Podcast

#481 – Norman Ohler- Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA

Lex Fridman Podcast

Last highlighted September 23, 2025 Source ↗ ← All highlights

Berlin-Munich Drug Divide Shaped Politics
- Berlin’s 1920s drug culture and Munich’s beer-politics polarized Germany into two social minds.
- That cultural split helped explain how Nazism emerged from alcohol-fueled mass rallies while Berlin cultivated experimental drug scenes. Transcript: Lex Fridman Tell me the origin story of meth, methamphetamine, and Pervitin, this brand name drug version, in the context of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. Let’s start there. Norman Ohler I think you’re right to ask about the context, because without the context, it’s not really understandable. So what was the situation? In the 20s, the Nazi movement basically started. And it started in Bavarian beer halls. So alcohol was the drug of choice of the early Nazi movement. The only guy that didn’t drink was Hitler. He was a teetotaler, I guess you say. Was happening in Munich. So alcohol and national socialism are very closely connected. At the same time in the 20s, in Berlin, there was a completely different thing going on. People were taking all kinds of drugs. This had to do actually with the defeat of Germany in the First World War. I mean, the context is a big context. The Versailles Treaty had the effect that the German economy was not really able to recover after the end of World War I. The Versailles Treaty was written basically by the Western victorious powers. Germany had no say in the negotiations. And I’m certainly not a German nationalist, not even a German patriot. But even I would say that the Versailles Treaty treated Germany somewhat unfair. I mean, it laid all the blame on Germany. And I mean, a war is a very complex thing. And the First World War, to examine how it actually started, is very complex story and there’s many factors to it. But the Versailles Treaty just said it was Germany’s fault and then Germany had to do all these payments to the Allies. It couldn’t create a new economy. It couldn’t have a new army. So it was, the economy really went down. Everything in Berlin was cheap, and the people were using also substances that were very cheap in huge quantities. So while in Bavaria, they were drinking alcohol, and alcohol in the brain stimulates behavior, group behavior, us against them. You can actually examine this. A neuroscientist would know exactly how this works. In Berlin the drugs that were used were morphium there was cocaine there was masculine there was ether so people were experimenting everyone developed a different mindset it was all You know you didn’t behave in a way that some kind of authority would like you to behave in because the authority had just lost the first world war and there was no no real authority in berlin People were doing whatever they wanted to do and they were intoxicating themselves in the way they wanted to do it so the population in a way if you just look at munich and berlin was growing Apart like there were the alcohol people in Munich, the Nazis, and then there were these weird, diverse LGBTQ whatever kind of scene in Berlin, like actresses sniffing ether in the Morning and then making crazy moves. Lex Fridman Could you speak to the nature, the motivation of the drug use in Berlin at the time? Was it a rebellion? Was it a way to deal with the difficult economic depression? Was it just the natural thing that young people do to explore themselves, to understand the world, to develop their culture? What do we understand about drug use there? Norman Ohler All of these factors come together. But it was the first time in modern history, in Germany at least, that there was no emperor. (Time 0:09:00)
Drugs As A Missing Historical Variable
- Systematic drug use in WWII German military is a missing link historians largely ignored.
- Drug records from archives explain shifts in Hitler’s leadership and battlefield decisions over time. Transcript: Norman Ohler That was very surprising to me, you know. I didn’t know this myself. I never planned to write this book. It kind of happened to me and I decided to team up with the leading German historian on national socialism, Hans Momsen, who has passed away by now. He was quite old but quite ready to be my mentor for this book blitzed and he was maybe even shocked when i came back from the military archive of germany with like a like a lot of copies all Relating to the systematical drug use of the German army, including an experiment done by the Navy, who had always pretended to be the clean, in German we say, Waffengattung, weapon. Like you have the army, you have the air force, you have the Navy, and in Germany they had the SS. And the Navy always pretended to be like, we weren’t really Nazis. We were like, you know, the German Navy. We had our ethics code. But I found in the archive that the Navy did human experiments in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, trying to find a new wonder drug because they had new, what they called wonder Weapons or what Hitler called wonder weapons. He always talked about these wonder weapons. Wonder weapons were basically mini submarines, one or two people going in, staying underwater for up to a week and torpedoing, you know, Allied ships. So the Navy was trying to do, to develop a drug that would keep you awake and combat ready for seven days and seven nights without sleep and without you know burning out very difficult To find so they hired a penalty unit in the concentration camp they hired the ss had the so-called shoe walking unit it was a penalty unit in the concentration camp testing shoe soles For the German shoe industry, walking for like days. And then they would measure like how the soles, you know, kept up in the stress. And they had different layers in the concentration camp, like all the surfaces that German soldiers would touch when they conquer Europe. So this is a very elaborate thing, you know, and if you go to the concentration camp today, it’s a museum, you can still see that running track of the shoe runners unit. So the Navy hired the shoe runners unit from the SS paid the money and then gave them drugs, different kinds of drug combinations, methamphetamine combined with cocaine and in a chewing Gum and like all kinds of things. So this is a, this is a big thing, you know, and there’s documents to it. And Momsen, who knew everything about National Socialism, the old, you know, authority. I’m like the young, like I didn’t study history. I just, you know, I just try to make sense, you know, I present him all these documents. He’s reading from this pill patrol, and he said, wow. He said, we historians, we never do drugs. We don’t understand drugs. We missed this. So he was very clear that we missed this. And he said this is actually the missing link that historians did not have, especially to explain Hitler’s degeneration as a leader. He made very good decisions, good in meaning militarily effective decisions in the beginning of the war, and very bad decisions for the German war effort towards the end. And you can link that to drugs. You can explain a lot of Hitler through the drugs, but you can also look at this point that historians so far had not been able to figure out basically what happened to Hitler. Why did he get crazy? (Time 0:24:38)
How A Pervitin Pill Started The Book
- Norman’s research began after a friend and an antique dealer found old Pervitin tablets in Berlin.
- A single pill test and a professor’s archive tip launched his multi-archive investigation into Nazis and drugs. Transcript: Norman Ohler Alex. Always take the DJ, the drug expert with a grain of salt. I didn’t believe him, but I said, it’s a great topic. Maybe I could invent it. He said, no, you don’t invent this. This is real. I said, how do you know? And he said, I have a friend and I know this guy by now i met him he’s an antique dealer in berlin and he had bought an old medicine chest in an old berlin apartment this was in 2010 and he found Pevitin tablets inside which were the methamphetamine product that was marketed in germany in the lates. And this guy, the antique dealer, took some tablets, and they were quite old, you know, 70 years old, but they still had an effect on him. And I later asked him, and he said, well, we took them for about a month. It was the greatest month we ever had. Like, we had so much fun. We were so productive. Because that methamphetamine back then was also like a quality product it was not crystal meth made in a in a trailer lab so this is many decades later they were still potent they were Still potent especially alex convinced me because alex has a high tolerance and he said okay they still had some so i said to him can i have some also and i took one and he’s like this was We were standing in my riding tower which is at the river in berlin and he was like i took one and i could feel something then i took another one and then it’s you know i could feel more and Then i took a third one typical alex he would like take three you know instead of just taking one he’s take he took three methamphetamine tablets from the 40s. And he said, and then I felt like, and he looked at the river and there was a big, like, big ship, like a cargo ship going by. And he said, I felt like this ship. Suddenly there was a schoop, he said in German, like a motion that was like energy that was grabbing me. And I could like, I felt so powerful. And he told me this and I was like wow this is like and I googled like methamphetamine Nazi Germany this was in 2010 and there was this one professor at the university in Ulm who said the Blitzkrieg was only possible because of methamphetamine so I called up this guy and he said sure I’ll meet you and then I he gave me the signature for the archive then I went to the archive And then I really started to do my own research and then I went to different archives and I tried to find everything on Nazis and drugs and that came everything is in the book so that crazy And meeting with Alex in my writing tower that kind of got me on this research journey it (Time 0:40:30)
Pervitin Framed As Performance Medicine
- Temmler created Pervitin (methamphetamine) as a legal performance enhancer after the 1936 Olympics.
- The drug normalized stimulant use across society because it was cheap, legal, and framed as productivity medicine. Transcript: Norman Ohler It’s totally absurd. That’s why I thought it was fun researching this because it doesn’t make sense, you know. And, you know, they used a simple trick by, you know, defining what is a drug, an illegal drug and what is not. Because drugs don’t have it written on them. This is an illegal, dangerous drug. You know, drugs are basically neutral. These are molecules, you know. So the methamphetamine molecule was found in a Berlin-based company called the Temmler Company. And the head of Temmler, he was very upset with the Olympics in 1936 because an Afro-American athlete, Jesse Owens, was running faster than German superheroes with the best genes. You know, how can this be? So they thought that he was on something because he won, I think, five gold medals. It was ridiculous. You know, this was supposed to be Germany’s games, you know, and then the Afro-American runs better than the Aryan Übermensch. So the only explanation is he took a drug. He took probably Benzedrine, which was a legal amphetamine. And also there were no doping checks at the Olympics. And if you take an amphetamine, of course you can run a bit faster maybe that, you know, when it kicks in. This has to do with the immense release of of dopamine in the brain but it was never proven that owens used any type of drugs but the head of the temna company he said we have to prevent this We have to invent a better amphetamine we have to we have to make a German amphetamine that is stronger than the American Benzedrine. So his main chemist, Fritz Hauschild, he did research and he found that in 1917 in Tokyo, a Japanese chemist had made methamphetamine. And he remade that methamphetamine and they tested it among themselves, the chemists in the Berlin Pharmaceutical Lab and they loved it. Like they made pure methamphetamine and they had a really good time and they were like more active. They would talkative because that’s what happens on methamphetamine. So the company really thought this is a great product and they turned it into a product. They went to the patent bureaucracy and got the patent for methamphetamine. And then it quite quickly came onto the market. It was labeled as Pavitine, which is kind of a great name because it has like the perverse already in it. And this Pavitine, Pavitine, was available in any pharmacy. So you just, you didn’t need a prescription. A child could go and buy 10 packs of pure methamphetamine. So methamphetamine was also very cheap. So it became quite popular because people, you know, talked about it. Lex Fridman Did they understand the side effects and negative effects of methamphetamine? Did they care? They didn’t really know what it was. Norman Ohler I mean, I also read, I went to the archive of that company also, of course. So they were like, what is it good for? Like, I just feel great when I take it and I have more energy. And they didn’t know if that could be a product. It was 1937, 1938 when they were discovering it. But also, how did they think about the fact that this is a drug? Well, they called it a performance enhancer. Got it. Is drinking a coffee in the morning a drug? I mean, it is a drug, but we don’t think of it as a drug. You know, it’s legal. And this was kind of how meth was treated in Germany. It was normal to use it. (Time 0:50:22)
Stimulants Solved Fatigue For Blitzkrieg
- Army physiologists saw fatigue as the Wehrmacht’s enemy and tested stimulants to extend wakefulness.
- Early field reports from Poland convinced military doctors Pervitin aided sustained operations and morale. Transcript: Norman Ohler Well, Professor Ranke was employed by the army. So it was his job to find things that would improve the performance of the German soldier. I always imagined him like a James Bond character, like Q, who develops gadgets and stuff. Because he also developed gadgets. So he was quite a, you know, he was an academic, but he was also a soldier, you know, he was employed, but he was basically running this Institute examining it. And he was so convinced that Pavitin is the answer to his question, how to beat the main opponent of the German soldier. And that was not the British soldier, not the French soldier, not the Russian soldier. That was fatigue. He had been looking for a way to keep a soldier awake longer. So when he read these reports from universities, he did his own tests in the military academy with young medical officers. They came together at 8 p.m. In the evening and then they received either methamphetamine, caffeine pill, or placebo, or Benzedrine. Like he had different experiments and he always concluded at the end, like they started at 8 p.m. And like at 10 a.m in the morning one time he notes the Pavitin people still want to go out and party while like the the coffee guys are like sleeping on the bench and the you know it was clear That Pavitin is the strongest it gives you the most energy lets you work for the longest time so he was convinced but his superior like the surgeon general of the german army he was like An old school dude. And he was like, he didn’t even react to these like, Ranko would write letters, we have to use a synthetic drug in the next campaign, which was against Poland, which he knew about. And because Pavitin was quite known in the civil society, people were using it already. So he said, he even said a lot of soldiers will just take it with them. We should control that. We should make it an official drug. But the Surgeon General didn’t understand. He didn’t reply. So Germany attacked Poland without a clear regulatory system on methamphetamine. And indeed, a lot of soldiers used it. And what Ranke then what did was he requested from all the medical officers in the field in poland the war was over after a few weeks so but the german army was occupying poland he said send Me all back reports and tell me what did did your people take pevitin and what were the effects and he collected all these reports which also studied in the military archive and he came To the conclusion, this is a really good fighting drug. And it probably is because people are still using it today. Methamphetamine is still being used. And Ranke discovered this. He had everything in front of him and Poland was beaten. (Time 0:56:28)
Tank Crews’ Meth-Fueled Momentum
- Tank crews on meth experienced a mix of party-like exuberance and relentless advance during the French campaign.
- Rommel’s night pushes describe meth-fueled tireless assaults and instances crossing into war crimes. Transcript: Norman Ohler Because he had the recipe how people could stay awake for three days and three nights. So Ranke suddenly became, before that he was kind of an outsider, like the freak with the drug idea, suddenly he became like, okay, tell us, how does it work? And he gave like lectures in front of the officers and he wrote a stimulant decree where like a whole army is prescribed a drug, in this case methamphetamine, how much should be at what Intervals, what are the side effects. So this became a very big thing. And then Temla had to deliver 35 million dosages to the front lines, which were not the front yet. I mean, they were stationed in the west of Germany. And then on May 10th, they took their methamphetamine and they started the surprise attack through the Aden Mountains. Lex Fridman So 35 million dosages for the French campaign. I mean, we could probably talk for many hours about this particular campaign because it is, I think it’s fair to say, the most successful military campaign from the German side. Norman Ohler Ended with a big mistake. Dunkirk. Dunkirk. It was brilliant up until that point. That is a turning point. That was the first big mistake Hitler did. Lex Fridman And it also had to do with drugs. We’ll talk about it, but that’s just a link on this three days. So we should also mention that’s where Blitzkrieg really shined. So it wasn’t just the tanks. It was the infantry. It was the aircraft moving very fast behind the French lines. I mean, what can you speak to just the execution of that campaign and the role of drugs in it? And it is, we should say, a really bold strategic decision to use meth. I mean, it’s a big risk. There’s a lot of risks taken here, which could be seen as military genius or military insanity or a mixture of both. Norman Ohler Well, they were very lucky that it all worked out. Like, also, the guys in the tanks could all have freaked out on the meth because it was never tested before. Can you actually be in a combat situation in a tank in enemy territory on meth? Can people actually cope with that and be better fighters? Going through the mountains against the biggest military in Europe. What meth does is because i read reports of depressed the depressed atmosphere right before the attack started because they were afraid they thought they would lose like they didn’t Want that you know soldiers maybe some you know really hardcore nazi soldiers but most people were just normal guys you know they didn’t want to start that but once they had the methamphetamine It kind of you’re like in a party mood so you’re also when you’re in the tank you know and everyone likes it you know it’s rather an uplifting thing like they were they were really getting Into it and they really you know they started fighting then it’s also an intoxication you know it’s a it’s a rush like what is what is what does meth feel like well meth creates the so-called Fight or flight motors so either you like it releases all the neurotransmitters in the brain which are released in situations of high danger for example so in a highly dangerous situation You become very alert so you can cope with the situation if you’re like if you’re like under life threat and you don’t even react to it you’re probably going to be dead you know but uh the Body does that and methamphetamine does that so you take a pill of methamphetamine or you snort a line of methamphetamine and you’re like and you’re like this you’re like and then it’s The fight or flight mode. Either you run away, like it’s too much. But on meth, you usually don’t run away. You kind of think it’s really cool what’s happening. You like to move. You like to be with your pals. You like to be in a tank’s great. So there is a party aspect to it. I think it was very joyful for the German soldiers because it was springtime. They had immediate successes. And it wasn’t heavy fighting. It was just being in the tank. I mean, there was, of course, fighting. And there were also war crimes. And I read a report when Rommel, high on meth, like at night, doesn’t stop, of course, because they don’t stop at night. But every army usually stops at night. (Time 1:04:40)
Drugs, Ego, And The Halt At Dunkirk
- Dunkirk’s survival hinged on a halt order from Hitler influenced by internal politics and drugged advisers.
- Göring’s morphine-fueled assurances and Hitler’s fear of Army High Command shifted a likely German annihilation of British forces into escape. Transcript: Norman Ohler What Churchill called the sickle cut, which was the idea to storm through the Ardennes Mountains and kind of cut off the British and French troops who were still in the north of Belgium Trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly the Germans are behind them so that they kind of cut as like a sickle into enemy territory, the sickle cut. That was so successful that basically the campaign was won already. So then the Germans invaded, like occupied all the cities on the canal back to England to kind of cut off the British completely. So they couldn’t, you know, even flee. But there was just Dunkirk was open, the last port that was open. And the German army was like, you know they were already on the outskirts of dunkirk they could have just taken it and closed that you know that uh hole for for the british military to get Out but hitler uh then did his famous and this is all the dynamic of the western campaign you know a lot of things happen every day. And then they’re saying like, we’re gonna have Dunkirk tomorrow and then it’s over. And then Hitler stops the tanks. It’s his famous Haltebefehl, the order to stop. And, you know, they were all on meth, you know, they didn’t want to stop. But Hitler was not on meth. Hitler was, he was, he basically, it was a little bit similar than berlin munich uh thing hitler didn’t really understand that campaign it was too fast for him he because they didn’t Say like oh they’re all on meth they’re not gonna sleep they’re gonna behave erratically they don’t didn’t discuss this they discussed this in the old-fashioned terms and hitler was Seeing like they do not protect their flanks. What if the British come from the north? This is terrible. Like, militarily, it was… They were already fighting World War II while Hitler was still fighting World War I, and especially the Allies, they were still fighting World War I. But the tank generals on math or the tank generals without math, the tank generals per se, they were fighting a new type of war and hitler then got a visit from goering the head of the air Force the luftwaffe and going was a morphinist that was that is very well documented like he was on morphine he was high as a kite most of the time and that comes with Losing touch with reality. I would say. Or at least it. It changes your grip on reality. You know. Maybe you’re still. A good decision maker. But it could lead to. You know. If you’re intoxicated. Let’s say you’re writing. And you’re intoxicated. You think it’s great. But the next day you read it. It’s shit. You know. So. Göring was using morphine. In the morning. Then met. Met Hitler at the Felsennest, which was Hitler’s headquarters to command the Western campaign, the Felsennest. And Göring said to him, if the army generals are now going to take Dunkirk, then basically the army has won this campaign. And that will give army high command which is already against you because they were you know for them hitler was always like the uh the kleine gefreite like the small kind of regular army Guy because that’s what hitler had been in in the in first world war and now suddenly he was the big decision maker so they never they thought they make much better decisions than him. So Göring says their power will be so overwhelming that they will from now on call the shots how this war will continue and what will be done next. You should let me with the Luftwaffe do the job from the air. The National Socialist Luftwaffe is going to end the Western campaign. So he thought that he could destroy, it doesn’t make sense, you know, even destroy the British military from planes. Maybe you can do it, but certainly he couldn’t do it. So the tank generals received the haltebefehl, the stopping order. They didn’t believe it when they received it. Because the victory, this would have been complete victory over Great Britain. This would have been the end of Great Britain. (Time 1:23:02)
Morell’s Rise From ‘Feelgood’ Doctor
- Dr. Theodor Morell became Hitler’s personal physician after curing his stomach complaints with probiotic-style treatments.
- Morell’s daily injections created dependency and deep personal influence over Hitler’s health and decisions. Transcript: Norman Ohler Well, Morel was, he had his practice on Kurfürstendamm, which is like the main boulevard of Berlin in the west of Berlin, kind of a fancy street. And he was a celebrity doctor, which was a new type of doctor in a way, Dr. Feelgood. He kind of was one of the first Dr. Feelgood. So you didn’t go to him when you had a disease. You went to him when you were, let’s say you were like an opera star in the Berlin opera and you had a big premiere. So you would go to Morel in the afternoon and he would give you a nice shot and then you would be really good on stage. So he but he was not a quack i mean he was he just knew his drugs and he believed in you know why shouldn’t you treat someone even if that person doesn’t have a disease if you can make that person Feel better it’s good especially if that person pays like he said everyone who pays my and he wasn’t cheap who comes to me and wants a testosterone hormone injection or a vitamin injection Or an opioid injection you get it from him he didn’t have any scruples i mean but we should also say he was pretty innovative and uh extremely knowledgeable so you mentioned hormones Lex Fridman But also probiotics. Like you’re talking about. Yeah, right. Just he knew his shit. He was a bit of a nerd. Yeah, like a legit doctor just didn’t have boundaries about what he used. He had a very unappealing physical appearance. Norman Ohler And I think that was a problem for him. And he was known to have very bad eating habits, like sauce was running. And so people were easily disgusted by him. He was like an outsider. He was really like a freak. But when people looked at him after he had given them an injection and they said, thank you. And I feel so great now. That’s what kind of made his day you know so one day a man entered his uh doctor’s office on kofistendam named hubertus hoffman and hubertus hoffman was a photographer and he had gonorrhea And uh morel because he knew about alternative ways to treat he actually cured him And Hubertus Hoffmann said to Morel, I have a good friend and I think you should meet him. And I’m going to have a dinner in Munich and I think it would be really worth your time to come. And Morel came and the good friend was Hitler because Hubertus Hoffmann was the photographer of Hitler. And they were, in German we have a a formal U, which is C. And if I don’t even know you so well, I say Z. And if you’re my close friend, I say du, U. And Hitler only had like four people. He would say you, too. He was always like the C, like the distance. It was always about distance and respect and borders and boundaries. What are the two again? C and what? Lex Fridman Do. C and do. Yeah. Norman Ohler C is the formal one and do is the informal one. Lex Fridman Yeah. In Russian, there’s the same thing. V and T. And so there’s a big, that’s a big thing. Also in French, you also have that. Norman Ohler You have that in Spanish. Only in English, you don’t have it. Lex Fridman And it is part of the cultural sort of discourse of like when you upgrade from the V to the T, from the C to the do, or from the do to the C. Norman Ohler From the C to the do, that would be the upgrade because you become more intimate. Yeah, like, and you ask, can I go from C to do? Yeah, like the older person must suggest it i think yeah okay beautiful language so hoffman was a do for a dude’s friend we say of hitler so he was quite close to hitler and so that’s why He could also make that close connection so he had a dinner with just him hitler eva braun hitler’s girlfriend and morel came like they sent a plane to berlin to pick him up so it was like Vip treatment it was the whole thing and this is 36 36 yeah they had spaghetti with tomato sauce on the side i read in the there’s like a description of this event the tomato sauce was on The side and there was muscat what is muscat itcat? It’s a spice nutmeg. Nutmeg. Yeah, it was a nutmeg, which is an unusual recipe, I guess, but that’s what they had. And spaghetti wasn’t a fancy thing. You know, it came from Italy, from Mussolini, who invented fascism in Italy and who was like Hitler’s role model for a long time until Hitler surpassed him, obviously. So the spaghetti, the spaghetti, they came from Italy and it was like a big thing. And Morel had the big problem that spaghetti is hard to eat, right? And he couldn’t even like, it was a catastrophe. But he got out of it because Hitler complained about stomach problems because Hitler was a terrible vegetarian. He was a so-called cake vegetarian. He would only eat like sweets, like cake meat of course but like he wouldn’t like eat healthy stuff you know so he was bloated the whole time because we only eat like cake and white bread And it’s not good so he voiced that and there was also uh brandt was there like his an official doctor from the from the from the ss that was like his doctor. And Hitler said, my doctors can’t cure me. And Morel was like, this is my chance. Thank you, God. And he told Hitler about the probiotics, which Hitler had never heard of, and also Brandt, the doctor, he hadn’t heard of, because that was a new thing that you give. And Hitler was asking, what is that? And morel said these are live bacteria from like german soldiers from the war in the first world war that were fighting in serbia there was one guy who didn’t get the stomach flu and all The others like drank the water in serbia and all got sick but this one guy, so his bacteria, and this is a true story, his gut bacteria were cultivated into a medicine called mutaflora. And Morel told Hitler about this. And he said, this is amazing. Like, I have to try this, you know. And it helped, you know, he got the mutaflora, he did the mutaflora kind of therapy and it cured him. He suddenly had no bloating anymore. And the of hitler was really bad so bad that it would like he like constant like it diminished his you know ability to work you know so suddenly he could work he said he felt better he didn’t Have the pain he felt great so he really thought that more is a wonder doctor and he asked more pretty quickly afterwards, do you want to be my personal physician? And Morel was like, his wife was very much against it because she said, if you become the personal physician of Hitler, you won’t have any time for me anymore. And he said, like, come on, man. This is like the chance you only get once in your life. Yeah, I mean, at this point, Hitler’s a really big deal. He’s the most powerful man (Time 1:37:07)
A Medical Dose Influenced Barbarossa Strategy
- A crucial August 1941 opioid injection to treat Hitler’s flu may have decisively altered the decision to split forces in Barbarossa.
- That single medical intervention likely shifted strategic focus away from a Moscow push. Transcript: Norman Ohler Was a day in August of 1941. Had invaded the Soviet Union on June 22nd. So this is about six weeks into the campaign, which was called Unternehmen Barbarossa. And Germany was doing pretty well. And it came to a crucial moment where high command said, now we’re going to take Moscow. And Hitler said, no, we’re going to split up the troops and take Leningrad, which is now St. Petersburg, in the north and in the south, we’re going to go for the oil fields, basically. That was his plan. He said, let’s not do Moscow. And high command was like, this is the biggest mistake. We must take Moscow. If we take Moscow, we’re going to win. And Hitler became ill for the first time on the day this decision… I mean, this is a dynamic thing going on you know they’re moving and now they have to decide will we split up or we will continue towards moscow and he had the russian flu in german the ruhr Which is a like a flu type disease with very high fever it comes like they were in the field like so they were in the east you know camping out maybe he drank water that wasn’t good or he had Some you know they tested everything meticulously but he got you know he got sick high fever he felt like shit and he said to morel and you know you can see that in morel’s notes like morel Describes this very vividly and in his notes which are at the federal archives uh which no historian ever looked at except me, the non-historian, which is kind of funny. So he describes how Hitler then asks of him, basically says vitamins are not enough anymore. Like he’s very weak. He must go to the military briefing. But the flu is quite a severe disease, I think. If you have a heavy flu, you really feel like you’re going to die. You can’t go to a military briefing. But Morel kind of fought with himself, and then he decided to inject an opioid into Hitler’s veins intravenously, like the strongest application possible. And this was Dolant which is a german opioid that was legal and um i was once an exchange student in flint michigan 1988 and i was number one of the tennis team because i was quite a good tennis Player we were playing our main enemy i think it i was at flint powers catholic high school in flint michigan and I think it was Power Central. And they had a number one, Mark Restiner. Still remember. Wow. He was feared. And no one could beat him. Yes. And on the day of the match, I had the Russian flu, i was and i was the hope i was the number one the wonder kid from germany and they took me to a doctor and the doctor gave me an injection and I don’t know until this day because i just i don’t know if i was you know kid i got the injection i was 17 and i felt great like the flu was gone like this it was probably an opioid something You know something that just shuts off all the pain and gives you you know energy and i beat this guy in a way i totally i i thought of a new technique by playing like very high balls like in The in the in the direct like fearful competition i would have lost so i played something that in germany we call footen which is something you don’t really do you just play high balls Yeah which is not pretty to look at but it’s very effective and he just lost he just lost his nerve and i beat him like six zero six zero something like that sensational So Hitler receives This Dolantin injection and he gets up, he goes into the meeting room, he dominates the meeting room, he feels great. He decides, you know, in front of everybody, no one is able to, no one overpowers him in that meeting. He was very good in the room. And the troops are split up. Like Leningrad is now a target. This weakens the general thrust towards Moscow. This is probably why they didn’t take Moscow. They probably could have taken it. (Time 1:49:06)
Methamphetamine Fueling Blitzkrieg
- The German war machine’s only chance of winning was through speed wars like Blitzkrieg due to their overall weakness.
- Methamphetamine fueled the German advance, particularly in the early stages of the war, allowing them to move faster and with more aggression.
- However, the effects of methamphetamine are not sustainable long-term, leading to a decline in effectiveness.
- Lex Fridman compares this to Genghis Khan’s army, which relied on speed and mobility for its success.
- The ability of tank troops to go off-road was a significant advantage, enabling them to bypass conventional routes and surprise the enemy. Transcript: Norman Ohler The one-time moment where they could have done it. And the German war machine could only win in so-called speed wars, like lightning war, only if they would do it very fast and surprise, because they were always weaker, basically. They just had this moment, this dynamic moment. And this was fueled by the methamphetamine. Also in the Soviet Union, hundreds of millions of dosages were given. So the Germans were really going. And at one point, this ends, you know, you can’t take meth for the rest of your life. You’re just going to end up being a nervous wreck. But you can do it for like two months. You could do it. But then it stops. Lex Fridman I think if you’re really honest about where you have the asymmetry of power, which is in the speed of the Blitzkrieg. So that’s similar to Genghis Khan, who had a very small military, but their advantage was, I mean, I think at the peak it would be probably 100,000. But every soldier of Gengyllis Khan’s had five horses. So the whole point was they can move really fast. And they, not just fast, but they can move on all terrain. So they can go around, you know, if wars were fought on normal roads, you were supposed to travel a certain kind of way. If you go fast and around, not on paths that are usually taking attack from all kinds of sides, that’s why you can conquer as much as Genghis Khan was able to conquer. And the same thing with the Nazi forces, this is their biggest advantage. And not using that is essentially the end of its effectiveness. (Time 1:53:50)
Opioids Raised Hitler’s Confidence And Risk
- Opioids like Oikodal (oxycodone) gave Hitler calmness, energy, and assertive clarity during meetings.
- These drugs increased confidence and decisiveness while also fostering physical dependence and decline. Transcript: Lex Fridman So he must have really trusted Morel, right? Norman Ohler Yeah, he trusted Morel because Morel was not part of any organization. He was the loner coming from the VIP doctors, his own VIP doctor’s office. And now he was basically Hitler’s toy. Like Hitler could get access to all kinds of medications through him. And Morel would never say it to anybody. You know, he would just write it down. But this was kept quite secret. No one knew what was going on between the two men. Lex Fridman This is so interesting because why would he… There might be… Can you maybe even speak to that? Why did Hitler trust another human being this much? Because you could probably make the case nobody was closer to Hitler than Morrell. That is certainly the story I’m telling. Isn’t that crazy? What is it about Morrell? This guy who’s… I guess he’s fat and weird and like, nobody really likes him. Norman Ohler He was not a threat to Hitler. Like, Hitler hated all the super smart medicine people. Like, he didn’t, he never undressed before them. Never let himself be seen naked because he didn’t want anyone to know anything you know about him that he couldn’t control so morel was harmless morel would basically did what hitler Wanted they wouldn’t say we’re going to take today we’re going to take drugs together it’s going to be fun you know hitler was always about optimizing his performance because knew only I’m doing this i have to and he always thought he’s going to die young so he always like i don’t have unlimited time the clock was always ticking so i have to be always the high performer So hitler when he first experienced the beauty of the opioid high that was given to him in August 1941 intravenously, when he experienced that, kind of his eyes opened. And he didn’t think this was a drug. I mean, this is a medicine. This is a medicine that helps me function. This is a medicine that my doctor gives me in a very controlled uh manner and that lets me be extremely sharp for like eight hours i can convince all the generals i can do my job i’m happy Because hitler was also depressed you know i mean this is he need he need like he really appreciated what the drug gave him but he never thought no i’m becoming like a drug addict or So it Lex Fridman Begins to, oxycodone in general, begins to work within 30, 60 minutes and lasts for about 46 hours. Norman Ohler This is a long lasting thing. Yeah, but these are, this you swallow. If you get an intravenous injection, it works after one second. Wow. Get the injection, you’re high. But it lasts for many hours. Yeah. That’s why people love heroin, who take it. Because you feel like shit, you take the injection, you feel great. I mean, it’s in your system for quite a while. Like, you can go into the meeting quite comfortably. Lex Fridman Into the meeting. Norman Ohler Yeah, okay. I mean, there’s the briefing. It starts at 1. Morel comes, and you can see this in the notes. Like, I have to be at the führer in his bedroom at 12 and then you know he chat a bit and then hitler rolls up his uniform sleeve and then he gets the injection maybe at maybe 12 30 then the high Comes on and then it’s very stable like you feel great this is a pure product from the merck company. This is not some heroin from the street. And Morel knows exactly what dosage you want right now so you feel at the top of your game. You don’t feel, you’re not intoxicated. I mean, you are, but it makes you clear, you know? So the mind is clear. The mind’s totally clear. Your body feels fantastic. You know exactly your points. You know exactly how the others, because the others are just mortals, you know, because they’re sober. They just sit there and they just, they haven’t slept very well or they have problems with them, you know, and you’re way above them. What do we know about general psychological effects of it? Lex Fridman So does it boost your confidence? Does it boost aggressiveness? What effect did it have on his vision of the world? It makes you feel extremely confident. Norman Ohler You have a lot of energy, but it’s not too much. (Time 1:59:58)
Drugs Amplified Pathology, Not Excused Crimes
- Hitler’s drug use deepened after 1941 and contributed to his cognitive decline, yet drugs alone don’t absolve moral responsibility.
- Drugs magnified pathological traits but Nazi crimes and ideology remained deliberate policy choices. Transcript: Norman Ohler Well, an interesting event is July 1943 in a villa in northern Italy where Hitler meets Mussolini. And Mussolini is basically fed up with the war and he wants Italy to leave the axis of evil. And Hitler is really pissed when he hears that. He knows that’s what the meeting is all about. And Mussolini, I mean, the Italians invented that modern type of fascism and Italy was the role model for Nazi Germany but by now nazi germany of course has been much more powerful but You know italy is the most important ally and now mussolini is like quitting in the middle of the war i mean what is going on here so hitler becomes and morel writes about this quite a lot He’s in a terrible mood he really he doesn’t want to go like he might lose his you know temper whatever he’s not happy and that’s actually that’s the day when he receives the oikodal for The first time because he says to Morel I’m under such stress I’m not gonna go he threatens like he calls off the whole thing like the plane’s already waiting in Obersalzberg everything Is ready and he says i’m not meeting this guy and then morel gives him oikodal and you can see you know you know the time when he gets the oikodal and that’s when he has this effect for the First time just like i can do anything this is great i’m gonna i’m gonna explain to mussolini that he’s not gonna leave the war effort and on the way to the plane he says to Morel that this Oikodal is really helping him and he wants another shot and he receives another shot so he has he has quite a lot of Oikodal in him when he speaks to Mussolini and there’s like the people Who take who write the protocol of the meeting and also other people around it’s not like it’s not just two people in the room it’s like i don’t know 15 or 20 people in the room and a lot of People talk about that meeting in their memoirs and um mussolini is not able to say one word basically because hitler is so high and so charged and he’s like just telling the whole time How great this is you know what they’re doing right now. And of course, there’s not even, it’s not possible that you’re going to leave, you know. We are in this together from the, you know, he explains everything, you know, the whole thing for like two hours. And Mussolini is just like, it’s like, then a messenger comes in and says, Rome has just been bombed. He’s like, he knows, he can’t say anything and he stays. So that was very much influenced, that meeting by his Oikodal. And that’s probably because it was so successful in Hitler’s eyes. What happened is why Oikodal became a very attractive drug for him. And this happened, this was the first time in July 1943. And then, so he didn’t take Oikodal through the whole time. It only started in July 1943. He started with the regular opioid use. You can see that he takes it more and more regular now. Not every day, but sometimes, like the September 1944, he takes Oikodal every second day, which is like a junky rhythm. You take it, then the next day you don’t take it. Then you take it again. Lex Fridman Why is that junky rhythm? Norman Ohler You don’t take it all the time because you need to, I don’t know, relax. You take it maybe a Saturday night, you take it and the high lasts till Sunday morning. And then Sunday when the high slowly wears off, you sleep and then you wake up and you’re hungry. Maybe you eat. And then the next day, Monday, you’re going to do it again. So that’s this rhythm. Lex Fridman And it was more potent than, what is it, dolentine? Dolentine. Norman Ohler Oikodal is said to have the best effect, the best in the sense of, it’s not about strength. You just increase the dosage and you have a stronger effect, but you can’t increase it too much because then you’re going to die. You know, that’s also the problem with opioids. If you take too much, you’re going to die because you just have a heart attack. So, but- There’s nuanced differences that it’s hard to convert into words, I guess, yeah. Different molecules have different effects. So oikodal apparently had the best effect. That’s why you had the oxycodone epidemic in america because people take this pill i mean thank god they’re not injecting it all like hitler did they take a pill so it’s not so dangerous As injecting but apparently the effect is so pleasant of this oikodal of this uh of this particular type of opioid, that it just is more attractive maybe than Dolantin. Lex Fridman Is it possible to try to reverse engineer the effect of Hitler’s drug use on the outcome of World War II? So if he didn’t use any drugs, would the Nazis be more successful or less successful? What do you think? Norman Ohler I think it would be speculative to answer, but I can try. But it’s very, the war is so complex. I mean, there’s many different ways this war could have played out and ended, but I think it would always have ended with a German defeat. I don’t think it would have ended with a German defeat. Well, if you don’t attack the Soviet Union, then of course you can win. But as soon as you attack the Soviet Union, that was like… Lex Fridman As we talked about, I think the probability of success is low. But, you know, I would put it like, I don’t know, 10%. Again, extremely speculative. But yeah, if you do blitzkrieg type of attack, very rapid. Don’t split the forces in Operation Barbarossa. Go straight for Moscow. Don’t invade Britain. Don’t declare war on the United States. And really focus on gaining oil from the Middle East. So maybe making the Africa campaign the central point in the very beginning so that you have the resources that are essential for the industrial capacity of Germany that’s required To keep manufacturing and keep fueling the planes, the tanks, the mechanized aspect of the army. So there’s a lot of paths to this. I mean, but I don’t think, I think it’s probably fair to say that reasonable, thoughtful, calculated, disciplined leader would not have done any of the things Hitler did even in the Beginning. I mean, it requires insanity, it requires hatred, it requires ideological self-capture where you tell yourself narratives that rapidly deviate from like ground truth, from first Principles of things. And you just, you’re an insane person. You’re an insane dictator that’s drunk on power and it’s impossible for you to make great military decisions at that point. Norman Ohler Yeah, you would need like an impossible Hitler that is as crazy as he was, but still wouldn’t make any (Time 2:17:12)
Oikodal Shortage And Hitler’s Final Decline
- In the bunker, Merck’s factory bombing cut Hitler off from Oikodal, driving him into opioid withdrawal.
- Morell was dismissed and fled; Hitler’s late decline included desperate, experimental medicines and withdrawal symptoms. Transcript: Norman Ohler It’s quite well documented because people at the time were keeping diaries and writing about it, writing about the experiences. Also, Morel wrote quite a bit what happened in the bunker. One thing that changed was that Eukodal was not available anymore. So the drug that Hitler actually had become physically addicted to was suddenly not available anymore. This had to do with the bombardment of the Merck company, the factory in December 1944. British bombers destroyed the production facilities. And Morel, there’s a report of Morel, the overweight person riding on a motorcycle through bombed-out Berlin pharmacy to pharmacy, basically going into the pharmacies, trying to Score Oikodal, and he couldn’t find it anymore. It was nowhere to be found. And that’s when Hitler goes into withdrawal. What I find surprising is that he didn’t use another opioid because morphine was available all the way till the end, but he never kind of made that switch then. Like he doesn’t, also he didn realize for a long time that he becomes physically dependent on a drug that he becomes a drug addict but this realization happens in the last uh weeks in the Bunker because gobbels he understood it and gobbels wanted that bedroom the second bedroom so he said to hitler do you understand what’s going on? That Morel turns you into a drug addict. And he does like, and at one point he realized what Goebbels is saying is true because he felt the withdrawal. He was shaking. He felt like shit. And Morel is like giving him weird stuff in the end. Like one time he gives him Harmin, which is an MAO inhibitor, which is part of ayahuasca actually, because he still had that in his doctor’s bag. It hadn’t been used yet. So it gives him that, which also creates some kind of a weird high. But, you know, that one point realizes really what’s going on this is late april so very late in the game and there’s a few reports of what actually happens like some say that morel has To kneel in front of him and that hitler puts a gun on his head and says you’ve been making me addicted to opioids. Get the hell out of the bunker. For sure, he fires him that day. And Morel is described as being in tears, like leaving the bunker. He gets one of the last planes out of Berlin. He has a research lab in the south of Bavaria, close to the Berghof. And he makes one of the last or the last plane out of Berlin. He survives. Yeah. And he goes to this research lab. And this is like May 2nd, 1945. He has like a little apartment in his research lab. His wife is still in Berlin. He’s like all alone and he starts doing his taxes. And that kind of shows you that he was probably insane at that point, you know, just totally out of touch. Why would you do your tax? Maybe he was bored, you know, maybe it’s like he didn’t do his taxes for so long because he always had to treat Hitler. And then he thinks like, no, what am I going to do? You know, I’m just going to do my tax. (Time 2:27:14)
The Bohemians’ Party-Based Resistance
- Haro Schulze-Boysen and Libertas built a large, party-driven resistance network inside Nazi Germany.
- They recruited via intimate cultural gatherings and risked their lives to spread anti-Nazi leaflets and intelligence. Transcript: Norman Ohler Well, the main guy is Haro. Haro Schulze-Beusen. He caught my attention when I was doing research in an archive in Munich, researching drugs in the Luftwaffe, Görings Luftwaffe. Göring being the morphinist. I mean, the Luftwaffe was a drug, a very promiscuous place, like a lot of people in the Luftwaffe high. Lex Fridman Also more for entertainment versus the practical aspect of so it’s less about like the meth optimizing the human performance and more about just exploring. Norman Ohler Like the number three of the Luftwaffe Ernst Udet he committed suicide in the fall of 1941 and he had had seven Pervitin tablets for breakfast. So he was really high on meth. He really enjoyed it. But he loved to take meth and then drink. Alcohol was a big thing in the Luftwaffe. You can drink a lot more when you’re on methamphetamine. And I found this letter, and it was really a coincidence while I was looking through the drug stuff. I was searching for drugs. And I found this letter by Haro Schulze-Boysen who had nothing to do with drugs but still I found this letter. I don’t know why. I can’t remember how exactly it happened that I was suddenly reading this letter and it was the last letter that he wrote in his life. He wrote it to his father and he said that everything i have done i’m totally fine with it and i know it’s very hard for you and i really am mostly sad for you and mother and my brother that You have to go through this and i’m very sorry but i’m fine with it and i have a clean conscience i did what I could to stop this madness. I’m like, what? Who is this guy? You know? And I Googled him. And there were not so many hits on him. But I read a little bit. And he actually had formed together with his wife, Libertas, which means freedom. Lex Fridman Good name. Norman Ohler He had formed the largest resistance network against the Nazis that ever existed. Over 100 people in Berlin that were all connected. And they were from all flights of life. Some were artists, others were workers, some were leftists, other were patriots. Haro always believed that people could come to an agreement, like it’s possible to actually talk about things. And he was a true Democrat, maybe you could say, or a true, I don’t know, libertarian. You know he was a he had to learn a hard lesson that with nazis you cannot argue because they they are always right they’re not that they it it doesn’t work at least it didn’t work during The third reich like he could he had he had published a newspaper during the weimar republic called gegner which means opponent and in the gegner opponents could all write like who would Be on the streets opponents they could all write in the in the opponent and so it was a you read all kinds of texts and and and opinions and he thought when hitler took over power in 33 that He could continue to publish the opponent because the opponent he’s even in a Nazi-led Germany, this keeps the discourse. You have to have a discourse. We have to discuss. We have to disagree. And then in April 1933, two months after Hitler took power, they had a meeting with the editorial staff and they discussed the new issue. And then there was a knock on the door and it was the SS and they beat up everybody and they destroyed the typewriters and the printing press that they had in the office in Berlin. And they took Haro and his best friend, who was half Jewish, to one of these early concentration camps. And they tortured both of them. And the Jew was killed. He didn’t make it. Henry Erlanger and Haro, at that moment, he realized who he’s against, you know, that he has to, he decided to become, to fight this system. And the way he fought the system uh later during the 60s we also had a 60s kind of cultural and political changes in germany and then our our 60s uh they they called it march through the institutions That is a way to infiltrate the system like to become part of the system and then you know, change the system from within. So you don’t leave the country, you stay, you go into the institutions, you march through the institutions. So Haro decided to go into the Luftwaffe and he was working in the Air Force Luftwaffe Ministry, a huge building still intact today in Berlin, Wilhelmstraße. Quite an interesting building that was like the power center of the Luftwaffe, like one of the most important structures in the whole Nazi regime. And he was working there and he worked his way up. And he received quite a lot of information. For example, when Germany for the first time became militarily active again, this was in 1936, when the Germans supported the fascists in Spain in the Spanish Civil War. This was a clandestine operation. The Luftwaffe did this. German soldiers went to Spain in plain, like posing as vacationers. But then they, you know, were actually soldiers and supporting Franco’s, you know, were part of Franco’s victory later on. And Haro had this information and he passed, he tried to pass this on to the BBC. He failed passing it on. Well, he met a BBC journalist during the Olympic in Berlin and told him about this. And the BBC guy was too afraid to make this public. And he kind of buried that information. (Time 2:37:18)
Culture-Driven Acts Can Seed Resistance
- Small acts (stickering, leaflets) can crack official narratives and show citizens that resistance exists.
- The Bohemians used culture and visibility to create morale-shifting ripples despite huge risks. Transcript: Lex Fridman What lessons do you learn from these folks maybe about why so few resisted Hitler, Poland and Germany. Norman Ohler I mean, it was extremely dangerous. Lex Fridman Is purely the danger, is it also people believed it’s hard to, it’s hard to take yourself, like be an independent thinker and take yourself outside the propaganda? Because they’re also swimming in propaganda. Norman Ohler I mean, the chances of succeeding are quite small because the system was extremely strong. And if you’d made a joke about Hitler and the wrong person heard it, like in a restaurant, and would rat on you, you would land in a concentration camp. So people were very, very careful. Also at parties with like H on libertas and she was singing and they were drinking and dancing and then suddenly the political discussion started that’s you know you have to have guts To then actually not leave the party but to stay because they were risking their lives basically as soon as they would be found out they would be dead and people don’t want to die when they’re Like in their mid-20s they were all they were they were pretty young and and also libertas you would often say like we can’t win you know it’s why are we risking our lives for like for like What you know so one time they did a um klebezettel action klebezettel like they produced, because one guy had access to a printing press and they produced leaf, like small papers that Had glue on one side. And the paper said, what the Nazis did, they set up a huge exhibition hall, which was called the Soviet Paradise. This exhibition hall was in the center of Berlin. I’d never heard about this before. I found this when I researched the Bohemians. And it was the most popular exhibition during the whole of the war. Like two million people, two million Germans saw this. They went into this exhibition and they saw how horrible the Soviet Union is, how horrible communism is to people. So it was a propaganda show. And the group decided to make these leaflets, which didn’t say the Soviet paradise, but it said the Nazi paradise, torture, SS torture, hunger, war, how long will it last? And they glued over a thousand of these stickers everywhere in berlin uh in in may 1942 at night and they organized it in a way that they always two a man and a woman would go out and they had Like the stickers with them and then they would pretend to kiss and would like lean on a wall and then while they were kissing one would like put the put the sticker on then they would move On in the dark so in the morning of that may 1942 tens of thousands of berliners saw that the city was like saw these things so is does it make a difference it made one on that day you know it Was a very dangerous thing to do and no one was, no one got caught. And in the morning, a lot of people saw that there is actually resistance, that there are people who do something against it. So I think they did something. Yeah. Lex Fridman I was reading about protests in recent human history, and then most of them, many of them don’t have an effect until they do. It’s like this threshold effect. It’s very hard to know. It’s very hard to know because it’s a match that lights a fire. And sometimes it’s a spark that takes a little bit of time to propagate through the whispers. What happens is the people whispering. It’s the whisper network of people talking. And sometimes it just takes that one sticker to begin the whispers. And then a few months later, the regime is overthrown. It’s funny. But it’s hard to sort of trace back what was affecting and what was not. Norman Ohler I mean, Haro was convinced that the system would lose so he thought that maybe we can make a contribution that it’s going faster now maybe we will be that spark so unless I when I think that There’s this possibility I must try it you know that’s that was his conviction so he would put his life on the line for that possibility. How did they get caught? They were approached by the Soviet Union who wanted to recruit them as spies. And they didn’t want to do that. Howell refused the Soviet intelligence. These are documents that were found in the early 90s one of the sons of one of the members of that group of haro good friend of haro one of his sons went to moscow to look at the files and he Found a kind of furious soviet kgb kind of descriptions of this weird guy haro that doesn’t want to be a proper Soviet spy and just says, yes, I’m going to give you information so you can Hurt Hitler, but I’m not going to play your game. I’m not going to be one of you. So still, they did collaborate with the Soviet Union. They accepted a radio transmitter from the Soviet Union with which they were supposed to send military information via radio to Moscow. And they like struggle with the technology. The Russians give them like an apparatus only with like a Russian instruction. And it’s like very difficult. They make mistakes. But what actually then gets them caught is the Russians at one point answer and send a message to them through the ether. And that message is coded. But the Nazis intercept that message and are able to decode it. And in the message, it gives the clear names of Haro and his address, which is a total intelligence blunder. (Time 2:50:55)
Psychoactives As Early Cognitive Catalysts
- Psychoactive plants likely intersected with human migrations and cultural leaps, e.g., iboga near the Rift Valley feeding cognitive shifts.
- Stone Sapiens posits drugs as plausible catalysts for early symbolic thinking and religious experiences. Transcript: Norman Ohler I discussed this with already mentioned Anthony Beaver, who is like the master in historical nonfiction books. I said, is it also possible to write a world history, like about everything basically? And he said, yes, it is possible. It’s not easy because you have to understand like a lot, you know, and obviously it will always be a selection. It’s clear, you know. That’s why I also think that the historical science is basically a fictional science i mean i have a forward the blitz forward basically tells that story don’t take it with a grain of Salt not only blitz but every historical book because we weren’t there you know that’s what johnny depp said when the when the when the guy said so you had like a mega pint of red wine he Just said, were you there? You know, the guy wasn’t there. So historical sciences is a fiction. But, you know, it’s a certain type of fiction and it’s based on facts. So I’m not inventing anything in stone sapiens. And I’m highly interested in the very early human history. And there are not a lot of sources. So the beginning of the book is more speculative than, for example, the Vietnam War chapter. In the Vietnam War chapter, I’m in Hanoi speaking to Viet Cong generals, asking them, did they supply heroin to the GIs, which diminished their fighting capability? You can research that. And that’s also a chapter. And by the way, the Vietnam War is not called the Vietnam War in Vietnam. It’s called the American War. And also, I was sitting with these Viet Cong generals in Hanoi just like a few weeks ago for researching for stone sapiens and I said so did the Viet Cong bring heroin because it’s there’s There’s never been evidence that it happened this way and they just looked at me and they said there’s no Viet Cong like what are you talking about you are the Viet Cong he said no this is An american propaganda term whether we were the north vietnamese army we never call ourselves the vietcong so the book is full of surprises obviously but the very early beginning of Stone sapiens goes back to about 1.5 million years ago when homo erectus which who who also has become kind of famous by now homo erectus It’s like the first human that really gets shit Done. Yeah, they get moving. Yeah, they move. And why were they moving? Why were they moving? I mean, then you can examine exactly where they originated, which was, I mean, it’s also disputed by now that it’s the Great Rift Valley, that only the most fossils have been found there. But that doesn’t mean that they originated there. Maybe they originated in the Central African rainforest where fossils disintegrate. And only there in the Rift Valley, we still find it. But we know for sure that in the Great Rift Valley, there was a plant called kat, which is like a plant speed. So they were using that it’s still being used now in these countries in ethiopia yemen around the horn of africa cut is it’s very normal to use you chew the leaves and it gives you like it’s Like an amphetamine it’s a plant amphetamine basically uh so homo erectus you can there’s no proof that they actually used it but but they were living in that area and the plant was there. So you can write about that. So it’s interesting because they were able to do certain things like they shed the fur. They were the first ones to suddenly be naked. And that has the effect that sweat glands are produced. Homo erectus could sweat it out basically when they when they when they were very hot what animals couldn’t do because they had the fur so an antelope can run faster as a homo erectus but At a at like after 10 minutes the antelope has to like stop like that’s what dogs do like they the tongue goes out and humans didn’t have to do that because they were sweating so they could They developed the jog jogging mode basically so they were jogging they were not sprinting to get the animal they were jogging it and when the animal couldn’t do it had to rest then the Humans would come and hunt it down so homo erectus was a very was evolutionary very good and then later, one of the species coming out of Homo erectus is Homo sapiens. And Homo sapiens, at one point, there were only like about 1,500 people left. There were not a lot of Homo sapiens. There was a point in time when there were quite a few of them. And the problem became inbreeding. And there was a real danger of extinction they were vulnerable you know they were not on top of the food chain yet so they had to develop consciousness consciousness is what say what basically Saved us from extinction without the human consciousness we wouldn’t be here you know that is what made us in the end then superior to to the other animals So how did this happen? You can kind of trace how they moved. You can trace that they went through the Central African rainforest. And there’s one plant there, which elephants like, and that’s iboga. And iboga now is like the hot thing of the psychedelic Renaissance, iboga, iboga, iboga. But it’s also the oldest drug in the book, basically. They saw that elephants were eating iboga the root and the leaves and suddenly we’re like walking backwards and we’re behaving in an unusual way and then people were also using this And this was going on over like a hundred thousand years in the rainforest so you can, you can write a story about that, you know, was it maybe a book? Of course you can’t prove it. You know, maybe the frontal cortex grew by itself. Lex Fridman That’s a really compelling story. That’s one of the great mysteries of how did the light turn on? The magic of human cognition and consciousness and the… Norman Ohler Like Sapiens by Harari, which is a great book. He also misses that. Like when he comes to those moments, he writes like, we don’t understand how the first cognitive revolution and the second cognitive revolution actually happened. So I find it interesting to kind of look, could it have been drugs? Like I include, like everything he leaves out, I look at thoroughly. Lex Fridman I mean, he does a good explanation of interesting consequences. You know, our ability to imagine ideas and share them and, you know, collaborate on them and the imagination, all that kind of stuff. But the why, the transitions of why did it happen, he doesn’t provide, right? I mean, there’s some theories, but if Iboga is one of them, that’s a compelling one. That’s a really compelling one. Norman Ohler Yeah, I mean, I’m still researching this book and writing it. (Time 3:04:23)
Psychedelics And Origins Of Religious Experience
- Religious revelations may link to psychoactive plant use, as with proposed DMT-containing acacia in Sinai and Moses’ vision.
- Many traditions include ritual intoxication, making a drug-religion connection plausible across cultures. Transcript: Norman Ohler Well, I think Moses is quite interesting. Moses was a traumatized man that had fled Egypt, where he had killed a man who had been beating up a Hebrew. So Moses kind of took revenge and killed him. So he was running from the law. And he was together with, in the Bible it says, I think, 66 people. They were in the desert in the Sinai. And they had been fasting for days and no alcohol. So it was kind of a psychedelic retreat, basically. I mean, this is being examined by Israeli scholars, and I think it’s very interesting work. They examine in detail what does the Bible say? And the Bible mentions in that passage where Moses sees the burning bush and then gets the Ten Commandments. In that Bible passage, there’s a lot of, several times the acacia is mentioned. And the acacia, the Egyptian acacia grows right in that Sinai area and contains DMT. So there’s this Israeli research that Moses was actually having a trip, basically. He was hallucinating the burning bush. If you take LSD and you look at a bush in the heat, it will move. It might resemble like a burning experience. Then he went up the mountain, which takes three hours while the others were staying down. And with a DMT type of experience, it’s not that everyone in the group has the same experience, similar to ayahuasca. Sometimes like one guy has like incredible experience while another person might not feel that much at all. And Moses a lot and you do feel a lot when you you know when you are when you have something to work through and he had certainly something to work through the trauma of killing a man so it’s Also no surprise that he receives one of the commandments you should not kill you know so for him it’s like extremely extremely important and uh what he receives on this on the mountain Like god is like there’s someone speaking to me and he understands that god is not that there’s not many gods just one god like he has a revelation you know and it i think when i when i you Know, these examinations by these scholars, I think it makes a lot of sense to imagine that the Jewish religion comes from Moses’ trip. And also, if you look at the Jewish religion, they are quite open to drugs. I don’t know if that could be an unconscious reaction to that kind of trippy beginning, like they have Purim, where it’s like you’re supposed to get intoxicated, to get closer to God. They’re not as straight-laced as the Christians. They just allow alcohol. It’s like the blood of Christ. So also Stone Sapiens is a book about religion. (Time 3:19:36)
LSD and MKUltra
- LSD does not work as a truth serum, but it might lead individuals closer to their own truth by altering brain activity.
- The CIA then took over LSD experiments from the U.S. military, which had taken them from the SS.
- The CIA’s MKUltra program, involving LSD, aimed at mind control due to fears of Soviet advancements in brain warfare during the Cold War.
- MKUltra was deeply illegal and unethical, never approved by Congress.
- Norman Ohler points out that MKUltra continues the Nazi human experiments. Transcript: Lex Fridman Is not the truth drug. Norman Ohler LSD maybe leads you closer to your own truth because when suddenly the default mode network receives less energy and other parts of the brain think more and the brain becomes a neuroplasticity Of the brain is enhanced and is stimulated, you might understand something about your life. You might not. I mean, LSD doesn’t necessarily turn you into a more knowledgeable person. You could also focus that on your orthodox belief system, but many people realize different things have different ideas. So it doesn’t work as this conditioning drug. But also the CIA then kind of took over the LSD experiments that the U.S. Military took over from the SS. So now it’s in CIA hands. In 1947, Central Intelligence Agency is founded because America didn’t have a Central Intelligence Agency before. They had like the military agencies like OSS. Now they have the CIA and the CIA makes it, Dallas, the first director, he says, the brain warfare is going on now between the Soviet Union and us. This is Cold War. We have to, you know, maybe they are using something against us. We have to be really on our, you know, we have to be prepared, you know, for the brain warfare because communism is a propagandistic system. So they were always like either really afraid or just pretending to be afraid the Soviet Union would, you know, develop the truth drug quicker than them. So the LSD truth drug program, which was labeled MKUltra, the infamous MKUltra, is a mind control program. I mean, it is. And LSD played a big part in it. Lex Fridman And it’s a deeply illegal one. Certainly, yeah. Norman Ohler I mean, it was never approved by the Congress or anything like that. Lex Fridman Probably deeply unethical. Maybe one of the more un-American, unethical things done in recent times. (Time 3:50:18)
Recommend Psychedelics Only With Caution
- Don’t broadly recommend psychedelics to strangers; assess personal stability and context first.
- Offer guidance only when you know someone’s mental health and environment to reduce harm and maximize benefit. Transcript: Norman Ohler On an emotional level, taking LSD and then writing about LSD changed something in my family. It improved the health of my mother. That made me very happy, of course, very satisfied, you know? Lex Fridman Yeah, there’s a deep personal connection, but I even mean on Ken Kesey’s side, like… I know what you mean. I mean, what does it do? Like, listen, writing, I don’t know. Again, me as a fan of writing, it feels like writing is suffering, kind of. When I see like just these great writers in history talk about writing, it seems like it’s really hard. It’s a kind of torture. Hemingway and you have the Kerouac stories that just kind of flows out of you. But a lot of times it’s like really disciplined day after day. You’re really digging and digging. And so it’s interesting what that looks like under the different supplements, right? Like Stephen King famously, I mean a lot of people you know they go to the drugs to the alcohol you have the hunter s thompson who goes you know when given the option just says yes to all of It um and the mind is a weird thing and a lot of writers talk about like they’re not really developing the ideas they’re plugging into some, they’re channeling a voice from somewhere Else. And with psychedelics, that’s certainly, it feels like you’re modifying the channel. Or you’re expanding the channel. Or you’re directing the channel to a different direction. Norman Ohler That’s why I ask. I think for me, has two important parts and one of them is the actual writing part and that’s the painful part that you talk about it’s basically discipline focus it becomes harder and Harder to focus because of the telephone yeah distractions there’s a place in switzerland the nietzsche house i go there as much as i can to write it’s in sils maria it’s quite high up Nietzsche went there every summer from 1882 to 1888 with the exception of 1887 didn’t go that that summer i don’t know why and in those he stayed there for three months and wrote most of His work in in that room and that room is still there and his desk is still there and you can rent rooms in that nietzsche house and i rent it’s it’s it’s great and i do this as often as i can And only there am i able to switch off the phone in the morning i don’t i don’t even switch it on and i’m like a soldier. I’m in the Nietzsche house. Also, Nietzsche house is magical. So it gives you… I would never take drugs in the Nietzsche house because it would disturb that clarity that is in that house. When Nietzsche wrote like Zarathustra and… You can sense his presence a little bit? Yeah, I speak to him quite a bit. His door is always open. Is he an asshole? Is he a nice guy? No, he’s a nice guy. His room cannot be rented. It’s like a museum type room. And I mean, I never thought of him as an asshole. I mean, he’s a total weirdo, obviously. Had issues, like, struggled getting laid. Yeah, I think he had a lot of problems that’s one of them yeah but he had a lot of good qualities too and he’s also part of stone sapiens because he did experiment with drugs there and he writes About it it’s very hard to find but in the nietzsche house i found a book on on nietzsche’s uh medicine history and he he takes quite a bit of hashish. He smokes. Is it to help with the stomach issues or whatever? No, he’s interested in what happens in the brain. And this comes back to your question. How did the drugs change my writing? Well, first of all, it’s this one, it’s this discipline. I can do it up in the Nietzsche house. I can also do it sometimes in Berlin. It’s just sitting there trying to focus and writing. But what you need, of course, is the inspirational part. And LSD helped me just the first trip to realize that it’s not all black and white. The world is quite colorful and there’s like the abyss and there’s also the horror. And I was a happy-go kid. I never thought the world is so deep as I understand it now. So the LSD makes the world deeper. So I think for me to understand the world better, to understand myself better, it improved my writing. But I would not write on LSD. Because on LSD, you want to walk in the forest or you want to go up the mountain or that’s what i like i don’t i would never like sit in front of the ugly computer with a stupid like screen and Write you know maybe i would lie in the mountains with a notebook and kind of write like poetic lines and i that could be done on lsd because you have like when i was researching stone sapiens I did one lsd trip in from the niche house i went quite high up in the mountains on lsd and i came and it was not i just it’s just i just thought about the book and kind of looked at the different Chapters does it work together like kind of like macro without taking too many notes just kind of letting it you know play out in front of in my mind and then but then when i walked down i Passed the cave and i realized a lot about people’s relationship to caves and the cave paintings uh how you know actually that the the cave walls you see all the arteries of the rocks and I mean on lsd you see all of that and you like see how alive that is and how beautiful it actually was by humans to then use that canvas and and and work your your cave paintings in there i mean I never had the appreciation of that before. Yeah, you’re right. Lex Fridman You are able to detect on psychedelics the aliveness of the details, if you can put it this way. Norman Ohler For me, it’s a very creative drug. But for other people, it might not be. So I cannot advertise it. Because also, if you have a psychological problem, maybe it’s overwhelming. Lex Fridman Yeah, that’s actually a good thing to say at this moment. From my perspective, and maybe you can comment on it, in general, when people ask me, because I’ve done psilocybin a few times and I did ayahuasca and I’ve talked about it. When people ask me if I recommend those things, as a general statement, I say no, you know, to the general population. And then as a second step, if I’m talking to specific people on a case-by basis, I can just discuss my experience and let that be kind of an inspiration. Because I’m very hesitant to recommend a thing that could be so powerful. Because I (Time 3:57:06)