Hello friends, this is the JLS Fund podcast hosted at Patreon, The Last Alchemist. Visit Patreon to see early versions of our intriguing guests. And today we have arguably the most intriguing guest with tremendous stories and a personal friend, Norman Ohler, author of Blitz about methamphetamine use among the Nazis and this year's trip involving LSD in wartime Germany. And so it's a great privilege to speak with Norman today and his most popular work. Norman's been interviewed by Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman. He's spoken across the United States. He's extraordinarily popular. His Instagram is enormous. Please meet Norman.
Hello, Leonard. I'm so happy that you invited me on your spectacular podcast, which I love very much, and I'm very happy that we spend some time together. Greetings from Berlin.
Well, greetings from Santa Fe and greetings to our audience. We're going to have some fun today and goodness, I have 20 questions. You asked in our format. The first 10 are serious. The second 10 are anything goes wild and wicked and unanticipated by Norman. So this is unscripted. So we will take off and have some fun. So Norman, your book Blitz examines how stimulants like methamphetamine were systematically used in the German military. Were you surprised in your archival research about how drugs influenced at the higher levels even strategic decisions?
Well, I must say I was quite surprised because one of the Nazis' ideologies was to create a drug-free society and they were actually the first very strict anti-drug government in Europe and together with the United States around at the same time kind of invented the war on drugs, even though it wasn't called war on drugs back in the days, but they already coined a term which is Rauschgift, which is one word in German because we have such long words, we put everything in one word. So Rauschgiftkampf means the fight against intoxicating poisons. So that was big on their agenda.
And that was still, you know, kind of when I grew up and we were taught all the things about the Nazi regime, all the atrocities and, you know, all the stuff that happened. We were also in a way taught that they were kind of law and order people or at least like some, like my grandfather was still like defending them. He told me that at least under the Nazis everything was in order, everything was clean, disciplined. So that's like the opposite of like a regime going crazy on drugs. Maybe it's not, you know, because as we know by now, you know, fascism, a big part of fascism is also drug control because drug control means control of the minds. So the Nazis were not really in a way against drugs, but they were certainly for keeping, you know, control of who uses what. So in a way it's not surprising that they actually abused or used methamphetamine on a grand scale, but still it was surprising obviously because no one had really written about it.
A lot of stuff that I found in the archives had never been looked at before. So the research for the book Blitz was kind of what people experience when they read the book, because like from one page to the next you stumble into new crazy facts that make a lot of sense in a way because I think understanding the role of addictive stimulants like methamphetamine, they make a lot of sense for a fascist regime with an aggressive army invading other countries. So in a way it's surprising and not surprising at the same time. Like you read the story of the so-called Third Reich in a new way, but it's still the same story. You just get a much more precise view on what was going on and you understand it better. So for me that was very illuminating while I did the research and I think that kind of transcends to the readers too.
Thank you, Norman. So going back to your Lex Fridman interview, you talk about, dare I say it, Adolf Hitler and his extensive use of opioids and other substances. How do you think Hitler's drug use altered his decision making? Specific military decisions to his altered state.
We're quite lucky that his doctor kept a very extensive record of his healing sessions with Hitler or drug sessions, however you want to call them. Basically, he was doing something with Hitler every day and he writes it down. But he not only writes down what drugs he gave, he also writes down like what happened on that day in terms of military development or before the war, you know, otherwise Hitler's mood or Hitler, you know, the stuff Hitler had to do that day. And that would always correspond, like the drugs he was taking for that day would always correspond to his tasks. So it's really very detailed and there's developments that are quite obvious. The drug use got more intense as the war went on, especially as the war developed in a bad way for the German military. Hitler's drugs go up.
We can see for example that Hitler's basic ideology has nothing to do with drugs. He formed that ideology already in the 20s when he wrote Mein Kampf, my struggle, which is basically the racist textbook that the Nazi movement then based itself on. And that had nothing to do with drugs. So Hitler wasn't like a nice person and he took bad drugs and he became like a racist. He was the racism, the ideology, the aggressiveness, the fear of the other. I could not see that this comes from drugs. So also I think that means that his responsibility for his actions is not lessened because he was like a drug user.
So the drugs really play an important part in his life. After 1941, when the first problems arise on the battlefield with the Soviet Union, he tries to basically stay in a good mood. He was depressed quite a bit or insecure, like meeting 30 highly intelligent Wehrmacht generals in a military briefing room and they all kind of have their opinion how the war should be fought. But he being the leader who claims that he knows everything better, like he also had to appear like this kind of person in the room the whole time, which was quite stressful. So he would use, weirdly enough, opioids quite a bit to have that presence in the room.
And apparently there are opioids like Eukodal, which was a German product at the time which now is called OxyContin. But it's a little bit different because it doesn't have a time-release factor in it, the Eukodal, and Morell injected it into his vein. So the effect is very quick and very strong and quite euphoric. So Hitler would use that to act like the Führer in the room and to be able to keep his charisma and convince generals even if his decisions were ridiculous. Like they would say it's not going to work like this. But Hitler was so convincing and also he had the power so he could just push it through. So he used basically drugs later in the war to keep his tunnel vision and not really look at reality. He was not really soberly trying to assess the situation and then come to rational conclusions how the German army or the military should behave. He just kept himself in this kind of superhuman, illusionary state where he would know everything better and of course the Germans are stronger than the rest of the world and would win. So he used kind of drugs to flee the world in a way, to not look at the world, to stay in his own chemical bunker.
And do you know the drug that was used to kill his dog in the bunker as the experiment? The final drug he took?
Well, the final drug what I read was cyanide. And he passed it out in the bunker to some of his highest-ranking colleagues. It was like an honor to receive the cyanide from the Führer himself. And he said apparently that he was sorry that this is the last thing he can give to them. And then they committed suicide in the bunker. Not all of them, but Hitler was not the only one committing suicide. And actually there was a book written about the last days of the Third Reich when like thousands of people, officers all over the country, shot themselves in the head to kind of follow. Elderly couples on park benches and entire families dead as well.
Life without National Socialism is unthinkable for them. Intense days. My uncles were with Patton in World War II and among the first to enter the death camps. So I grew up with stories of all this and thank you, Norman. And so in Tripped you cover the darker side of the psychedelic era of the early CIA experiments including MK Ultra. How do you assess the ethical legacy of that era? MK Ultra for neuroscience, for policy. How has that played out after the Church Committee in the 70s shut everything down in the US? How has that now changed? What do you see?
Well, I mean, I was interested in the early beginnings of MK Ultra, like where does it come from? Because I had read SS reports from the concentration camp of Dachau using ergotamine and another tasteless and odorless potent hallucinogenic drug which I kind of assumed was LSD because those experiments were done after 43, like in 44 mostly. And Richard Kuhn, the leading Nazi biochemist, I found out in my research was best friends with the CEO of Sandoz where Albert Hofmann and the chemist worked and discovered LSD. And I found letters between the two discussing their ergot research at Sandoz and then also Kuhn thanking Stoll, the Swiss CEO, for receiving ergotamine.
And I think I asked you this question once in a... Stoll, thanking Stoll himself. Yeah, thank you. The pharmacology section of Sandoz, one of the first people to take LSD. My goodness.
Well, I mean, Kuhn received ergotamine, half a gram, in October 1943. So I'm asking an expert, what would Kuhn do with ergotamine? And then later on in 44, they're using an odorless, tasteless substance in the concentration camp of Dachau to refine their interrogation techniques. It seems to me that Kuhn was probably making LSD from ergotamine. Or I mean, I'm surprised. Why didn't Stoll send LSD proper? Why would he send ergotamine? Is there any reason for this?
Well, he could have used ergotamine as an abortifacient to attempt to induce abortions, uterine contractions in women, frankly, as part of his torturous medical regimes or just experimenting with what its properties can do, gangrene, what have you. All terrible. But your thesis that he may have synthesized a small quantity of LSD from that very small quantity of ergotamine is not unreasonable, especially with the odorless, tasteless material later appeared in the camps. That's extremely intriguing. And of course half a gram, half a gram is not that much. Well, synthesizing from a half gram, you would have perhaps 150 milligrams at most of LSD that requires like micro glassware, very small amounts of glassware and chemicals. It's certainly doable. I probably would agree that ergotamine was used to manufacture LSD. Yes.
So in any case when the Americans liberate Dachau, they find these reports and then the American military had a special unit called ALSOS attached to it and also was responsible for investigating German scientists. So what they did was they interrogated Kuhn in Heidelberg when American forces occupied Heidelberg and Kuhn was not reluctant to talk about LSD and that LSD was part of his search for the truth drug which was the goal of the Nazis to find that ominous truth drug and that actually got the US military interested in LSD. They had obviously never heard about it before. So Kuhn's experiments were the underpinning of MK Ultra's use of LSD for interrogations.
That's a fabulous insight arising from US agencies interrogating Kuhn in Heidelberg. You know, I had the pleasure of meeting Albert Hofmann in Heidelberg in '96 and he was in the same conference but I didn't meet you.
Oh, well the European Conference on Consciousness.
Yes. Yes. Albert was there and oh goodness, Sasha and David Nichols and we left the university and later that night at 3 in the morning there was Albert in his gray suit in his 90s speaking to like hundreds of purple-haired German youth in German about LSD and they were very attentive. It was lovely to meet Albert. He sent me a copy of his book which was seized by American authorities and you know...
Well, his book about Problem Child. So, Norman, the original working title for your book Tripped was LSD for Mama, right? And it reflects your interest in psychedelics for Alzheimer's.
Yeah. I mean, while I was researching the early history of LSD, trying to figure out that Nazi connection, I also looked a bit into current LSD research and I received and read a white paper from the American company, which doesn't exist anymore I believe, by Schlomi Raz and some other people working there, quite active in the startup biotech area.
Yeah. Yeah, I know. I met Schlomi the other day in New York.
And well, I didn't know him at the time obviously, but I read in the paper that small dosages of LSD could be helpful against Alzheimer's. And since my mother is suffering from that terrible disease, I discussed it with her as far as she could understand and also with my father who took care of her at the time. And that kind of led my father, who had been a judge actually before in Germany, a state court judge. So not really a drug person as he would say. He said I'm a man of the law, but still he became interested and he asked me if LSD is helpful against Alzheimer's, why can't he buy it in the pharmacy? Why is it illegal? A lot of whys actually. And that set me on my journey to really research the story of LSD. And so in the end I come back to him with the story which now is laid out in Tripped: what is LSD, how was it developed, why didn't it become a medicine, what went wrong. Basically I come back to my family with the story and then my parents decide to use LSD in microdoses and the Alzheimer's got better.
It didn't vanish because I think my mother started too late. But it certainly helped her and whenever she took LSD, which she doesn't do anymore unfortunately I would say, but that's my father's decision. But when she still took it, she would always have a cognitively enhanced experience, like speak much better to us, be more present in the room, be happier. And this lasted for five, six hours. So really her brain, it was like her brain was barren earth and suddenly there was a bit of rain, you know, and then things were happening.
Great analogy. Lovely enough. A gentle rain.
That's why I wanted to call the book LSD for Mama, but then I got sidetracked by my German publisher. He didn't like the title. I think it's a great title. So I hope when we publish the paperback in Germany, we're going to rename the book. Let's see.
Yes. Well, I have the privilege of having an actual copy in German of LSD für Mama sent early on by Norman.
Well, I mean you were quite helpful. And I also want to mention before we forget it, the way we connected because I just wrote to you out of the blue and you probably wouldn't have responded because you still couldn't respond at the time as you liked, but you had read Blitz a few years ago and...
In prison it was very popular among the Nazi youth with tattoos of Hitler and so forth on their bodies. So, was that in the library of the prison or how did you get your hands on it? Circulated carefully among the men, right? Library book, but it didn't last long in there, but the neo-Nazis were very fond of it. I thought maybe they'd hate it because it kind of says that Nazis were only so strong on the battlefield because they used meth.
Well, goodness. No, but you were also very... extraordinary characters. Some had entire red swastikas tattooed on their skulls, quite large swastikas. They were also 88, which was a symbol of Nazism and what have you, or Hitler's birthday tattooed on their bodies. So very strongly... Well, I mean my book is an anti-fascist work, you know, so it really kind of unmasks the fascists. So I'm a bit surprised that they would like it, but maybe they're just interested also in the history.
It was the covert nature of the work. Any books on Nazism are forbidden in the federal system, but this somehow survived and was... Oh, right. And hand to hand... and one fell into my hands and I read it with great glee. And which brings up a question: how do you see the relationship between war and trauma and drug innovation historically today, like wartime stimulant research versus modern useful drugs? I mean many historians have overlooked the drug angle in World War II, right?
I mean, drugs, the word drugs is kind of a bad word because it means so many different substances. Some substances cause harm, even cause trauma. I guess if you were fighting on meth on the Eastern Front, you'd certainly have a traumatic experience. While other substances actually heal trauma, like ibogaine, which I did this summer for the first time. So I mean it was interesting mentioning ibogaine, I just want to go into it for a second. I did it with four special forces US Army vets, Green Berets, who had also in the battlefield used drugs in Afghanistan, in Iraq, uppers mostly, and then sleeping pills to fall asleep at night. So that created traumatic experiences for them which they then years later tried to cure and actually successfully cured with ibogaine. I don't know if that's an answer to your question. I kind of didn't understand it.
That's close enough. In terms of just mention, we're seeing ibogaine used in Ukraine. We have verified accounts of microdosing among Ukrainian troops. They seem to find it not only useful for wakefulness also... microdose ibogaine in Ukraine. And we're seeing amounts of ibogaine going into Ukrainian troops. This is valid. They're using it for remaining motionless for long periods, for wakefulness. It also seems to improve their visual acuity. They can see tanks that are hidden by their camouflage, if you will, in the trees. They seem to have a greater visual acuity. So quite a bit of it actually is going on there, but... Okay. So what barriers, cultural or institutional barriers did you experience while you were trying to do this work? I mean, you're digging into very sensitive areas long ago, right?
Well, I had a very good... informant is the wrong word... person in the German military who told me a lot of things because the current German army has a historical research department and this one officer knew a lot obviously about World War II and the Wehrmacht, even though the Wehrmacht and the current German army are not the same military body. Wehrmacht was outlawed after the war. So the current German army, but still people research it and he gave me a lot of information. Then when he read Blitz he wrote me that he doesn't want to speak to me again because I made it seem like the German Wehrmacht was only so powerful because they used amphetamines and he was like they were also very powerful because they were just very good soldiers. So his pride was kind of hurt, which I thought was weird because I never thought that a current contemporary German soldier would still feel the connection to the Wehrmacht because they're such different organizations, but maybe they're not, you know, it's just the army of Germany. Also the Wehrmacht was not a Nazi organization from the start. You know, it was just the German army which obviously got under the influence of the Nazi party once they took power and infiltrated the army with their people. But that was kind of the only negative reaction I got. Most people were just stunned by the research and happy to read a more precise account of World War II.
Well, thank you for giving us that, Norman. You've written a history that is unrecorded elsewhere and you've done research and revealed issues that were unknown. I recall when first reading your manuscript, I was concerned about the public response to some of your discoveries linking the Nazis to early LSD development. But it seems to have gone well. Your work is very, very popular, which brings the next question. So given your deep dive into psychoactive substances that shaped the 20th century geopolitics, what do you think the next frontier is? Psychedelics or neuroenhancement or AI-driven biohacking or something else? Where's it going?
I think ibogaine is the future. I think once we overcome the nation states and create a planetary society which will be powered by AI, otherwise I think AI can help us to organize a lot, but it needs to be an open-source AI, not an AI that belongs to a company or a government or an individual. So once we've reached that planetary stage, I think we certainly will need, or it certainly would be helpful for us as a species to work through the incredible trauma that has already occurred and will occur until we've reached that next phase of civilization because the nation states will not give up their power easily. There will be a lot of horrible things that I would imagine will happen in the next few decades until we've overcome that hierarchical system that we're all suffering from now, except if you're a billionaire. So I think we will need as a species access to psychedelics on a planetary scale and planetary rituals, rituals everywhere, ritual centers everywhere. And I think ibogaine will play quite a big role because to me it seems to be the most powerful psychedelic substance there is.
So I think we actually don't need that much as human beings on this planet. We have a functioning ecosystem still. Stuff is growing. We're happy in small groups. We're quite loving and lovable creatures. Just the modern system, the capitalist with a big C system, has gotten completely out of hand. And so I would imagine actually we need kindness. We need communication from one person to the next person. We don't need so much biohacking. I think we're happy with the plants and with the mushrooms we have and with the climate we still have. And so I think we need less, you know. I see it in my own life. I want less and less, you know, the older I get. I just want to relax and I want to enjoy simple things. And I would hope that we as a species kind of move towards that and kind of calm down from this capitalist modernist madness of making more and more and creating this and that. That's kind of what I would hope, that we kind of simplify and stop the violence especially.
Oh, I'll try to adopt that in my later years as a retirement plan. Thanks.
Yeah, I think it's great. I think you live in a great place. You should enjoy the sunrise and the sunset. Be nice to your fellow human beings. I mean, that's what we should all do.
Just for our audience, Norman has visited here for extended periods and we've taken long rides in the desert and long walks and... Mexico. Cool. You sound... Yeah. Come on down, folks. We'll entertain. Well, in Berlin... yeah, Berlin is too ugly and too much too civilized. It's not really natural enough, but it's okay for a city. It's okay. And good night scenes, good EDM. No more Love Parade, though. Again, you've discussed how creative figures like artists and writers use stimulants. What role do you think psychedelic substances have played in shaping culture or shaping conflict?
Well, I think without psychedelic substances we wouldn't even be here, like we would not exist at this moment. I think they created the frontal cortex and they helped us create culture. And I think Eleusis in Greece is just like an end step of a long development of shamanistic usage of plants and fungi, fungi which kept our brains busy, let our brains develop. So I think we are completely inseparable from these alkaloids and also our culture is inseparable. I think that's actually what probably even made us have an edge over the Neanderthals, which apparently did not develop a drug culture. I think the forest they got was using... I think there's some speculation they used ephedra, but I guess mostly they were making chamomile tea. So that's... I think that's why I call my new book Stoned Sapiens. I think we human beings are creatures of the drug and the drug requires a ritual and the ritual creates culture.
The ritual then also, and drug culture also then creates unfortunately hierarchies because then there's people who control the drugs. So the drugs kind of propel us forward but they don't necessarily turn us into, you know, they don't create a good, positive society. They also create a lot of bad because they are so powerful that it kind of leads to abuse and control by authorities. But basically our history is, you cannot tell human history without telling it from a drug angle. That's what I'm doing in my next book, Stoned Sapiens. So it's going to be basically the first world history ever written because so far the world histories have not taken this into account and kind of fall flat in a way.
Well, I love your thought, the argument thought for how many years now and I look forward to maybe a pre-print or a draft of... Sure. Yes. Your next... Yeah. First I'll have to finish it. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe when I'm first to read it. Thank you. Oh, this...
Also I want to mention this before I forget. I created a Substack called the Stoned Sapiens Substack and in that Substack you can also see the progress of the book and I publish stuff before it gets into the book or outtakes. So I would invite everyone interested in that topic to have a look at the Stoned Sapiens Substack.
Dear audience, go to Stoned Sapiens Substack of Norman Ohler for early tidbits and early sections and you can argue back and forth with Norman on that. What? So this is our last question for the serious ones.
We'll get into the funny ones a few minutes more. So, looking back at the Nazi regime's use of drugs for operations and upon humans, what do you consider the takeaway from all this work, or the cautionary lesson for us in the present age of chemical-digital warfare convergence?
Well, I think we have to be very skeptical in regards to the nation-states, to governments who kind of claim they have authority because we vote once in a while. So now they have legitimacy to kind of rule over us. And basically, I think we have to get rid of them. And just one symptom of how corrupt they is their, you know, incredible — I don't know if audacity is the right word — but like controlling what we as human beings put into our system without knowing, or they don't even know. The government doesn't even know what it is. Like labeling substances, putting them under Schedule One with no medicinal use, even though that's obviously not true for quite a few substances that are in that group. I think that's just totally ridiculous. And the Nazis just took it, you know, quite far, combining the drug control that they issued with the concentration camp system and with, you know, waging war against the whole world. But it's still kind of going on. You know, the capitalist systems that we live in right now, they all have fascist tendencies and they are still connected with the prohibitionist policies and thousands of people behind bars for drugs.
I can hardly imagine that. Norman, and now for the funny ones. Yes. So Hitler was using Pervitin, kind of a meth analog, and Eukodal. Is that how you say it? Eukodal, opio.
Well, Hitler was using — Hitler is quite funny actually, even though he's the most horrible person that ever lived. But the amount of drugs that he consumed is incredible.
Well, that's the question. So we assume he has a morning routine where he got up and did a little Pervitin backed by Eukodal or what have you and went on his rampages. But if you had to suggest a morning routine to Hitler to replace his 1940s cocktail with something cool today, what would you humorously but seriously prescribe? Here, Adolf, try this. What would that be?
I actually stopped cannabis a while ago, actually after I took my ibogaine, but I think weed would be kind of a helpful drug for fascists because it does, you know, calm you down a bit and kind of makes you relax. So I think weed wouldn't be too bad. But what really surprised me in the early 90s when the techno scene started was that kind of skinheads, kind of Nazi guys from East Berlin would go into the techno clubs and would take ecstasy and suddenly they became like the friendliest people you've ever met. And because finally they realized, I don't have to be an asshole the whole time. I can actually dance and have a good time. So maybe MDMA would be good for Hitler. Certainly kind of these drugs, cannabis, MDMA. Not so sure about psychedelics because psychedelics can also reinforce like a paranoic system. Probably MDMA would be good in the morning.
