Nowhere were the 1920s more roaring than in Berlin - cocaine and morphine were available over the counter and cheaper than alcohol, and everyone was eNowhere were the 1920s more roaring than in Berlin - cocaine and morphine were available over the counter and cheaper than alcohol, and everyone was escaping reality, particularly since life in the Weimar Republic, with its mass unemployment and hyperinflation, was such a nightmare! Then these drugs started to be outlawed for obvious reasons (physical/mental health damage, addiction, death, etc.) and the Nazis came to power in 1933, supposedly ushering in an era of abstinence and sobriety, mirroring their Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
In Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany, Norman Ohler reveals the shocking extent with which the Third Reich was riddled with hardcore drugs, from Hitler to the ordinary German hausfrau, and what a major factor certain drugs like Pervitin, played in the war.
Pervitin - or crystal meth as it’s known today - was seen as a performance enhancer, to help you become more productive and overcome fatigue. Two tablets would keep you wired for 48 hours, which proved enormously useful once war broke out and the Wehrmacht began advancing on France. German soldiers kept popping Pervitin and went days without sleep, marching endlessly round the clock towards Paris. Ohler doesn’t claim Pervitin was behind Blitzkrieg’s success but the implication is there - it certainly seemed to help a great deal and it would explain the speed with which the Germans conquered France.
The most fascinating part of the book is Hitler and his escalating drug use thanks in large part to his enabler/private doctor, Theodor Morell. Hitler went from vegetarian teetotaller at the start of the war to full-blown junkie at the end who was having 8 to 10 injections and 120 to 150 tablets a week! The list of drugs he was on is incredible - cocaine, morphine, strychnine, Pervitin, meth, and Eukodal (a more powerful strain of heroin), to name just a few! He was also being injected with all manner of bizarre concoctions derived from animal parts - hardly vegetarian!
Hitler’s “treatments” began in 1941 which is coincidentally when the war started to go south for the Nazis. After the surprising triumph of Blitzkrieg - which he had no part in and was as astounded as the Allies - Hitler demanded he have full control of the armed forces and his decisions may not have been improved by making them on a cocktail of Class A drugs! Morell may have inadvertently helped the Allies by turning Hitler into a drug addict and destroying his health. Again, Ohler isn’t foolish enough to make drugs the singular cause for the major turning points of the war but he does make a very strong case for their importance when considering them.
The book is filled with remarkable stories. One of the most memorable is the creation of the Neger combat vessels, one-man U-boats which were intended to be hit-and-run attackers and which turned out to be little more than metal coffins for most of their German pilots, who’re still at the bottom of the sea. Some of the survivors almost went mad from chewing cocaine gum and popping meth pills to stay awake for 10 days in a row in order to navigate their near-useless subs in the underwater blackness! It was an insane plan only the desperate and strung-out could’ve come up with!
Norman Ohler’s Blitzed isn’t just a meticulously researched and informative read but also utterly compelling, written in an accessible style with a novelist’s eye for pacing. More than that, it’s an important book that will undoubtedly change the way historians and the public view Hitler, the Third Reich and the Second World War going forward. An absolutely outstanding and first-rate book, Blitzed is a must-read for anyone interested in learning about the sensational and little-reported-on druggie underside of the Nazis. ...more
In the early hours of 3 July 2010 near Newcastle, Raoul Moat, a 37-year-old bodybuilder/mechanic, recently released from prison, shot his ex-girlfrienIn the early hours of 3 July 2010 near Newcastle, Raoul Moat, a 37-year-old bodybuilder/mechanic, recently released from prison, shot his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend with a sawn-off shotgun before going on the run; his ex would survive but the boyfriend died. Moat would go on to shoot a police officer (who survived but was permanently blinded – unable to cope with his disability, he committed suicide two years later) before being cornered by police after six days and killed himself with a shotgun blast to the head.
Like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Andrew Hankinson’s You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life (You Are Raoul Moat) is a non-fiction novel, using letters and tape recordings made by Moat while on the run to recreate his voice and mind-set in a chronological narrative of his final days from his prison release to his death.
It’s a grimly compelling book that successfully manages to take the reader into Moat’s head to catch a glimpse of what drove him to such extremes. The book’s greatest achievement is in humanising Moat – not making him sympathetic, because he’s not; besides the shootings, he beat his partner and kids and his brief stay in prison was due to assault of a minor – by showing the reader the everyday frustrations that had built up over the years and finally overwhelmed him. Evil is not unknowable, it’s all around us; its potential is in all of us but some are less equipped to deal with life’s trials and so we get people like Raoul Moat completely losing it.
After we learn about Moat’s life and he’s carried out the shootings, the book sags in the middle as Moat’s directionless ramblings repeat his problems: how his ex means the world to him, his paranoid delusions of the police persecuting him, blaming his bad childhood, and on and on. I understand why this lengthy passage is included – to show us the mundanity of a so-called monster – but re-reading information we learned earlier in the book is still an extremely onerous part of an otherwise fast-moving and gripping read.
I liked Hankinson’s choice to write the book in the second person – “You” over “I” or “He” – which gives it a personal immediacy for the reader. Hankinson’s touch is very light, allowing the material to speak for itself and only really interjecting with facts in brackets () to bring clarity and real-world perspective to Moat’s semi-fabricated worldview (you can see this clever approach reflected in the title too).
You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life (You Are Raoul Moat) is a fascinating account of the 2010 Northumbria Police manhunt from the perspective of the killer. It’s also not the cheeriest of reads but it does give you an idea of the ordinariness of the reasoning behind some extraordinary actions and reminds you that humans are never monsters – they’re always human....more
On the morning of Thursday, August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Their killer - or killersOn the morning of Thursday, August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Their killer - or killers – struck them repeatedly in the head with a hatchet until they were both dead: first Abby, while she made the bed in the guest room, then Andrew when he returned from his morning walk and was resting on the sofa. The prime suspect? Their 32 year-old daughter, Lizzie.
Sarah Miller’s excellent non-fiction book, The Borden Murders, covers the case that has enthralled people for over a hundred years; though quite why this is described as a book for younger readers in high school is bizarre, particularly given the grisly subject matter, but also because the book reads as eruditely and comprehensively as anything for an adult audience.
I only knew the barest facts of the Borden case before reading Miller’s book (having read Rick Geary’s entry in his superb Treasury of Victorian Murders comic series a few years ago) so it’s fascinating to discover the nuances of the crime and ensuing investigation. Miller adopts as neutral a stance as possible in explaining the case, not leading the reader down any specific theory but letting them make up their own minds (the murderer/s were never caught and the crimes remain unsolved). She also writes in a novelistic style with the people exchanging dialogue like in a crime drama, which makes for a very smooth read, though she’s careful to only use actual quotes in the right context – an exhaustive bibliography is included at the back of the book accounting for each quote used.
It’s remarkable that Lizzie got away with the murders (I’m convinced she did it though she was found not guilty at the trial) given how she appeared when questioned by police. During the inquest she kept changing her story – when her father returned from his morning walk she was first in the kitchen reading a magazine, then she was coming down the stairs, then she was in the dining room doing some ironing. Perhaps the morphine she was prescribed caused her mind to drift?
But then Lizzie’s suspicious behaviour continued. She claimed to have been in the barn for 20-30 minutes during the murder of her father but when police went into it, they found it so stifling, they couldn’t stand to be there for more than a few minutes. They also found no footsteps in the barn's dust that day.
She was very calm considering she had just discovered her parents had been violently murdered and then was later seen by an officer stationed outside their house doing something with the pails containing her parents’ bloodied clothing (why didn’t the police confiscate this evidence in the first place?!). That’s all before she was seen burning a dress she said was ruined by “paint”! The police back then were such idiots.
There were hatchets and axes in the house but the murder weapon was never found. That and the lack of Lizzie’s bloodied clothing (coughsheburneditcough), and the fact that her incriminating inquest was ruled inadmissible for her trial, and the further incompetence of the police’s conflicting testimony at the trial, led to the jury finding her not guilty in June 1893. It was the right decision given the lack of evidence and disastrous prosecution but that doesn’t mean she didn’t commit the murders.
Miller provides a small addendum of Lizzie’s life post-trial where she dug into the community rather than leave, buying an expensive house and living with her sister Emma for many years after. Her father was very wealthy and she and her sister inherited the lot when he died. Motive for murder? Yup! She also used her family’s money to hire the best lawyers to save her from the hangman’s noose so basically if you’ve got enough money, you can get away with anything. That and hope that the police are as moronic as they were investigating this case!
Sarah Miller’s book on the Borden killings is a fascinating and accessible account of a compelling case that true crime fans, regardless of being in high school or not, will relish....more
