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Lex Fridman Podcast

#481 - Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA

with Norman Ohler

Published September 19, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Lex Fridman talks with writer Norman Ohler about his research on drug use in Nazi Germany, including methamphetamine in the Wehrmacht and opioids in Hitler's inner circle. They discuss how overlooked pharmaceutical and illicit substances shaped military campaigns like the Blitzkrieg, Hitler's declining leadership, and postwar CIA programs such as MKUltra. The conversation also explores German resistance within the Third Reich, Berlin's postwar drug and club culture, and Ohler's broader project on the role of psychoactive drugs across human history.

Topics Covered

Nazism and World War II MKUltra CIA covert operations Pharmaceutical industry corruption War and empire Media trust and propaganda Religion and spirituality Psychedelics DMT Morality and ethics

Disclaimer: We provide independent summaries of podcasts and are not affiliated with or endorsed in any way by any podcast or creator. All podcast names and content are the property of their respective owners. The views and opinions expressed within the podcasts belong solely to the original hosts and guests and do not reflect the views or positions of Summapod.

Quick Takeaways

  • Nazi Germany publicly positioned itself as an anti-drug, purification regime while simultaneously deploying methamphetamine (Pervitin) on a massive scale in the Wehrmacht.
  • Historian Norman Ohler uncovered extensive archival evidence that meth use was systematically planned and documented as part of operations like the Blitzkrieg in France.
  • Hitler personally avoided alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine early on, but later became heavily dependent on injections from his doctor Theodor Morell, including opioids such as Eukodal and Dolantin.
  • Goering was a long-term morphine addict, and Hitler's late-war decision-making, including major blunders like Dunkirk and the split of forces before Moscow, occurred under increasing pharmaceutical influence.
  • Ohler's mentor Hans Mommsen and other leading historians acknowledged that historians had largely "missed" the drug dimension of the Third Reich because they did not understand drugs.
  • The largest native German resistance network, centered around Harro Schulze-Boysen and Libertas, recruited through bohemian parties and ultimately paid with their lives after being exposed via Soviet radio traffic.
  • Ohler argues that drugs have played a formative but underexplored role throughout human history, from early hominins and iboga to Minoan opium and beer in Sumer, up through LSD, CIA MKUltra, and modern psychiatry.
  • LSD emerged from Swiss pharmaceutical research during World War II, passed through Nazi and then CIA hands as a potential truth drug, and later leaked into counterculture via figures like Ken Kesey.
  • Ohler uses his own experiences with substances like LSD and meth (once, for research) to better understand historical actors' inner states but insists his non-fiction books do not invent facts.
  • He sees literature and historical revision grounded in archives as a form of resistance that can expand consciousness and challenge rigid, monocausal narratives.

Podcast Notes

Introduction and framing of Norman Ohler's work

Ohler's books and research focus

Lex introduces Norman Ohler as author of "Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich" and "Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age"[0:00]
• "Blitzed" investigates the role of psychoactive drugs, especially methamphetamine, in the military history of World War II
• Lex cites historians Ian Kershaw and Anthony Beevor praising "Blitzed" as serious, remarkable research based on primary sources
• Ohler is working on a new book tentatively titled "Stoned Sapiens" about human civilization through the lens of drugs

Podcast context and start of conversation

Lex briefly identifies this as the Lex Fridman Podcast and then introduces Norman Ohler[8:19]
Lex asks Ohler to tell the origin story of methamphetamine and Pervitin in Nazi Germany[8:55]

Weimar-era context: Berlin, Munich, and drugs before the Nazis

Munich: alcohol and early Nazi movement

Ohler explains that the Nazi movement in the 1920s began in Bavarian beer halls[9:19]
• Alcohol was the "drug of choice" of the early Nazi movement; beer halls like Bürgerbräukeller were political venues for right‑wing populists
• Hitler himself did not drink alcohol and is described by Ohler as a teetotaler

Berlin: diverse drug culture after World War I

Ohler contrasts Berlin in the 1920s with Munich, describing intense drug use in Berlin[9:41]
• After Germany's defeat and the Versailles Treaty, Berlin became poor and everything was cheap, including substances
• People in Berlin used cocaine, mescaline, ether and experimented with many drugs, forming a "weird, diverse, LGBTQ" scene
• Ohler links alcohol's group‑stimulating, us‑against‑them effects to Munich Nazis, versus Berlin's drug‑driven nonconformity and lack of authority

Political and economic impact of the Versailles Treaty

Ohler summarizes how Versailles constrained Germany's economy and military after WWI[9:55]
• He notes Germany had no say in the negotiations and was blamed solely for the war, which he calls somewhat unfair even though he is not a German nationalist or patriot
• Reparations and restrictions prevented economic recovery and military rebuilding, contributing to Berlin's poverty and drug accessibility

Ohler's personal connection to Berlin and early drug experiences

Growing up in West Germany and fascination with Berlin

Ohler describes growing up in West Germany during the Cold War and being fascinated by walled‑in Berlin[12:59]
• As a Westerner, he could travel to Berlin and leave, which made the city appealing and "vibey"
• When the Berlin Wall came down, he immediately drove there with his parents to witness it

New York, early novels, and LSD

Ohler lived in New York in the 1990s, before Giuliani, and wrote his first novel there[13:37]
• He describes pre‑gentrification New York as cheap and full of artists, paying about $300 a month in rent
• He took LSD for the first time on a Saturday night in downtown New York and wrote his first novel there

Paradigm shift to electronic music and move to Berlin

Upon hearing of Kurt Cobain's suicide, Ohler received a cassette of electronic music from Berlin and sensed a shift from rock to dance music[14:21]
• He interpreted Cobain's death as signaling the end of rock's hero‑on‑stage era and the rise of experimental dance/electronic music
This shift motivated him to leave New York and move to Berlin in the 1990s[15:03]
• He fell in love with a cheap, open, "crazy" Berlin that reminded him of the 1920s, with many clubs and a burgeoning techno scene

Techno culture, reunification, and Berlin's freedom

Ohler recounts how abandoned East German buildings became techno clubs like Tresor after reunification[18:27]
• He explains Tresor was housed in a former vault with huge doors, owned by the socialist East German state
Lex remarks that electronic music enables communal experiences, and Ohler ties that to Berliners meeting for the first time after the wall[17:00]

Alcohol, drugs, and the rise of Nazism

Beer Hall Putsch and alcohol-fueled politics

Ohler describes the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich as both beer hall and right‑wing political venue[19:48]
• He argues drunk audiences are more susceptible to right‑wing populism and that Hitler exploited alcohol‑driven aggression
He recounts the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch as a "stupid drunk idea" that failed when sober Bavarian police opened fire[20:40]
• Hitler narrowly survived by jumping behind his bodyguard; Goering was wounded in the stomach and later became a morphine addict

Historians, Hitler, and neglected drug history

Ohler notes that historians had largely ignored Hitler's substance use[21:45]
• He says Ian Kershaw, in his major Hitler biography, only briefly mentions a "crazy doctor" Morell giving dubious medications, without exploring it
Lex emphasizes that Ohler opened a new perspective on the Third Reich by looking at individual substances consumed by leaders and soldiers[23:36]

Discovering the military drug archive and historiographical reactions

Hans Mommsen and the Navy's drug experiments

Ohler teamed up with leading German historian Hans Mommsen as a mentor for "Blitzed"[24:46]
• He brought Mommsen archival documents showing systematic drug use in the German army, including Navy human experiments in Sachsenhausen concentration camp
• The Navy tested combinations of methamphetamine and cocaine on concentration camp prisoners to find a "wonder drug" for mini‑submarine crews to stay combat‑ready for seven days
Mommsen admitted historians "missed this" dimension because they "never do drugs" and thus didn't understand them[27:42]

Explaining Hitler's degeneration as a leader

Mommsen told Ohler drugs were the missing link to explain Hitler's shift from effective early war decisions to catastrophic late‑war decisions[28:07]
• Ohler argues Hitler's degeneration in decision‑making and behavior cannot be fully understood without his drug use

Praise and criticism from historians

Lex mentions Kershaw calling Ohler's work "very good" and "a serious piece of well‑researched history" and Anthony Beevor praising it as "remarkable"[29:05]
Lex cites Richard Evans' criticism that the book is "crass and dangerous" and might morally or politically excuse Nazi crimes by blaming drugs[29:48]
• Evans also worried Ohler overemphasized drugs as a monocausal explanation, especially for Blitzkrieg's effectiveness
Ohler says Mommsen explicitly warned him not to argue monocausally about war, and he tried to follow that advice[30:55]
• He insists he invented nothing in his three non‑fiction books and based them 100% on archival facts while using a novelistic style

Archival research process and discovery of Pervitin's military role

Entering the German military archive

An academic historian who claimed Blitzkrieg victory was impossible without meth gave Ohler archive signatures for Professor Ranke's files[34:34]
• Professor Otto Ranke headed the Institute for Army Physiology, tasked with improving soldier performance
In the Freiburg military archive, Ohler accessed Ranke's handwritten war diary and correspondence with Temmler, the company producing Pervitin[35:23]
• He read reports on Pervitin's battlefield effects and letters about production timelines for supplying the army

Difficulty of finding drug materials in archives

Ohler explains that archives use finding aids organized by names and units, not by "drugs", so nothing appears if you search for drugs[37:31]
• Officials at the time did not label Ranke as a "drug guy", so his files were not categorized under substances
He describes the archive as a Kafkaesque environment where even staff don't fully know what is in the vast collections[38:13]

DJ Alex, antique dealer, and rediscovery of Pervitin

A DJ friend, Alex, told Ohler the Nazis used many drugs; Ohler initially didn't believe him due to his school education on Nazis without drugs[39:09]
• Alex mentioned an antique dealer in Berlin who found Pervitin tablets in a 1940s medicine chest and tried them, reporting a very productive, fun month
Alex described taking three old Pervitin tablets by the river and feeling a powerful energy surge, which impressed Ohler[41:50]
• Ohler then googled "methamphetamine Nazi Germany" in 2010 and found the Ulm professor who linked Blitzkrieg to meth and later gave him archive references

Nazi anti-drug ideology versus Pervitin's emergence

Nazis as an anti-drug, purification regime

After taking power in 1933, Nazis quickly presented themselves as anti‑drug, allowing only ideological intoxication[46:26]
• Early SA‑run concentration camps targeted drug users among others to "bring everyone back into the fold"
Anti-drug policy was tightly linked to antisemitism: Nazis claimed Jews used more drugs and portrayed Jews and drug users as "poison" in the German body[47:35]

Hitler's personal abstinence and purity image

Hitler stopped smoking in the 1920s, did not drink alcohol, was a vegetarian, and reportedly avoided caffeine[48:41]
• Ohler notes vegetarianism in Germany was an elitist right‑wing marker of higher "frequency", associated with figures like Richard Wagner
• This austere personal style made Hitler an attractive symbol of discipline inside a movement otherwise full of drinkers and morphine users like Goering

Temmler develops methamphetamine as a performance enhancer

Temmler's head chemist Fritz Hauschild rediscovered methamphetamine from a 1917 Japanese paper and synthesized it[50:11]
• Company motivation included outrage that Jesse Owens, an African American, outran "Aryan" athletes at the 1936 Olympics, suspected of using Benzedrine
• Temmler chemists tested pure methamphetamine on themselves, enjoyed its effects, patented it, and marketed it as Pervitin
Pervitin was sold cheaply over the counter in pharmacies without prescription; even children could buy it[52:53]
• Temmler and university studies framed Pervitin as a "performance enhancer" that reduced fear, sleep need, and appetite, aligning with a war‑oriented society

Ranke, Pervitin experiments, and the Blitzkrieg in France

Ranke's military experiments with Pervitin

Ranke tested Pervitin, caffeine, placebo, and Benzedrine at the military academy on young medical officers through overnight simulations[56:14]
• He observed that by 10 a.m. Pervitin subjects still wanted to go out and party, while caffeine subjects slept on benches, concluding Pervitin was strongest
Ranke's superior, the surgeon general, ignored his proposals to officially adopt Pervitin before the invasion of Poland[58:25]
• As a result, Pervitin use in Poland was unregulated; many soldiers brought it themselves, and Ranke later collected field reports on its effectiveness

Planning the attack on France and need for sleepless troops

Lex and Ohler outline that invading France and Britain was initially considered irrational by German high command[59:37]
• On 17 February 1940, three young tank generals presented Hitler with the plan to attack through the Ardennes, using tanks as "race cars" in the vanguard
Success required reaching Sedan in three days and nights without stopping, making sleep the main enemy[1:03:50]
• Ranke saw his moment and drafted a stimulant decree prescribing Pervitin dosages, intervals, and side effects for the army
• Temmler delivered 35 million Pervitin doses for the French campaign; troops began the surprise Ardennes attack on 10 May with meth in their system

Soldiers' experience of Pervitin in the Blitzkrieg

Ohler recounts field letters like those of Heinrich Böll, who credited Pervitin with keeping his mood up and enabling him to perform[1:19:33]
• Ranke's reports described a depressed mood before the offensive that flipped into energetic, almost party‑like tank crews once Pervitin kicked in
He describes methamphetamine's fight‑or‑flight activation, heightened alertness, and tendency to make soldiers embrace rather than flee from danger[1:07:38]
• Ohler gives an example of Rommel's division running tanks through a sleeping French village at night, crushing men in their tents while Rommel stood in the open turret like a berserker
• He calls this event the moment when the Wehrmacht "lost its innocence" by committing such a war crime while the French troops were dulled by their red‑wine ration

Blitzkrieg success, Dunkirk, and Hitler's early mistakes

Rapid French defeat and Dunkirk opportunity

Lex notes France fell in six weeks and calls the campaign brilliant until the mistake at Dunkirk[1:18:42]
Ohler explains the "sickle cut" through the Ardennes encircled British and French forces, leaving Dunkirk as the last open port[1:23:01]
• German tank units on Pervitin reached the outskirts of Dunkirk and could have closed the pocket on the ground

Hitler's halt order and Goering's influence

Hitler, still thinking in World War I terms, worried about exposed flanks and halted the tanks near Dunkirk[1:24:32]
• Goering, a heavy morphine user, persuaded Hitler to let the Luftwaffe finish off the encircled British, arguing this would keep power with the Nazi air force rather than army high command
The Luftwaffe failed to annihilate the British on the beaches; most troops escaped, which Manstein later called a "lost victory"[1:26:30]

Morphine, opioids, and Hitler's personal drug escalation

History of morphine and Goering's addiction

Ohler outlines morphine's 19th‑century development as the active opiate from opium, made injectable with the hypodermic needle[1:31:04]
• He notes morphine enabled more amputations and prolonged wars like the American Civil War by allowing soldiers to be treated and sent back to battle
Goering was a morphine addict from his 1923 Beer Hall Putsch wound until his capture in 1945[1:34:49]
• In American custody he went through morphine withdrawal, lost a lot of weight, and appeared haggard at Nuremberg

Eukodal/Oxycodone and Hitler's attraction to opioids

Ohler explains that Eukodal, produced by Merck, later became oxycodone after Germany's defeat transferred patents[1:32:06]
• He cites reports that intravenous Eukodal produces an extremely beautiful, clear‑thinking high which Hitler loved and used every second day at one point
A contact who had injected oxycodone described it to Ohler as a "king's high" that made life feel as it should[1:33:46]

Dr. Theodor Morell and Hitler's medical regimen

Morell's background as a celebrity "Dr. Feelgood"

Morell practiced on Berlin's KurfĂĽrstendamm as a celebrity doctor administering injections to performers before premieres[1:36:56]
• He was innovative and knowledgeable about vitamins, hormones, and probiotics but had poor manners and an off‑putting physical appearance

Meeting Hitler via photographer Hoffmann

Photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, a close "du" friend of Hitler, became Morell's patient for gonorrhea and later invited him to dinner with Hitler and Eva Braun[1:39:29]
• At a 1936 spaghetti dinner in Munich, Hitler complained of stomach problems that his existing SS doctor Brandt could not cure
Morell proposed Mutaflor, a probiotic derived from a soldier's gut bacteria in WWI Serbia, and it alleviated Hitler's bloating and gas[1:40:41]
• Impressed, Hitler made Morell his personal physician, against his wife's objections that this would consume his time

Phase 1: vitamins, glucose, and daily injections

From 1936 to about 1941, Morell primarily injected vitamins and glucose, not yet hard drugs[1:43:16]
• Hitler became psychologically dependent on the daily injection ritual, which he associated with productivity, stamina, and not getting sick

Turning point: Dolantin injection during Barbarossa

In August 1941, during Operation Barbarossa, Hitler contracted a severe "Russian flu" with high fever as a key decision on advancing on Moscow loomed[1:48:59]
• Morell broke with earlier limits and injected Dolantin (an opioid) intravenously so Hitler could attend the briefing, instantly relieving his symptoms and energizing him
Under Dolantin's influence, Hitler dominated the meeting and decided to split forces toward Leningrad and the southern oil fields instead of concentrating on Moscow[1:51:08]
• Ohler frames this as a critical, possibly drug‑influenced strategic blunder, though he notes war outcomes are complex and speculative

Phase 2: expanding Hitler's drug cocktail

From 1941 to 1943, Hitler and Morell began experimenting with more medications beyond vitamins, including hormonal concoctions from animal organs[1:52:54]
• Morell founded Hamma pharmaceuticals in occupied Czechoslovakia and secured a monopoly on organs from slaughterhouses in occupied Ukraine for his factory
• Military logistics officers complained that trains full of offal for Morell's plant displaced wounded soldiers, and Morell threatened to tell Hitler if delayed
Hitler served as a personal guinea pig for new organ‑based medicines; if he liked them, he would decree them legal and they could be sold to the armed forces[1:59:17]

Hitler's use of Eukodal and key meetings

In July 1943, before confronting Mussolini about leaving the war, Hitler threatened to cancel the meeting due to stress[2:01:05]
• Morell gave him his first Eukodal shot, then another on the way to the plane; Hitler felt empowered and talked non‑stop for hours, preventing Mussolini from announcing withdrawal
By September 1944, Hitler was taking Eukodal roughly every second day, a "junky rhythm" as described by Ohler[2:02:59]

Cocaine, speedballs, and the doctors' war around Hitler

Cocaine after the July 20, 1944 bomb plot

After Stauffenberg's bomb wounded Hitler and burst his eardrums, ENT specialist Dr. Giesing treated him and applied cocaine to numb pain[2:07:51]
• Giesing's 15‑page report, later given to the Americans, describes Hitler liking cocaine and requesting nasal applications that made him feel clear and superior

Rivalry between Morell and Giesing

Hitler began spending more time with Giesing, which made Morell jealous[2:09:33]
• While Giesing gave cocaine, Morell continued injecting opioids, effectively creating speedball combinations in the summer of 1944
Giesing allied with Himmler to try to push out Morell, arguing he was damaging Hitler's health[2:13:54]
• Ohler calls this power struggle over Hitler's body and mind "the doctor's war" and notes he finds it cinematic

Late-war collapse: withdrawal, bunker, and Morell's fate

Loss of Eukodal supply and withdrawal

In December 1944, British bombing destroyed Merck's Eukodal production facilities, and Morell scoured pharmacies by motorcycle for remaining stock[2:27:35]
• When Eukodal ran out, Hitler went into opioid withdrawal, shaking and feeling terrible, yet did not switch to morphine even though it was available

Hitler fires Morell in the bunker

Goebbels told Hitler that Morell had turned him into a drug addict; Hitler eventually recognized this as he experienced withdrawal[2:30:18]
• In late April 1945, Hitler dismissed Morell from the bunker; some accounts say at gunpoint, though Ohler notes various versions
Morell escaped on one of the last planes from Berlin to his Bavarian lab, then bizarrely began doing his taxes there as the war ended[2:31:38]
• American forces later captured him; he spent about two years in U.S. military prison, then was released in poor health and died after being found by a half‑Jewish nurse

Responsibility, drugs, and moral judgment of Nazis

Do drugs lessen responsibility for crimes?

Lex raises Richard Evans's concern that emphasizing drugs could reduce perceived Nazi culpability[29:35]
Ohler says German law only lowers responsibility if a crime is unplanned and committed under unexpected intoxication, not when crimes are preplanned policy[2:36:55]
• He stresses genocidal and war policies stem from Nazi ideology, not drugs, and he never suggests otherwise

Ordinary soldiers, family stories, and guilt

Ohler recalls his grandfather, a railway worker, seeing a cattle wagon full of Jews and doing nothing out of fear of the SS[2:40:28]
• He personally considers his grandfather morally guilty, and notes his father never called the man by his first name because he "was a Nazi" by complicity
He references a German court case where calling all soldiers murderers was upheld as legal, showing ongoing debate about soldier responsibility[2:42:52]

The Bohemians: Harro and Libertas's resistance network

Discovery of Harro Schulze-Boysen's last letter

While researching Luftwaffe drug use, Ohler stumbled on Harro Schulze-Boysen's final letter to his father in the archive[2:37:19]
• In the letter, Harro wrote he had a clean conscience and did what he could to stop the madness, expressing sorrow mainly for his family

Harro and Libertas: background and love story

Harro came from a bourgeois, patriotic family; his great‑grand uncle von Tirpitz built the Kaiser's navy[2:39:07]
• Libertas was an aristocrat from a castle north of Berlin, working for MGM's Berlin office as a press agent
They met on the Wannsee on boats in 1934 and fell in love; Harro initially refused to undress because SS torture had left scars and swastikas carved into his thighs[2:41:17]
• Harro's earlier newspaper "Gegner" (Opponent) had been smashed by SA in 1933, and his half‑Jewish friend Henry Erlanger was killed in a concentration camp, pushing him toward resistance

Building a heterogeneous resistance circle

Harro decided to "march through the institutions" by joining the Luftwaffe ministry and rising in its ranks to access inside information[2:48:34]
• He leaked information on secret German involvement in the Spanish Civil War to a BBC journalist who ultimately buried it out of fear
Harro and Libertas hosted bohemian parties in their Berlin apartment, using flirtation and conversation to discreetly identify and recruit like‑minded opponents[2:49:38]
• Their network grew to over 100 people from different classes and ideologies, making it the largest native resistance group against the Nazis in Germany

Propaganda intervention: "Soviet Paradise" stickers

In May 1942, the group printed glue‑backed stickers mocking the Nazi exhibition "Soviet Paradise" by listing torture, SS, hunger, and war as the real Nazi paradise[4:46:41]
• Pairs went out at night pretending to kiss while surreptitiously gluing stickers around Berlin; by morning tens of thousands saw them, signaling that resistance existed

Contact with Soviet intelligence and downfall

Soviet intelligence tried to recruit Harro as a spy; he refused to fully join but agreed to pass information against Hitler[4:52:06]
• They accepted a radio transmitter from the Soviets but struggled with its Russian instructions; the Soviets later sent an uncoded reply naming Harro and his address
The Gestapo intercepted and decrypted the message, surveilled the group, and eventually arrested many members including Harro and Libertas[4:54:20]
• A Gestapo secretary infiltrated by posing as Libertàs's friend in prison, extracting further information that helped break the group
Harro and Libertas were tried by military court, sentenced to death, and executed; Harro's last act was writing the letter that first drew Ohler's attention[4:57:20]

Stoned Sapiens: drugs across deep human history

Project overview and speculative early chapters

Ohler describes "Stoned Sapiens" as a world history through drugs, beginning about 1.5 million years ago with Homo erectus[5:10:00]
• He acknowledges early chapters are more speculative due to limited sources, whereas later sections (e.g., Vietnam War heroin) rest on interviews and documents

Cut, iboga, and the rise of consciousness

He notes Homo erectus lived in areas with the stimulant plant khat ("cut"), and later Homo sapiens passed through Central African rainforests where iboga grows[5:13:00]
• He plans to investigate iboga's role, citing a Columbia researcher who found iboga acts almost everywhere in the brain, like a "spa" for neurons and potentially countering addictive and depressive loops
Ohler suggests psychedelics like iboga and mushrooms may have contributed to the cognitive revolutions Harari labels but does not explain causally[5:19:55]

Minoan Crete, opium, and the birth of European high culture

On Crete, he links massive Bronze Age harbor walls, olive oil production, and documented opium cultivation to early economic power[5:22:47]
• He posits that trade in olive oil and opium underpinned the wealth of the Minoan civilization, Europe's first high culture, influencing later Athens

Beer, Sumerian priests, and origins of hierarchy

Ohler points out that for thousands of years after the Ice Age there were no kings, suggesting egalitarian structures before early states[5:42:00]
• He argues that in Sumer, temple‑controlled beer production and sale helped create economic hierarchies and strengthen priestly rulership
He contrasts this with Göbekli Tepe as a pre‑state ritual site where people met, feasted, and later brewed beer, likely to avoid inbreeding between small bands[5:44:00]

LSD: personal experience, history, and MKUltra

Ohler's first intense LSD trip in New York

In 1993, his girlfriend gave him LSD in lower Manhattan; after about an hour, he saw lines on a bathroom wall vibrate and the trip began[5:50:20]
• He experienced strong hallucinations including apparent street violence and riots, feared going insane, but later regarded it as a powerful, perspective‑shifting experience

Effects of LSD versus other psychedelics

Ohler says LSD deepened his sense that reality is not fixed and that atoms and objects are in motion, aligning with psychedelic insights of conditioned perception[6:00:40]
• He distinguishes microdoses (around 10 micrograms) producing espresso‑like stimulation from full trips (~100+ micrograms) with visual and cognitive changes lasting 8+ hours
A Zurich neuroscientist told him LSD docks on more receptor types than psilocybin and called it the most "sophisticated" molecule[6:51:49]

Sandoz intoxication room and early optimism

In 1943, after Albert Hofmann discovered LSD's effects, Sandoz set up an "intoxication room" for employees to try LSD under supervision[6:04:00]
• Reports from those sessions described heightened sensitivity and feeling that "this is how life should feel", leading the CEO to see potential for mental health treatment

Nazi connection: Kuhn, Sandoz, and Dachau

Sandoz CEO Stoll and Nazi biochemist Richard Kuhn were both students of Richard Willstätter; Stoll developed ergot medicines while Kuhn worked on truth drugs and nerve gas for Hitler[6:10:40]
• Archive letters show that in October 1943 Kuhn acknowledged receiving half a gram of d‑lysergic acid amide, the precursor to LSD, from Stoll
Ohler argues it's highly likely Nazis combined LSD with mescaline in Dachau experiments, citing a survivor who unknowingly drank a hallucinogenic coffee there[6:20:05]

Transfer to U.S. military and CIA MKUltra

After the war, ALSOS teams interrogated Kuhn, who quickly collaborated and told Americans about LSD[6:19:00]
• A U.S. general flew to Basel in civilian clothes, obtained LSD from Stoll, and the American military began examining it as a potential truth drug
With the founding of the CIA in 1947, Sidney Gottlieb's MKUltra program took over LSD research, viewing brain warfare with the USSR as central[6:25:19]
• Gottlieb visited Stoll with a suitcase of $240,000, aiming to buy the world supply of LSD; Sandoz agreed to supply research quantities but never marketed it as a medicine
LSD leaked from CIA experiments into counterculture via volunteers like Ken Kesey, who took LSD for money and later wrote "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"[6:30:56]

LSD, family, and Alzheimer's microdosing

Tripped, father, and treating his mother

Ohler wrote "Tripped" partly to answer his retired‑judge father's question why LSD isn't in pharmacies if studies show benefits against Alzheimer's[6:33:00]
• He explains both LSD and Alzheimer's target 5‑HT2A receptors but in opposite ways, making LSD mechanistically interesting for treatment
After researching LSD's prohibition history, he and his father decided to give small doses of LSD and psilocybin to his mother, who has Alzheimer's[6:33:00]
• On Mother's Day, a psilocybin microdose led her to pick up a newspaper for the first time in a year and read a headline about the Ukraine war aloud, struggling with the new word

Drugs and writing, Berlin clubs, and creative life

Berlin techno days and meth research use

Ohler describes 1990s Berlin clubs where he and his girlfriend danced from Friday to Monday, often on MDMA, as a formative period[6:55:00]
• He later obtained a gram of crystal meth from a Polish dealer, plus a Xerox of the 1938 Pervitin patent, and tried it once to better understand its effects for writing "Blitzed"
He found crystal meth toxic and less interesting creatively than LSD, concluding it's stressful on the body even if it keeps one awake[7:01:00]

Writers and drugs: Kerouac, Dick, and others

Ohler notes Jack Kerouac allegedly wrote "On the Road" in two weeks on speed using a continuous paper roll, and Philip K. Dick also used amphetamines heavily[7:03:00]
• He contrasts such amphetamine‑driven output with his own practice, favoring LSD for insight but writing and editing sober or with minimal stimulation
He cites Camus's "The Stranger", Kafka, Thomas Mann, Nietzsche, and Thomas Pynchon as major stylistic and conceptual influences on his writing[7:12:00]

Meaning of life, resistance, and expanded consciousness

Literature and resistance as expanding brainwaves

Ohler says he became a writer as a teenager because he wanted to change the system and saw literature as changing readers' brainwaves toward more freedom[5:01:58]
• He views good books as enhancing neuroplasticity by presenting alternative ways of seeing, akin to a form of resistance

Cosmic story and individual consciousness

Asked about the point of life, Ohler answers that the universe is telling a big story and human consciousness is part of it[7:23:32]
• He describes walking in the mountains on LSD and feeling more of this "bigger story", with mountains as receivers of cosmic energy, though hard to put into words
He suggests the meaning of life is to understand more of that larger story through whatever one's discipline is, whether mathematics or art[7:25:40]
• He hopes his art contributes to freeing brainwaves and challenging boxed‑in, hierarchical systems, moving toward a more egalitarian, planetary human future

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Pay attention to overlooked variables-such as drug use, logistics, or personal health-when trying to understand complex systems; they can radically change the story once you look at the primary sources.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What aspects of a situation I'm analyzing might be invisible simply because "no one in my field looks there"?
  • • How could I build a habit of checking primary sources or raw data before trusting established narratives?
  • • What is one domain in my work or life where adding a new variable to my analysis might reveal a completely different explanation?
2

Avoid monocausal explanations, especially for large historical or organizational outcomes; many interacting factors, including ideology, logistics, psychology, and chemistry, usually co-produce results.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where am I currently telling myself a single-cause story about success or failure that might be oversimplified?
  • • How could mapping out the multiple contributing factors to a recent outcome improve my future decision-making?
  • • Which current challenge in my life or organization would benefit from a more systematic breakdown of all the interacting causes?
3

Courageous resistance often starts with small, local acts-like conversations, stickers, or parties-that affirm your values even when the odds of success look minimal.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In what areas of my life do I quietly disagree with the prevailing "system" yet still go along because resistance feels futile?
  • • How might I design one small, concrete act that embodies my principles without immediately endangering my livelihood or relationships?
  • • Who could I invite into a deeper, honest conversation about shared concerns so that we're not resisting in isolation?
4

Psychoactive substances are powerful tools that can expand perception or destroy lives depending on context, dose, intention, and psychological stability; they demand respect, humility, and careful boundaries.

Reflection Questions:

  • • How do I currently relate to substances like caffeine, alcohol, or other drugs-as mindless habits, deliberate tools, or something in between?
  • • What safeguards (set, setting, supervision) would I insist on if I or someone close to me ever considered using a powerful psychoactive substance?
  • • Where else in my life am I using powerful tools without fully respecting their risks and necessary constraints?
5

Deep creative and analytical work requires alternating between open, exploratory states and disciplined, focused execution, rather than expecting inspiration or productivity to appear on demand.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Do I have distinct times in my week for free exploration versus heads-down production, or do I mix them in a way that weakens both?
  • • How might changing my environment-like going somewhere with fewer distractions-improve my ability to sustain focus on difficult work?
  • • What simple ritual could I adopt to signal to myself that I'm entering either an "idea-gathering" mode or an "execution" mode?
6

History-and by extension, organizational memory-is a kind of curated fiction constrained by facts; whoever controls the archives and the narrative has enormous influence over how future decisions are framed.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Whose version of history am I implicitly using when I justify my beliefs or strategies?
  • • How could I diversify the sources I rely on for understanding the past (in my company, field, or society) so I'm less captured by one narrative?
  • • What records, notes, or data should I be preserving now to give a more accurate picture of my team's or project's story later?

Episode Summary - Notes by Devon

#481 - Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA
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