Blitz: 3 (Rook Files)

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In the process of detailing the decline it sometimes gets tiresome, but it iis peppered with numerous anecdotes taken from the medical diary of Morel and other umpublished sources. Some of them are sensational, too: Leni Reifenstahl given morphine enemas by the good doctor Morel, Morel also helping to addict Hitler’s young lover Eva Braun, hiding the physical effects (On Hitler) of the young Eva Braun’s violent sexual practices, and so on. The second thrilling and unputdownable mystery starring a new generation of the Detective Society, from the million-copy-bestselling author of Murder Most Unladylike: Robin Stevens.

Pervitin is linked to a senior staff doctor, named Professor Dr Otto F Ranke, director of the Research Institute of Defence Physiology. Ranke was involved in suggesting the drug could boost the performance of the army, which were under incredible pressure to perform, with Hitler making unprecedented demands. Indeed, the author suggests that the real enemy were not the British or Russian troops, but tiredness, and Pervitin offered a cure for exhaustion. Too late, Ranke saw the danger signs of addiction and side effects, but by then the army were marching for days and, while witnesses saw the invaders as virtually super-human, the troops themselves also began, dangerously, to believe in their own image. The most fascinating part of the book is Hitler and his escalating drug use thanks in large part to his enabler/private doctor, Theodor Morell. Hitler went from vegetarian teetotaller at the start of the war to full-blown junkie at the end who was having 8 to 10 injections and 120 to 150 tablets a week! The list of drugs he was on is incredible - cocaine, morphine, strychnine, Pervitin, meth, and Eukodal (a more powerful strain of heroin), to name just a few! He was also being injected with all manner of bizarre concoctions derived from animal parts - hardly vegetarian!Lyn a freaking amazing. O'Malley writes some absolutely badass women and Lynette Bins is no exception! She is absolutely everything I've come to know and love about a woman thrown into the Checquy with little to no choice in the matter and not only makes the best of it she *excels*. She is an absolute credit to Myfawny and Odette! I think what I enjoyed about her character the most is that she is a human who absolutely hates authority and is as paranoid if not more than The Checquy which is really what allows her to go rogue. Without her innate distrust of "the man" she wouldn't have gotten very far which makes her the perfect character for this world. The book opens in London, bombed by Nazis. Checquy agents should never get involved in wars, but sometimes too much is too much. Pamela, Chequy Pawn, takes down a Nazi bomber with her bare hands. A mistake. One of the crew survives the fall and goes on a killing spree. The three agents try to neutralize him. As the war continued to go against Hitler’s “alternative reality” he became more and more dependent on opioid drugs. Hitler was dependent on Dr. Morell, who was dubbed the “Reich Injection Minister” by Hermann Goring. “The medication kept the supreme commander stable in his delusion….Any doubts were swept away by his chemically induced confidence. The world could sink into rubble and ashes around him, and his actions cost millions of people their lives – but the Fuhrer felt more than justified when his artificial euphoria set in.” (163) I wrote A Crisis Wasted precisely with the goal of changing the way government makes decisions at inflection points in history, when change is happening at a 10x scale. That was the situation between the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and the inauguration of the new president in January 2009. I felt at the time and later that the way problems were analyzed, options created and decisions made were tragically disappointing, not because the people involved were badly motivated but because of the assumptions and convictions to which they were firmly bound before they approached the problems. I had no idea in 2019 that the next crisis would be the pandemic and only had only hope that the next Administration would include many of the same people involved in 2008-9. But as history unfolded the lessons of 2008-9, as I decoded them, applied with uncanny accuracy to the decisions made by the Biden team in 2020-21. So far at least, their ability to learn from history has served the country well. Soldiers’ lives and health (both physical and psychological) were given scant regard in the pursuit of enhanced performance, and Ohler thought-provokingly links the characteristics of meth use - aggression, hyperactivity, arrogance and unpredictability - with the successful Blitzkrieg tactics the Nazis used to invade France and Russia.

I giggled, I snorted and I laughed out loud. I annoyed my husband by repeatedly sharing favourite moments out of context. I mean when there's a head lice infestation the correct response always should be "We need teh shampoo, the combs and the chainsaws again!" Well, sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. That passage came as a jolt after the author spent nearly the first two-thirds of the book building up the case that Hitler was a drug addict who had descended into an isolated fantasy world. What I found most interesting was the utmost extremism of hypocrisy. The Nazi’s simultaneously shamed, isolated & killed those whom found themselves under the spell of drugs, whilst using them as a means of ascent - one that obviously and thankfully helped lead to their eventual downfall.The characters are great, and their powers are impressive and well-described. Take Pawn Seager, able to send his empty skin for lethal missions. Or even our main characters. Lynn can generate energy. Bridget produces almost indestructible pearly mass, Pamela uses air to wreak havoc, and Usha can do crazy stuff with gravity. Spring 1941. Britain is at war, and a secret agency called the Ministry of Unladylike Activity is training up children as spies – because grown-ups always underestimate them.

Sākšu uzreiz ar atrunu, grāmatu saņēmu no izdevniecības apmaiņā pret godīgu atsauksmi. Otrais pasaules karš mani vienmēr ir interesējis. Iespējams, tādēļ, ka skolā gāju vēl PSRS laikos un tur vismaz uz Uzvaras dienu uz skolu nāca expartizāni un stāstīja par savu pieredzi cīņā pret fašistiem. Šo grāmatu izlasīšanai paņēmu labprāt. Similarly, the portrayal of the military’s use of methamphetamines during the invasion of France, and by the Luftwaffe and Navy suffered from Pohler’s hyperbolic analysis. As a historian who reviewed this book for The Guardian noted:As the war progresses and Germany’s defeat is inevitable Ohler paints a portrait of Hitler’s body deteriorating at the same time. Germany and Hitler crumbling to dust together. Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany by Norman Ohler is a fascinating account of the role drugs played in Nazi Germany and which claims claims that German soldiers and civilians commonly used methamphetamine, and also that Hitler was a drug addict. Finally, a book that is proving very therapeutic in these difficult times... Full of doubt, fear, anger and rueful comedy, they give the lie to the idea that the Brits maintained a stiff upper lip, but it's immensely consoling to know that our forebears sometimes thought that they were living through the end times but survived to enjoy better and brighter days.' Jonathan Coe, The Times A stirring and evocative account of life on the home front. Full of surprises that bring a fascinating perspective on the blitz spirit.' - Deborah Cadbury, author of Chocolate Wars and Princes at War