of research that suggests that his gut issues are a significant part of why he was a genocidal maniac.
The stimulants absolutely just made it worse.
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u/LoudAttempt140 8d ago
Imagine if evil just boils down to the fact that someone hasn't had a good shit in 20 years.
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u/onarainyafternoon 8d ago
I would love to see this growing body of evidence that his genocidal tendencies were connected to his gut issues
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u/kimmortal03 8d ago
Is that why hes scratching his nuts with his binocs
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u/mrmartini85 8d ago
His nut*
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u/unohdin-nimeni 8d ago
Every time I read about a unitary nut celebrity, I get a little bit sceptical. There are just too many of them (celebrities, not nuts) to be quite sensible. In addition to this nutsy clusterfück, at least Napoleon Bonaparte, Francesco Franco, and Bruce Lee had this nut condition. And many more, I just don’t remember who.
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u/tatteredmelon 8d ago
I'd bet good money he had some kind of autoimmune disorder and that contributed heavily to all the wacky stuff Morell was giving him to try and control the symptoms.
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u/Altair13Sirio 8d ago
Reminds me of some other fascist old man we unfortunately have to deal with nowadays...
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u/jimmy_MNSTR 8d ago
He was a vegetarian who, as I heard on one documentary, ate beans at every meal.
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u/rickoftheuniverse 8d ago
Also injectable cocaine
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u/Party_Chemical7454 8d ago
His Doctor used eye drops containing cocaine very often.
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u/juniorr5200 8d ago
Who and why would defend him? For my logic it would be weird if he didnt take any drugs... beeing responsible for that many deaths and terror across entire world AND staying sober? I don't think so.
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u/-AngryAlchemist 8d ago
He fucking injected Bull semen into himself for strength and vigor. Bull semen and cocaine. Good shit.
Anyone who thinks Hitler wasnt a tweeked out monster doesnt get shit about history.
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u/gravygizzard 8d ago
Holy shit at the edits lmao
Who are these freaks defending Hitler? They should follow their leader
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u/082426grateful 8d ago
>insufferable contrarians
How dare you.
😂
Seriously though, man, you just nailed the entirety of Reddit, and most of the internet.
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u/Esiwmah 8d ago
It's ran at slightly higher speed, yes. The filming for the 1936 Olympics was done at 24fps, but was typically slowed down to 16 or 18fps for many news outlets. When remastered for today, it's sped back up to 24fps. So we're looking at an increase of 33-50% in speed. Just look at how fast people are clapping in the stands in the background.
Either way, he's still rocking back and forth and he's also doing very odd things with his hand stroking his knee with twitching fingers. Regardless of the drug use, I think this clip is famous for neurologists analyzing the early signs of Parkinson's Disease, too. On drugs, neurological disease symptoms, slightly sped up, chronic gastrointestinal issues... the man was a mess both mentally and physically.
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u/spicedmeshi 8d ago
I'm actually surprised to read so much pushback on this. I wonder if it's people trying to "soften" Hitler's public image, or if it's more like "I see myself (an addict) in this and I don't like the way you're talking about him (an addict)"? idk though. Like, when I was in highschool we were taught that he was addicted to drugs prior to WW2. And the German army(ies), much like other armies of the world, were also using drugs. I thought it was common, understood, and widely-accepted knowledge considering there's a plethora of strong, supported, and known-trustworthy sources of evidence that this was the case.
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u/U_L_Uus 8d ago
It is funny because this is one hell of a documented fact, might as well go and try to argue that fire does not burn (then again, some people, unfortunately, ...). I remember listening to those Behind the Bastards episodes and Robert, the host, a bona-fide libertarian who could give anyone a detailed catalog of readily avaliable substances and where to acquire them, was utterly in awe of how much drugs our wanker dearest ingested throrough the day, he was a walking, sentient chemical cocktail rather than a human being
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u/UAP44 8d ago
So wait, don't do drugs because ... you might turn into Hitler 2.0? xD
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u/FantasticPainting232 8d ago
Other way around. Become an inhuman piece of garbage like hitler and you'll end up having to do drugs to cope with your inhumanity.
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u/Ithinkibrokethis 8d ago
He grew up in an era where Cocaine was considered medicine. It would be more weird if he didn't have some pre-existing drug dependency.
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u/Thebeardinato462 8d ago edited 8d ago
It’s likely it was caused by active drug use. Like, he’s high in the video.
If your ever done stimulants or been around people that abused them it puts a lot of Hitler behavior in context.
I’m not saying it makes everyone a hateful racist. I am saying it gives you the confidence to think even your worst ideas are pretty fantastic.
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u/OffByNone_ 8d ago
Hey! Those coke fueled business ideas were fucking gold bro. I was just ahead of my time.
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u/Loud-Log9098 8d ago
You think everything is the most euphoric best idea conceved by man. It's so dangerous for that alone. Sometimes though if you keep it simple you are a genius. Like when you take adhd meds
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u/Boxyuk 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yes, quite the junkie by wars end(or his end to be more accurate)
The book 'blitzed' goes very indepth on the subject and is an interesting read
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u/telltaleatheist 8d ago
Pervatin. Basically meth. Although I believe this video is sped up to make it look worse than it was
But yes he was high all the time
It was a medication available otc all over the place. Like Tylenol. Literally meth. Nazis demonized it when they took power, said it was weak to use medicines. Hitlers personal physician prescribed a whole cocktail of shit he took every day and was out of his gourd basically 24/7
It was deeply hypocritical. But they gave pervatin to the military as well. That’s where we got the studies showing that meth doesn’t actually improve performance on the battlefield because your brain still makes the same number of mistakes whether you’ve been awake without assistance for 24 hours or if you’ve been awake because of meth for 24 hours. Your brain still needs to recover. It just doesn’t feel like it on meth. Having well rested soldiers is far better than methed out soldiers. Obviously a lesson Germany had to learn the hard way
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u/Blbe-Check-42069 8d ago
It isn't sped up, look at the people walking behind and clapping. Seems like normal old footage.
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u/Oh_Glorious_Cruster 8d ago
It is absolutely sped up. Maybe not 2x, but it's definitely not at it's "natural" speed. Watch the movements of the man sitting to his right looking through the binoculars at the 10 second mark.
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u/revcor86 8d ago
The blitzkreig was a meth induced push. The stimulants did wonders at the start of the war, less so as all the soldiers became addicted and slightly insane because of it as the war went on.
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u/Least-Product191 8d ago
This guy was high like a kite all day. Meth cocaine steroids. Everything you could imagine of. His doctor was real crazy like all nazi doctors
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u/BeatNo4548 8d ago
I've heard that the allies considered assassinating Dr. Morel, but they let him live, because he was doing more harm than good to Hitler.
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u/Greasemonkey08 8d ago
Correct. He was on a cocktail of Amphetamines and other pain meds for his whole reign, due to a chronic stomach issue and (i assume) pain from his old war wounds. The moustachioed Bastard almost died in the Great War but tragically lived to give us the sequel 20 years later.
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u/One-Mud-169 8d ago
I watched a documentary about how he and his entire army literally operated on drugs as fuel, it's crazy, but help explain how they did the horrible things they did without blinking an eye.
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u/Survive1014 8d ago
It is widely believed he was on a early meth variant during this video. There are witnesses to his consuming it before the games.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 8d ago
Someone said that Hitler's supplier at the time was a 60-year old man named Chuck Grasserly who went on to be the current Senator from Iowa.
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u/Mathfanforpresident 8d ago
Bro, what? Grasserly was born in 1933. So Hitlers dealer was 11 when Hitler (allegedly) died?
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u/0202_tihssitidder 8d ago
You really don't get jokes, eh? Ask a friend what it means that you looked all that up.
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u/ChuChuRkt 8d ago
Is it wrong to play Firestarter in the background of this video?
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u/rust_belt216 8d ago
What a fuckin asshole.
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u/KatyaMilan 8d ago
Crazy I just realized every asshole dictator, especially ours now, is just a meth'd up fuck head
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u/Rook_James_Bitch 8d ago edited 8d ago
Methamphetamine.
Developed for the German army.
During World War II, the German military widely issued a methamphetamine-based stimulant called Pervitin to its soldiers and tank crews.
Development & Distribution: Produced by the Temmler pharmaceutical company starting in 1938, Pervitin was marketed legally to the German public and heavily distributed to the Wehrmacht (armed forces).
Military Application: It was heavily relied upon during the invasion of Poland and the Blitzkrieg sweep through France. The drug masked exhaustion, hunger, and fear, enabling troops to maintain continuous combat and march for days without sleep.
Consequences: Although initially viewed as a wonder drug, it quickly caused severe side effects, including extreme addiction, psychosis, hallucinations, heart failure, and soldiers suffering from acute physical exhaustion. By 1941, civilian sales were restricted via prescriptions, though military distribution continued covertly or under stricter medical oversight later into the war.
But the Berlin Olympics were held in 1936 so this had to be a different unregulated form of methamphetamine. Amphetamine-based stimulants (like Benzedrine) were already emerging globally around 1935–1936.
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u/deskandfield 8d ago
Interesting fact, it’s very unlikely he was on drugs at this point. In-depth research of German archives, which laid out Hitler’s drug and vitamin regimens with great precision, revealed no documented drug use at this time in his life.
Could be he was naturally prone to episodes of mania or at least quite hyper and fidgety, which matches other descriptions of him from earlier years.
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u/AugsByz 8d ago
Any truth to the rumor he was in early parkinsons?
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u/limegreenpaint 8d ago
He had essential tremor. Gets worse when you're hyped up, which he would have been.
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u/Kessel_Run1337 8d ago
Unlikely to be in such an advanced state like shown in the video in 1936 already. He´d have been unable to physically function in 1939 then. I find the Parkinson thesis overall convincing but the tremors got worse over time in the mid 40s if I recall correctly and affected mainly the limbs. But then again, I´m no doctor nor a historian...
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u/Marsupialize 8d ago
Morell was not archiving any drug use that could be seen as problematic or make him appear weak, he was on daily meth from 1936 on
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u/kirotheavenger 8d ago
It wasn't that widely used, and where it was used it was mostly used by pilots and drivers. The total amount of pills obtained isna big number - but spread across the German army it comes out as like 1 pill per dude per 3 months.
The idea of the German army, high as balls, charging forward is just a sensationalist myth.
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u/ShortBussyDriver 8d ago
This is correct. The Army mainly used it during the opening of the French Campaign. However, after the side-effects manifested the generals stopped issuing it.
Colonel-General Hermann Balck writes about this in his memoirs. He was at the very tip of the spear of the breakthrough on the Meuse through the Ardennes as a motorized infantry regimental commander and wrote that when the troops came down from the high they became extremely violent, agitated and uncontrollable. He ordered that all troops hand their pills into their NCOs and it was only used sparingly thereafter.
This was the prevailing experience as the French Campaign went on.
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u/Theferaltrunip 8d ago
Drug use in Europe in the early 20th century is fascinating.
By the early 1900s most of what we'd consider 'recreational' narcotics (opium, heroin etc) were known and sold mostly in an unregulated fashion (hospitality sometimes refered to add the great binge)
It was only with ww1, where in 1914 you could send a care kit that included morphine, heroine, alcohol, tobbaco to friends and family on the front, that the effects of these drugs being seen with soldiers (both on and coming off the drugs) that lead to restrictions being placed on the drugs.
Germany on the other hand couldn't produce the drugs in large quantities so mostly didn't get the restrictions as most of the western powers.
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u/Potential-Winner4601 8d ago
Side note: Jack Kerouac composed much of On the Road on Benzedrine
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u/pgasmaddict 8d ago
He looks like every irishman who's ever been to Cheltenham and who's horse is in with a chance close to home.
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u/Negative_Cow_8888 8d ago
Hahaha yeah this thread is insane. He was probably on it but everyone here is jumping to conclusions when he is doing something that a lot of punters do when watching a horse race.
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u/WGD23 8d ago
Read the book Blitzed, Hitler was up, down and sideways most of the time, amphetamines, steroids, growth hormones, painkillers, tranquilers, the lot. More broadly speaking, pharmacology and its products were there to support and enhance the 'superior' race and their endeavours. Blitzkrieg was very much amphetamines fuelled.
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u/SalutLesAmies 8d ago
Nah, don't read Blitzed. Or if you do, take it with a huge grain of salt. The author is far too obsessed with attributing everything to the use of Pervitin or other drugs.
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u/ItHappensSo 8d ago
Yes, Blitzed wasnt written by a historian but a journalist who wanted to sell books, it got absolutely bombed by the historic community after it came out, being citied as totally unhistoric, and more fantasy than reality. Do not read it.
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u/Foxyunder-45 8d ago
I look more closely and it looks like his movements are exaggerated somewhat, this sequence was never shown before. If he really acted up like this, Goebels would had censored the clip.But I'm not sure either way.
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u/Genericgameacc137 8d ago
This footage has been sped up - look at the crowds in the background.
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u/ProcrastibationKing 8d ago
This video that always makes the rounds is sped up. Yeah he's tweaking, but not like that.
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u/BillNyeIsCoolio 8d ago
The most evil people trying to destroy the world today have even stronger drugs!
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u/SenorDiamond17 8d ago edited 8d ago
Like every time this gets posted, it's likely he wasn't actually tweaking in this video.
Hitler was basically only on vitamins, glucose and probiotics at that time. He didn't start using harder drugs like opioids and amphetamines until a few years later when the war started.
This video has also been sped up to make it look like he's tweaking hard.
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u/Eplerud 8d ago
So what is he doing? He's still rocking if you slow it down at 0.50x or even 0.22x speed.
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u/banhamaspiker 8d ago
But the attendees in the background don’t appear to sped up and seem to be moving at a normal pace.
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u/SenorDiamond17 8d ago
They really don't. The guy next to him just isn't moving much.
Look at the guy behind them with the binos. Watch when he puts them down and leans into frame. He moves a bit faster than a normal person would.
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u/Adept-Grapefruit-214 8d ago
This gif is sped up, probably at least 2x speed
You can see the people in the background clapping inhumanly fast(even if they were also on amphetamines)
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u/ArmadilloSilent6761 8d ago
Was he fondling his chief of “staff”?
Certainly looks like a polishing motion
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u/Chacobsa 8d ago edited 8d ago
I think his drug addiction was a 2-edged sword - on the one hand it probably contributed to this genocidal inhumanity and bloodlust. On the other it most likely rendered him incompetent and liability meaning his decisioning was impaired when fighting the Allies. Would the Nazis have won if Hitler had been sober? We'll never know but on paper an impaired Hitler sounds like an easier fight than one with all his faculties.
The other thing - hard drugs back then and throughout most of history were not seen as harmful. Both the Allies and Nazis were doling out speed to their troops to enhance warfighting capabilities and general stamina. The blitzkrieg the Nazis were famous for was apparently meth-powered.
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