Behind the Bastards - Part Two: Hitler's Drug Problem

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

Robert is joined again by Carolina Barlow to continue to discuss Hitler, the Nazis and drugs Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest? I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's unironically supporting the use of methamphetamine, my giant corporate podcast network? That was great. No notes. Thank you, Sophie. Thank you for taking legal accountability for my actions, as you always do in all instances. This is Behind the Bastards, podcast bad people tell you all about them.

Part two of our episode on Hitler, the Nazis, and drugs. So my guest today is Carolina Barlow. Carolina, you are a writer. You work on the Ron Burgundy podcast with comedy person, William Ferrell, famously funny, providing the giggles, the chuckles, the yucks. And you also have a weekly podcast called True Romance that comes out every Thursday. Light of my life, True Romance. Now, when we talk about True Romance, what about the romance of a young German woman being ordered by her doctor to take methamphetamine

so that she can produce more soldiers to go die on the Eastern Front? What about the romance? Is that not the truest romance in a way? That's not really what we were going for when we started our shows much more, you know, so this is not city references and stuff like that. So your podcast is not about fueling the Ostfront's inexorable need for human cattle. You know, we talked about that and we were like, let's go in another direction, actually. It would be a bit late for that at this point, one way or the other, no matter which side you came in on.

Plus, your show is doing that. We are, we are, we are always trying to convince people to go die in Russia. That is, that is, our main sponsor is the bone fields of Kursk. Add your bones to them today. What are you, what are you going to do with them? You're not using your bones. Give them to Kursk. Anyway, yeah.

Carolina, you want to talk about Hitler's farts a little bit? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Hitler had a horrible fart problem and this, this is, Like Trump's shit problem. His enormous shits that couldn't be flushed. But he told the entire world about, and everyone was just like, yeah, this is just a thing that's happening. Oh my God.

That was so good. All the good fishies in the ocean. Oh, that was so funny. Not only that, but he literally shits his pants all the time. And if you look at close-ups of his pants and he's, I mean, Allegedly. What is easier to believe than the fact that Trump shits his pants? I can't, I mean, the diaper.

You can see it. The diaper butt, the big diaper bottom. Lots of rad people shit their pants and don't do the bad things. That's true. Baby shit their pants. Baby shit their pants and most babies do not attempt to stop the immigration visas of interpreters. That's true. And ban immigration from majority nations.

It would be very hard for a baby to do either of those things. Even if you were to invest a baby with the powers of the presidency and change the constitution to allow a baby to serve. A baby would have a very difficult time pushing either of those, even signing its name would be a tremendous effort. It would be a whole thing. I kind of want to see a TV show where you've got like a baby and a bunch of fascists and the babies, the presidents, they have to like connive ways to get the baby to like do something recognizable as a signature. They're just having to walk around and ink and stuff. That'd be a fun show.

I think this is the next installment of Boss Baby. Boss Baby. He's unknowingly the figurehead of a fascist movement. Exactly. It's obvious direction. Damn it, he opened the border. He crawled over the wrong paper. Yeah.

Boss Baby. So let's talk about Hitler's farts. This is an important subject because Hitler was one of the most important people who ever lived, right? I'm just kind of objectively. We don't have to think that's a pleasant fact for it to be real. And as a result, the fact that he had a horrible, horrible gastrointestinal problem had an influence on the course of world history. As we talked about last episode, Dr. Morrell prescribed Hitler mutiflore for his GI issues, but he also gave him medication for his out-of-control flatulence,

which often led to unbearable gas pain and, in some cases, embarrassing farting during important meetings, sometimes with, like, this was a whole thing for Hitler all the way up through his early career. Now, the specific medication that Dr. Morrell picked was Dr. Kester's anti-gas pills. Hitler's flatulence does seem to have had at least some psychosomatic element. He had particularly bad attacks of cramps and gas during times of stress, meetings with important foreign dignitaries, or the eve of major assaults. So as Hitler went from political brinksmanship to invading all of Europe, his gas attacks grew more frequent and severe, and he had to take more anti-gas pills.

Today, there are medications that help with gas, but Dr. Kester's pills were a distinctively quack brimity. Most reputable doctors would not have prescribed them, because their active ingredient was atropa belladonna, which included atropine and strychnine. So to stop his farts, he was taking strychnine pills every day. That is so gnarly. There's this easier, softer way. Yeah, and there's debate over whether or not it would have been possible for him to take enough of a dose to have hurt, because, like, the recommended dose of the pills, it was too little strychnine to have really done anything,

but he was also taking way more than the recommended dose. I don't know that we also don't have a clear understanding of, like, how good was that companies, the sketchy companies, control process, how much do we know that he was actually only getting this much or whatever. These are questions that will never be answered, but we do know that he was taking a shitload of strychnine pills for years, and that that may have had an impact. Yes, strychnine is a poison. It's a deadly poison in high enough doses, and it can cause severe discomfort and, like, a variety of negative effects. It can also be kind of a sedative in lower doses, although I wouldn't recommend it, because it's strychnine.

But, yeah, again, it's impossible to, like, say exactly, oh, at this moment, the fact that Hitler was taking strychnine all the time led to this decision. But it is hard to imagine someone taking strychnine and increasing quantities every day for years without there being some kind of impact on him, right? Yeah, in the words of Nancy Meyers, something's got to give, okay? It didn't help. It's not going to help. And, again, there is a lot of stuff being shoved into Hitler's body by Morel, these strychnine pills, these weird hormones, these injections, drugs, you know, amphetamines, and we'll talk about the other drugs later. We don't know exactly what did what, but one thing everyone does agree on, and this is universally agreed among scholars and physicians who have reviewed Hitler's records,

is that his health declined rapidly after 1941, and it all played a role in that, right? It's probably too much to pick one thing. Stress is also, like, he's losing a war for most of that time, so that has an impact, too. But I think probably... When Russia comes after you, like, it can't feel good. Oh, boy. It doesn't feel great, no. Now, it is widely agreed that all of Hitler's... Like, as I said, so, again, we can't say, like, how much of this is on the drugs, how much of this is on aging and stress,

but as the war kicked off, Dr. Morel grew a lot more comfortable using Hitler as a guinea pig, and you have to assume that has, and we'll talk specifically about that a bit. So, in August of 1941, Hitler's Operation Barbarossa was well underway, conquering more and more land more quickly and capturing more enemy soldiers than any other invasion force in history. The Wehrmacht had begun to find itself bogged down, though. Casualties were mounting, and as the winter approached, the Red Army prepared its first of many counterattacks. At this moment, Hitler got sick. For the first time in years, he was too ill to properly work. Dr. Morel was summoned to the German leader's side.

He found Hitler bedridden and suffering from diarrhea and fever. The probable diagnosis was dysentery. Hitler ordered his doctor to fix him immediately. And again, Morel's main selling point is, like, you feel better right away, you know, because I'm shooting you full of caffeine or maybe meth or whatever. Famously helps with dysentery. Well, that is the bit of a problem. So, like, dysentery, I've had dysentery.

I've had dysentery that nearly killed me in a village in the desert in rural India. There's no quick cure for dysentery. Like, your best bet is to take something like Cipro and just kind of, like, not die. Yeah, but you're not getting better fast, you know? I don't even think today we really can deal... We don't have a quick shot for that idea. Once it gets going, maybe if you're super rich and you get immediately... I don't know, maybe there's something...

Walter Reed? Yeah, it's not immediately available. And especially at this point, there's nothing Morel can do for Hitler, really. So, he tries, though. So, because his first shot was, like, vitamins. He's basically giving him a shitload of vitamin C and other vitamins to try to, like, perk up his immune system. And obviously, this doesn't do anything.

And so Morel decided next to mix his normal vitamin shot with a steroid. Glyconorm, which he made with extracts of the heart, adrenal glands, liver, and pancreas of farm animals. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. He's shooting Hitler up with a lot of random animal hormones. Like, there's a hole for years. It's pretty cool.

This seems to have, like, the ambition of Dr. Frankenstein a little bit. Yeah, there's some... Again, hormones are also kind of new in terms of, like, our understanding of them, like vitamins, so people are just like, yeah, just fill people up with hormones seems like a good idea. It's fun stuff. So, while he was juicing Der Führer up, Morel bent his needle in Hitler's arm. And to deal with the pain of that, he gave his boss Dolanton an opioid.

Despite all of this, Hitler was still sick and now enraged that his personal physician had failed. Morel wrote in his notes, Führer very irritable, have never experienced such hostility to myself. He might not be such a cool guy. Well, again, Hitler loves Morel up to this point because Morel is his drug dealer. Whether the shot's just caffeine or if there's amphetamine or hormones, which are powerfully minimally active, he's... He's Dr. Feelgood, yeah.

Yeah, he's Dr. Feelgood and it always works because drugs do work. That is the fun thing about drugs. If you take a drug, you may have to take more and more, but you will continue to get high. It's kind of the thing the drugs do. Whereas everyone else in Hitler's world at some point fails, generally repeatedly fails, and so he has all these rages at people who don't do good enough for him, but Morel always comes in and makes him feel good.

And when he doesn't, it's... Most people don't like their drug dealers at the best of times. I don't know, maybe it's different now for you kids and your pot shops and stuff, but my day, if you wanted to buy drugs, you had to hang out with a dude you probably wouldn't have hung out with if you were not buying drugs from them. I definitely had some cool ass drug dealers too, but yeah. America's Home Videos. Yeah, you're going to sit around talking about Alex Jones with a guy

before he sells you a bag of weed and some opium, and that's not going to be the funnest experience of your entire life. Sorry to my cool drug dealers that I had in the past, but... Yeah, any of my old drug dealers are listening. It's not you, it's the game. It's the institution. It's the game, and it's the fact that you made me listen to Alex Jones a bunch while you were measuring out, anyway, whatever.

It's the really cute guy I saw in my drug dealers house in 2009. I thought we shared a moment, if you're out there, maybe this is too late for a misconnection on Craig's list, but thinking of you. I did date a couple of my drug dealers, and I do recommend that. Yeah, okay. You get cheap drugs. Yeah. Yeah.

Sometimes you get very expensive drugs, depending on how you measure expense. Yeah. Like on emotional level, they can be very, very pricey. Most expensive weed you ever buy sometimes, but anyway. This has got dark really fast. You know, time is money. I don't want to spend that much time with people who will laugh at anything. I don't know.

Drugs. Anyway, so Morrell, Hitler's drug dealer, has just like, you know, failed to come up with the shit for the first time, and Hitler doesn't want to hang around and listen to Alex Jones if he's not going to get a dime bag, you know? And Morrell's like, don't text him out. Signal bro, you got to hit me up on signal. So eventually Hitler did recover from the dysentery,

but the fact that his normally instant injections had not provided quick relief rattled Dr. Morrell. His ability to get and stay rich was directly tied to Hitler's favor. And Hitler, as you may be surprised to learn, kind of a fickle dude. Kind of easy to fall out of Hitler's favor. Yeah, not reliable. See, the night of long knives. And so, as Norman Euler writes in Blitz quote,

So that patient A didn't end up in the sick bay again and fall behind, Morrell administered a harder course of prophylactic injections and went on to prescribe more and more remedies and ever changing concentrations. He barely made any diagnoses, but instead constantly added to his basic medicinal treatment. This soon included such diverse substances as tono-phosphan, a metabolic stimulant made by the company Hecht. Chiefly used nowadays in veterinary medicine, the hormone rich in immune system boosting bodybuilding supplement Homo serin,

a byproduct of uterine blood, the sexual hormone Testoviron to combat the declining libido and vitality, and Orchikrin, a derivative of bull's testicles, which is supposed to be a cure for depression. And all these happen to be our sponsors. Yeah, we are heavily sponsored by Orchikrin. You feeling sad? Don't go to therapy. Get a bull's testicles injected into your bloodstream.

And I've got some stuff for my uterine blood for anyone who's interested. There you go. That'll be a cure for your, what was that a cure for? Libido and virality. There you go. Oh, wait, no, sorry. That was a bodybuilding. It'll get you buff. Yeah, sure. Well, it's been working to help me pump iron. That's, it is iron rich. Which is why people, ladies often need to take iron pills.

So another substance used was called prostikrinum, which was made by, from seminal vesicles and the prostates of young bulls. Even though he didn't eat meat, Hitler surely could no longer be considered vegetarian. From autumn 1941 onward, more and more highly concentrated animal substances began to circulate in his bloodstream. The purpose of these supplements was to compensate for states of psychological and physical exhaustion, or to prevent them in advance by reinforcing the body's defenses. However, as a result of the constantly changing applications and the rising doses that followed,

Hitler's natural immune system was soon replaced by an artificial protective shield. Now, I don't know how scientifically accurate that last bit is, but he's definitely on point about like what Hitler was taking. And my God, it's again, we don't know like what exact impact, but it can't have, it has to have influenced the, he's getting so much shit shot into his bloodstream. Ridiculous stuff. Two different kinds of bull testicles shot into his blood. There's a couple of different kinds of animals. Like a lot of animals shot into him. A lot of animal hormones.

Like it's, of course this has an influence on the guy's thinking. Like it wouldn't not, yeah. To think we've just outed him as not vegetarian, it feels like now he could really get canceled. Like these little, you know, cancel culture finally comes for Hitler. We really just need to get them this information and see how they really feel. There's some guy with 1488 tattooed on his forehead hearing this and just starts weeping.

Like sadly tears down his Hitler poster. I'll never believe in anything again. So one of the shortcomings of Blitz and I don't even know if this would have been possible, but it is, it is a missing thing is that older doesn't give us a lot of scientific information about how all these weird animal derivative substances would have impacted Hitler's body and mind. And in fairness, there's probably not a lot of great data on this stuff, because no one else would have used it or at least would have used it to the extent that Morel did. We don't have the guinea pig anymore.

Yeah, Hitler was the guinea pig. So it's like, it is, this is a missing aspect of the book. I don't know that it's fair to critique older for it because like, yeah, I don't know how many other people got this much bold testicle injected into their bodies, like, or this much like uterine blood extractor. I have a friend. You have a friend. How's he doing? Has he invaded Russia recently? He's thinking about it. He's thinking about it. Well, there you go.

He says it's just the bold testicle talking. Well, we get one more person and then then we have a trend we can. Maybe we have a study. Yeah. Hitler loved all this stuff, though. Like again, whatever we could say about the absolute effects, we just don't have a lot of data. Hitler seemed to feel like it had a big impact on him. He was mentally dependent on this stuff. So again, some of it's probably purely psychosomatic, right?

Like he has a couple of good experiences early on with Morel and he becomes kind of, it's almost like a good luck charm before a big meeting. I need to get shot up. Maybe most of it's like the caffeine as opposed, but like, I don't know how much of it is, is what, but he's profoundly mentally dependent on this stuff to the point that at, you know, late in the war when Hitler is when von Stauffenberg tries to blow him up with a bomb. After that point, everyone who was close to Hitler gets thoroughly searched by the SS. The only person exempt was Dr. Morel in his medical bag, which is that gives you an idea of like how important this guy was to Hitler.

Later that year, Hitler and Mussolini took a train ride together to the Eastern Front. It was a boys trip. Right. You want to be on that train? Hitler and Mussolini pounding shots, injecting bull testicles into their thick, weird necks. Yeah. I feel like in the early days, man, we would be like hanging out, you know, annex and shit all the time. Like, what's up, man? You invade Russian.

You don't have any fucking time for me. Exactly. You know, it's like that for them. So it's a 24 hour trip. And obviously, Hitler... Full of farts. So many farts. Full of farts.

You do not want to be in that train. Mussolini probably too, right? You look at that guy's fucking face. That's a guy who's you don't want to be in a train with. But also, Hitler can't stand that long without getting shot up, right? He's again, he's very dependent on whatever the fuck Morel is putting into his veins. And so periodically, the SS would stop the train and set up anti-aircraft defenses so that Dr. Morel could shoot Adolf Hitler up with veterinary steroids and calcium. I can imagine Mussolini being like the one time Mussolini was like, I don't know.

I don't know about this, guys. Try this. No, it's like amazing. It's like Kundalini yoga. Like, it really sets me right. That is the story of Mussolini because Mussolini is a lot of ways a much more stable man than Hitler ever was and a lot less of a true believer. Mussolini is a guy of flexible politicality. He really just kind of wants power.

And there's part of the Mussolini story is like kind of belatedly realizing like, oh shit, I should not have gotten involved. This allying with Germany seemed like a good call at a certain point. I did not want all the trouble this is bringing my way. I did not want war with all of these other countries. Like, why did I do this? And yeah, I'm sure this train is Hitler's getting shot up with veterinary steroids and farting. Mussolini is like, God damn it. You know what?

This might be on me a little bit. You're my only friend. Like, I chose you. This is not an inspiring situation. I have a feeling I'm going to get a hung upside down by my own people and beaten as like a pinata. He texts Winston Churchill and he's like, hey, hey. I just want to say what's up. You know, I've been missing you lately.

I know there's been like a lot of shit, but yeah, maybe just talk. You want to talk? You want to have like a no Hitler? I'm not talking to anybody. Shut up. Like stop it. Go take more veterinary steroids. Come on.

Growing a tail. Yeah. So the exact nature of what Hitler took did change every day. Well kept a rotating stable eventually more than 80 different hormone preparations mixed with steroids, nonsense medicine like anti gas pills, traditional medicines and drugs and like amphetamines and shit. And we'll talk about other stuff that was in there later. Older alleges that there was a psychological importance behind the fact that Hitler's

drug diet changed daily. It meant he avoided feeling dependent on any specific drug, but was instead dependent on Dr. Morrell's overall care. This is impossible to prove in like an objective way, but it, it makes sense. It's a logical leap, but it's one that I don't think is an implausible one. It makes like, if I were doping Hitler, I would have done the same thing, right? Just knowing what I do about drugs is like, yeah, you don't want him to get too dependent on any one thing.

Also, it won't work as well if they get too dependent. So like, okay, we'll do the opiates and then we'll take a couple of days and we'll give you some caffeine the next day or we'll give you a little bit of like speed the next day. And then, you know, you kind of, you cycle, right? Like that's the, that's, that's, that's the, the best way to do this if you're doing it. And I think, I think Oler's leap there is, is a pretty intelligent one. Now, while the fear was growing ever more dependent on a bizarre cocktail of steroids and hormone extractions, the Wehrmacht itself dealt with the whole sweep of drug addiction.

If you've never been a functional addict, by which I mean someone who relies on a specific drug as a performance enhancer to help them in a task, there's other things people will call as a functional addict. And this is, I'm saying like, you're somebody who does a thing and you rely on a drug to help you do that thing. So like Lance Armstrong. Yes, like Lance Armstrong. Or like a certain podcaster who may or may not be talking right now. Let me give you an overview of how it works.

First, you're introduced to a new drug that hits just right. And my God, it's like falling in love when you discover a new substance that tickles your brain specifically in a perfect way. It's one of the best feelings in the world. The problem is, like new relationship energy, it does not last. So first thing you fall in love, you discover that all these situations in which this drug helps you and makes things better, makes life easier. But gradually your body gets used to it.

It stops hitting as hard. Sometimes the way that it changes works, right? Like I haven't smoked pot in years. I used to smoke pot every waking hour of every day. And I have not in years because at some point, probably as a result of the PTSD, it stopped. Like I smoked it to work. I worked the whole early part of my career was built on it. Again, it's been a long time, long, long, long time since I've smoked pot.

But like when I did, it was, it was necessary. And then at a certain point, I wasn't able to work on it. So like that, then that happens with a lot of different substances. It can happen with everything, which is why you shouldn't do anything every single day. But that is kind of the way. You should do anything, period. No, you should do lots of stuff. No, I mean, like people should do less in general.

Oh, yeah. Like work. Yes, absolutely. Like do less is my advice. Less work, more drugs, but don't switch them up, you know, take acid one day, you know, then you take a little bit of oxy, then maybe you get drunk the next night. Then you smoke a bone the next day and you kind of cycle through it like that. And then you're basically sober because you don't get addicted to any one drug.

Nothing touches you anymore. Perfectly medically sound advice right there from Robert Evans. This feels like you're winding up to an ad break, which you should be. Speaking of doing a lot of drugs, you know what drugs you should do? The ultimate high, the only real high. Capitalism. Because baby, spending money on products and services, that's a high you never get over. You want more and more and more.

Absolutely. And there's no consequences whatsoever. No one would ever claim that, for example, our addiction to consumption and endless growth is in a lot of ways very similar to how an opiate addiction works, where you require greater and greater doses to have the same effect. And eventually that can lead you to making miscalculations that kills you, or in the case of a society, making miscalculations about what is actually necessary that leads to the death of the entire planet. It's not like that at all.

Here's some ads. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes, you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation.

In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy-voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse were like a lot of guns. He's a shark, and not on the gun badass way. He's a nasty shark. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to heaven. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus? It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC.

What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991, and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back.

Oh, so we just talked about Hitler a bunch. We're going to talk about Hitler some more, but let's talk about the Wehrmacht. What do you feel about the Wehrmacht, Carolina? You a big Wehrmacht, Stan? Yeah, me and my family, that's not really our story, but I'm curious on how you feel. I'm a German military history nerd, I find it fascinating. And one of the problems when you're a German military history nerd is that half of German military history nerds are cool people who are interested for very good reasons. All modern military tactics are based off of the shit that the German imperial military and then the Wehrmacht pioneered.

And then there's Nazis, that's the other half of people who are really into that stuff. It's sort of like when you see people collect World War II memorabilia, it gets there's a real line. There's a line there. Oh, it seems like you're only collecting one side. Yeah. But again, and obviously I study the Wehrmacht and part of what I study about the Wehrmacht is the outrageous amount of war crimes they committed that were out of proportion to really any other actor in that war. You can make some, I mean, on a per capita basis, certainly out of because like the Red Army and the US Army have plenty of atrocities they carry out in World War II, but in terms of the amount of soldiers directly involved in crimes against humanity to the Wehrmacht stand, well, not alone, because the Japanese army exists, but stands in pretty rarefied air, you know.

And a big part of Wehrmacht culture was taking a shitload of meth. So yeah, I just walked through a little bit about like what it's like to be kind of a functional user of a drug, right? And if you are kind of using a drug to function, it will eventually stop hitting his heart. And the best way to handle that is to take a break from it, right? If you find yourself just for coffee, right? I'm going to guess most people listening to this are kind of a functional addict of coffee or at least of caffeine. Yes. Most people in America.

Yes. So do I. Do you find yourself being like, Jesus, I actually, I'm not feeling good. I'm taking way too much of this stuff. Like it's not making me feel good. One of the best things you could do is take a few weeks off, you know, let your tolerance reset so you don't need as much. And then try to restart and get by at a lower dose with like a kind of a more moderate use of, you know, that's not easy, but it is the good idea to do if you like are concerned about your level of consumption of a substance.

That's the way it works for everybody and kind of with every substance, any substance that you would be using on a daily basis. The only and that's a doable thing. It's not easy, but it's doable. Now, the problem is, if you were, say, using methamphetamine to help you fight for days without sleeping in order to conquer Europe, you might find the process of adaptation of taking a couple of weeks off a lot more difficult because you're in the middle of a war zone. You know, it's kind of a bad place to like deal with coming off of a substance. And this is the situation the Nazis eventually found themselves in. And I'm going to quote from time here.

The invasion of Poland in September 1939 served as the first real military test of the drug in the field. Germany overran its eastern neighbor by October with 100,000 Polish soldiers killed in the attack. The invasion introduced a new form of industrialized warfare, Blitzkrieg. This lightning war emphasized speed and surprise, catching the enemy off guard by the unprecedented quickness of the mechanized attack in advance. The weak link in the Blitzkrieg strategy was the soldiers, who were humans, rather than, of course, machines. And as such suffered from fatigue. They required regular rest and sleep, which of course slowed down the military progress. That is where Purvitin came in.

Part of the speed of the Blitzkrieg literally came from speed. As medical historian Peter Steinkamp put it, Blitzkrieg was guided by methamphetamine, if not to say that Blitzkrieg was founded on methamphetamine. Now, meth being meth, soldiers quickly began reporting side effects. There were heart attacks and other problems in the field. The consequences, though, were not nearly severe enough to outweigh the value meth provided. But Reich Healthführer Leo Conti did grow worried about the long-term impact of such drug abuse upon the flower of German manhood. He's like, all of our young men are taking meth all of the time.

This might not be good for our health. He's also like, listen, they're doing a lot of other stuff too, but I don't want this to ruin their futures. I don't want this to ruin, as they're rounding up Jewish people and committing mass murders. I don't want this to hurt their ability to get a job someday. Are they going to be okay? So, at this point in time, most of the atrocities the Nazis would commit had not yet been committed. But they're getting it started. They do a lot in Poland. They do a lot of atrocities in Poland, and they're on meth for those atrocities,

which is not to say that they're committing those atrocities because of meth, but meth does make it a lot easier to commit atrocities. If you want to get a lot of people to commit atrocities without sleeping for several days, methamphetamine is really your best bet, you know? Or brown round. We could do some brown round and record a podcast, Sophie. No. Can we please?

Listen. No. It's not going to help you record a podcast, but it's going to make it a lot easier to record a podcast. Yeah, Sophie, I've got all the gunpowder. All we need is the cocaine. You're in LA, you can get it. Okay, well, all right, fine. Yeah, they do sell it on every street corner here.

Yeah. So Leo Conti grows concerned about the long-term impact of meth abuse on health of German people. In late 1939 and early 1940, as Germany prepared to invade France, he pushed for new regulations that ensured preventant was only available to citizens by prescription. So he makes it not over the counter anymore for citizens. Again, soldiers are still getting issued this. And of course, the German people largely ignored this dictate. You could find a doctor who could get it to you.

Factory workers, doctors, nurses, government bureaucrats, everybody was on it. You're like, I have got coma. Yeah, I have got coma. Give me my fucking meth. Timler massively surged their production, expanding to make more than 833,000 tablets per day. Most soldiers received pills during the invasion of France. German servicemen dispensed more than 35 million meth pills. That's a good amount of meth.

That's like two-and-a-half Walter White's worth of meth amphetamine. It was also handed out in chocolate bars for pilots and for tank drivers. You had pilots. Yeah, you had Flieger Chocolat and Panzer Chocolat. So you had like tank chocolate and fighter pilot chocolate. Awesome. And these were a little bit more mellow. You didn't want as kind of like hardcore a hit as you got with the pills if you were like piloting a vehicle.

Oh, that makes sense. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, I mean, you know my motto, Sophie. Only take half as much meth if you're going to be piloting an aircraft. Yeah, you do say that often. It's good advice, it's good advice. I like the idea of a pilot announcing himself to all his passengers and being like, and you guys, I have some chocolate for this trip.

I got me a chocolate bar, y'all. Hold on to your fucking hats. Yeah, it's gonna be rad. So that said, so again, everyone was using it, but it's primary use. And the people taking the most meth were the infantry, the people marching. Most of the German military advanced on foot for all of the attention the Blitzkrieg gets. Most of their soldiers are not in vehicles. Most of them don't even have horses.

Most of them are fucking walking. And there's a lot of walking to do. And so they take a fuckload of meth to allow them to walk for days. And then after you've walked for two days straight, you might need to get into a gunfight. So you want to be alert, so you want to take a fuckload of meth. Historian Shelby Stanton writes, quote, They dispensed it to the line troops. 90% of their army had to march on foot day and night.

It was more important for them to keep punching during the Blitzkrieg than to get a good night's sleep. The whole damn army was hopped up. It was one of the secrets of Blitzkrieg. When German tanks rolled around the Maginot Line and began the mass encirclement of the French army, a few key factors made their stunning victory possible. On an organizational level, this was the concept of Auftrug's Taktik. This German military concept vested an extreme degree of personal autonomy in unit commanders. In other words, officers weren't expected to follow orders and move their men into position.

They were basically, instead of being said, Okay, I want you to do this and I want you to move your men here and take this objective, then move here and take this. They were said, I need you to be in this location on or before this time. And kind of up to you to figure out like how to get your men there and whatnot. So you have, as like a company commander, you have a lot of discretion. And for young tank officers like Erwin Rommel, this meant driving for days ahead of the German army. They were competing with all the other units.

And so they weren't like, they weren't being told be here at this point. They were told like, basically go as far as you fucking can. Yeah. And they were, and they were trying to beat each other too. And they were advancing with a greater speed than any army had ever advanced. Because number one, for the first time, these small units are kind of empowered to like, if you can go further, go further. Don't wait for approval to advance again.

Just fucking do it if you think you can make it. And also they're on a shitload of methamphetamine. And so it's this mix of macho pride, right? They're competing with each other to see who can go the furthest fastest. And also fucking meth, which synergized together really well. If you've ever seen a bunch of real dudes hopped up on meth, like that's the Wehrmacht. And they advance further and faster than any army ever had in the history of warfare. And this attitude sees the Wehrmacht from the top down.

General Heinz Guderian, leader of the invasion, told his tank drivers, I demand that you go sleepless for at least three nights if that should be necessary. And again, there's no way to do that functionally. That fuckload of speed, you know? You're not going to be able to functionally operate armored vehicles for three straight nights in a row. If you're not taking something, right? U.S. soldiers, it was a fedron and rip fuel and shit, but like, it was still something. You need something.

There were, of course, consequences to all this rampant meth abuse. From time, quote, Some users report negative side effects of the drug. During the French invasion, these included a Lieutenant Colonel with the Panzer Air Sats Division 1, who experienced heart pains after taking preventant four times daily for his many weeks. The commander of the 12th Tank Division, who rushed to a military hospital due to the heart attack, he suffered an hour after taking one pill, and several officers who suffered heart attacks will off duty after taking preventant.

A decent number of officers died from this stuff. Conti, continued, the Reich Health Officer, continued to warn other high-ranking Nazis that there was a serious danger to the volks' health. In early 1941, German newspapers quoted the BBC, who credited the Blitzkrieg success to meth pills. They'd captured Luftwaffe pilots over Berlin with preventant in their emergency bags. Stories spread from occupied France, of German soldiers taking meth before visiting brothels and handing out love pills to the girls.

Later that year, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nazis, I mean, France is famous for its brothels, and Nazis are famous for their meth. Two great things that grow great together. It would suck to get roofied, and it would suck to get roofied with meth. Yeah, I don't know if they're being roofy, because meth is incredibly popular at this point. A lot of them are probably just being like, hey, you want to take some meth with me and fuck? That's true. I guess if they're literally getting offered quote-unquote love pills,

it's just a shitty date. Yeah, I mean, they're being paid, too. I don't know. It's a whole thing. Of all of the things that Nazis do that are immoral, paying sex workers doesn't really hit the list for me. It's pretty casual, yeah. That said, I mean, obviously, I'm sure, I don't know. Who knows how many times they trick people into eating pans or chocolate that don't know that there's meth in it, right?

Because they want to get the girl hopped. I'm sure that happens. I'm sure some of them get dosed without consenting, because they're Nazis. Also, they're men. They're young men. Anyway, it's just shit that... It's common with every single military does versions of this throughout history. The Nazis are just the first ones who have access to meth. By the summer of 1941, while the Wehrmacht prepared for Operation Barbarossa, Conti succeeded in pushing an amendment to the opium law

that heavily restricted preventant from German citizens. The military was exempted from this, of course. The Wehrmacht had to blitz another krieg, and they weren't going to do it sober. The use of preventant during the Russian invasion is not well documented. This is because the records the Nazis kept of that period were largely lost or destroyed when the war went pear-shaped for them. The official Journal of German Military Physicians published articles in 1942 and 1943 that included letters from medical officers reporting that they had been ordered to dose their soldiers with preventant.

The best information we have suggests that it was just as common as it had been in France. In fact, military doctors found new uses for the drug. They mixed it with morphine, creating crude speedballs in order to increase the analgesic effect on wounded soldiers. They got shot, give them some methanopium, like give them a fucking speedball. At this point, it's just like a frat making jungle juice. It's like pour everything you have in your pockets into this pail. Take it all, fuck it! Most of the Wehrmacht stuff was transported on horseback,

and the army found that giving horses meth allowed them to work a lot harder and faster. So they're methan up the horses. Why am I annoyed by this so much? It's like you said, they're doing like so much worse shit, but I'm like, can you just leave the horses out of it? Why are you giving meth to the horses, guys? Guys, Nazis! It's like you guys are really, really loving up to the name right now.

Yeah, I feel like you all might not have everyone's best interests at heart. So, yeah. Now, again, so they find a lot of new uses, especially in the early days, because the German, the advances in early Barbarossa are just unprecedented. I think still unequaled in the history of warfare, in terms of like the length of time, the number of... There's single battles where they take 600,000 prisoners, like in a day or so of fighting.

They've been circled and just captured like the population of Portland, Oregon. It's this massive, massive... And part of how it's possible is they don't have to sleep for days because they're on a fucklit of meth. Now, if you've never taken stimulants for days in order to drive or otherwise travel long distances, I'll explain how it works. The first two or three days are great. If you're young and healthy, you can just take a nap after like 48, 72 hours,

and then go hard for like another 48 hours, and you're going to suffer minimal consequences. I say minimal, but what I mean is that the damage you're doing to your body and mind won't be immediately obvious, especially since listening to Alex Jones while pounding Benzedrine and driving through the desert will be a lot of fun when you're allegedly 19. Now, after a few days, less if you're older, the speed stops working as well. You may still be awake technically, but you won't be alert.

You'll be jittery. You'll start to hallucinate. You'll suffer heart palpitations. You may not want to eat, which will, of course, make you crash even harder when the crash comes. If you've been driving a bunch of mushrooms across the Southwest, that's not such a big deal because after you drive a couple of days, you'll stop and crash for 16 hours in your friend's futon, and you'll be fine. German soldiers during Barbarossa didn't have a friend's futon to crash on,

and they weren't finishing up after a couple of days. Again, they conquered... They would have liked Alex Jones, though. They would have liked Alex Jones. I mean, not early Alex Jones as much, but certainly today Alex Jones. So, German soldiers during Barbarossa, again, they'd conquered more territory more quickly than any army ever. They would have had to make units. We're covering hundreds of miles in a space of days.

The problem with Russia, though, is that it's very big. There's quite a lot of Russia. And the Russians just kept retreating. In France, a few days of friends... They could go... None of us sleep for five days, and we'll drive the whole time, and we'll have conquered most of France, and we'll be well on our way to winning this war.

Russia didn't work that way because there was so much of it left. So, by the time they reached the point where it's like, well, even on meth, we can't keep taking meth and not sleeping. We're all crashing. We're not functional. We're hallucinating. We have to stop and rest. Well, that point hit where they're still in the fucking middle of Russia and surrounded by enemies who have not collapsed the way that the French did, which is a bad situation to be in, right?

Meth turns out to maybe not be the best way to conquer Russia. Whereas, it apparently is a pretty good way... If you're trying to conquer France, historically, meth could help. I wouldn't recommend it if you're trying to conquer Russia. And a really bad hangover is being in the middle of Russia. Yeah, attacked by Red Army partisans. Coming out with meth. You do not want to be coming down from a three-day meth bender under heavy fire.

It's very much like looks to camera. I wonder... You want to know how I ended up here? Bet you're wondering why I ended up here, and it's just a montage of somebody taking a bunch of meth pills, driving a tank real fast. Yeah. So, after the first several weeks of barbaros,

they had no time to recover, and they hadn't won a victory. German soldiers at the wrong end of a meth bender found themselves exhausted, sick, and surrounded by an enemy just waiting to counteract a bunch of wracked ass infantry whose eyesight was probably 80% hallucinations. Norman Oehler quotes one German military doctor at the time who wrote, I didn't take provident myself, or at least not often, just once to try it, to know what I was prescribing. I can tell you, it worked. It kept you awake, mercilessly.

We knew it was addictive, and that it had health side effects, psychoses, nervous excitement, a loss of strength, and in Russia, it was a war of attrition, positional warfare. In such circumstances, provident was no use. It just exhausted you. You eventually had to catch up on the rest you'd missed. Sleep deprivation simply didn't bring any tactical advantages anymore. So they just reached the point where, again,

something that people who get addicted always learn, the shit that used to work don't work no more. That's how fucking meth works for the Nazis in Russia. It goes great in Poland and France, and then suddenly the worm, you know, worms turned. Now, in late 1941, the Russians counterattacked. The Wehrmacht held, but they suffered severe casualties. And more importantly, the fact that the Red Army had failed to collapse and, in fact, been able to counterattack punctured the myth of German invulnerability.

Then came the Russian winter, which the Germans were not prepared for. The Russians were like, I'm merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, motherfuckers. This is our lives. These are our holidays. I'm not going to relitigate the whole Ostfront here, but you know the gist of the story. The Germans used their basically limitless manpower reserves to hurl attack after attack against the Germans,

eventually breaking through their lines and encircling several armies. It was only when the tide turned against Germany that Preventen became useful again, from Blitz. Often the only thing that helped was Preventen, one of many examples in the fishing village of Besvad, on the southern shore of Lemen, between Moscow and Leningrad. The Germans were encircled, their lodgings set on fire, rations arriving only sporadically from the ice-cold air. One last tiny window of escape was open,

and 500 exhausted men loaded with heavy bags and machine guns over their shoulders began a 14-hour night march through waist-deep snow. Soon many men were, as the official Wehrmacht report has it, in a state of extreme exhaustion, the snowfall had stopped from around midnight and the sky was filled with stars. Innovated soldiers wanted to lie down in the snow. In spite of energetic pep talks, their willpower could not be revived. Such men were each given two Preventen tablets.

After one after half an hour, the first men confirmed they felt better. So again, if you're trying to retreat across Russia and need to be able to march after not sleeping through the snow in the dark, math might help again. But by that point, you know, the war had gone against them. But you know what never goes against you? I'm trying to think what you're coming up with here, because it can't be capitalism.

It's the products and services that support this podcast. They always have your back, always, always, allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. All right. Here's the ads. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations.

And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI, sometimes you've got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy-voiced, cigar-smoking man

who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark. He's not on the good-bad-ass way. He's in nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday.

I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus, it's all made up? Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC.

What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me. About a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991 and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth,

his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space. 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. All right.

So we had some fun with the Wehrmacht. I want to tell one last story about it. This is about the German Navy. So very late in the war, like I think 44, 45, the German, you know, their Navy's not doing great. Nothing's really doing great for the Germans. And they decide their best idea is to create these suicide boats. They're basically torpedoes piloted by a man that he can

suicide bomb a warship with. And the idea was you would just seal a man in there and he would just like go for days until he found something to hit. And the best way to do that was they gave him speed balls, like this mix of methamphetamine and opium. Basically methanoxy. He was just like taking methanoxy, trapped inside a metal coffin underwater,

like trying to find something to blow himself up into. Pretty good. So as the war in Russia bogged down and turned into a nightmare, Hitler's physical health began to degrade rapidly. This may have had something to do with his living conditions. For most of the war, Hitler cloistered himself away in a dank mosquito-filled complex in eastern Prussia, known as the Wolf's Lair.

And basically, everyone who isn't Hitler fucking hates it here. Like, it's a miserable place. It's cramped. It's basically these like tomb-like bunkers so they can't get bombed. They're like windowless. The area around it is like filled with mosquitoes. You're in the middle of nowhere.

It's just like everyone but Hitler pretty much hates it. Hitler, though, has grown increasingly paranoid and irrational. And so he likes the isolation. He likes being surrounded by these like thick walls of concrete. And this really worries the people close to him. During this time, Joseph Goebbels wrote, tragic that the Fuhrer is closing himself off from life like this and leading such a disproportionately unhealthy existence.

He no longer gets any fresh air. He doesn't take any kind of relaxation. He just sits in his bunker. Poor Goebbels. He doesn't even like the same music. He doesn't even like the same music. We haven't even hung out in like months, man. I couldn't swat Lake and he barely even wanted to watch.

One of the few people who had constant access to the Fuhrer was Theodore Morel. Through the war, he would inject more than 80 different substances mixed together in dozens of different concoctions. Again, it's impossible to say how much of Hitler's growing irrationality was due to the wild mix of hormones and drugs Morel pumped into him. But Hitler's generals noticed a difference in his behavior. In mid-1942, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein tried to convince Hitler to alter his plans in the southeastern front,

where the dictator had diverted crucial forces from the main battlefield. As the Russians threatened to break through, critical decisions needed to be made and Hitler was the guy to make them because he'd made himself commander-in-chief of the military. Manstein wrote, quote, As before, no full decisions are being made. It is as if the Fuhrer is not capable of it. Norman Oehler suspects that Hitler's issue here stemmed in part from the wild change in his life the war brought.

Prior to the invasions, Hitler addressed his people constantly. He was in some ways a drug for the German people because being in a crowd like that, being hyped up, look at the Trump rallies, right? It is a drug going to that, having that kind of experience with people who do it, they get addicted to it. And the person, the demagogue, gets addicted to it. Hitler was very much addicted to the adulation of crowds. It affects your brain in a way that is psychochemically powerful.

But when the war and the bombing started, Hitler had to stop putting himself in front of his people, and so he suddenly loses access to this thing that he's really psychologically addicted to. From Blitz. Hitler now missed those ecstasies that his appearances had previously prompted, and which had always amounted to a new injection of the pepped-up feeling that was so important to his self-esteem. In his isolation, all pleasure and energy previously received

from the attention of a cheering crowd had to be replaced by chemicals, further cocooning the dictator. He was the person who eventually needed artificial charging. In a sense, Morel's drugs and medicines replaced the old stimulus of mass ovations. The sounds like when a child actor doesn't become an actor, and then it's sad. Yeah, Hitler's having what we might call the McCauley-Colkin effect. There's a lot of similarities between them. I know, I'm joking.

I'm being mean to McCauley-Colkin, who gave my friend a lap dance once. Oh, cool. Yeah, on his birthday. It was very nice. Love that. Yeah, he seems to be a very nice guy. Very little in common with Hitler. Other than that, they were both child stars, you know? And in fact, Hitler's original version of Home Alone,

some would say is even superior, but... I mean, this is the Home Alone in his bunker, not fucking the Goebbels. In late 1942, the Russians broke through around Stalingrad, encircling the German 6th Army. Hitler refused to allow them to break out in retreat, as that would mean ending the siege of the city. He basically was like, if you guys really like me, you'll find a way to win somehow.

Gehring promised him that the Luftwaffe would be able to keep hundreds of thousands of men supplied by the air, which was a ridiculous promise. The U.S. does manage something like this in Berlin after the war, the Berlin Airlift, where there's this kind of conflict with the USSR, and so the chunk of Berlin we have is kind of cut off. We can't refuel it by car, and they have to drop in supplies. But it's just with kind of the planes that the Luftwaffe has,

with the technology they have, there's just no way to do it. But Hitler believed Gehring, and wound up learning that Gehring was just a piece of shit in a liar, which, surprise, they all were. So by December 9th, it had become clear that Gehring had no ability to keep the 6th Army supplied. Hitler was very angry at this, and Morel noted that day that his patients suffered from intestinal gasses,

halitosis, and discomfort. By early 1943, the war was decidedly not fun anymore, and the bad news increasingly outnumbered the good. Hitler asked his physician if he might try a new medication. Cardia's all, which Gehring had advised him to try for anxiety. Since Hitler had heart problems, Morel thought this was a bad idea. It was a blood thinner, I think. But Oler writes, he understood this as a call to action.

Hitler needed something stronger to calm his nerves. The eventual drug he picked was an opiate called Yucadol, which is basically oxy, right? Like, Yucadol is kind of the same thing as oxy. Close enough for government work. He first dosed Hitler with it on July 18th, 1943. Germany had just sent the best of its elite troops and tank forces into a massive battle with the Russians at a place called Kursk.

The battle ended with Russian victory, and over a million estimated casualties. It marked the last significant defense if the Germans would make in the East. Like, yeah, a single battle where there are more casualties than in the US Civil War. Like, Kursk is a nightmare. And it's like, yeah, 800,000 Russian, 200,000 or so German.

And this is the last, this is kind of like when the German army stops being capable of offensives in the East as Kursk. So obviously, not a good day for Hitler. He's kind of bummed out about this, right? His favorite toy is broken. He's going to have to shoot himself in a bunker. You know, we've all been there in our own ways. I wonder what Goebbels diary entry was that day.

Hitler's sad. Yeah. Hitler's been really upset right now. Yeah, he's, oh, he is so bummed out. He's kind of bringing us all down just because he got a million men killed for nothing. Well, killed and wounded. Hitler was devastated by the defeat,

and his normal mix of hormones, steroids, speed and vitamins was not enough from Blitz. Hitler saw all his hopes going up in smoke. And because of the imminent betrayal of the Italian army, who are about to surrender, he had not slept a wink, as Morel wrote. Body tensed hard as a board, full of gases, very pale appearance, extremely nervous.

Tomorrow, very important discussion with Il Duce. That's Mussolini. In the middle of the night, Morel was dragged from his bed by Heinz Linge, Hitler's valet. The furor was bent double with pain, and an immediate cure was required. The white cheese he had had for dinner, as well as the roulette with spinach and peas

had disagreed with him. Morel gave him an injection, but the basic medical treatment didn't work. The doctor wondered feverishly what needed to be done to combat the great attack in this precarious situation. He needed something that worked, something that would numb Hitler's severe pain and keep him functioning.

He needed an ace up his sleeve. And in fact, he did have something, but its use was risky. For the second quarter of 1943, in the bottom right corner of the file card Patient A, a substance is listed and underlined several times. Eucadol. This is the point at which he starts giving Hitler oxy. Hitler gets like, you know, small town America

addicted at this point. And as you might guess from what happened to small town America when oxy went rampant, it does not have a positive impact on Hitler. It's not really good for anyone. Avoid being addicted to oxy content would be my advice if you're considering it. If you're on the line right now being like,

should I get addicted to oxy? No. We have a small opinion, but ours is no. Is no? No as well? No oxy? Yeah, stick with meth. Healthy methamphetamine. Okay. So the Eucadol had a massive and immediate positive impact

on Hitler. His mood improved. He grew optimistic, elated even, and he became much easier to work with. People around him were like, wow, Hitler's a lot more pleasant when he's doped up. I mean, if I throwing a party, I mean, if I had to hang out with Hitler every day,

you would want him to be high, right? You don't want to deal with sober Hitler or Hitler coming down like Jesus. You're like, give him anything. Go to the bar. Literally give him anything. Yeah. She didn't grab something from a pig.

Put it in him. Exactly. Let's try it. Yeah. What other animals we got? Find a monkey. See if monkey stuff works in him. So Morel kept injecting the leader.

Sometimes he would mix stimulants earlier in the day with opiates later in the day to calm him down. And from this point forward, Hitler was more or less constantly on something. Generally, Eucadol every other day and particularly during key moments of decision. In his last meeting with Mussolini, a U.S. Secret Service report noted that

Hitler spoke for three hours without a break. So Euler writes, quote, Mussolini had actually planned to convince Hitler that it would be better for everyone if Italy came out of the war. But all he did was need his painful back from time to time, dab his forehead with a handkerchief or sigh deeply. The door kept opening to pass on new reports

about the bombing of Rome, which was happening at that very moment. Mussolini couldn't even comment on this because Hitler was talking non-stop to a room full of painfully embarrassed people about how no one should doubt the imminent victory of the Axis powers. The dejected Duce was effectively talked into the ground

by the artificially pepped up Fuhrer. The result of the meeting, Italy would stick at it for the time being. Morel felt vindicated. He seemed to have maneuvered high-level politics with his injections. And he noted self-importantly, Fuhrer fitting well.

No complaints whatsoever on the return flight. Fuhrer declared in the Ober Salzburg in the evening that the success of the day was to my credit. So Hitler's just fucking racked and spun and talks for three hours. Won't even let Mussolini say anything. And essentially, like, Mussolini's too, like, awkward. It's actually awkward.

Yeah, to try to pull out of the war at this juncture. So that's cool, fun stuff. I mean, we've all hung out with the guy who was that kind of high at a party, right? Yeah, and we've always, we've all stayed in a world war at one point, knowing it wasn't for our benefit. I know, I know. Because we were like, I just didn't know what to say.

Yeah, I wanted to pull my forces out of the war before the Allies invaded, but, like, it's a tale as old as time. You're like, I don't want you to see me leave. You feel like I left too early. Hard to Irish goodbye from a war. Exactly, exactly. Good shit.

So, while he was shooting a constant stream of narcotics and animal extracts into the veins of the mightiest warlord in history, Theodore Morel was also running an increasingly elaborate side hustle. Hitler needed him so constantly that he could not run his own private practice, but his connection to the leader allowed him to steal a shitload of stuff. He was given one of the largest cooking oil manufacturers

in Czechoslovakia, which had been stolen from its Jewish owners. He used the factory to produce an anti-laus powder of his own invention, which did not work but was mandatory for the Wehrmacht, because, again, dude's connected. His big cellar was Vitamulton bars. These were an edible version of the vitamin shots

he distributed so freely. Morel also increasingly experimented with hormones derived from animal organs. When Ukraine was conquered by the Nazis, he used his connections to take possession of several slaughterhouses worth of fresh animal organs, and diverted scant Wehrmacht resources by bringing these organs to his factories

so that they could be turned into experimental hormone medications. Now, by 1943, the Reich Health Office had instituted a ban on introducing new medicine into the German market. This threatened Morel's business, but he found a way to get around it. Since Hitler was at this point deeply reliant on the doctor, Morel was allowed to experiment on Hitler

with different extractions and injections. He argued successfully that if his drugs were safe for Hitler, they must be safe for the German people. Morel wrote this to the Reich Health Office. The Führer has authorized me to do the following. If I bring out and test a remedy, and then apply it in the Führer's headquarters and apply it successfully,

then it can be applied elsewhere in Germany and no longer needs authorization. It's a good ad slogan. It's good for the fur. If it's good for the Führer, why can't you take it? Yeah. As the war turned, other Nazis dealt with more anxiety over their imminent doom.

Morel began handing out his medications to the people closest to Hitler, including Eva Braun. She noticed the impact Morel's drugs had on her partner's mood, and she wanted the same stuff. Older suggests this is because she wanted to be intimate with her romantic partner, and he was wracked as hell all the time.

She was like, well, if we're going to be intimate, I need to be on whatever he's on, right? We need to be on the same thing, otherwise it's going to be impossible to connect, which I guess is understandable. That's not ecstasy. It's like... No.

Well, we'll talk about what it is. Hitler was injected with testosterone for his libido, and Braun was given medication to suppress her menstruation. They were both given regular injected speedballs, mixes of uppers and downers by Morel, so that they would be in the same headspace and stuff,

giving them the best chance of being able to bone. From his first Yucadol injection in 1943 to the end of 1944, Morel had noted administering Yucadol at least 24 times. Older suggests the real number was much higher, and just as with his meth,

Morel didn't always write out what he was giving the fury. It was just an injection that included some of that. You wouldn't know exactly what was in it. It would be fair to critique Older for speculation here, but when you take in the sheer quantity of injections Morel gave Hitler and the variety of substances that flowed

through his brain and the reports of people around him, I don't think he's unreasonable in suggesting Hitler was taking... You know, there's other evidence he was taking a lot of Yucadol. So he makes his case in part by noting reports from those close to Hitler about the severity of his mood swings on critical days,

and this is probably most notable with D-Day, which is obviously pretty important day for a Hitler. Quote, Hitler's mood on D-Day, another nail in the coffin for the Nazi state, was subject to severe fluctuations. At 9 in the morning, he is said to have bellowed across the breakfast room,

or isn't it? When Morel hurried over and gave him an injection of X, he calmed down. Suddenly appeared affable and light-hearted, enjoyed the day and the fine weather and clapped everyone he met jovially on the shoulder. It's D-Day! It's D-Day!

Yeah. At the mid-day briefing, in spite of the looming military disaster, to everyone's astonishment, he revealed a beaming face, and at the lunch that followed, Seminole dumpling soup, mushrooms in a ring of rice, apfel strudel, and one of his endless distracted monologues. This time it was about elephants,

which were the strongest animals in existence and which, like him, abhorred meat. Next, Hitler described in detail the horrors of a slaughterhouse he visited and occupied Poland. Girls in rubber boots had waded in blood up to their ankles. Meanwhile, Morel was preparing his next injection, made from the glands of slaughtered animals.

I can't believe that Hitler's literally, like, reciting from Jonathan Safrenfohr's eating animals and, like, at the same time... Dude, you know how strong elephants are? They don't eat meat! They're just, like, me! I'm like an elephant!

It is a great co-brand. Oh, man. Yeah, oxy and probably methamphetamine. Like, he's getting a bit of A, bit of B. Yeah, it's pretty funny. It's pretty funny. And also that he's ranting about how horrible the meat industry is while being shot up

once that had been, yeah, the product of that industry. It's good stuff. It's good stuff. Of course, Hitler had always suffered from bizarre mood swings and from delusions, but Oler is right that people close to fewer noted his mental degradation. And again, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest

that the constant doses of hormones and narcotics shot into a 50-something-year-old man sped up this process. Late in the war, a Nazi named Klaus von Stauffenberg tried to kill Hitler with a briefcase bomb. It didn't take, but it did blow out both of Hitler's eardrums. An ear, nose, and throat specialist was brought in.

Dr. Irvin Geising and he was immediately horrified at the furor's health. And from Geising, we get our really interesting descriptions of Hitler in this period of time. Quote, The speech was unnaturally loud and tended towards a shout, and later became somewhat hoarse. An aged, almost depleted and exhausted man

who had to make do with what was left of his strength. I know. Poor Hitler. I know. He's crying. Yeah. Listening to the cure. He looks like shit. Yeah.

Hitler was clearly an ill man, and when he met Morrell, when Dr. Geising met Morrell and started to learn what was being given to the leader, he was furious. And it's also from Geising that we get some of our best information on how the doctor conducted himself during this time.

So this is Geising writing about Morrell giving Hitler his treatment. Quote, That's Hitler Steeler right there. Just heading out. Just heading out and also like flushing everything to make sure people can't like check it out, analyze it, see what's in it, you know.

Some of that's probably because this is how he makes his money, you know, keeping like, you know, he's running a business. He's selling versions of this stuff. Some of it's probably because he doesn't want Hitler's other doctors to know what the fuck Hitler's being given. Like the fact that he's, yeah,

the stuff that I've been doping up our leader, you know. Bunky milk. Yeah. And the two doctors quickly came to hate each other, obviously. One of them, I mean, there, we'll talk about it. They're both a little bit sketchy, but Morrell is obviously much sketchier.

Dr. Giesing, though, was not straight edge either. His preferred treatment for ear, nose, and throat medic stuff was cocaine. And so after this point, he administered Coke to Hitler in the form of nose and throat dabs. This is what you've been missing. Uh-huh.

This is what you've been missing. You just needed a little bit of Coke. That'll get your Hitler going. That'll Hitler you're right on up, buddy. And so after this point, he administered cocaine to Hitler more than 50 times over the next 75 days. He used an extremely strong 10% solution

and absolutely got the German leader high as fuck. In fact, Hitler was noted by his doctors having, quote, slight cocaine sniff during this period. So he's got the drip. He's like, he's, he's, he's got the Coke sniff going on. Yeah.

He quickly took it for more than just ear problems, telling Giesing after one dose, my mind is freed again and I feel very well. Then adding, please don't turn me into a cocaine addict. Giesing assured him that real addict snorted cocaine. Can't be an addict if you're dropping it into your fucking eye, bro. That's what I say. See, that's how you,

that's what keeps you from being addicted. You just drop it into your fucking eye. You don't be snorting it like an addict. That's gross. Like you guys, please don't, if you think this is a problem of I'm like being an asshole, just tell me. Yeah.

Just be honest. If you think I'm out of control. You think I'm out of control? Do you think I'm doing too much Coke? My Coke dealer? Nah, brah, you're good. You're beautiful, bro. Yeah.

Now, Giesing was though a better doctor than Morrell and he eventually grew unsettled by the fact that he was essentially now the Coke dealer of the absolute ruler of his country. He tried to cut off Hitler's supply and this did not go over well. Hitler was being like, I've got an important meeting.

I can't function cause my ears hurt so bad. You have to give me a shitload of cocaine. And he was like, no, I'm not going to give you any more Coke. Hitler said, quote, no doctor continuous before this morning. I have a terrible throbbing head that probably comes from the sniffing concern for the future

and the continued existence of Germany are consuming me more and more with each passing day. I need the Coke, man. I'm just so worried about Germany. I'm doing Coke cause I love Germany. I'm doing Coke for my love of the fatherland. Like it's just about the fatherland, you know, classic Coke had excuse.

So Giesing, Giesing refused though. Like said, like, no, I'm not going to give you any more fucking cocaine. And Petulant, Hitler refused to show up to his military briefings that day and deal with the fact that his army was collapsing. You give me Coke.

I'm not going to make sure the, I'm not going to give the army orders like fucking Hitler. I'm not going to put on pants if I don't have Coke. Yeah. So Giesing eventually was convinced to relent. I think the generals were like, dude, we can't give orders without him. Like we're not allowed to.

You have to, you have to do something. You have to give him his fucking Coke. And so he relented and he gave Hitler some cocaine to save the German army. But he demanded that if he was going to give Hitler the Coke, he had to give, Hitler had to allow him to give the Fuhrer a full medical checkout, a checkup, which Giesing did and eventually came to suspect

that the anti-farting pills Morrell had prescribed Hitler were causing some of the Fuhrer's health problems. He attempted to use this to force the physician out of Hitler's inner circle and perhaps even have him prosecuted. And there were a lot of folks close to Hitler who were worried about Morrell, who were like, this guy is doping the leader up. It's not good for Hitler.

Like we got to get this guy out of here, but Hitler likes him too much. And they kind of tried to back this effort to force Morrell out, but it just didn't work. As Hitler's first and best drug dealer, Morrell was just dug in too tight. As the Red Army closed in at the end of 1944, Hitler and Morrell had both retreated into a bunker under Berlin.

Hitler by this point was jaundiced as his liver had started to fail and his Parkinson's was advanced enough that he shook constantly. Morrell had to cancel several injections because the Fuhrer's veins had collapsed, right? That's like advanced smack addict stuff that like, your veins aren't working anymore. It was reported that like when he would get an injection, it would crunch like his veins were crunchy.

He was an advanced addict at this stage. So yeah, still though, Morrell continued to shoot Hitler full of opium and hormones as often as possible. It is probable that these opiates contributed quite a lot to Hitler's GI issues. They can cause constipation, and Hitler was using so frequently that he had significant issues with this. Morrell's notes state that the German leader had regular, painful wind. As his body fell apart,

his guards in the bunker wrote entries like this about Hitler's bodily functions. From four until six, four evacuations, two of which were weaker and two very strong. At the second, after the passing of an obstruction, explosive water evacuation. The third and fourth were very foul smelling, and particularly the fourth, probably a decomposing agglomeration that had previously been left behind. It had become a cause of gases in the formation of toxic substances.

Regularly improved condition and change of facial expression. The only card called me to impart the happy news of this effect. Which is one of the under-told stories of the last Nazis around Hitler's the Third Reich collapsed. We're just like standing there, like listening to him shit his guts out, like recording how bad it smelled. Which is, I love that for Nazis, actually.

It's kind of poetic, yeah. Yeah, I love that for them. As the Red Army closed in, Morrell finally lost his ability to fight his boss with the drugs he, by this point, badly needed. Again, there just was no ability to get more of them, right? Germany's industrial base had fucking collapsed. And when Morrell ran out of drugs, he and Hitler had a falling out.

Hitler suddenly starts threatening to have him executed. Again, as soon as he can't get the dope, Morrell is out on his ass. That makes sense. That's how it's happened. Yeah, yeah. So he wasn't a friend? Yeah, he's forced out of the bunker. And he successfully is like one of the last people to flee Berlin. He does get captured by the Allies.

He's questioned and turned for more than a year. And he dies soon after the war impoverished and miserable. And of course, we all know how Hitler died. So. How? I'm just kidding. Good story. Having a good time? It's good stuff. It kind of is like a Marvel movie. I wouldn't buy it a Marvel movie.

I would. Yeah, indie movie that came out where Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe are dealing with a farting corpse on a beach. Mm hmm. It's like the marriage of those two. Yeah, I mean, that would be that'd be a great Daniel Radcliffe could be Hitler. Paul Rudd could be Theodore Morrell. Sure.

James Gunn could direct. Yeah, let's do it. Throw Iron Man in there too for some reason. Why not? Why not? Why not? All right. Well, Carolina, how you feeling? I am feeling like the public and private school system failed me by not addressing these issues and not telling me these corners of history.

And also I am feeling drug free. I'm feeling inspired to stay drug free for a while. And when I say drug free, I'm not just the normie stuff, but I feel like not smoking meth is at this point in accomplishment. Mm hmm. Yes. And don't don't don't do meth. We were just joking.

I don't think it would make me into a Nazi. Don't do meth. But you know, it doesn't. No, you don't want to get too much in the Venn diagram with their behavior and just meth being one thing that they did and makes it all the less appealing. You will not become a Nazi because you smoke meth. But if you're a Nazi and you smoke meth, you'll become more of a Nazi. Yeah, as a general rule, if you start taking a shitload of meth, the things about you that

are already not great, like everybody has things about them that suck. And one of the downsides of a drug like meth is that it makes everything about you bigger and more so. And so the meth will, whatever you don't like about yourself, the meth will make be more of a thing about yourself. And perhaps that's not something you want. And this was brought to you by Nancy Reagan's Drug Free America. Yes.

And the counsel for maybe try oxy instead, the drug with no consequences, oxy content. Don't look at the Midwest. Also, also, no. Good stuff. Well, Carolina, you got any plugables to plug? I am going to plug my amazing podcast, True Romance. It is released every Thursday. We talk about dating crises, you're dating nightmares, horrific breakups and really good

love stories. So you can find it on Apple podcasts, iHeartRadio, wherever you listen to podcasts and it's True Romance with Carolina Barlow and Deb and Larry. Woo. Yep. Thank you so much for having me on Behind the Bastards. This was the coolest podcast I've ever been able to be on. Well, thank you so much for coming along, Carolina and talking to with me about Hitler

and meth and Hitler's horrible farts. It's just all been a magical story. A magical, magical story. All right. Well, that's going to do it for us here at Behind the Bastards and only Behind the Bastards, the only podcast either Sophie or I are involved with. I hate you most of the time. All right.

Follow at Cool Zone Media for all the podcasts we actually do. That's the end of the podcast. Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen.

Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.