Also gypsy-ass bad motherfucker Robert Young Pelton's website comebackalive.com - if you haven't heard of this man and his work, please to check out the website. Found by browsing on the Black Flag Cafe forums: "Hitler's Drugged Soldiers" - RYP quotes the full text of an article discussing German military use of drugs and alcohol under the Third Reich. (Excerpts:)
Many of the Wehrmacht's soldiers were high on Pervitin when they went into battle, in a Blitzkrieg fueled by speed. The German military was supplied with millions of methamphetamine tablets during the first half of 1940. The drugs were part of a plan to help pilots, sailors and infantry troops become capable of superhuman performance. The military leadership liberally dispensed such stimulants, but also alcohol and opiates, as long as it believed drugging and intoxicating troops could help it achieve victory over the Allies. But the Nazis were less than diligent in monitoring side-effects like drug addiction and a decline in moral standards... During the short period between April and July of 1940, more than 35 million tablets of Pervitin and Isophan [methamphetamine] were shipped to the German army and air force...
Franz Wertheim, a medical officer who was sent to a small village near the Western Wall on May 10, 1940, wrote the following account: "To help pass the time, we doctors experimented on ourselves. We would begin the day by drinking a water glass of cognac and taking two injections of morphine. We found cocaine to be useful at midday, and in the evening we would occasionally take Hyoskin," an alkaloid derived from some varieties of the nightshade plant that is used as a medication. Wertheim adds: "As a result, we were not always fully in command of our senses."... indeed, we were feeling positively... asymmetric...
[and of course Hitler's prescribed daily methamphetamine shots and Goering's morphine addiction are well documented]
