Norman Ohler on Nazis, Psychedelics, and Power

[music] Hello friends, this is the JLS fund podcast hosted at Patreon, The Last Alchemist. Uh, visit Patreon to see uh early, early versions of uh our intriguing guests. And today, we have arguably the most intriguing guest with tremendous stories and a personal friend, uh, Norman Oler, author of Blitz about methamphetamine use among the Nazis and this year's uh trip uh involving LSD uh in wartime Germany. And so, it's a great privilege uh to uh speak with Norman today and his most popular work. Norman's been interviewed by Joe Rogan, Alex Freriedman. He's uh spoken across the United States. He's extraordinarily popular. His Instagram is uh enormous. Um, uh, please meet uh Norman.

Hello, Leonard. I'm so happy that you invited me on your spectacular podcast uh, which I love very much and I'm very happy that we spend some time together. Greetings from Berlin.

Well, greetings from Santa Fe and greetings to our audience. We're going to have some fun today and uh, goodness, I have 20 questions. Uh, you asked in our format. The first are serious. First 10 are serious. The second 10 are uh, anything goes, wild and wicked and uh, unanticipated by Normand. So, this is unscripted. So, uh, we will uh, take off and have some fun. So, Norman [clears throat] uh, your your book uh, Blitz, um, examines how stimulants like methamphetamine were systematically used in the German military. Were you surprised uh, in your archival research uh, about how drugs influenced um, at the higher levels, even strategic decisions?

Well, I must say I was quite surprised um, because the Nazi, one of the Nazis' ideologies was to create a drug-free society and um, they were actually the first very strict anti-drug government in Europe and together with the United States, around at the same time, kind of invented the war on drugs. Even though it wasn't called war on drugs back in the days, but they already used, they already coined a term which was "Giftbekämpfung," which is one word in German. Uh, because we have such long words, we put everything in in one word. So "Giftbekämpfung" means uh, the fight against intoxicating poisons. So that was that was big on their agenda and that was still, you know, kind of when I grew up and we we were taught all the things about the Nazi regime, all the atrocities, and you know, all the stuff that happened. We were also in a way taught that they were kind of law and order people, or at least, like some, like my grandfather was still like defended them. He told me that at least under the Nazis, everything was in order, everything was clean, disciplined. So that's like the opposite of like a regime going crazy on drugs. Maybe it's not, you know, because as we know by now, you know, fascism, a big part of fascism is also drug control because drug control means control of the minds. So the Nazis were not really in a way against drugs, but they were certainly for keeping, you know, control of who uses what. Um, so in a way, it's not surprising that they actually abused or used methamphetamine on a grand scale, but still, it's it was surprising obviously because no one had really written about it. A lot of stuff that I found in the archives had never been looked at before. So the research for the book Blitz was kind of what people experience when they read the book. Um, because like from one page to the next, you you stumble into new crazy facts that make a lot of sense in a way because I think understanding the role of addictive stimulants like methamphetamine, they make a lot of sense for a fascist regime with an aggressive army invading other countries. So in a way, it's surprising and not surprising at the same time. Like you read the story of the so-called Third Reich in a new way, but it's still the same story. You just get a much more precise view on what was going on and you understand it better. So, for me, that was very illuminating while I did the research and I think that that kind of transcends to the readers too.

Thank you, Norman. Uh, so going back to your Lex Freriedman interview, uh, you talk about, dare I say it, uh, Adolf Hitler and his extensive use of opioids and other substances. Uh, how do you, how do you think uh, Hitler's drug use uh, altered his decision making?

Well, specific military decisions to uh, his altered state. We're quite lucky that his doctor kept a very extensive record of his uh, of of his um, healing sessions with Hitler or drug sessions, however you want to call them. Basically, he was doing something with Hitler every day and he writes it down. But he not only writes down what drugs he gave, he also writes down like what happened on that day in terms of military development or before the war, you know, otherwise Hitler's mood or Hitler, you know, the the stuff he Hitler had to do that day. And that would always uh, correspond like the drugs he was taking for that day would always correspond to his tasks. So um, it's it's really very detailed and um, there's there's you know, developments that are quite obvious. The drug use got more intense as the war went on, especially as the war u developed in a bad way for the German military. Hitler's drug, Hitler's drugs go up. Um, we can see for example, that Hitler's basic ideology has nothing to do with drugs. Uh, he formed that ideology already in the 20s when he wrote "Mein Kampf," which is basically a racist, you know, the racist textbook that the Nazi movement then based itself on. And that had nothing to do with drugs. Um, he wasn't like, so Hitler wasn't like a nice person and he took bad drugs and he became like a racist. He was the racism, the ideology, the aggressiveness, this this the fear of the other. I could not, I could not see that this comes from drugs. Um, so also, I think that means that his responsibility for his actions is not uh, lessened because he was like a drug user. Um, so the drugs really play an important part in his life. After 1941 um, when the first problems arise on the battlefield with the Soviet Union, uh, he tries to basically stay in a good mood. He was depressed quite a bit or insecure, like meeting 30 highly intelligent Wehrmacht generals in a military briefing room and they all kind of have their opinion how the war should be fought. But he, being the, you know, the leader like who, you know, claims that he knows everything better, like he also had to appear like this kind of person in the room the whole time, which was quite stressful. So he would use um, weirdly enough, opioids quite a bit to be to have that presence in the room. And apparently there are opioids like Eukodal, which was a German product at the time, which now is called OxyContin. But it's a little bit different because it's it doesn't have a time-release uh, factor in it. The Eukodal and he he injected it, Morrell injected it into his vein. So the effect is very quick and very strong and quite euphoric. So Hitler would use that to, you know, to act like the Führer in the room and to, you know, to be able to keep his charisma and convince generals even if his decisions were, you know, ridiculous. Like they they would like say, "It's not going to work like this." But Hitler was so convincing and also, you know, he had the power so he could just, you know, push it through. So he used basically drugs later in the war to keep his tunnel vision and not really look at reality. He was not really like soberly trying to assess the situation and then come to like rational conclusions how the German army or the military should behave. He just kept himself in this kind of superhuman, illusionary state where he would know everything better and of course, the Germans are stronger than the rest of the world and would win. So he he used kind of drugs to flee the world in a way, to like not look at the world, to stay in his own uh, in his own chemical bunker.

And do you know the drug that was used to kill his dog? uh, and the bunker as the experiment. The final drug he took?

Well, the final drug, what I read was cyanide. Um, and he passed it out in the bunker to some of his, you know, highest ranking colleagues. It was like an honor to receive the cyanide from the Führer himself. And he said apparently that he was sorry that this is the last thing he can give to them. And then, you know, they committed suicide in the bunker. Not all of them, but Hitler was not the only one committing suicide. And actually, there was a book written about the last days of the Third Reich when like thousands of people, officers all over the country...

...right, or shot themselves in the head to kind of follow...

...elderly couples on park benches and entire families, uh, bed as well.

Yeah. Life without socialism is unthinkable for...

...intense days. Uh, my uncles were uh, with the Wehrmacht in World War II and among the first to enter the death camps. So I grew up with stories of all this and uh, thank you, Norman. And so in Tripped, you cover the darker side of a psychedelic era of the early CIA experiments, including MK Ultra. Um, how do you assess, how do you assess the ethical legacy of that era? Uh, MK Ultra for neuroscience, for policy? Uh, how has that played out after the Church Committee in the 70s shut everything down in the US? How has that now changed? What what do you see?

Well, I mean, I was interested in this, the the early beginnings of MK Ultra, like where does it come from? Because I had uh, read SS reports from the concentration camp of Dachau using mescaline and another tasteless and odorless potent um, hallucinogenic drug, which I kind of assumed was LSD because those experiments were done in '43, like in '44 mostly. And Richard von, the leading Nazi biochemist, I found out in my research was best friends with the CEO of Sandoz, uh, where Albert Hofmann and the chemist worked and discovered LSD. And I found letters between the two discussing their ergot research at Sandoz and then also von, um, um, thanking Stol, the Swiss CEO for receiving ergotamine. And I think I asked you this question once in a...

...Stol, thanking Stol himself. Yeah, thank you. The...

...pharmacology section of Sandoz is one of the first people to take LSD.

My goodness.

Well, I mean, von received ergotamine, half a gram, in October 1943. So, I'm I'm asking an expert, what would what would von do with ergotamine? And then later on, '44, they're using an odorless, tasteless substance in the concentration camp of Dachau to refine their interrogation techniques. It seems to me that von was probably making LSD from ergotamine, or I mean, I I'm surprised. Why didn't, why didn't Stol send LSD proper? Why would he send ergotamine? Is there any reason for this?

Well, he could have used ergotamine as an abortifacient to attempt to induce abortions, uterine contractions in women, frankly, uh, as part of his torturous medical regimes, or just experimenting with its properties. Can do gangrene, what have you. All terrible visual effects. Um, but your thesis that he may have synthesized a small quantity of LSD from that very small quantity of ergotamine is uh, not unreasonable, especially with the odorless, tasteless material later appearing in the camps. That's uh, extremely intriguing and of course...

...half a gram, half a gram is not that much.

Well, making, synthesizing from a half gram, you would have perhaps 150 milligrams at most of LSD. That requires like micro amounts, very small amounts of glassware and chemicals. It's it's certainly doable.

Right. I probably would agree that ergotamine was used to manufacture LSD. Yes. So, so in...

...any case, when the Americans liberate Dachau, they find these reports and then they uh, American military had a special unit called Alsos attached to it, and Alsos was responsible for investigating German scientists. So they, what they did was they interrogated von and Highleberg when American forces occupied Highleberg. And von was not reluctant to talk about LSD and that LSD was part of his search for the truth drug, which was, you know, the goal of the Nazis to find that that ominous truth drug. And that actually got the US military interested in LSD. They had obviously never heard about it before. Right. So von's, von's experiments were the underpinning of of MK Ultra's use of LSD for interrogations. That's a fabulous insight. Uh, arising from a US agency's interrogating von, uh, Highleberg. You know, I had the pleasure of meeting Albert Hofmann and H Highleberg in '96 and uh, he was in the same conference, but I didn't meet you.

Oh, well, the European conference on on consciousness. Yes. Yes. Albert was there and uh, oh goodness, Sasha and uh, David Nichols. And uh, we love the university. And I later that night at 3 in the morning, there was Albert, in his gray suit, in his 90s, speaking to like hundreds of um, purple-haired German youth in German about uh, LSD, and they were they were very attentive. It was lovely to meet Albert. Uh, he sent me a copy of his book, which was uh, seized by American authorities and you know...

...which book?

Um, well, his uh, his book about "Problem Child." So, um, Norman, uh, the original working title for your book, Tripped, was LSD from Mama.

Right?

And it reflects your interest in, um, psychedelics for Alzheimer's.

Yeah. I mean, while I was...

...on that.

...yeah, while I was researching the early history of LSD, trying to figure out that that Nazi connection, I also, you know, looked a bit into current LSD research and I received and read a white paper from an American company, which doesn't exist anymore, I believe, by Schlomi Raz and some other people working there.

With us. Quite quite active in the startup biotech area.

Yeah. Yeah, I know. I met Schlomi the other day in New York.

And uh, he, well, I didn't know him at the time, obviously, but I read in the paper that small dosages of LSD could be helpful against Alzheimer's. Since Alzheimer's and since my mother is suffering from that terrible disease, I discussed it with her, you know, as far as she could understand, and also with my father, who took care of her at the time. And that kind of led my father, who had been a judge actually before uh, in Germany, a state court judge. So not really a drug drug person, as he would say. He said, "I'm a man of the law." But still, he became interested and he asked me, "If LSD is helpful against Alzheimer's, why can't he buy it in the pharmacy? Why is it illegal? Why do, why..." you know, a lot of "whys" actually. And that set me on to my journey to really research now the story of LSD. And so that was, so in the in the end, I come back to him with the story, which now is laid out in Tripped. What, what is LSD? How was it developed? Why didn't it become a medicine? What went wrong, basically? I come back to the to him, to my family with the story. And then my parents decide to use LSD in micro doses and the Alzheimer's got better. It didn't vanish. Um, because I think my mother started too late. Um, but it certainly helped her. And whenever she took LSD, which she doesn't do anymore, uh, unfortunately, I would say, but that's my father's decision. But when she still took it, she would always have a cognitive enhanced enhanced experience, like speak much better to us, be more present in the room, be happier. And this lasted for five, six hours. So really, her brain, it was like her brain was like barren earth and suddenly there was a bit of rain, you know, and then things were happening. Uh, so...

Great analogy. Lovely enough.

A gentle rain.

That's why I wanted to call the book LSD for Mom, but then I I got sidetracked by my German publisher. He didn't like the title. I think it's a great title. So, I hope when we publish the paperback in Germany, we're going to rename the book. Let's see.

Um, yes. Well, I have the privilege of having an actual uh, copy in German of "LSD from Mama," sent early on by Ram Norman.

Well, I mean, you were you were quite helpful. I mean, and I I also want to mention before we forget it, the the way we connected because I just wrote to you out of the blue and you probably wouldn't have responded because you still couldn't also respond at the time as you liked, but you had read Blitz a few years ago.

And in prison, it was very popular among the Nazi youth with tattoos of Hitler and so forth on their bodies. So, was that in the in the library of the prison or how did you get your hands on it?

Circulated carefully among the men.

Right?

Library book, but didn't last long in there. But uh, the neo-Nazis were uh, very fond of it.

I thought maybe they'd hate it because it kind of says that Nazis were only so strong on the battlefield because they used meth.

Well, goodness. Um...

No, but you were also very...

...extraordinary characters. Some had uh, entire red swastikas tattooed on their their uh, their skulls, quite large swastikas. They were also 88, which was a symbol of uh, Nazism, and what have you, or Hitler's birthday tattooed on their bodies. So very strongly.

Well, I mean, my book is not, it's an anti-fascist work, you know, so it's it really kind of demasks the the fascists. So I'm a bit surprised that they would like it, but maybe they're just interested also in the history.

It was the covert nature of the work. Uh, any books on Nazism are are forbidden in the federal system, but this somehow survived and was...

Oh, right.

...and hand to hand.

And one fell into my my hands and I read it with great glee. And uh, which brings up a question, uh, um, how do you see the relationship between war and trauma and and drug innovation uh, historically today? Like wartime stimulant research versus modern uh, useful drugs?

I mean, many historians have overlooked the drug angle in World War II.

Right. I mean, drugs, I mean, the word drugs is kind of a bad word because it it means so many different substances. Some substances, you know, cause harm, even cause trauma. I guess if you were like fighting on meth in on the Russia, on the Eastern front, you know, you'd certainly have a traumatic experience. Um, while other substances actually heal trauma, um, like ibogaine, which I did this summer for the first time. Um, so I mean, it was interesting mentioning ibogaine. I just want to go into it for a second. Doing ibogaine, I did it with four Special Forces US Army vets, Green Berets, who had also in the battlefield used drugs in Afghanistan, in Iraq, uppers mostly, and then, you know, sleeping pills to, you know, fall asleep at night. So that created for them like traumatic, traumatic experiences which they then, you know, years later tried to cure and actually successfully cured with ibogaine. Um, I don't know if that's an answer to your question. I kind of, I also didn't understand that's close enough, you know, in terms of just mentioning...

We're seeing ibogaine used in Ukraine. We have verified accounts of uh, microdosing among Ukrainian troops. They seem to find it uh, not only useful for wakefulness also...

...microdosing ibogaine in Ukraine?

And and we're seeing amounts of ibogaine going into Ukrainian troops. This is valid.

Uh, they're using it for remaining motionless for long periods.

For wakefulness. It also seems to improve their visual acuity. They can see um, tanks that are hidden by their claws, if you will, in the in the trees. They seem to have a greater visual acuity. So...

Quite a bit of it actually is going on there, but...

Okay. So, um, what, what barriers, cultural or institutional barriers did you experience while you're trying to do this work? I mean, you're digging into very sensitive areas long ago.

Right? Well, I had a very good uh, informant, is the wrong word, person in the German military who told me a lot of things about, cuz he was, the the current German army has like a historical research department. And this one officer knew a lot obviously about World War II and the Wehrmacht, even though the Wehrmacht and the current German army are not the same military body. The Wehrmacht was outlawed after the war. Um, so the current German army, but still, you know, people research it. And he he gave me a lot of information. Then when he read Blitz, he wrote me that he doesn't want to speak to me again because I made it seem like the German Wehrmacht was only so powerful because they used methamphetamines. And he was like, "They were also very powerful because they were just very good soldiers." So he was kind of, his pride was was kind of hurt, which I thought was weird because I never thought that a current contemporary German soldier would still feel the connection to the Wehrmacht because they're such different organizations, but maybe they're not, you know, it's just the army of of Germany. Also, the Wehrmacht was not a Nazi organization from the start. You know, it was just the German army, which obviously got under the influence of the Nazi party once they, you know, took power and, you know, infiltrated also the army with their with their people, you know, but that was that was kind of the only negative reaction I got. Uh, most people were just stunned by the research and uh, happy to read a more precise account of uh, World War II.

Well, thank you for giving us that, Norman. This, you've written a history that is uh, unrecorded elsewhere and you've done research and revealed issues that were unknown. I recall when first reading your manuscript, I was concerned about the public response to some of your discoveries of uh, linking the Nazis to early LSD development. Uh, but it, it seems to have gone well. Your work is very, very popular, which brings the next question. Uh, so, so given your your deep dive into psychoactive substances, um, that shaped the 20th century, uh, geopolitics, um, um, what do you think the next frontier is? Psychedelics, or neuroenhancement, or uh, or AI-driven biohacking, or something else? Where's it going?

Um, I think ibogaine is the future. I think once we overcome the nation-states and create a planetary society, which will be powered by AI, otherwise it's, I think AI can help us to organize a lot, but it needs to be an open-source AI, not an AI that belongs to a company or a government or an individual. So, once we've reached um, that planetary stage, I think we we certainly will need, or it certainly would be helpful for for us as a species to work through the incredible trauma that has already occurred and will, you know, occur until we've reached that next phase of civilization because the nation-states will not give up their power easily. Um, there will be a lot of horrible things that I would imagine that will happen in the next few decades until we've overcome that hierarchical system that we that we're all suffering from now, except if you're a billionaire. Um, so I think we will need as a species uh, psychedelic, the access to psychedelics on a planetary scale and planetary rituals, rituals everywhere, ritual centers everywhere. And I think, or I think ibogaine will play quite a big role because I, to me, it seems like to be the most powerful psychedelic substance there is. Um, so I, I think, I mean, we don't, we actually don't need that much as human beings on this planet. You know, where we have a, we have a functioning uh, ecosystem still. Stuff is growing. Um, we're happy in small groups. Um, we're quite loving and lovable creatures. Just the modern system, the the capitalist, capitalist with a big C system, just has gotten completely out of hand. And uh, so I would imagine actually, we need kindness. We need communication from one person to the next person. We don't need so much biohacking. I think I, I think we're happy with the plants and with the mushrooms we have and with the climate we we still have. And so I, I think we need less, you know. I see it in my own life. I, I, I, I want less and less, you know, the older I get. I, I just want to, I just want to relax and I want to enjoy, you know, simple things. And I would hope that we as a species kind of move towards that and kind of calm down from this capitalist modernist uh, madness of making more and more and creating this and that. That's kind of what I would hope that we kind of simplify and stop the violence, especially.

Oh, I'll try to adopt that in my later years as a retirement plan. Thanks.

Yeah, I think it's great. I think you live in a great place. You should enjoy the sunrise and the sunset.

Thanks so much.

Nice to your fellow human beings. I mean, that's what we should all do.

Just for our audience, Norman has visited here for extended periods and we've taken long rides in the desert and and long walks in...

Mexico. Cool.

You sound. Yeah. Come on down, folks. We'll entertain. Well, in Berlin.

Yeah.

Berlin is too ugly and too much too civilized. It's not really natural enough.

But it's, it's okay for a city. It's okay.

And good night scenes, good EDM. No more Love Parade, though.

Again, you, you've um, you've discussed how creative figures like artists and writers uh, use stimulants. What role do you think uh, psychedelic substances have played in shaping culture or shaping conflict?

Uh, well, I think without psychedelic substances, we wouldn't even be here. Like we would not exist at this moment. Uh, I think they created the frontal cortex and um, they created uh, they helped us, you know, create culture. And I think Eleusis in Greece is just like, it's just like an end step, you know, of a long development of shamanistic uh, usage of plants and fun mushrooms.

Fungi.

Fungi, which, you know, kept our brains busy, let our brains develop. So, I think we are completely inseparable from these uh, from these alkaloids and also our culture is inseparable. I think that's actually what probably even made us have an edge over the Neanderthals, which apparently did not develop a drug culture. I think the forest they got was using, I think there's some speculation they used Ephedra, but I guess mostly they were making chamomile tea. Uh, so that's I, I think human beings, I think that's why I call my new book "Stone Sapien." I think we human beings are, you know, creatures of the drug. And um, the drug requires a ritual, and the ritual creates culture. The ritual then also, and and drug culture also then creates unfortunately hierarchies because then there's people who control the drugs. So the the drugs kind of propel us forward, but they don't necessarily turn us into, you know, they don't create a good, you know, positive society. They also create a lot of bad because they are so powerful that, um, it kind of leads to abuse, you know, and control by authorities. But basically, our our history is, is not, you cannot tell the human history without telling it from a drug angle. That's what I'm doing in my next book, "Stone Sapien." So it's going to be basically the first world history ever written because so far, the world histories have not taken this into account and, uh, kind of fall flat in a way.

Well, I love your thought, the arguer thought for how many years now and I look forward to maybe a pre-print or a draft of...

Sure.

...yes. The your next...

Yeah. First I'll have to finish it. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe when I'm first to read it.

Thank you. Oh, this...

Also, I want to mention this before I forget. Uh, I created a Substack called "The Stone Sapien Substack," and in that Substack, you can also see the progress of the book and I publish stuff before it gets into the book or outtakes. So, I would invite everyone interested in that topic to have a look at "The Stone Sapien Substack."

Dear audience, go to "Stone Sapien Substack" of Norman Oler for early tidbits and early sections and you can argue back and forth with Norman on that.

What?

So, this is our last question uh...

...for the serious ones.

...for the serious ones. We'll get into the funny ones in a few minutes more. Um, so looking back at the Nazi regime's use of um, drugs for operations um, and upon humans, what what do you consider the takeaway from all this work or the cautionary lesson for us in the present age of chemical, digital warfare convergence?

Well, I think we have to be very, we have to be very skeptical uh, in regards to the nation-states, to to governments who kind of claim they have authority because we vote once in a while. So now they have they have like legitimacy to kind of rule over us. And um, basically, I think we have to get rid of them. And just, it's just one symptom of how corrupt they are is their, you know, incredible, I don't know if audacity is the right word, but like controlling what we as human beings put into our system without knowing, or they don't even know. The government doesn't even know what it is. Like labeling substances, putting them under Schedule One with no medicinal use, even though that's obviously not true for quite a few substances that are in that group. I think that's just totally ridiculous. And uh, the Nazis just took it, you know, quite far, uh, combining the drug control that they issued uh, with the concentration camp system and with, you know, waging, waging war against the whole world. Um, but it's still kind of going on. You know, the the capitalist systems that we live in right now, they all have fascist tendencies and they are they are still connected with the prohibitionist, prohibitionist policies and thousands of people behind bars for drugs.

I, I can hardly imagine that.

Um, yeah.

Norman. Um, and now for the funny...

...to the funny ones. Yes. It's too serious.

...ones. Yes. So um, so Hitler was using uh, Pervitin, kind of a meth, uh, analog, and uh, Eukodal. Is that how you say it? Eukodal, opioid.

Well, Hitler was using, Hitler is quite funny actually, even though he's the most horrible person that ever lived. But the, the amount of drugs that he consumed is incredible.

Well, that's the question. So, uh, we assume he has a morning routine where he got up and did a little Pervitin, backed by Eukodal, or what have you, and went on his rampages. But uh, if you had to suggest a morning routine to Hitler, um, to replace his 1940s cocktail with something cool today, what would you, uh, humorously but seriously prescribe?

Oh, I mean...

...here, Adolf, try this. What would that be?

I kind of, I, I actually stopped cannabis a while ago, actually, after I took my ibogaine. But I think weed is kind, would be kind of a helpful drug for for fascists because it does, you know, calm you down a bit and kind of makes you relax. So, I think weed wouldn't be too bad. Um, but what I really, what surprised me in the early '90s when the techno scene started was that kind of skinheads, kind of Nazi guys from East Berlin would go into the techno clubs and would take ecstasy and suddenly they became like the friendliest people they've ever met. And because finally, they realized, "I don't have to be an asshole the whole time. I can actually dance and have a good time." So maybe MDMA would be good for Hitler. Uh, certainly kind of these kind of drugs, cannabis, MDMA. Not so sure about psychedelics because psychedelics can also reinforce like a paranoid system. Um, probably MDMA would be good in the morning.

Well, good morning, Adolf, and it's going to be an even better morning in about an hour. So, in your research, uh, you've uncovered all sorts of drug-fueled scenes. If you had, if you had to cast a Hollywood blockbuster and title it Blitz, uh, what modern actor would play Hitler? Who would play Morrell? And...

...who's the unexpected cameo?

I think Kevin Spacey would be a very good Hitler because he already portrayed...

Yeah, I think he would be excellent. Uh, actually, Leo DiCaprio wanted to play Morrell at a point in time. That's why Paramount then, in a frenzy, got the rights of my book for like two years, but never developed a a good script out of it. I mean, Leo looks kind of different than Morrell because Morrell was extremely ugly and overweight. And but I guess that's like the challenge for a Hollywood star to to get like the Oscar or something. So, I would be happy to see him. Um, yeah, I think, uh, Spacey. Well, I, I, I think, uh, Johnny Depp could be could be good also as Hitler, actually. Um, pretty scary. Uh, but maybe too cool. Um, because Hitler was not really cool. Also, that would be a challenge for Depp, but he's, you know, I don't know. Yeah, those are those are my answers.

Very good. Very unexpected cameo.

And maybe, uh, Kirsten Dunst could play Eva Braun.

Well done. Well done. Thanks.

So, so you mentioned on the podcast, he was either Lex or Dora, and he resisted the needle himself but asked someone else to try Eukodal to feel what Hitler...

...felt. Were you ever going to try any of that purely for research?

Uh, I've never, never really been an opioid person and I don't really like needles. So I've never injected, for example, heroin or any of these drugs. I think the effect could be quite interesting to me personally, but I just never felt like doing it, going into that intensity. Even though I have, you know, gone into intensity with psychedelics, but not, never with opioids. But I know a friend who's a DJ. Um, he, I actually spoke with him today because he is a good friend and he said that I mention him sometimes on podcasts and always say how many drugs he takes and then he can never show these podcasts to his daughter. But I mean, he actually did, he did inject Eukodal to tell me what it was like. And he said, it's the most beautiful high that he had ever experienced, very strong.

I mean, I can't recommend it, you know, obviously, because it's a very habit-forming thing. But I guess the effect itself, you know, while it lasts, uh, can be experienced as extremely pleasurable. That's why people take opioids, I, I would imagine. But I have never, I've never done it myself. What I did do was crystal meth because I was writing in Blitz about, you know, what happens, what happened to the German soldiers in the tanks, getting high on meth, being in the tank for like 10 hours, rolling through the French countryside, like how do, how do they feel? So I, I asked my uh, my cannabis dealer at the time, could she bring me some meth also? And she said, "No, I don't want to touch that stuff." But a few weeks later, said, "I, I actually know another guy who sells meth and he said he would sell you a gram." So I got a gram and I used that um, and I could see, I could feel the addictive qualities of it because you feel quite elevated while you while you're on it. But then I had like a huge depression when it when it wore off. I'm very sensitive to these substances, apparently. So I had like, I was like depressed for two weeks. You know, so that was quite horrible. Like for one, for one pleasurable, quote unquote, pleasurable experience of like 8 to 10 hours, I was depressed for two weeks. So while you're depressed, you know, you take it again so you're not depressed anymore. That's how I guess it works.

Did you write while you were on this?

Yeah, I wrote a lot on it and some of it was good. I'm...

Sure you did. Some of it also was not good because, and this corresponds to some of the research that the German universities had done with this with Pervitin in the '30s. It lowers your self-criticism. So you, because you feel so like great, you just write and you think this is all wonderful. It's kind of what Timothy Leary once said, "If you write stoned, you should edit sober."

Well, that was Hemingway. That's a quote of Hemingway. You like to drink, write, write drunk and edit sober.

That your methamphetamine-fueled writing, you may have a lot of editing to do.

Yeah, you have a lot of editing to do. And...

I mean, between my 30s and 40s, I used much more, a lot more drugs than now. Basically, I don't use, I haven't used any drugs since I took ibogaine, to be honest. But I, like 15 years ago, I would use more drugs and I wrote quite a lot at the time, but nothing really ended up, you know, I didn't produce books because I also wrote a lot of crap, you know, just like stuff like 20 pages which might be good in themselves, but they didn't, they didn't lead to something bigger. Like so you have to be careful with writing.

Well, let's let's talk about that just a second before we go on to the questions. Uh, when you have a meth-fueled or any other drug-fueled long episode of so many pages and it's time to go back and write and go, "My goodness, I had the secret of the universe last night and now I forgot what it was." Go back to your edited. Do you ever find a gem or so that survives from the drug uh, state that survives the lucid state that's very useful? A little uh, dynamo?

I would say. So, yeah. I mean, I used especially MDMA in the '90s to go into Berlin clubs and go on the dance floor for like maybe eight hours dancing and kind of the movement of dancing with the drug created was a very creative state that I was in. And I had a little notepad with me. So whenever I had a thought, I would go to the side of the dance floor and write it down, which actually made some other people in the club, they became suspicious. They thought I was maybe a cop or some, you know, who writes in the club. But I did then later on, after like two days when I was sober, I would look, you know, and I would find gems. So I think it is, but it comes at a high price, you know, you like waste like a whole week for like five good sentences. So maybe it's, you know, maybe if you're a poet, it would be good because you don't need to write like long volumes. You just need to have like, so for Allen Ginsberg, it was probably amazing to be on drugs the whole time and you know, have crazy thoughts that you wouldn't otherwise have. It's just the payoff is is quite high.

Oh, makes me howl. So, our German friends, if you were in an EDM club uh, some years ago and you see a um, a young writer dancing, dancing furiously and then suddenly going off to the side and scribbling in his notebook, that would be the famed Norman Oler.

Hope that clears that up. Okay. Okay, Norman. So, uh, let's talk about what, what you haven't told us. What the archive didn't tell us. What, what was the weirdest or funniest uh, note that you may have found in a doctor's diary or medicine chest that you, you almost couldn't believe when you're searching through all those archives? What blew your mind?

Well, I found a lot about Hitler's feces and I didn't put it in the book because I thought this is too uh, smelly somehow.

No.

Huh. It did, it did surprise me actually how much resources were spent on Hitler's feces, examining it, driving the feces in special cars through the back, through the front lines, back to Germany, to special labs. And cuz Hitler was always worried about that his digestion wasn't well. So they like analyzed all the time. So you could, you could kind of write a little short story of the of the Third Reich just describing Hitler's feces, basically. Um, that was uh, but I also thought it was a bit disgusting, of course. Uh, but I did think, I did think it was funny. So maybe if I would write the screenplay to a blockbuster, there would also be this like, if it's a farce, you know, there would also be this car, this military vehicle with a special container like racing through the front lines trying to get to the lab to examine. And then, you know, I, I thought that was kind of weird. Um, a lot of things were, we, everything is weird about the Third Reich. Like this was a complete alternative reality that was at the same time so real that it destroyed the the whole of Europe. So that the whole, the whole his period of history, those 12 years of German madness, that's why it's still fascinated, it fascinates everybody because it is so weird. And to go into the archive to get close to the facts, it's not like you go into the archive, you look at the documents and you say, "Oh, this is actually not so interesting as I thought it would be." It actually gets more and more interesting the more like little details you read. It was complete, utter madness.

Down the wormhole. Sandoz gave you permission to go filter back through those 1943 notes. That's uh, quite stunning.

Yes. Well, the archivist was a bit reluctant because he could smell a rat. Like he was trying to protect his company's legacy, which is kind of weird because like other companies like Bayer, they're not really reluctant to show that they developed heroin. Uh, so they give you this stuff. But Sandoz with LSD, I don't know. I mean, they're very proud of it somehow that they discovered LSD, but they're also kind of ashamed of it. So, the archivist did not really want me to read the correspondence between uh, his CEO and the Nazi, von. I didn't even know about that correspondence. I just knew that he was kind of blocking me. Uh, and I was then, I, I described this in detail in the book Tripped. I was able to bribe him uh, with uh, an actual LSD hit that I had in my pocket. So, at one point I said to him, "Do you want to see real LSD?" And he's like, "Yeah, sure. I've never seen it." I said, "Well, it was your most famous product." He said, "Yeah, I actually would like to see it, but where can I see it?" So, I said, "Here it is." And I showed it to him and he became quite fascinated. He suddenly warmed up to me. Like he's really like a maniac. He's like, "Bringing LSD to my archive." And then I gave it to him as a present. And then he said, "Okay, what do you want to read? Just tell me what you want to see." And then he gave me the uh, the correspondence and I found the smoking gun that actually Sandoz did supply ergotamine to von in 19, in October 1943. So that was kind of, that was kind of funny actually.

What a wonderful anecdote. Thank you for sharing that. Uh, Norman, very brave of you. Um, so, so, and when you were talking to Lex, you, you talked about the myth of Hitler at the, uh, 1936 Olympics being on meth, a myth of Hitler on meth.

Yeah, I think it's a meth myth. Um, because Hitler was not really a meth guy. Uh, he was into opioids and also cocaine a little bit, but not really into meth. And he never said anything about meth. But his doctor didn't like it. Morrell didn't like meth. He said meth is like, it's like a whip. He said, "Meth is the whip for the horse, but not the hay that the horse eats and actually gets stronger from." And I think he for a long time really thought that what he gives Hitler is making Hitler stronger. And he was just an anti-meth guy. And I guess that those existed back in the day, you know. Uh, so Hitler was never really getting into the meth. Probably Morrell um told...

him that math is bad. You're not going to take math. You're the fa let the soldiers you know that they take math then they follow orders. That's you know that's good but not not the brain itself. You know the brain should not take math. So Hitler's actually not a math head.

Um, and those images in 1936 at the Olympics, I think they are doctorred basically. Uh, because he didn't take any drugs at the time. Uh, and if you look closely at that video that's so popular on YouTube, I think you can even see that it's kind of looped. So maybe he was, you know, excited like rocking back and forth because some German was winning the gold medal and then you just loop it and it seems like he's freaking out on meth, but uh I I highly doubt that even especially since meth was only invented in late 1937, you know, after the Olympic Games, he couldn't even have taken it, you know, even if he would have wanted to because it didn't exist yet.

>> So, if you had one drug that you could have given Hitler, and I realize you're just coming off your Ibegan revelation, what would it be?

>> Cyanide. Well, well done.

>> 1933.

>> Have you been asked that question before? You have.

>> Oh,

>> well folks, we heard it here first. So, your upcoming book working title is uh Stone Sapiens,

>> right?

>> Say imagine that being turned into a board game,

>> right? What would be the winning mud move for Sapiens and what would be losing card?

>> Well, I think the the winning the winning move would be to uh to consume ibo gain and kind of s make complete the circle because I think iboga was a very early drug that we took as a species. I think actually I mean I gain only plays a role in like maybe 20 pages of the book but I do think it's a very important substance for for us as human beings.

>> Well thank you Norman. A lot of people agree with you these days. Uh actually this uh in two days I'm going down to uh to Cancun to sit with uh nine uh crypto bros who uh will be chatting about Bitcoin quite a lot the first day or two and then they're going to run into the wall if you will of a deep Ibegan experience and uh it's my privilege to spend some time.

>> Why don't you take it yourself?

>> Oh, I'm I'm not uh a drug taker anymore.

>> The medicine?

>> No, I understand it's good medicine and I I recognize that and uh um

>> maybe a little

>> which suggests the same thing as you not a problem. I think it's uh anecdotally it is a profoundly healing material and perhaps the best thing that we have currently for addiction and trauma and uh all the rest. So I think there's a great future for Ibane and and thank you for recognizing that saying it on this podcast.

So you know you've studied stimulus and war you've studied psychedelics and peace. Um, would you rather sign up for a 7-day meth fuel blitz in 1940s Germany or a 7-day LSDG guided retreat in 1960s?

>> Well, I mean, that's uh the first one is a really perverse suggestion. Uh,

>> that's easy.

>> Sitting in that tank invading France on meth with like five other German guys like completely out of my head on crystal math pervertin. I think it's pretty insane. Um, and in a way I've done these things, uh, you know, without inflicting harm on another person, but just maybe inflicting harm on myself using addictive substances maybe in the clubs. But knowing what I know now uh and having had the psychedelic experiences that I've had, I think the uh LSD uh camp in the 60s would would be much more fun because it would probably be not only, you know, guys in a closed room, but it would probably be mixed gender in a in a beautiful natural surrounding. Um

>> no contest.

>> Huh?

>> No contest. I think

>> I think I would feel much better during the experience and also after the experience because psychedelics have the wonderful effect that they open windows of neuroplasticity. So the trip doesn't end when the trip ends. It actually continues for some time uh while and you feel good. You know it's a bit weird when the when the drug starts. You know, sometimes, you know, when LSD starts, it can be uncomfortable until you kind of reached certain plateau or stabilized yourself. Uh, but then, you know, it's going it's getting better and better usually. Um, so I think that would be a great experience. Well, crystal meth, you know, you feel instantly you feel great, but then it's just kind of goes it's going to go downhill. And I I wouldn't want I don't think I'll ever have an experience like that in my life again.

Was there a chapter that you wanted to write [clears throat] but couldn't because of a missing evidence or legal risk or editorial push back?

>> Uh, it's not really so far. Um, I mean, I'm a novelist, so sometimes my imagination would like to tell a story, but there's no, you know, evidence for it. But if I write a non-fiction book, I would just I would just not, you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't worry about it. I would just not I would just not write it, you know. But that I also have the novel. So in a novel, you can write anything, you know. So that's why novels ultimately as you know also having written a beautiful novel are ultimately the the king's form as we say in German the Kunik's form there they're the highest you know form of writing I think so here here's one for you okay you you spent

>> you spent years in the archives was there something you found that um felt like it was meant for you to find something uh eerie or poetic or weirdly personal, anything that really got to you?

I mean, that whole Hitler thing was really for me to find because no one had found it before, even though Hitler is the most examined person in world history. And when I read a report by SS people about Morell, the doctor, going into Hitler's room, spending like 20 minutes inside, then coming out with a syringe in his hand, going to the wash washroom of the SS and washing out the syringe and then leaving again. I thought, what is going on here? Like what happened in that room? You know, we have to know. And then, you know, the next thing the the archist puts on my table is, you know, the actual books of the doctor, like where he writes what's going on in the room. And I I had this and I knew that I was the one that was supposed to find this because I also know so much about drugs, you know, I know much about history, but also about drugs and historians never they they never had that kind of access to it. So, it was really waiting for a guy like me to find it. And um yeah, that that was my feeling in this federal archive of Germany.

>> Well, sounds like it was really meant for you, Norman.

>> I think so.

>> So, so you know, with writing writing and

>> which is also weird, you know, because you don't decide I'm going to become the world's leading Hitler expert. Why would you want that? You know, but it kind of fell into my lap and it's kind of funny, you know. I don't mind it, you know. I because I think it's important because fascism is now, you know, coming back. So, it's interesting to understand the fascist character. So, we are more, you know, aware of of it and maybe can prevent it or, you know,

>> destroy us.

>> As you mentioned, the most uh reported individual in history and Norman found the drug connection. So speaking of uh of drugs and writing though uh how do you think your own writing process has changed um through immersion in the previous book um tripped or or for for your experiences throughout your life has it sharpened your focus or have I mean my first really strong drug experience was with LSD when I was 23 and down turn Manhattan. It took about 1 hour to to come on. Before that, I felt nothing. And after 1 hour, walls of a small toilet I was in in in a restaurant started shaking like this. And then I went outside and I saw a New York City bus coming around the corner and changing from a bus into pure electricity gliding by. Then I went into the next bar. I saw my a good friend of mine and she was this short like I was looking down. I saw her this short and I said

>> Alice going on it was this was the this trip was 1,000 times stronger than all the other LSD I had taken and it was just one paper. It was one trip.

How did this

>> was on the paper? What was on the bladder? What it looked like?

>> I don't I don't remember. I really don't. But what is that possible? That one little paper

>> that's 1,000 times stronger than all the other trips you take.

>> Yeah, it's quite possible. Depends on the dosage. Sounds like uh you were up several hundred at least. Uh uh it varies.

>> So the chemist made a mistake

>> or maybe not. It was put out as a uh four fored bladder or more. But can you have like let's say 5,000 mics on one paper on one bladder?

>> We could but nobody would do that. I think the most you'd see on a paper would be 200 250 that sort of thing.

>> But that doesn't create a hallucination as I just described.

>> Oh no no you've just described would be several hundred micrograms at the very least if not a thousand. But we should save that uh question for uh your your podcast to me. Right. We're coming up. We're doing something together I think the other way. Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Good. Okay. I'll jump into that for you.

>> Uh, if Blitz was about a descent into u methamphetamine chaos and tripped is about mind expansion and diplomacy, psychonaut diplomacy. It's a kind of a trilogy you're building,

>> right?

>> What's the trilogy's final act?

>> Well, that's sapiens. It's a it's a it's a look at human history through the lens of drugs, but not just focusing on the Third Reich or the second half of the 20th century, but on all history. So, it starts 1.5 million years ago. And it goes through all the high cultures looking at how drugs influenced them. You know, all kinds of drugs, not only psychedelics, but also opium was very important for certain high cultures like in Creed or also colonialism without opium is unthinkable. The the opium wars against China. So it goes through all it looks at all aspects of history. So that's kind of the conclusion of my drug history, my work on drugs and history. the stone sapiens that will be kind of the next and maybe final non-fiction book because after that I want to write fiction again.

>> Well, I can only imagine your fiction writing uh Norman. So, let me throw you a fictional question. This is our our final question I think today. Um, if you could dose any world leader, if you could dose anyone of the world, past or present with a control dose of LSD in a safe setting,

>> right?

>> Who would it be? And what would you hope they would experience?

>> Oh, it's really hard because there's so many horrible leaders right now, you know. Um, let's avoid the present for political reasons. Avoid the present. Okay. Taking LSD with Jesus would be interesting, but maybe it was normal for him already. You know, I mean, obviously, if I could take LSD with Hitler in 1932 and convince him that we're all, you know, equal, that he doesn't have to be afraid of the other, and he would actually change his mindset. But I don't think he would. I don't think he would. I think it would be a frustrating experience. Uh LSD is not strong enough, you know, or you need more dosages of LSD. I think just for fun, you know, probably would be great. I don't know with Gandhi maybe. But he also wouldn't take drugs because he was just drinking water. I think uh I think it would have been interesting if Timothy Liry actually would have become the governor of California. But there's no need to take LSD with Timothy Larry because he took enough already.

>> I think his arrest for like two roaches and his prison sentence that was really a turning point in American history or a big what if like what if he would have become a successful governor of California legalizing or decriminalizing psychedelics in California back then becoming US president that would have been that have been would have been interesting.

>> Thank you Tim. Um, Norman, any uh parting words for our audience? I'm sure have been riveted to this podcast. I uh any parting words or things you'd like to say to

>> Yeah. Yeah. Nze always said uh once the books are written, yeah, the the writer should shut up. So, I guess he wouldn't have been a guest on podcasts. Uh it's always good to remember if you listen to a podcast that this is just scratching the surface of the deeper work which is in the writing and in the books. So I would I would encourage everyone to actually read the books not just listen to the audio because the information when you actually read it's good it's very healthy thing to read. So maybe start with Substack. Stone say in Substack and if you like you know reading uh then and then then go to the books read the books.

>> Oh thank you Norman. It's been a great privilege to uh have you on uh the podcast today. It's uh I would encourage the audience to of course read all of Norman's work uh Blitz Tit uh Stone Sapiens uh and the forthcoming novels. Um Norman uh many blessings to you in Berlin. uh from Santa Fe. We hope to see you again soon. Uh perhaps uh visiting in New York soon as well. Um and this concludes uh thank you so much for for being here today.

>> It's my pleasure.

>> Thank you so much. Many insights, many wonderful anecdotes and uh this concludes the podcast folks. Um if you um become a supporting member of The Last Alchemist, uh you can hear these materials uh here in Norman uh much earlier. uh will go public uh uh shortly and um many blessings to all and uh thank you Norman and to our audience. [music]