Blitzed

Author Norman Ohler
Narrator Jonathan Keeble
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Run Time 7 hours and 46 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Drugs trade / drug trafficking, European history, Modern warfare, Second World War.

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What to expect

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Blitzed by Norman Ohler, read by Jonathan Keeble.

The sensational German bestseller on the overwhelming role of drug-taking in the Third Reich, from Hitler to housewives.

'Bursting with interesting facts' Vice

'Extremely interesting ... a serious piece of scholarship, very well researched' Ian Kershaw

The Nazis presented themselves as warriors against moral degeneracy. Yet, as Norman Ohler's gripping bestseller reveals, the entire Third Reich was permeated with drugs: cocaine, heroin, morphine and, most of all, methamphetamines, or crystal meth, used by everyone from factory workers to housewives, and crucial to troops' resilience - even partly explaining German victory in 1940.

The promiscuous use of drugs at the very highest levels also impaired and confused decision-making, with Hitler and his entourage taking refuge in potentially lethal cocktails of stimulants administered by the physician Dr Morell as the war turned against Germany. While drugs cannot on their own explain the events of the Second World War or its outcome, Ohler shows, they change our understanding of it. Blitzed forms a crucial missing piece of the story.

Critics Review

German writer Norman Ohler’s astonishing account of methamphetamine addiction in the Third Reich changes what we know about the second world war .. Blitzed looks set to reframe the way certain aspects of the Third Reich will be viewed in the future
Guardian
A huge contribution… remarkable
BBC RADIO 4
The picture he paints is both a powerful and an extreme one… gripping reading
Times Literary Supplement
Remarkable… energetic… retells the history of the war through the prism of the pill… it has an uncanny ability to disturb
The Times
Very good and extremely interesting – a serious piece of scholarship very well-researched
Ian Kershaw author of Hitler and To Hell and Back
The most brilliant and fascinating book I have read in my entire life
Dan Snow
This book transforms the overall picture
Hans Mommsen
Sensational
Daily Mail
Bursting with interesting facts
Vice
Norman Ohler has written an illuminating account of the gobsmacking extent to which military strategy in the Third Reich relied on drugs. … What you’ll learn: Never trust a coked-up Nazi
ShortList
A fascinating, most extraordinary revelation
BBC World News
The Nazis were all on drugs! So far, so sensationalist but German writer Norman Ohler’s absorbing new non-fiction book, Blitzed, makes the convincing argument that the Nazis’ use of chemical stimulants… played a crucial role in the successes, and failures, of the Third Reich
Esquire
An audacious, compelling read
Stern
Enthralling
Mitteldeutsche Zeitung

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