Norman Ohler: observation

Transcript context

…That would be incredible. Can you just speak high level from, from… What is it? You said ’41 to ’45. What were some behavioral changes or changes in decision-making that we can trace in Hitler that could be attributed to drugs? How did they change him? Well, an interesting event is July 1943 in a villa in Northern Italy where Hitler meets Mussolini. Mussolini is basically fed up with the war and he wants Italy to leave the Axis of Evil. Hitler is really pissed when he hears that. He knows that’s what the meeting is all about. Mussolini, I mean, the Italians invented that modern type of fascism, and Italy was the role model for Nazi Germany, but by now, Nazi Germany, of course, has been much more powerful. Italy is the most important ally, and now Mussolini is quitting in the middle of the war. What is going on here? So Hitler becomes… Morell writes about this quite a lot. He’s in a terrible mood. He really doesn’t want to go. He might lose his temper or whatever. He’s not happy. That’s actually the day when he receives Eukodal for the first time. He says to Morell, “I’m under such stress, I’m not going to go.” He threatens, he calls off the whole thing. The plane’s already waiting in Obersalzberg. Everything is ready, and he says, “I’m not meeting this guy.” Then Morell gives him Eukodal, and you can see the time when he gets the Eukodal. That’s when he has this effect for the first time, this like, “I can do anything. This is great. I’m going to explain to Mussolini that he’s not going to leave the war effort. ” On the way to the plane, he says to Morell that this Eukodal is really helping him, and he wants another shot, and he receives another shot. So he has quite a lot of Eukodal in him when he speaks to Mussolini. The people who write the protocol of the meeting and also other people around, it’s not just two people in the room. It’s like, I don’t know, 15 or 20 people in the room. A lot of people talk about that meeting in their memoirs. Mussolini is not able to say one word basically, because Hitler is so high and so charged. He’s just telling the whole time how great this is, what they’re doing right now. Of course, it’s not even possible that you’re going to leave. We are in this together from the… He explains everything, the whole thing for like two hours, and Mussolini is just like… Then a messenger comes in and says, “Rome has just been bombed.” He’s like, he knows, but he can’t say anything, and he stays. So that meeting was very much influenced by his Eukodal. That’s probably because it was so successful in Hitler’s eyes… is why Eukodal became a very attractive drug for him. This was the first time in July 1943. He didn’t take Eukodal the whole time. It only started in July ’43. He started with regular opioid use. You can see that he takes it more and more regularly now. Not every day, but sometimes. Like in September 1944, he takes Eukodal every second day, which is like a junkie rhythm. You take it, and the next day you don’t take it. Then you take it again. Why is that junkie rhythm?…

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