Norman Ohler is a German novelist and historian best known for his internationally bestselling non-fiction work Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany. The book explores the widespread use of narcotics in the Third Reich, including within Adolf Hitler’s inner circle, and sparked significant public debate about the role of drugs in shaping the Nazi regime.

Before his historical research, Ohler was established as a novelist and screenwriter in Germany. His writing often blends meticulous archival work with narrative storytelling, making complex historical material accessible to a broad readership. Ohler’s work has been translated into numerous languages and he is a frequent speaker on modern European history, propaganda, and the cultural legacy of the Second World War.

Ohler’s work challenges traditional narratives of World War II and the years leading up to it, showing how meticulous research can reshape how we understand power, ideology, and the hidden forces driving political decisions.In an age where students and thinkers alike are questioning state coercion, information control, and the politicisation of science, his perspective offers a vital lens for re-examining both history and our present realities.Norman will be speaking about Blitzed, Tripped, and the upcoming book Stoned sapiens; and how these works continue to redefine the boundaries of historical inquiry.

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“Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich” is an explosive true story which uncovers an untold aspect of what fuelled the Nazi war machine during World War II. Revealing the close relationship and hidden connections between the Nazis, and the early days of drug prohibition in America, the author shares how this secret history held back therapeutic research for decades and became the foundation of America’s unsuccessful War on Drugs.

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER

A fast-paced narrative that discovers a surprising perspective on World War II: Nazi Germany’s all-consuming reliance on drugs

The Nazi regime preached an ideology of physical, mental, and moral purity. But as Norman Ohler reveals in this gripping new history, the Third Reich was saturated with drugs. On the eve of World War II, Germany was a pharmaceutical powerhouse, and companies such as Merck and Bayer cooked up cocaine, opiates, and, most of all, methamphetamines, to be consumed by everyone from factory workers to housewives to millions of German soldiers. In fact, troops regularly took rations of a form of crystal meth—the elevated energy and feelings of invincibility associated with the high even help to explain certain German military victories.

Drugs seeped all the way up to the Nazi high command and, especially, to Hitler himself. Over the course of the war, Hitler became increasingly dependent on injections of a cocktail of drugs including a form of heroin—administered by his personal doctor. While drugs alone cannot explain the Nazis’ toxic racial theories or the events of World War II, Ohler’s investigation makes an overwhelming case that, if drugs are not taken into account, our understanding of the Third Reich is fundamentally incomplete.

“An astonishing account that changes what we know about the Second World War.” – The Guardian

“A fascinating, most extraordinary revelation.“ – BBC World News