Amphetamine use in the German army

Then it's reasonable to ask - why didn't they ? I can't recall seeing many photos of engineers knocking down river banks in the NW Europe campaign.

No - don't tell me - they were sleeping off the drugs........

 

Here it is......



No Jagdpanthers were used in this sector of the Ardennes fighting ; it is in fact a Jagdpanzer IV/70 of Otto Holst.

It's interesting about the panzer drivers on the Eastern Front running for days on nothing but Pervitin, water and chocolate. What is the source for this ?

 

It is in fact a Jagdpanther of Kampfgruppe Hansen which collapsed a bridge over the Ambleve at Petit Spai (near Trois Pont) in an attempt to reach KG Peiper. Hstuf. Otto Holz was the commander of the company (SS-PZ.Jg.Abt 1), which was part of KG Hansen.

They didn't bother knocking down the banks because the river was too deep, as the photo indicates.

 

Here's a passage from the Oxford Journals, Social History of Medicine.

The article goes on to state that there was no "top down" push from Berlin to issue Pervitin or its competing methamphetamine Isophan, but just notes that the drug was cheap and widely available to the military as well as the industrial world. It was distributed at the discretion of the individual commands when required. It just seems to me that Wacht Am Rhein might have been such an occasion. They knew in advance that the advance would be a desperate affair, and they also knew it was the last chance to turn the war around. Why not issue Pervitin?

 

I came across another reference this morning. Gerd Schmuckle, 7th Panzer Division, at Kursk 1943 (quoted in Citadel: The Battle of Kursk by Robin Cross):

"I could not sleep. During the attack I had taken too much Pervitin. We had all been dependent on it for a long time. Everyone swallowed the stuff, more frequently and in greater doses. The pills seemed to remove the sense of agitation. I slid into a world of bright indifference. Danger lost its edge. One's own power seemed to increase. After the battle one hovered in a strange state of intoxication in which a deep need for sleep fought with a clear alertness."

 

The amount of Pervitin usage is hard to determine as most troops seems to consider it so natural that it's not worthy of notice, side references like the one above are rather common in diaries. One research direction I never saw is looking at manufacturer's production figures, civilian usage was pretty limited. The Germans are compulsive record keepers and that data may have survived and may shed light to whether "nazi zombies on drugs" is actually closer to historical truth than we think, any ideas on how to track that down?.

 

I wish I knew. If I remember correctly, they made 35 million doses of Pervitin in one year (40 or 41?), and there were competing German drugs like Isophan and similar drugs made in Czechoslovakia and other countries. I suspect the use wasn't really that widespread except in designated campaigns where they knew in advance that sleep would be limited - Kursk is mentioned above, and why not the Ardennes where they knew success would be wholly dependent on pushing through in one long movement.

 

Well, it looks as though I shall have to back-pedal here...... :cycle:

At the weekend, I came across my own copy of Westemeir's peiper biography and, as referred to by KB, noted the Pervitin reference in the copious notes to the book.

This certainly seems to be an area for further research ; I had (mistakenly ) considered Pervitin to be just the equivalent of the Allies' 'wakey-wakey' pills but it seems to have been a much more potent ( and maybe, more harmful ) drug. I find it an odd reference that Westemeier comments on German veterans' extreme reluctance to admit to its use ; certainly, British Bomber Command veterans I've spoken with make no attempt to deny the issue and use of 'wake up' pills and in fact treat it as something of a joke ; most of them seem to have tried them once and then thrown them away.

I see there has been one book published on the subject ( 'Nazis On Speed' ) but - despite the title - it's only available in German !

I still remain unconvinced that Pervitin was the only reason for the Leibstandarte rushing the Ambleve at Stavelot ; elite troops on all sides basically did what they were ordered to do. But it may have been a factor.

Anyhow, this thread has certainly opened my eyes on the subject, and I'd be keen to find out more.

So - apologies to KodiakBeer for dismissing his theory out-of-hand ! :i_surrender:

 

Pervitin was a stimulant to keep men going, but the bad thing was that it can keep you going for a day or two but after that it´s total shutdown. So going for days simply is not possible with pervitin. Also you were not capable of total concentration during its effect but it kept you awake.

It seems the Germans called Pervitin Weck-Amin, wake up Amin? I found a Finnish site claiming that in Germany Pervitin was noticed causing hallucinations and sleeplessness to soldiers and the amount given to troops was lowered starting June 1941.

After the war Pervitin consisted of coffein and aspirin, not metamfetamin.

Seems to me coffeine tablets can give you the same amount of time to stay awake and not lose so much the ability to do things that need concentration. Maybe pervitin in war was better in making you have big thoughts and fearlesness...

Just some of my thoughts on the subject

 

No apology required! Discussion and debate are what forums are for.

I agree that it is unlikely that Pervitin was the primary cause of the behavior, for all the reasons already put forth. I think though, that it may well have been a contributing factor just because so much of the documented actions mirror the behavior of methamphetamine users.

 

Using Kai's Weck-amin term I found some more references. Somewhere (earlier) I had come across something about "pervitin and chocolate" used by panzer crews. The German link below says that one of the nicknames for pervitin was "Panzer chocolate" which (I think) may have been because it came in a little tube that resembled some chocolate candy of the period. So, this whole pervitin & chocolate thing may be a mistranslation.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.20min.ch/wissen/history/story/29186344&prev=/search%3Fq%3DWeck-Amin%2Bpervitin%2Bpeiper%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DFFW%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-USfficial%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D644

 

Some new info perhaps...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/the-nazi-death-machine-hitler-s-drugged-soldiers-a-354606.html

Leonardo Conti, the German Reich's minister of health and an adherent of Adolf Hitler's belief in asceticism, attempted to restrict the use of the pill, but was only moderately successful, at least when it came to the Wehrmacht. Although Pervitin was classified as a restricted substance on July 1, 1941, under the Opium Law, ten million tablets were shipped to troops that same year.

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Then again I would not be surprised that the troops would mix pills and alcohol and that definitely will make you go crazy if the pills alone didn´t.

 

Check the poster at the end of the site below.

http://www.rickjoshua.com/two-in-two-days

Somebody seen the poster before?

 

The success of the German operations against France depended on a rapid advance through the Ardennes, which were impassable for large military forces. Undetected by the French Enlightenment, the first German armored units reached Sedan in just 57 . Around 41 000 vehicles of the Wehrmacht crossed the narrow and winding valleys of the Ardennes in a very short time in day and night marches. Pervitin helped the drivers to stay awake, a tool for overcoming the sleep…
In the course of the war Pervitin played a significant role especially in the stressful long distance inserts the Navy and the Air Force.

Even the Allies were used amphetamines- in the American and British forces were used Benzedrin and in the French an amphetamine called Maxiton. 200 million tablets of amphetamines are detectable for the duration of World War II in the U.S. armed forces.

Amphetamine still been used by different forces around the world – the US forces used amphetamines for example during the gulf war I and II …

After the founding of the Bundeswehr 1955 and the National forces of the German democratic public (GDR) Pervitin was placed on both sides of the "Iron Curtain" in the event that the Cold War should be a real war. The army of Western Germany destroyed their stocks in the late 1970s.

 

Haha!

 

Considering that your relatively modern pseudo-propaganda poster is referring to this shameful incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarnak_Farm_incident

I'm not laughing, and I doubt our Canadian members will either.

 

If you work at it hard enough, you can always find something to get offended about.

 

As you probably know my main ininterests are naval, thought dabble in all aspects of WW2, there are two episodes where I suspect anphetamine may be involved but never found any evidence.
1 - Langsdorff's (the captain of the KMS Graf Von Spee) suicide
2 - The bad gunnery performance of KMS Bismark during her final battle
Both could be just accumulated stress and fatigue but if anphetamines were used it would have been a big contribution to what happened.

 

Details?

 

Surely Bismarck's poor gunnery performance was down to the fact she was not a great gun platform in heavy seas and she was disabled, steering on engines against an enemy who could pick the best shots. Rodney was pretty accurate and closed range very quickly to improve her odds even more.