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Blitzed

Drugs in Nazi Germany

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Blitzed

By: Norman Ohler, Shaun Whiteside - translator
Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
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About this listen

The Nazis presented themselves as warriors against moral degeneracy. Yet, as Norman Ohler's gripping best seller reveals, the entire Third Reich was permeated with drugs: cocaine, heroin, morphine and, most of all, methamphetamines, or crystal meth, used by everyone from factory workers to housewives, and crucial to troops; resilience - even partly explaining German victory in 1940.

The promiscuous use of drugs at the very highest levels also impaired and confused decision-making, with Hitler and his entourage taking refuge in potentially lethal cocktails of stimulants administered by the physician Dr Morell as the war turned against Germany. While drugs cannot on their own explain the events of the Second World War or its outcome, Ohler shows, they change our understanding of it. Blitzed forms a crucial missing piece of the story.

©2016 Norman Ohler (P)2016 Penguin Audio Europe Germany Military War Thought-Provoking

Critic Reviews

"Bursting with interesting facts." ( Vice)
"Extremely interesting...a serious piece of scholarship, very well researched." (Ian Kershaw)
All stars
Most relevant  
I had little knowledge about the pervasiveness of amphetamines in WW2 Germany but the evidence is there. It provides an interesting perspective into the course of the war from the view of drug use and abuse. There’s good content there and it’s worth listening to. There’s a lot of overly harsh critiques of this work. Probably best to make up your own mind.

A new perspective

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This is a facinating book, brilliantly written and narrated, highly recommend it! truth truly is stranger than fiction.

brilliant book!

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Although mainly concerned with Hitler's private physician the book still casts an interesting light on WWII and the Germany of the time and how the war of drugs was paralleled by Hitler himself.

A good read, interesting throughout

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Absolutely love this audiobook. It’s a fascinating analysis about an unknown part of history from the darkest days of the modern world - it also makes fascinating conversation at dinner parties, 10/10 would recommend to the curious and the fact tweakers (sorry, not sorry lol) who love to get high on history.

Currently High on Knowledge!

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Very good! Some very interesting original research. Became a little bit tabloid, where the author makes some big leaps based on fairly thin evidence. Lots of polemic. What appears to be a massive oversight in a book that is half about the physiological state of Adolf Hitler and his drug use and parkinsons disease is the fact Hitler was gassed in WW1. Cannot believe this wasn’t mentioned!

Generally good book! Will keep your attention. Large overisght.

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This book looks at the rise and fall of Nazi Germany through a single lens; that of drug use. This is probably not ideal if the reader / listener doesn't know anything else about the period, but if you already know some of the history, this book provides a fascinating extra dimension.

A suprisingly intersting single topic history

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loved this book. I didn't know much about Nazi history but to read the history of drugs and world war 2 was very fascinating.

well written

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Fascinating. A book that reveals and explains so much that was previously not spoken about.

Fascinating.

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Left me feeling heightened and full of vitality. extremely informative. A fascinating and largely dismissed aspect of the regimes sordid history.

Blitzes my way through this superb book

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Absolutely fascinating. Meth was the drug of choice of the Third Reich. It helps to understand how a whole population could be morally corrupted.

Absolutely fascinating. Meth was the drug of choice of the Third Reich.

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