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Purrvitin

Context: In 1938 Nazi Germany, Pervitin was developed a methamphetamine drug for civilian usage. Nazi military doctor Otto Friedrich Ranke tested the drug on 90 university students to study its effects, which led him to conclude that Pervitin could help Nazi Germany win the war.

Methamphetamine use is believed to have played a role in the speed of Nazi Germany's initial blitzkrieg operations. At the request of Vice-Admiral Hellmuth Heye for a stronger pill that would "keep soldiers ready for battle when they are asked to continue fighting beyond a period considered normal," a pharmacologist produced a pill dubbed D-IX. The new drug contained cocaine, whose effects substantially overlap with those of amphetamine but feature greater euphoria, and a morphine-based painkiller in addition to Pervitin.

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8 replies

Reminds me of Aimo Koivunen, the first recorded Meth OD in combat

Koivunen was a Finnish soldier, assigned to a ski patrol on 15 March 1944 along with several other Finnish soldiers. Three days into their mission on 18 March, the group was attacked and surrounded by Soviet forces, from whom they were able to escape.[3] Koivunen became fatigued after skiing for a long distance but could not stop.

He was carrying his patrol's entire supply of army-issued Pervitin, or methamphetamine, a stimulant used to remain awake while on duty.[4] He consumed the entire supply of Pervitin, and had a short burst of energy, but soon entered a state of delirium and eventually lost consciousness. Koivunen later recalled waking up the following morning, separated from his patrol and having no supplies.

In the following days, Koivunen escaped Soviet forces once again, was injured by a land mine, and stayed in a ditch for a week, waiting for help. In the week that he was gone, he subsisted only on pine buds and a single Siberian jay that he caught and ate raw.

Having skied more than 400 km (250 mi), he was later found and admitted to a nearby hospital, where his heart rate was measured at 200 beats per minute, and he weighed only 43 kg (95 lb).

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lemmy.cafe

You know, I think people underestimate just how much meth might have been responsible for how fucking evil they were. Meth is a terrible fucking drug.

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lemmy.world

Not just that it was meth, it was getting people addicted and then putting them into consecutive life/death scenarios with infrequent resupplies...

Once prescribed dosage stopped working, or a soldier expected to die before the go-go juice would run out, they'd go over prescribed dosage.

If they lived, now they're out of meth

Soldiers would have been looting dead compatriots for meth, gambling, robbing, stealing, killing, anything to get the next fix.

It worked great when given to regular people for a few weeks, but wasn't sustainable.

The better plan would be giving it only to "shock troops" on the front line and having them push to exhaustion, then when they slow down, you send the next wave on fresh legs and full pockets of meth. They could have moved even faster as an army that way too, because it's just consecutive waves sprinting at full speed, rather than gradually slowing down.

Where the blitzkrieg truly failed, was being one massive wave with everyone moving at once, because by the time they got to where they were going, you were left with one big hoarde of meth zombies.

The human rights abuses wasn't the concern, it was that the hoarde would be completely unmanageable at the end of the road. Everyone alive is a meth addict who just walked thru a literal hell, and whether you keep giving them the dosage they're now used to or not, you're going to have massive problems.

Which contributed to how effective the French resistance was.

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avg
lemmy.zip

That one dude with ADHD finally thinking clearly for the first time.

15

Love ending the night with a little coffee and a handful of pervitin ☕😪

3

I think people here are really overestimating the effects of the drug and how much of a role it played. The final pill contained 5mg oxycodone, 5mg cocaine, and 3mg meth.

For reference, Desoxyn, and FDA approved treatment for severe binge eating and ADHD, contains 5mg of methamphetamine and can be taken, I believe, up to 3x daily.

Typical oxy doses are between 5-15mg

There is no, to my immediate knowledge, medically accepted therapeutic dose of cocaine. However, we know that a recreational dose is ~200mg for a first timer and is taken in a way that delivers its effect very quickly. The pharmacokinetics of snorting vs typical ingestion is totally different, and if there ever were an established therapeutic dose for it, it's very likely it would be around 1/50 of a starting rec dose; that's generally consistent with other, better understood and commonly abused drugs

Not that I think anyone would, but below is an opinion on effects of higher dosing. I'm not a doctor nor a pharmacists, so this is my fat ass guessing. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. Don't do drugs (at least not any of these):

Because of this, I'm very hesitant to believe the other claims in this thread. These doses, even several times them in the case a soldier would have taken 4 or 5, would have caused some euphoria for sure. But it's extremely unlikely they would have caused addiction or dependence at such low doses taken so infrequently. It's much more likely that most people who took it were a bit wired and less likely to notice pain from hitting the deck quickly

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