Norman Ohler
German writer and journalist, author of Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich and Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age.
Norman Ohler did not write this page.
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Their wordsBut it was used by right-wingers, and Hitler didn't mind because people who are drunk are more susceptible to right-wing populism, I would claim now here, and Hitler would agree. So he did not think it was bad that these people were a bit drunk, or maybe even very drunk, because if you're drunk you also get aggressive against others.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 1st of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsSo the Navy hired the shoe runners unit from the SS, paid them money, and then gave them drugs, different kinds of drug combinations, methamphetamine combined with cocaine and chewing gum and all kinds of things. So this is a big thing, you know. And there are documents to it.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 2nd of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd he said this is actually the missing link that historians did not have, especially to explain Hitler's degeneration as a leader. He made very good decisions, good in meaning militarily effective decisions in the beginning of the war, and very bad decisions for the German war effort towards the end. And you can link that to drugs.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 3rd of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd that was not the British soldier, not the French soldier, not the Russian soldier. That was fatigue. He had been looking for a way to keep a soldier awake longer.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 4th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsHis officers didn't think so. High command said, “No, we're not going to attack the West; we're going to lose.” And Hitler was fanatic about it, he really wanted to attack it. They were planning a coup against him in November 1939 just to prevent him ordering the attack on the West, because it would have been a catastrophe for Germany.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 5th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsThat was the victorious idea. So it's not the drugs. Actually, that idea to go through the Ardennes Mountains, if you think monocausal, you would say that's the reason. That idea was genius, and Hitler immediately understood it, because before, the plan was to attack in the north of Belgium, which is the same as World War I.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 6th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd he gave lectures in front of the officers, and he wrote a stimulant decree where a whole army is prescribed a drug, in this case methamphetamine. How much should be taken? At what intervals? What are the side effects?
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 7th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsThat is when the Wehrmacht lost its innocence in that push of Rommel through the French countryside, because you don't do that, you know? Your enemy is sleeping.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 8th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsBecause the French also had a drug regulation. They received three quarters of a liter of red wine per man per day. So, of course, at night they're going to be sleepy on red wine, and the Germans were on meth and they were just running over them.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 9th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd I spoke with my father, who had been a high judge in Germany. What does the law actually say? And the law says if you plan a crime and then maybe when you commit it, you are under the influence, it does not diminish your responsibility.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 10th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsSo the tank generals received the Halte Befehl, the stopping order. They didn't believe it when they received it because this would have been a complete victory over Great Britain. This would have been the end of Great Britain. The whole British military was encircled, but they did get out through Dunkirk.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 11th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsThis was just because Hitler was afraid of the power of his army high command, and convinced by Goering's morphine-high vision that he would stop it with the air force, which he couldn't.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 12th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsSo Hitler receives this Dolantin injection, and he gets up, he goes into the meeting room, he dominates the meeting room, he feels great. He decides, you know, in front of everybody, no one is able to… no one overpowers him in that meeting. He was very good in the room. And the troops are split up. Like Leningrad is now a target. This weakens the general thrust towards Moscow. This is probably why they didn't take Moscow.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 13th of 22 in this recording
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Our reading
The German war machine could only ever win lightning wars, because it was always the weaker side.
Their wordsAnd the German war machine could only win in so-called speed wars, like lightning war. Only if they would do it very fast and surprise, because they were always weaker, basically.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 14th of 22 in this recording
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Our reading
Hitler took methamphetamine exactly twice; the record of everything his doctor gave him says so.
Their wordsThat's why Hitler was never a meth guy. That's also why I think this video is fake. He didn't take meth. I studied Morell's, the things he gave him. He gave a lot of things, and only twice was meth.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 15th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd I spoke with Anthony Beevor once about the attempt of British intelligence to assassinate Hitler, and he had seen some evidence that at the point in time, they dropped those plans because they knew that drugged Hitler or malfunctioning Hitler, which he was after, you know, the summer of 1943, is better for Britain than, you know, killing Hitler and then having to deal with, like, some kind of, you know, maybe the army would have taken over the country
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 16th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsOne thing that changed was that Eukodal was not available anymore, so the drug that Hitler actually had become physically addicted to was suddenly not available anymore. This had to do with the bombardment of the Merck company, the factory in December 1944. British bombers destroyed the production facilities.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 17th of 22 in this recording
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Our reading
The Neanderthals lost to us because they had no drug culture — they were too sober for the future.
Their wordsAnd I think, a lot of evidence kind of points to it that we were able to develop our consciousness in a better way than the Neanderthals, who did not have a drug culture. They were basically too sober for the future. We assimilated them.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 18th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsThey make beer. They labeled the beer, and the temple that would make the beer, the beer would be attributed to that temple. It would be sold, so that temple rises in status, makes money. That's how hierarchies started up.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 19th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd then I found a smoking gun: October 1943. Kuhn acknowledges that he receives half a gram of ergotamine, which is the precursor drug to LSD. And so it's highly likely that the Nazis used LSD together with mescaline in Dachau.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 20th of 22 in this recording
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Our reading
LSD is not a truth drug and never could be — it takes you toward your own truth, not out of it.
Their wordsThey miserably failed because LSD… Is not the truth drug. LSD maybe leads you closer to your own truth, because when suddenly the default mode network receives less energy and other parts of the brain think more, and the neuroplasticity of the brain is enhanced and stimulated, you might understand something about your life.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 21st of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd this is basically the reason why LSD at one point became illegal, because it did not get the chance. Stoll still wanted to put it on the market, but Sidney Gottlieb, the head of MKULTRA, he really didn't want LSD to be on the market. He didn't want it because he thought it's not good or dangerous for anybody, he just wanted to control LSD.
↗Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA | Lex Fridman Podcast #481youtube.com 22nd of 22 in this recording