16/01/2012
Combat drugs have been in use for years and probably still are. The Wehrmacht used som**hing then called Pervitin - pills made from m**hamphetamine, commonly known today as "crystal m**h" or simply "P".
The headline could just as easily read N**I ZOMBIES ON DRUGS, but it would not do justice at all to some brave men who for one reason or another found themselves to be in some very difficult if not dangerous situations.
Combat drugs have been in use for years and probably still are. The Wehrmacht used som**hing then called Pervitin - pills made from m**hamphetamine, commonly known today as "crystal m**h" or simply "P". These are the pills that the Wehrmacht used in emergencies when they needed their troops to be able to cope with prolonged combat (which was often).
200 million Pervitin pills were used by the Wehrmacht between 1939 and 1945. To see soldiers worn out and in the stress of combat, click this Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=293878357316431&set=a.223804800990454.48841.203629526341315&type=3&permPage=1
Unfortunately m**hamphetamine can induce psychosis. Prolonged use is guaranteed to produce permanent perceptual distortion. There is no doubt that at least some of the barbaric features of combat on the Eastern Front came from drug use but how much this has impacted society post war via survivors rehabilitating is impossible to quantify. The fact that it has impacted post war society is not to be doubted.
Physician’s group president Jörg-Dietrich Hoppe said: ‘I will be the last president of this group who lived through this time. ‘It is intolerable to think that so many physicians were silent or complicit in what was done in the name of medicine at this time.’
In addition to simply being called "P" and "crystal m**h" m**hamphetamine is also referred to as "m**h", "crystal", "ice", "shabu", "speed", "singolah", "bunzun", "glass", "tina", or "crank".
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
The use of Pervitin in the Third Reich was not only ‘pushed’ on the population by the N**i political and military authorities, but also became endemic in German society as it addressed the needs and problems of various users including employees, housewives (who were being bombed) and soldiers. The drug was a cultural ambiguity of life in N**i Germany, integrated in everyday life, notwithstanding its regulation by drug laws.
So in fact Pervitin evolved to be not just used by the military. Methamphetamine drugs were marketed as multi vitamins. For more information, consult http://shm.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/3/686.short
