High Hitler: how Nazi drug abuse steered the course of history
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
It also didn't end in World War Two. 'downers' and 'uppers' were used in Korea and Vietnam, and how do you think US pilots flew missions from Missouri to Tripoli and Afghanistan? Not only on a good night's sleep and fruit juice. That's even public knowledge. For example, http://usoonpatrol.org/archives/2014/11/13/b-2-pilot-flew-lo...:
"In order to fight off the release of melatonin that comes at that moment, the flight doctor had given each crew member an approved “pick me up pill” to make sure everyone was alert going into combat"
> German researchers found that equipment-laden test subjects (inmates from Sachsenhausen concentration camp) could march in a circle for up to 90 kilometers per day without rest while carrying a 20 kilogram backpack.
We must defeat Hitler now before it's too late!
The article is clearly sensationalist. I'm not saying the implication is wrong, I'm saying the article can't prove it. I expect the book won't contain precise source references either. Other books on the same topic have been criticized for unclear sources, as well. The endorsement by the person who inspired the author in the first place is not an independent opinion and thus clearly biased.
> At a company called Temmler in Berlin, Dr Fritz Hauschild, its head chemist, inspired by the successful use of the American amphetamine Benzedrine at the 1936 Olympic Games, began trying to develop his own wonder drug – and a year later, he patented the first German methyl-amphetamine.
So, it was initially developed by the Allies. It's fair to assume they used it, too.
> Was Blitzkreig, then, largely the result of the Wehrmacht’s reliance on crystal meth? How far is Ohler willing to go with this? He smiles. “Well, Mommsen always told me not to be mono-causal. But the invasion of France was made possible by the drugs. No drugs, no invasion.
Under the assumption that the Allies used stimulants, too, there is no advantage?
Hitler's doctor-driven abuse is well documented. The side effects of long term use were not yet that well known.
"Medical Science and the Military: The Allies' Use of Amphetamine during World War II" (http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/JINH_a_00212):
"Although amphetamine was thoroughly tested by leading scientists for its effects in boosting or maintaining physical and mental performance in fatigued subjects, the results never provided solid grounds for approving the drug's use, and, in any case, came too late to be decisive. The grounds on which amphetamine was actually adopted by both British and American militaries had less to do with the science of fatigue than with the drug's mood-altering effects, as judged by military men. It increased confidence and aggression, and elevated “morale.”"
I'm not sure whether that agrees or disagrees with what you say, and the article proper is paywalled.
With that caveat, I read it as if they knew about it and were willing to use it, but didn't find the right mix (?yet?) to warrant large scale use. My guess is that the fact that they were winning the war also made them a bit more scrupulous in deploying it than the nazis were.
I don't see any evidence that the US pharmaceutical industry wasn't unable to produce performance enhancing drugs at scale if they wanted too.
Nazi ideology fits pretty well with performance enhancing drugs, they wanted to create the ubermench.