1936 Video alleged to show Hitler on meth

[Generatedusername8]

https://youtu.be/SFgJIj4mpN0
I couldnt find any posts here about this Video, what do you guys think? Is this an authentic video of Hitler tweaking on meth at the 1936 olympics?

[Otium]

No. The video is sped up, Hitler is just excitedly - and perhaps nervously - rocking back and forth. It couldn't be more simple than that.

Hitler never took meth.

In a 2017 interview with Norman Ohler, author of the book Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich which is the standard work on this topic as far as I'm aware, and certainly the most popular he doesn't mention that Hitler ever did meth. However, Hitler was given a drug called Eukodal which contained an opioid called Oxycodon, but this was late into the war, more specifically the first use of the addictive drug was given to Hitler in Summer 1943. From what I gather Eukodal was somewhat common, although Hitler did request it in increasingly higher doses, however he would most often request the non-addictive relaxant 'eupaverin'. Ohler says in response to the question of whether or not Hitler knew he was taking these heavy drugs:

Hitler knew what was going into him. Morell [Hitler's personal physician] wasn’t hiding it. And they would discuss it. But Hitler was so busy, I think he repressed it. For example, he often got a combination shot of eupaverin, a nonaddictive relaxant, and Eukodal, which is oxycodone, an addictive opioid. Morell writes that Hitler often asks for eupaverin but gets both at the same time.

Sarah Everts, "‘Blitzed’ author explains Nazi Germany’s drug problem: Norman Ohler describes how drug use among German soldiers and Hitler himself affected WWII", C&EN Chemical and Engineering News, Vol. 95, No. 12, p. 26. (March 14, 2017)

In-fact, it's quite impossible that Hitler could've been on meth at the Olympic games, this is because it was actually due to the Olympic games that methamphetamine was synthesised in Germany as a marketable drug in the first place. The German Chemist, Dr. Fritz Hauschild, as Ohler writes, only patented his new synthetization of methamphetamine on the 31st of October, 1937 in the form of a tablet called 'Pervitin':

The head chemist, Dr Fritz Hauschild, had noticed how the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 had been influenced by a substance called Benzedrine, a successful amphetamine from the USA – and still a legal doping product at the time. At Temmler all development resources were now pooled in that direction, since the company was convinced that a performance-enhancing substance was a perfect fit for an age in which everyone was talking about new beginnings. Hauschild turned to the work of Japanese researchers who had synthesized an extremely stimulating molecule called N-methylamphetamine as early as 1887, and crystallized it in its pure form in 1919. The drug was developed out of ephedrine, a natural substance that clears the bronchia, stimulates the heart and inhibits the appetite. In the folk medicine of Europe, America and Asia, ephedrine had been known for a long time as a component of the ephedra plant, and was also used in so-called ‘Mormon tea’.

Hauschild perfected the product and in autumn 1937 he found a new method of synthesizing methamphetamine. A short time later, on 31 October 1937, the Temmler factory patented the first German methylamphetamine, which put American Benzedrine very much in its shadow. Its trademark: Pervitin.

Norman Ohler, Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), pp. 34-35.

In the interview Ohler reiterates:

Methamphetamine was first synthesized in Japan in 1919. Temmler patented a new method for synthesizing it in 1937. Why the company decided to focus on methamphetamine is hard to say. Its chemist, Fritz Hauschild, started to work on it after the 1936 Olympic Games in Munich. Rumors were circulating at the time that the American athletes had doped with Benzedrine or another form of amphetamine, but there’s no documentation proving this to be true. However, the rumors might have been the reason Temmler decided to see if there was a more potent amphetamine to be marketed.

Ohler Interview, op cit., p. 25.

So no, Hitler wasn't, and couldn't have been on meth at the Olympic games. There is no record of him ever taking Pervitin.

On another note, when people say "meth", the automatic assumption is the kind of drug people are familiar with today which is usually ingested through snorting, smoking or injecting. This is not the way products containing methamphetamine were ingested in the late 30s, and 40s during the Second World War. The product itself, as Ohler also notes, was much less harmful than the meth you see these days because it was pure:

Methamphetamine in its pure form is less harmful than the crystal meth produced in often amateurish illegal laboratories, where it is mixed with poisons such as petrol, battery acid or anti-freeze.

Ohler, op cit., p. 2.

Obviously meth in any form isn't going to be good for you, but the sinister implication pushed by myths like these is that drugs were the same back then in content and congestion as they are today. This simply isn't true, nor were they recognised as being as dangerous as they are today.

[Generatedusername8]

No. The video is sped up, Hitler is just excitedly - and perhaps nervously - rocking back and forth. It couldn't be more simple than that.

Hitler never took meth.

In a 2017 interview with Norman Ohler, author of the book Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich which is the standard work on this topic as far as I'm aware, and certainly the most popular he doesn't mention that Hitler ever did meth. However, Hitler was given a drug called Eukodal which contained an opioid called Oxycodon, but this was late into the war, more specifically the first use of the addictive drug was given to Hitler in Summer 1943. From what I gather Eukodal was somewhat common, although Hitler did request it in increasingly higher doses, however he would most often request the non-addictive relaxant 'eupaverin'. Ohler says in response to the question of whether or not Hitler knew he was taking these heavy drugs:

Hitler knew what was going into him. Morell [Hitler's personal physician] wasn’t hiding it. And they would discuss it. But Hitler was so busy, I think he repressed it. For example, he often got a combination shot of eupaverin, a nonaddictive relaxant, and Eukodal, which is oxycodone, an addictive opioid. Morell writes that Hitler often asks for eupaverin but gets both at the same time.

Sarah Everts, "‘Blitzed’ author explains Nazi Germany’s drug problem: Norman Ohler describes how drug use among German soldiers and Hitler himself affected WWII", C&EN Chemical and Engineering News, Vol. 95, No. 12, p. 26. (March 14, 2017)

In-fact, it's quite impossible that Hitler could've been on meth at the Olympic games, this is because it was actually due to the Olympic games that Methamphetamine was synthesised in Germany as a marketable drug in the first place. The German Chemist, Dr. Fritz Hauschild, as Ohler writes, only patented his new synthetization of methamphetamine on the 31st of October, 1937 in the form of a tablet called 'Pervitin':

The head chemist, Dr Fritz Hauschild, had noticed how the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 had been influenced by a substance called Benzedrine, a successful amphetamine from the USA – and still a legal doping product at the time. At Temmler all development resources were now pooled in that direction, since the company was convinced that a performance-enhancing substance was a perfect fit for an age in which everyone was talking about new beginnings. Hauschild turned to the work of Japanese researchers who had synthesized an extremely stimulating molecule called N-methylamphetamine as early as 1887, and crystallized it in its pure form in 1919. The drug was developed out of ephedrine, a natural substance that clears the bronchia, stimulates the heart and inhibits the appetite. In the folk medicine of Europe, America and Asia, ephedrine had been known for a long time as a component of the ephedra plant, and was also used in so-called ‘Mormon tea’.

Hauschild perfected the product and in autumn 1937 he found a new method of synthesizing methamphetamine. A short time later, on 31 October 1937, the Temmler factory patented the first German methylamphetamine, which put American Benzedrine very much in its shadow. Its trademark: Pervitin.

Norman Ohler, Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), pp. 34-35.

In the interview Ohler reiterates:

Methamphetamine was first synthesized in Japan in 1919. Temmler patented a new method for synthesizing it in 1937. Why the company decided to focus on methamphetamine is hard to say. Its chemist, Fritz Hauschild, started to work on it after the 1936 Olympic Games in Munich. Rumors were circulating at the time that the American athletes had doped with Benzedrine or another form of amphetamine, but there’s no documentation proving this to be true. However, the rumors might have been the reason Temmler decided to see if there was a more potent amphetamine to be marketed.

Ohler Interview, op cit., p. 25.

So no, Hitler wasn't, and couldn't have been on meth at the Olympic games. There is no record of him ever taking Pervitin.

On another note, when people say "meth", the automatic assumption is the kind of drug people are familiar with today which is usually ingested through snorting, smoking or injecting. This is not the way products containing methamphetamine were ingested in the late 30s, and 40s during the Second World War. The product itself, as Ohler also notes, was much less harmful than the meth you see these days because it was pure:

Methamphetamine in its pure form is less harmful than the crystal meth produced in often amateurish illegal laboratories, where it is mixed with poisons such as petrol, battery acid or anti-freeze.

Ohler, op cit., p. 2.

Obviously meth in any form isn't going to be good for you, but the sinister implication pushed by myths like these is that drugs were the same back then in content and congestion as they are today. This simply isn't true, nor were they recognised as being as dangerous as they are today.

Thanks for this reply! I don't mean to insist, but is there any evidence that this video has been sped up? For the record this is what i already assumed but cannot prove

[Otium]

Thanks for this reply! I don't mean to insist, but is there any evidence that this video has been sped up? For the record this is what i already assumed but cannot prove

Does it matter? Hitler wasn't on meth.

But just for the sake of argument, how could anyone argue that this footage isn't sped up?

Watch any clips of Leni Riefenstahl's film Olympia (1938) and none of the footage is as fast as that which you have linked. You can even see footage of Hitler in the documentary rocking back and forth at other times, at a much slower pace. For example, see this compilation of Hitler clips (particularly around 2:17-2:19):



And here is the normal footage of the clip you linked which is significantly slower:

[Lamprecht]

Hitler never took meth.

How can we be certain that he never took it? Hitler had serious health problems and was given all sorts of medicines. The opiate you mention has sedative qualities, as they all do. We probably will never know every single thing he took, but in the present day, doctors prescribe drugs with side effects and then prescribe other drugs to counteract those side effects. If Hitler told his doctor that whatever they were giving him was making him sleepy and fatigued during the day, if coffee wasn't doing the trick there's a chance he would have been given low dose methamphetamine.

On another note, when people say "meth", the automatic assumption is the kind of drug people are familiar with today which is usually ingested through snorting, smoking or injecting. This is not the way products containing methamphetamine were ingested in the late 30s, and 40s during the Second World War. The product itself, as Ohler also notes, was much less harmful than the meth you see these days because it was pure:

Methamphetamine in its pure form is less harmful than the crystal meth produced in often amateurish illegal laboratories, where it is mixed with poisons such as petrol, battery acid or anti-freeze.

Ohler, op cit., p. 2.

Obviously meth in any form isn't going to be good for you, but the sinister implication pushed by myths like these is that drugs were the same back then in content and congestion as they are today. This simply isn't true, nor were they recognised as being as dangerous as they are today.

Methamphetamine is available (in the USA at least) OTC in the L-isomer form as a nasal decongestant, and as a prescription drug (brand name: desoxyn) that can be prescribed for for ADD/ADHD (a "fictitious disease"), narcolepsy, obesity, and "excessive daytime sleepiness."

[Moderator]

I also suggest:

'Meth-fueled German / Allied soldiers"
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=11759

Thanks, M1

[Otium]

Hitler never took meth.

How can we be certain that he never took it? Hitler had serious health problems and was given all sorts of medicines. The opiate you mention has sedative qualities, as they all do. We probably will never know every single thing he took, but in the present day, doctors prescribe drugs with side effects and then prescribe other drugs to counteract those side effects. If Hitler told his doctor that whatever they were giving him was making him sleepy and fatigued during the day, if coffee wasn't doing the trick there's a chance he would have been given low dose methamphetamine.

How can we be certain? We can't, but we also cannot be certain about a bunch of things and it's pointless to ponder them without proof. Filling in the gaps with theories that aren't supported by any evidence just isn't productive, particularly when based on the evidence we can make more accurate inferences. If Hitler did take a substance containing methamphetamine even on one or two occasions, it hardly makes much difference because it's a fact that he never took it regularly.

Hitler was a very consistent man, according to Krause he never drank coffee, so that's out. He chose to take more natural relaxants only after the start of the war, and the drugs Morell gave Hitler were in some cases experimental, but no records ever showed that he gave Hitler any type of methamphetamine. Hitler's medical history is well documented, we have Hitler's patient records, Morell's diary and Letters, so if Hitler ever was given anything with methamphetamine it's likely to have been noted somewhere in the records. And as far as I'm aware Pervitin was the only methamphetamine drug on the market, although Ohler does mention that it could be found in things like Chocolate:

Pervitin became a symptom of the developing performance society. Boxed chocolates spiked with methamphetamine were even put on the market. A good 14 milligrams of methamphetamine was included in each individual portion – almost five times the amount in a Pervitin pill. ‘Hildebrand chocolates are always a delight’ was the slogan of this potent confectionery. The recommendation was to eat between three and nine of these, with the indication that they were, unlike caffeine, perfectly safe. The housework would be done in a trice, and this unusual tidbit would even melt the pounds away, since Pervitin, a slimming agent, also curbed the appetite.

Ohler, Blitzed, p. 42.

You could make the claim that because Hitler had a sweet tooth that he may have eaten these chocolates. I guess that's possible, but there's no proof for it, and even in that case it has nothing to do with his latent medical conditions as a result of the latter half of WW2.

Even that Hitler was only given Eukodal in late 1943, and that was his heavy drug of choice makes it very hard to justify the idea that he ever took anything methamphetamine related.

[Lamprecht]

A paper titled "Adolf Hitler's Medical Care" claims that Morell gave Hitler Pervitin:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070927215 ... l_care.pdf

See Appendix 2, although I don't know where this information was derived from.

[Otium]

A paper titled "Adolf Hitler's Medical Care" claims that Morell gave Hitler Pervitin:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070927215 ... l_care.pdf

See Appendix 2, although I don't know where this information was derived from.

The notes section at the end of this paper claims it was based on information from David Irving's book about Morell, but the book in question doesn't support the absolutist statement made in the paper.

The specific claims made in the article that Hitler was given glucose injections (true) and Pervitin (unlikely) when he needed a "boost" is simply not true. Hitler's medical records only mention that he was given glucose injections or Vitamultin, which were vitamins made from "rosehip powder, dried lemon, yeast extract, skimmed milk and refined sugar" that gave him the boost; Irving merely speculates that "Vitamultin-forte" may have contained Pervitin, but there's no evidence for this and Ohler doesn't mention it. Irving writes:

It must be said that Morell’s dossier shows no explicit evidence that he administered Pervitin to Hitler, unless the vitamin shots he christened Vitamultin forte contained this ingredient.

Pervitin (chemical designation 1-Phenyl-2-methylaminopropanehydrochloride) was a substance capable of pharmacologically reproducing the effect of a stimulation of the vegetative sympathetic nervous system. But Pervitin was addictive; moreover, it was found to cause serious permanent damage and in 1941 it was restricted under the German Narcotics Act.

[...]

Morell was familiar with the dangers of Pervitin. He wrote to one patient on December 2, 1944 “You can get Intelan and bars of Vitamultin with the enclosed prescription from the Engel Pharmacy at No. 63 Mohren Strasse 63, Berlin W8. But let me warn you against Pervitin. This does not replace lost energy; it is not a carrot but the stick!”

David Irving, The Secret Diaries of Hitler's Doctor (London: Focal Point Publications, 2005), pp. 20, 21.

Thus it seems doubtful that Morell would've given Hitler Pervitin, and indeed Morell himself denied it:

On May 21 [1945] Miss Tania Long of the New York Times interviewed Morell. She later recalled that he was obviously a frightened man. “At first his eyes darted about the room like those of a cornered animal, and he explained later that he knew ‘they’ – the Gestapo, the SS and Heinrich Himmler – were out to get him.”

Morell related bitterly the angry final parting one month earlier in the Berlin bunker. Hitler had refused one last injection. “I do not need drugs in order to see me through,” he had snapped at Morell, dismissing him.

Miss Long inquired if Morell had ever given Hitler Pervitin – the amphetamine narcotic which lay behind the suicide of Ernst Udet and many another human tragedy.

Morell denied it. He seemed coherent, recounting examples of Hitler’s tremors and the onset of coronary sclerosis, episodes which are now substantiated by the diary entries.

Ibid., p. 223.

Ohler only mentions Hitler requesting Pervitin once on December 19, 1944. He writes "Both the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS were knocked back amid great losses. On 19 December 1944 Hitler ate spinach soup and then ordered liver and Pervitin, requested because of current excess of work’. So he was now taking methamphetamine as well" but other than this one occasion, nothing. Of course it's possible that in rare exceptions like this one Hitler took it, but it wasn't a staple of his medical treatments.