Speed in the Third Reich

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Speed in the Third Reich: Metamphetamine(Pervitin) Use and a Drug History From Below

Stephen Snelders* and Toine Pieters

Summary. This article is an analysis of the use of Pervitin (metamphetamine) in National SocialistGermany after the introduction of the drug in 1938. Whereas earlier studies have focused on the

supply of the drug, this study focuses on demand. Both an iatrogenic and a Nazigenic interpretation

of the history of metamphetamine use are reviewed. It is concluded that the use of Pervitin in the

Third Reich was not only pushed on the population by the Nazi political and military authorities,

but also became endemic in German society as it addressed the needs and problems of various

users including employees, housewives, and soldiers. The drug was a cultural ambiguity of life inNazi Germany, integrated in everyday life, notwithstanding its regulation by drug laws.

Keywords: psychotropic drugs; amphetamine; Pervitin; National Socialist Germany; psychiatry

All societies have unique patterns of psychoactive substance use and consumption, which

are essential elements of everyday life. People use substances for various purposes: for

health care, improved work performance, recreation, as a form of rebellion in countercul-

tural movements, or if only to get through the day. Novel use of an existing drug only

replaces or adds to the current drug use pattern in peoples everyday life.

The sensational drug epidemics of the 1960s did not occur in a vacuum. Throughouthistory, the widespread use of amphetamines and barbiturates (uppers and downers) in

all levels of society in countries such as the United States, Sweden and Japan have been

documented. Historians have even spoken of an amphetamine epidemic, and Charles

O. Jackson has described the United States in the 1950s as the Amphetamine Democ-

racy.1 It would be accurate to say that the use of amphetamines was endemic in these

societies during the 1950s. Concerns over the use of amphetamines certainly existed at

the time, but never reached the moral panic that characterised public debate and policies

around psychotropic drug use since the 1960s. We suggest that one reason was the very

endemic nature of amphetamine use. Apart from socially undesirable side-effects, such asaddiction and use by motorcycle gangs and youth culture, amphetamines did not threaten

general social order. One can even argue that amphetamine use, in most cases, actually

*Rustenburgerstraat 14111, Amsterdam 1073 EX, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected] Medical CenterMetamedica, PO Box 7057, Amsterdam 1007 MB, The Netherlands. E-mail:

[email protected]

Stephen Snelders, independent historian and researcher based in Amsterdam, and Toine Pieters, VU-University

Medical Center, Department of Metamedica/Medical Humanities, Amsterdam, and Utrecht University, Utrecht Insti-

tute for Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS), Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Pharmacology, have a

research programme into the production, promotion and consumption of psychoactive drugs in medical and

public spheres. They have published articles and books for the scientific and the general public.

The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine.

All rights reserved. doi:10.1093/shm/hkq101Advance Access published 19 February 2011

1Jackson 1976; Courtwright 2002, pp. 7884;

Davenport-Hines 2004, pp. 2419; Rasmussen

2008a, 2008b; Nouvel 2009.

Social History of Medicine Vol. 24, No. 3 pp. 686699

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supported the fabric of social life. In this respect, the 1940s and 1950s were the Sixties in

reverse, because in the 1960s drug use seemed to threaten the social structure.

This was not only the case in democratic countries such as the USA and Sweden. With

some overstatement, an analogy to the title Amphetamine Democracy can be made to

describe National Socialist Germany from 1938 forward as a Metamphetamine Dictator-

ship. German pharmaceutical companies produced their own and stronger versions of

amphetamines as compared to the USA. Foremost was the drug Pervitin and despite

legal regulation, this German metamphetamine maintained its place in everyday life, as

a part of everyday life, including health care and the war effort. Historians have documen-

ted the use of Pervitin in the Third Reich as part of the Nazi effort to regiment, control and

direct the German population. However, it is paradoxical that at the same time they have

noted that the Nazi regime claimed to have a tough anti-drug policy in general.2 Analo-

gous to descriptions of the American amphetamine epidemic as iatrogenic, we can say

that historians have seen the German metamphetamine epidemic as Nazigenic.

We will question this view and present evidence for the role of the demand side (as

opposed to the supply side) in the dynamics of metamphetamine consumption, similar to

the present tendency to transcend simple dichotomies between perpetrators and victims

in the historiography of Nazi Germany. People everywhere use drugs and adopt drug use

for their own ends, not just because they are pushed to do so by dope dealers, pharma-

ceutical companies, doctors, or military and political authorities. To understand drug use

and modification we have to understand this pull-side. To analyse the flow of drugs

through a particular society as a top-down process is to ignore the reasons for demand.

To quote a recent history of the prescription drug meprobamate (Miltown) in the 1950s:

to view the diffusion of [these drugs] as a top-down process turns patients into

pawns and occludes instances of patient influence and negotiation it would be

misleading to ignore patients involvement for, from the very beginning, they were

the drugs greatest enthusiasts.3

In this article, we argue that even in a so-called totalitarian society such as Nazi Germany,

the demand side played a role of its own. To draw attention to bottom-up processes as

opposed to top-down processes, we present Pervitin use in the Third Reich as a case

study of the appropriation of a new drug for various purposes. In the bottom-upprocess, the boundaries between medical use and public use became flexible and

blurred. In our view, it is exactly this redirection of a drug for a variety of social purposes

that accounts for the endemic character of psychoactive drug use. At this level of analysis

the differences between drug policies under democracy and dictatorship also tend to blur.

The Introduction of PervitinThe successful introduction of amphetamine (Benzedrin) into the US market in 1933

stimulated German pharmaceutical companies, including Bayer and Merck, to develop

their own stimulants or Weckaminen (the generic name for ephedrine-derived drugs).The commercial production of home-grown drugs would make Germany independent

2Roth in Kudlien (ed.) 1985; Mach 2002; Pieper (ed.)

n.d.; Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007.

3Tone in Tone and Watkins (eds) 2007, pp. 1635.

Metamphetamine Use in the Third Reich 687

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from foreign imports, while at the same time producing medicaments for the war

machine.4 It has been suggested that German companies, doctors and physiologists

were specifically interested in Weckaminen for reasons that went beyond medical pur-

poses, such as the treatment of depression, apathy and psychopathic syndromes. They

were interested in drugs that could be used as stimulants at work, in factories and

offices. One author has even linked the development of Pervitin with the decrease of

work discipline and productivity in 1937 and 1938.5 Whether this connection can be

made is uncertain, but German researchers investigated the effects of Pervitin on pro-

ductivity in manufacturing and the military beginning in 1938 when the Temmler

company in Berlin introduced 1-Phenyl-2-methylamino-propan in tablet form under the

name Pervitin. Pervitin, or metamphetamine, was chemically related (but not identical)

to amphetamine. On 26 November 1938 the Klinische Wochenschrift listed the drug

under the heading New Specialities and stated that its use was an oral stimulant for cir-

culation and the mind (Oral als Kreislauf- und psychischer Stimulans).6

Earlier in the year, the journal had published the first research reports on Pervitin.

As usual, these reports heralded a phase of high expectations and enthusiasm for the

introduction of a new drug.7 Again, as usual, the research had been done by human

self-experimentation and by animal and psychiatric patient drug administration. The

chemist Friedrich Hauschild, head of the Temmler research department, took 5 milli-

grams himself and experienced a sense of stimulation that was similar to, but milder

than that provoked by Benzedrin; the effect was also longer lasting.8 Leipzig psychia-

trist, Fritz Flgel, tested the drug in the university psychiatric clinic and his results were

promising. Using dosages of 34 milligrams, five of ten apathetic patients clearlyshowed improvement; they rose from their beds and started to talk. Flgel therefore

concluded that Pervitin could be helpful for patient care. Of five depressed patients,

three improved; however, one became more anxious. The drug was less effective for

patients with a mild form of depression than those with severe depression.9 On the

basis of these research reports, Temmler recommended a maximum daily dosage of

36 milligrams (12 tablets), and marketed the drug as a physiological and psycho-

logical stimulant. Temmler had every reason to be happy with the results of the

research, because as a stimulant the drug was of interest for clinical medicine as

well as in everyday life.Flgel had made a significant observationthe effect of the drug varied according to

the characteristics and psychological states of the people who took the medication. This

observation was specifically noted in the Leipzig research. August Bostroem, who moved

to the chair of psychiatry in Leipzig in 1939, came to the conclusion that the objective

effect of Pervitin was difficult to establish since it varied depending on the person

taking the drug, as well as the circumstances.10 This insight into the variability of

drug-effects according to an individuals constitution was integral to German medicine

and pharmacology.11 Louis Lewin, the doyen of German pharmacology, had called this

4Evans 2006, p. 439.5Roth in Kudlien (ed.) 1985, pp. 1689.6Anon. 1938.7Cf. Snelders et al. 2006.8Hauschild 1938; Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007, p. 61.

9Flgel 1938.10Bostroem 1941.11This was decades before the formulation of the drug,

set and setting model that outlines the importance of

the psychological state of the user and the social and

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the toxic equation (toxische Gleichung). Each person has a unique biological make-up

and psychological complex; therefore, each person reacts to a drug differently, and to

a large extent unpredictably.12

The impact of the toxic equation is clearly manifested in the multitude of articles that

German medical journals devoted to Pervitin between 1938 and 1943. Research results

on the use of Pervitin with psychiatric patients, as well as normal people who wanted

to increase their achievement, were never simple to interpret.13 German drug researchers

attempted to establish which populations were appropriate for the use of Pervitin and this

process of investigation occurred on several levels. Historians have focused on the view of

Pervitin use from above, to strengthen the Nazi regime and the war effort, thereby sacri-

ficing the individual view: certainly an important aspect, although in the institutional

chaos of Nazi Germany, the exact meaning of the words from above is questionable.

At this level, we have to understand the paradox of stimulating drug use and regulating

it as characteristic of National Socialist policies. But, we argue that foremost, individual

doctors, in civil and military life mediated the use of Pervitin and they were not simply fol-

lowing orders from above. Nor were these doctors only interested in the benefits of Per-

vitin for the community as a wholethe Volksgemeinschaftdisregarding the

consequences for individual users. Following the levels of political authorities and

medical doctors, we address the level of individual users, who used the drug for their

own purposes; this level is the least documented and hardest to explore. We discuss

material culled from available printed sources to suggest the perspective that users are

self-motivated actors and not only victims of drug pushers, such as dealers, doctors or

governments.

Pervitin Pushed from Above?We contend that doctors in Nazi Germany did not have to be told from above to look for

substances that would strengthen individual members of the national Volksgemeinschaft.

The Pervitin story is an example of the way doctors worked towards the Fhrer, and thus

medicine was an integral part of the structure of the Third Reich.14 For instance, both

Flgel and Bostroem were members of the Nazi party, the NSDAP. We do not know to

what extent their Nazism was conviction or careerism (both were so-called March

violets and had only become members in 1937) or a mixture of both. (We do knowthat Bostroem, to give him his due, would later try to oppose the Nazi s euthanasia pro-

gramme.)15 In the cultural and political climate of the Third Reich, it appears that doctors

must have considered the benefits of a new drug, not only for individuals but for society as

well. Here we have a regime and ideology, which exhorted all individuals to maximise their

efforts. In a climate of threatening war with other European powers, Pervitin was intro-

duced, as hope for a lasting peace was shattered by Hitlers expansion into Czechoslova-

kia. And here we have a drug that, compared to caffeine, was a stimulant that appeared

to have less negative effects on physical function.16

cultural setting to determine the effects of a drug,

which is now central in modern drug research. Cf.

Snelders and Kaplan 2002, p. 222.12Lewin 1927, pp. 1820.13Wunderle 1941.

14For a recent synthesis of research in this area, see

Evans 2006, pp. 4446.15Berger 1998, pp. 257, 267.16Szakall 1939.



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In the optimistic first phase of Pervitins career, it was claimed that with a normal daily

intake of 612 milligrams the drug caused no specific damage to humans and its use was

not addictive.17 Thus it would have been unusual for doctors notto consider the broader

use of Pervitin; for example, improving the function of the German community through

chemistry. Doctors played a pivotal role in taking the drug from the medical to the

public sphere, not because they were ordered from above, but because they believed

this was their role, as expressed by Erich Neumann. In 1939, in collaboration with

Temmler, Neumann experimented with Pervitin on his patients in the hospital of

Zossen. He noted that Pervitin gave his patients more optimism and joy in life; it strength-

ened their will and belief (Willen und Glauben). This was of the utmost importance for

Nazi Germany, since these were times that demanded maximum energy and achievement

from everyone and doctors could use Pervitin to reach this goal for the community.18 The

question was not whether the drug was geeignet(suitable) for achieving the goal of max-

imising achievement. The question was rather which Volksgenossen were suitable for

using the drug.

Physicians at the University of Konigsberg marketed their research on the effects of Per-

vitin and Benzedrin using this argument. They considered that in these eventful times of

conflict and expansion it was the physicians responsibility to maintain and stimulate indi-

vidual achievements of a productive German.19 Although research demonstrated that an

individuals concentration was sometimes impaired and not always strengthened by the

use of Pervitin and that a dosage of two tablets led to excessive nervousness and excite-

ment, the general conclusion was that Pervitin was useful to stimulate a sense of well-

being, to suppress fatigue and to accelerate the productivity of workers.At first, Pervitin found its way into clinical practice in the treatment of psychological

inhibition, endogenous depression (though anxious depression was a contra-indication)

and in general to strengthen the will to become healthy (Wille zur Gesundung) in psychia-

tric patients and those recovering from surgery.20 As usual with psychiatric medication at

the time there are no data to demonstrate how extensive the use of the new drug was.

However, in 1944, the Leipzig psychiatrist, H. W. Janz, suggested that the use and

research of Pervitin was more widespread in German psychiatry than was indicated by

the published literature.21

From the clinic, Pervitin moved to general practice and was prescribed for employees,labourers and housewives. It is, however, difficult to see this market expansion as drug

pushing from above. True, labour physiologists performed their own experiments on Per-

vitin. The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut fr Arbeitsphysiologie (Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Occu-

pational Physiology) in Dortmund-Mnster showed that people were able to work longer

with less fatigue, both mental and physical, and were less inhibited in their work habits,

though their concentration did not always improve.22 There is no evidence of large-scale

attempts to provide the drug to labourers or employees in key industries, whatever the

prescription practices of individual GPs or psychiatrists might have been.

17Forst 1939.18Neumann 1939, p. 1266.19Lemmel and Hartwig 1940, p. 626.20Warstedt 1938; Speckmann 1939; Flrcken 1939;

Seifert 1939. For general reviews of the period

literature on Pervitin, see Janz 1944, p p . 914;

Bonhoff and Laurenz 1954.21Janz 1944, p. 9.22Lehmann et al. 1939; Graf 1939.



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Blitzkrieg Speed?Can we speak of a drug pushing from above when it comes to Pervitin use in the

German Wehrmacht? A recent historian of amphetamines writes: The German Blitzkrieg

was powered by amphetamines as much as it was powered by machine.23

This statementseems exaggerated and sensationalist. It is true that military experiments on the effects of

Pervitin on soldiers and officers had already started in 1938. A key figure was Otto Ranke,

an SA-member (Sturmabteilung), Berlin professor and Leiter of the Institut fr Allgemeine

und Wehrphysiologie of the Militrrztliche Akademie (the Academy for Military Medi-

cine) in Berlin.24 In his publications, Ranke stressed the importance of Pervitin to stimulate

soldiers who were mentally exhausted (die Wichtigkeit zum Hochreissen eines vorwie-

gend geistig ermdenden Truppe).25 But despite the German military commands conti-

nuing interest in experiments with Pervitin and other stimulants, pleas by Ranke and other

military physicians for a systematic experiment to provide the drug to combat units on a

large scale went unheeded.26 It is also true that between April and July 1940, the Wehr-

macht and Luftwaffe bought 35 million tablets of Pervitin and Isophan (a metampheta-

mine produced by Temmlers competitor Knoll in Ingelheim). But in fact, the army

health inspectors gave specific instructions to medical officers not to administer the

drugs too often.27 The same was true for the 29 million tablets delivered to the Wehr-

macht between April and December 1941, after the invasion of the Soviet Union involving

a German invasion force of three million soldiers.28

The actual practice of administration and use is likely to have depended on factors other

than orders from above, such as the willingness of medical officers to prescribe the drug

analogous to the willingness of general practitioners to do so in civilian life. We must addhere that it was precisely the medical officers who were prone to taking Pervitin in the

Blitzkrieg against France because of their easy access to the drug as was documented

in one army group, the Heeresgruppe von Kleist(Army Group von Kleist). Another deter-

mining factor was the availability of metamphetamines in illegal markets to which soldiers

had access, since Pervitin had become a prescription drug in November 1939.

The high military command was reluctant to support widespread use of Pervitin due to

their sensitivity to the toxic equation. Not every soldier functioned better on Pervitin, and

a tank division commander who had a heart attack after taking one tablet was not a

furtherance of the war effort.29

In short, both in the military as well as in civil life theextent of the use of Pervitin does not appear to have been decreed from above. In

the Wehrmacht, consumers and prescribers had an agenda of their own. Drugging sol-

diers and officers with Pervitin may not have been a concerted campaign from above,

but in emergencies medical officers resorted to this action. Steinkamp, who performed

extensive research in German military archives, quoted the report of a medical officer

from January 1942. In a group of 500 soldiers at the Eastern Front, encircled by

Russian troops, those near exhaustion and barely able to fight were given two tablets

23Rasmussen 2008b, p. 54.24For Ranke, see Klee 2007, p. 479.25Szakall 1939, p. 1345.26Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007, p. 65. For exper-

iments with Pervitin during the war, see Kemper in

Pieper (ed.) n.d.; Nldeke in Pieper (ed.) n.d.

27Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007, p. 65.28Stephens 2007, p. 18.29Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007, p. 66.



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of Pervitin and were able to participate in combat again. The troops broke out of the encir-

clement. Many of them even became euphoric during the fighting (Bei manchen zeigte

sich eine leicht euphorische Stimmung).30 Pervitin demonstrated its value not only in

combat situations. After the German capitulation at Stalingrad, a severely wounded

German soldier, who was marched to a prisoner camp at minus 38 degrees with little

to eat, managed to survive with the help of his Pervitin: Ultimately I walked as if in

trance, my wounded legs moved automatically, I didnt feel the cold anymore, nor

hunger and thirst.31

Soldiers also requested Pervitin in less extreme situations. Panzer Captain Hans von

Luck, transferring from Russia to the Africa Corps in January 1942, told his driver:

Well drive without stopping until were out of Russia. Well relieve each other every

100 kilometres, swallow Pervitin and stop only for fuel.32 Here Germans had their own

agenda and reasons for taking Pervitin. Therefore, it is rather one-sided to state, as one

historian has done, that nearly every single user in the army had to pay for Temmlers

greed of profit and the medical officers struggle to aid the war effort by means of

medication.33

RegulationIn the early phase of German research it had become clear that Pervitin was not suitable

for everyone. The drug then entered a new phase of disappointment and concern about

social and individual side-effects (this phase generally overlaps the initial phase of enthu-

siasm).34 It is hardly surprising that not everybody in German health care was happy with

the introduction of Praline chocolate containing 14 milligrams of Pervitinmore thandouble the advised daily dosage. In November 1939, Pervitin and Benzedrin became pre-

scription drugs.35 Pervitin slowly entered the phase of mounting concern and disillusion-

ment about side-effects and dangers of addiction. Historians have identified a speech by

Leonardo Conti, the Reichsgesundheitsfhrer (Reich Health Leader) of the NSDAP, in

March 1940, as a key factor in this process. Conti warned against the liberal adminis-

tration of Pervitin for fatigue.36 However, it is hard to see why this position should

have led to Pervitin being made an illicit substance under the drug law, which was

decreed by the Reich Minister of the Interior on 12 June 1941 and came into effect on

1 July.37

Was this a health measure, the result of heightening concerns about the addictive

potential of metamphetamine, as has been argued by historians?38 Pivotal in their argu-

ment is an article by Ernst Speer published at that time in the Deutsches Aerzteblatt

(German Aerzteblatt), in which he outlined the serious dangers of Pervitin use and

argued for its elimination from psychiatry. But Speer was not a person of high standing

in the German medical community; he held no academic position, but was a psychothera-

pist with a private practice (as well as a member of the NSDAP and a nephew of Albert

30Quoted in Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007, p. 69.

Translation: Many showed a lightly euphoric mood.31Quoted in Bonhoff and Laurenz 1954, p. 125.32Von Luck 1991, p. 84.33Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007, p. 71.

34Cf. Snelders et al. 2006.35Roth in Kudlien (ed.) 1985, pp. 1701.36Quoted in Roth in Kudlien (ed.) 1985, p. 171.37Bonhoff and Laurenz 1954, p. 62.38See, for example, Roth in Kudlien (ed.) 1985.



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Speer).39 His article was not based on published literature or on his own experience.40

Other doctors remained sceptical about the Pervitin problem and Pervitin addiction

in particular. It was noted that only a few cases of addiction were reported before Pervitin

was placed under the drug law.41 Doctors discussed whether the growing number of

cases, reported only after July 1941, had more to do with the psychopathic personality

characteristics of the users than with the drug itself.42 After all, it was generally accepted

that users could not become addicted unless they had certain hereditary traits or a psycho-

logical imbalance due to life events.43 Should Pervitin not be kept far away from psycho-

paths and its administration limited to overburdened individuals who did not do their

duty (nicht pflichtbewusste berlasteten Menschen) and needed incentive to get

through their working life?44 As late as 1944, Janz was not convinced by Speers argu-

ments against Pervitin. He claimed that Pervitin abuse did not lead to the sort of person-

ality changes that occurred with alcohol, cocaine, opium or hashish abuse.45

It seems more likely that Pervitin was placed under the drug law, not because of health

policy reasons, but because of a perceived threat to the public order, and that the addic-

tion problem was a convenient argument. Steinkamp has uncovered evidence that in the

spring of 1941, Berlin police discovered a wholesaler drugstore dealer who was illegally

buying large amounts of Pervitin, which he then sold to drug stores, private consumers

and a brothel (Pervitin was helpful for frigidity).46 Based on the idea that Pervitin is

useful for some people, but not to others and that control should be maintained by

doctors, placing Pervitin under the drug laws was a logical step and not a rejection of

the drug an sich by the Germans. After all, according to the testimonies of the Fhrers

SS guards even his personal physician dosed him heavily with injections of Vitamultin,a compound including Pervitin and caffeine.47 However, as Hitlers biographer, Ian

Kershaw, writes, it cannot be proven that he was dependent on the injections nor that

they affected his behaviour.48

Pervitin UsersWhether controlled by doctors or not, whether obtained by prescription or not, the use of

Pervitin was an unquantifiable but undeniable part of everyday life in Nazi Germany. It is

probable that production figures remained fairly constant from 1941 to 1944, although

these figures are not reliable.49

As we argue, we doubt whether the users were onlyvictims of an iatrogenic or Nazigenic epidemic. Clearly users had their own reasons for

taking Pervitinreasons that have left few written accounts apart from psychiatric and

medical records. Future researchers may discover and investigate these records in the

archives of clinics and hospitals, but even from printed sources we can glimpse Pervitins

use in German everyday life.

39Klee 2007, p. 590.40Bonhoff and Laurenz 1954, p. 63.41Dittmar 1942.

42See, for example, Kalus et al. 1942.43Staehelin 1941.44Bostroem 1941.45Janz 1944, pp. 9, 12. On the discussions, also

compare Fernandes 1950.46Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007, p. 68.

47Eberle and Uhl (eds) 2005, p. 488.48Kershaw 2001, p. 728.49T. Holzer mentions figures of 7.5 million tablets in

1941, 9 million in 1942 and 1943, and 8 million in1944, half of which were for military purposes. Cf.

Lewy 2008, p. 149. But these figures contrast with

the far higher figures for military production men-

tioned by Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007, p. 65.



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Soon after the introduction of Pervitin we notice a spill-over from medical experiments

to unauthorised appropriation of the drug by lay people for their own ends (the first

reports are from 1939). Neumann reported that Pervitin had become a favourite drug

of 12 people he knew outside of the hospital where he did his experiments; most were

academics. One lady used the drug at social events, another one on busy working

days.50 The lady who used the drug to get through her social life reminds us of

Sigmund Freud taking cocaine in Paris to be more at ease during social gatherings held

by his teacher, CharcotA little cocaine to untie my tongue.51 We also notice that Neu-

manns acquaintances took rather high doses of 1218 milligrams per day.

The possibilities of Pervitin were not lost on the students of Otto Ranke at the Militr-

rtzliche Akademie (Military Medical Academy) in Berlin, who had volunteered to take

part in his experiments with Pervitin, Benzedrin and caffeine from April to May 1939.

The medical officer trainees realised that metamphetamine was very useful for them

when preparing for and taking exams. Ranke reported that a considerable number of

cadets took Pervitin either from doctors samples or purchased in pharmacies.52

In 1942, the price of 30 tablets of Pervitin was 1,74 Reichsmarks (RM), and for 200

tablets 7,03 RM, so the drug was affordable.53 Doctors were especially prone to Pervitin

use and abuse, not only because of their easy access to the drug, but because they could

and would use the drug in work situations; they could work through the night without

getting sleepy, reported one experimenter.54 Doctors and doctor trainees did not have

supply problems that arose when Pervitin became a prescription drug. Pervitin use

among medical students also generated some problems. Both Ranke and Friedrich Platt-

ner, the Vienna professor of physiology and SS Colonel (SS-Standartenfhrer), observedthat some students failed their exams because of their heavy intake of Pervitin.55

This was only the tip of the iceberg. People reported Pervitin use when things went

wrong, students failed their exams, tank division commanders got heart attacks or

patients required help from psychiatrists. When things worked out with the help of the

drug there was no need to generate a report. Only a tiny number of users came to the

attention of the criminal justice system after July 1941. The Institut fr gerichtliche

Medizin und Krimininalistik (Institute for Judicial Medicine and Criminology) in Berlin

counted 16 patients who were addicted to Pervitin among the total of 66 drug addicts

present in its clinic. In 1942, the statistics of the Reichszentrale zur Bekmpfung vonRauschvergiften (Central Drugs Agency) of the Reichskriminalpolizei or Kripo (Criminal

Investigation Department) registered 84 Pervitin addictsa small number compared to

the 2,384 morphine addicts registered since 1933. The number of reported cases can

only have been a small fraction of the extensive use of Pervitin in German society. Millions

of tablets were available; doctors continued to prescribe the drug both in civil and in mili-

tary life, and we are aware of an illegal market. By the time Pervitin was placed under the

drug law in July 1941, Germany occupied the greater part of Europe, and metampheta-

mine was produced under various brand names in other countries to which the German

50Neumann 1939, p. 1267.51Freud 1974, p. 161.52Cited in Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007, p. 62.53Pieper (ed.) n.d., vol. 1, p. 125.

54Mller-Bonn 1939, p. 1317; quoted in Kemper in

Pieper (ed.) n.d, p. 125.55Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007, pp. 623. For Platt-

ner, see Klee 2007, p. 464.



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military, and therefore smugglers and dealers, had access. For instance, in the Nether-

lands, Pervitin was produced and sold under the brand name Neo-Pharmedrine, and

only became a prescription drug on 1 September 1942 and was not placed under the

Dutch opium law.56 In December 1942, an article in the Dutch Journal of Medicine

reported that Pervitin abuse was more general in the Netherlands than often assumed.

How seductive the advertisement that accompanies these substances is, becomes clear

from the fact that a young pharmacologist told me that he uses Pervitin when he is

tired, one doctor wrote.57

Whether taken by prescription or obtained illegally, many people had knowledge of

and access to Pervitin and used it for their own ends: to increase their self-confidence

(as Selbstbewusstseinsdroge) or to become stimulated and wide awake (as Aufverpulfer-

ungsmittel).58 Germans used it to overcome inhibitions and fatigue and to reach a state of

hyperalertness (Ueberwachheit), as Berlin psychiatrist J. Zutt described the effect of the

drug. As in any drug ecstasy, Pervitin reduced users sense of passing time by increasing

their interest in events around them and their own activities. Thus, an individuals well-

being was integrated with increasing achievementsmediating individual interests and

duties demanded by society. However, there were also psychological dangers from Pervi-

tin use. According to psychiatrist Zutt, while taking Pervitin a bright light (helles Licht)

shone upon the users environment; but when the intensity of the light and the scope

of the experience (Intensitt, der Helle, der Weite der Erlebnisse) became unbearable,

fear and anxiety threatened.59

Psychiatric reports document people such as housewives and mothers, employees and

labourers, doctors and academics who could no longer tolerate Pervitin. These reportsindicate that Pervitin use was not limited to one social class or sub-culture, but must

have been endemic in German society as a whole as the following cases demonstrate.

On her own initiative, a 28-year-old woman started taking two tablets a day to

manage the fatigue of her profession.60 We meet a 27-year-old, successful male

employee at a foreign chemical institute, who for one year conquered his feelings of

general misery by taking 69 tablets daily.61 The labourer Th. St., 25 years old, received

Pervitin to speed up his work on the assembly line. The widow A.L., aged 42, took Per-

vitin, with initial success, to function as a housewife. The zest for life of a married house-

wife and mother A.K., aged 48, was restored with Pervitin, although her daughterwarned her physician that she swallowed the pills as if they were chocolate.62

Herr Doktor M. was a 56 year-old physician with an extensive medical practice in

addition to his scientific work and air-raid civil defence work. In the winter of 193940

he resorted to self-medication with Pervitin to relieve his stress and to stimulate his

sexual appetite.63 And as a final example, Frulein K., 24 years old, had a leading role

in the Bund Deutscher Mdel, the girls Nazi youth organisation, and used Pervitin to

relieve the headaches, diminished appetite and insomnia that her work stress had

caused; she became motivated and euphoric.64

56Anon. 1941.57Knoppers 1942, p. 3227.58Staehelin 1941, p. 598.59Zutt 1943.60Stieda 1939.

61Greving 1941.62Kramer 1941.63Daube 1941, p. 23.64Daube 1941, p. 21.



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We also note that Pervitin was used not only for survival in civil life or war, but also for

fun in Germany at the time. Some users experienced sexual stimulation and other used

the drug to party longer and with more joy.65 Again, we know this from reported

cases when things went wrong. For example, take two young people at a dance party

in 1939, one of whom took 60 milligrams, the other 200 milligrams of Pervitin together

with alcohol. The 200-milligram consumer suffered after-effects of excitement for 55

hours, despite taking a downer (Veronal).66 Another example is an officer who died

of a heart attack in 1941 after consuming Pervitin at a party (Herrenabend).67 These

cases illustrate only a small portrait of partying on Pervitin in Nazi Germany.

Finally, intellectual forerunners of the 1960s counter-culture discussed the value of Per-

vitin to create a more evolved human being. In 1942, the writer and physician Gottfried

Benn wrote of a Religionsphysiologie (religious physiology). A superior brain was not

created with milk or water, but with alkaloids, therefore Pervitin should not be given to

bomber pilots or bunker builders, but given to students in higher education. Many

people would reject this idea, Benn wrote, but it was natural progress for humanity.68

Given his ideas, Benn was far-out and most of his contemporaries found him hard to

understand, excluding a few intellectuals who enjoyed experimenting with drugs, such

as the writer, Ernst Jnger.69

ConclusionWe will not follow Pervitins career after 1945, only noting that it remained part of

German drug consumption until the 1960s.70 Here we have modified a top-down

view on the uses of metamphetamine in the Third Reich by adding a bottom-upapproachderiving a users perspective from available sources. Our material suggests

that Pervitin was not a drug pushed on the German people in the Third Reich by a tota-

litarian regime. Nor was Pervitin use solely a question of sacrificing the individual to the

demands of the Nazi Volksgemeinschafta position which negates the role of the

demand side in determining drug use in society.

It is true that the history of Pervitin shows the central role of medicine in introducing

and mediating drug use in public spheres. But in our view this is not sufficient reason

to speak of an iatrogenic epidemic. Pervitin use became endemic because of the

various and malleable functions of the drug in peoples everyday lives: whether house-wives, labourers or employees getting through the day, soldiers bent on survival, or teen-

agers and brothel visitors looking for recreation. People were not passive recipients of

drugs, but had their own reasons and agendas that created demand. To many German

users in civil and military life, the drug was of help in getting them through everyday

life or through crisis situations. Pervitin made life more interesting to them, without dis-

turbing the social fabric.

Metamphetamines were one of the multiple ambiguities of Nazi Germany as reactions

to Pervitin use were never clear-cut.71 Excessive use, especially for purposes of recreation

65Cf. Bonhoff and Laurenz 1954.66Issekutz in Pieper (ed.) n.d.67Steinkamp in Eckart (ed.) 2007, p. 66.68Benn 1957, p. 145.69Cf. Jnger 1978, p. 47.

70Cf. Fernandes 1950; Von Keyserlingk 1951; Bonhoff

and Laurenz 1954; Dobroschke 1955; Briesen 2007,

p. 161.71Cf. Peukert 1987.



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or when leading to addiction, was frowned upon and led to regulation. But there was

little moral panic and outrage over the pervasive use of Pervitin in society, apart from

some concern about addiction. In Nazi Germany, researchers were sensitive to the role

of the toxic equation in determining drug effects, and keen to establish where the

drug could be applied constructively. In addition, Germans had more important things

than the side effects of Pervitin to worry about during the war. True, authorities took

legal measures to control the distribution of Pervitin, but these had to do with Pervitin

appearing in illegal markets and outside of the control of the state or medical profession.

Therefore, we can identify ambiguities on two levels. First, that of the state or the

state administrations, including medical administrations, who on the one hand pro-

moted a beneficial use of the drug, and on the other hand, regulated undesirable

use. Second, ambiguities on the level of individual users, who increased their sense of

well-being with the drug, while at the same time increasing their level of achievement

in a society which threatened their well-being in the first place. Despite these ambiguities,

it seems clear that Pervitin use was prevalent throughout German society, as far as we can

judge, from the Fhrer to the captives at Stalingrad. But endemic as it may have been, this

drug use never threatened the political or social structures of the Third Reich.

Metamphetamine use in Nazi Germany was not simply Nazigenic or iatrogenic. Using a

comparative perspective, we suggest that the amphetamine use in other countries

deserves a broader analytical framework than the one-sided iatrogenic concept. What

we need is a bottom-up approach to adequately study the demand side together with

the supply side of a specific political economy of drugs. National Socialist Germany pro-

vides us with an example of how Western societies, before the 1960s, were not drug-free,but rather societies where psychotropic drugs were highly integrated in everyday life,

although still culturally ambiguous. In this sense, the story of the development and diffu-

sion of amphetamines and metamphetamines is a reversal of the story of the 1960s and

1970swhen uppers and downers were perceived as threats to the political and moral

order and received almost universal public condemnation.

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