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How 'shabu' fueled Germany in World War II

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Ivy Jean Vibar, ABS-CBN News

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/news-special1/nation/10/4/nohler-100416.jpg"/><figcaption><div class="embed-desc">Norman Ohler</div></figcaption></figure></div><p>MANILA – &quot;Auf was ist der den (What is he on)?&quot; writer Norman Ohler quipped on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010126055634">Facebook</a> last week, upon reading an article on President Rodrigo Duterte in a German news website.</p><p>The article in <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/philippinen-rodrigo-duterte-ignoriert-menschenrechte-a-1106276.html">Spiegel Online</a> tackled Duterte&#x27;s remarks relating his war on drugs with Adolf Hitler&#x27;s extermination of the Jews during World War II.</p><ul class="op-related-articles" title="Read">	<li><strong>READ: </strong> <a href="http://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/09/30/16/who-was-adolf-hitler">Who was Adolf Hitler?</a></li></ul><p>&quot;What kind of drugs did he take to make such statements because he seems, or at least what is transported by the media, kind of delusional and losing touch with reality. Was he on drugs? So I was kind of making a funny remark on Facebook,&quot; Ohler said in an interview with ABS-CBN News over Skype.</p><p>Ohler is the author of &quot;Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany&quot;, a book about how drugs, particularly methamphetamine or crystal meth (locally known as &quot;shabu&quot;), fueled Germany during the Third Reich.</p><p>Originally published last year in German with the title &quot;Der Totale Rausch (The Total Rush),&quot; &quot;Blitzed&quot; takes on Hitler&#x27;s daily drug use, as well as ordinary German citizens who relied on it to stay awake and get the war effort going.</p><figure class="op-interactive"><div style="padding-top:66.375%"><div id="IVS_ABS_Body_Video_1_Container"> <ivs-player id="IVS_ABS_Body_Video_1" data-ivs-spid="3001339" data-ivs-key="e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603" data-ivs-vid="1463068" data-ivs-floating="1"></ivs-player> <script src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/js/iframe-parent.js"></script> <script src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/js/loader.js"></script> </div></div></figure><p style="text-align:center">Where did the title &#x27;Blitzed&#x27; come from?</p><p>&quot;The Germans used drugs on a big scale. They used 35 million tablets of [methamphetamine] to beat the enemy, to not sleep anymore,&quot; Ohler said. </p><p>&quot;Hitler used drugs on a daily basis, so maybe your president should read my book a bit to understand more what the Nazis were all about. They loved drugs,&quot; he joked.</p><p>However, Ohler also said it was unfortunate for a president to reference Hitler, as the Holocaust is &quot;the biggest crime that was ever committed in the history of mankind.&quot;</p><p>&quot;I think that if a president says I’m going to commit an equal big crime by killing millions of people, it&#x27;s beyond belief somehow,&quot; he said, noting that some illegal drugs, such as marijuana, have become legal in the United States, &quot;the country that started the war on drugs.&quot;</p><p>&quot;We all have to remember that human life is a very beautiful thing…Everyone just has to work on a level to create less violence in the world,&quot; he said.</p><figure class="op-interactive"><div style="padding-top:66.375%"><div id="IVS_ABS_Body_Video_2_Container"> <ivs-player id="IVS_ABS_Body_Video_2" data-ivs-spid="3001339" data-ivs-key="e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603" data-ivs-vid="1463066" data-ivs-floating="1"></ivs-player> <script src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/js/iframe-parent.js"></script> <script src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/js/loader.js"></script> </div></div></figure><address style="text-align:center">Norman Ohler on the global war on drugs</address><p>Last week, Duterte said in a speech that he would be &quot;happy to slaughter&quot; 3 million drug addicts and cited the massacre of millions of Jews during the Holocaust. </p><p>This was downplayed by his Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco, who clarified that Duterte was &quot;<a href="http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/01/16/evasco-on-hitler-remark-duterte-was-just-joking">just joking</a>.&quot; His spokesperson Ernesto Abella also <a href="http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/09/30/16/duterte-rejects-hitler-label-abella-says">claimed</a> that Duterte was simply &quot;addressing the negative comparison that people made between him and Hitler.&quot;</p><p>On Sunday, the firebrand leader apologized to the Jews for his remarks, and <a href="http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/02/16/duterte-apologizes-to-jews-on-hitler-reference">said</a> that he never meant to “derogate the memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Germans.”</p><div><strong>DRAWING THE VEIL</strong></div><p>Ohler&#x27;s book was inspired by a friend&#x27;s remark that the Nazis took a lot of drugs, at different layers of society. When he did the research, he was surprised as he had no idea that there was so much information he had to sift through. </p><p>What made an impact, though, were the notes of Dr. Theodor Morell, Hitler&#x27;s personal physician, which were &quot;beautifully written&quot; and &quot;rich in detail.&quot;</p><p>&quot;He described how he administered his injections to Hitler, and it was as if a veil was drawn. I could get a glimpse into the inner circle of the regime and I was reading things that were actually fascinating,&quot; Ohler said.</p><p>Morell&#x27;s descriptions of Hitler&#x27;s daily life and drug use did not terrify him, said Ohler, but actually made him laugh a bit, as the Fuhrer became &quot;very visible&quot; to him.</p><p>&quot;I could see how weak he also was. He woke up in the morning, and the first thing he&#x27;d do was call his doctor because he needed an injection to get up and be this leader that he was projecting all the time, even when he felt depressed because he was losing the war,&quot; he said.</p><p>However, while it was interesting to read the documents, they were also very dark at times. Among the accounts in Morell&#x27;s notes were those of the efforts of the German Navy to come up with a &quot;superdrug&quot; for use by mini-submarine personnel, and tested on inmates in concentration camps.</p><p>It was also difficult at times to do research, Ohler said, as even German historians seemed to have shied away from the topic of the Third Reich’s drug use.</p><p>&quot;I was working closely with Hans Momsenn, a leading German historian. He was giving me advice. When I showed him all the archive material, he just shook his head and said, &#x27;I think we historians missed out on something because we had no idea about drugs,&#x27;&quot; Ohler said.</p><p>&quot;Normal historians, they don’t get in touch with drugs, and they don’t realize the impact it can have in a life. I think there has to be much examined in the role of drugs in war.&quot;</p><figure class="op-interactive"><div style="padding-top:66.375%"><div id="IVS_ABS_Body_Video_3_Container"> <ivs-player id="IVS_ABS_Body_Video_3" data-ivs-spid="3001339" data-ivs-key="e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603" data-ivs-vid="1463063" data-ivs-floating="1"></ivs-player> <script src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/js/iframe-parent.js"></script> <script src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/js/loader.js"></script> </div></div></figure><address style="text-align:center">On writing about Hitler for a new generation</address><div><strong>&#x27;BARBARIC&#x27;</strong></div><p>It was a liberating experience for him to write the book, Ohler admits, as he was able to write about World War II through the eyes of a person from a different generation. Born in 1970, he saw the Berlin Wall go down in 1989.</p><p>His father, who worked for the Nazi railway system, told him stories when he was 10 years old about trains bearing Jews to concentration camps.</p><p>&quot;He said he saw all these cattle trains full of people being driven to the death camps. I said, &#x27;I want to understand how this can happen. How can a civilized nation turn so barbaric?&#x27;&quot;</p><p>Ohler also clarified that while drugs were not the only reason for the war, he wanted to give a richer, fuller, and more complex picture of Germany during the period of 1933 to 1945.</p><p>Of course, he also wanted to write a page-turner, a readable book that would be read from page one to the last. &quot;Blitzed,&quot; after all, is Ohler&#x27;s fourth book.</p><p>&quot;I was interested in writing a great book. I don’t think there was one message. I don’t think so. I&#x27;m against state control of drugs, I’m against fascism, I’m against violence, and I’m against war. Writing a book about this, maybe it has a democratic message. Maybe,&quot; he said.</p><p>&quot;Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany&quot; is set for worldwide release on October 6.</p>

<p>"Auf was ist der den (What is he on)?" writer Norman Ohler quipped on Facebook last week, upon reading an article on President Rodrigo Duterte in a German news website.</p>

"Auf was ist der den (What is he on)?" writer Norman Ohler quipped on Facebook last week, upon reading an article on President Rodrigo Duterte in a German news website.

How 'shabu' fueled Germany in World War II

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How 'shabu' fueled Germany in World War II

Ivy Jean Vibar,

ABS-CBN News

Published October 04, 2016 06:17 PM PHT

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Updated October 04, 2016 08:49 PM PHT

Read More:

Adolf Hitler

Nazis

World War 2

Norman Ohler

Blitzed

shabu

war on drugs

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