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Explanation: The Nazis used high doses of amphetamines and especially methamphetamine to give their soldiers 'staying power' in the field, part of why they overran France - some Nazi tankers were driving and fighting for a week straight without sleep or rest. Lower doses of extended release amphetamines are used in the modern day to treat ADHD. One imagines the occasional lone guy with ADHD and a pervitin pill was sitting under a tree and rethinking some life choices instead.
Allies did too, actually. On lower scale maybe. USSR ... did have its own stuff, but it was kinda even more unhealthy (leading to blindness sometimes) than what the rest had, so it was used in extreme conditions only, usually very low temperatures, very rarely.
I personally used high doses of German military marches and pr0n to "self-medicate" being 15-17. LOL.
And Star Wars soundtracks after that. And Warcraft II soundtracks.
Yep, the Western Allies widely used amphetamine on a smaller and more restricted scale (the Nazis issued more meth in a year than the US and the UK combined distributed amphetamines over the course of the entire war). Still, you'd find troops being distributed amphetamines for prolonged engagements and, especially, as 'go pills' for pilots.
driving and fighting for a week straight without sleep or rest.
Holy crap I was gonna ask if this was literally possible but...yeah...I guess so!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_sleep_deprivation_experiment
I'm still surprised there weren't more accounts of them losing their minds. A week without sleep? That's terrifying to think about.
Sidenote: Weird seeing this after I only learned about the "Russian Sleep Experiment" creepypasta like a month ago. Lol
They did things. Being awake for long on amphetamines is probably a factor. There is a reason (at least) the west uses modafinil instead of amphetamines now.
Is there a source for those claims?
The book : Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany
By Norman Ohler
Is a fantastic read and source
About the use of amphetamines or the adhd part?
About tankers going for weeks and that being a reason they beat France.
https://newrepublic.com/article/141125/third-reich-addicted-drugs
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/05/pervitin-wonder-drug-that-fueled-nazi.html
Most sources cite the 'three days' demanded by Guederian, but I'm almost positive I've read accounts of individual Nazi tankers go 5-6 days without sleep during the Battle of France. I'll keep looking for the source on that.
AFAIK Theres also This case of a Finnish soldier taking hell a lot of Meth and walking 300km in 7 days through the snow right through enemy territory.
Tried to grab a pervitin pill with his mittens to stay awake, couldn't grab just one, so he just downed a handful, figuring it wouldn't be THAT big a deal.
Man took 30 pills, his entire's squads allocation, and completely blacked out. No memory of his journey, just operating on meth.
It's good to point out that amphetamines are not the only treatment for ADHD nor are they always the best treatment. In fact Methylphenidate (Ritalin) is a Norepinephrine-Domamine Reuptake Inhibitor, which while still having dopaminergic effects on the brain, are not amphetamines and can't really even be detected through traditional urinalysis means.
So those of us who do take Methylphenidate and are subject to regular urinalysis to measure amphetamine content as a requirement to obtain a prescription renewal for the drug in the US, are actually being tested for additional non-perscription use of amphetamines unrelated to our ADHD treatment. I feel this should be illegal and that Methylphenidate should really be removed from the list of controlled substances.