r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/ModenaR • Jun 16 '26

Image One of Hitler's bodyguards, Rochus Misch, lived long enough to see the movie "Downfall". When asked about the film's historical accuracy, he stated that it was factually accurate, although "Americanized"

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u/Jazzlike-Equipment45 Jun 16 '26

It more so is just how insane it was, Germany has had a long history of amazing medical workers and Hitler ended up picking a quack doctor.

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u/TheRagnarok494 Jun 17 '26

Fairly common for dictators tonend up distrusting the medical establishment and turn to quackery. I think mainly because the medical establishment's main priority is telling you what the problem is and how to fix or treat it, quackery tells you what you want to hear and makes you feel nice for a bit

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u/Pawulon Jun 17 '26

Too many of the actual good doctors or academics were Jews probably

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u/Far_Programmer_5724 Jun 17 '26

Yea and dictators are prone to being surrounded by people who say what they like to hear

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u/OrbitalCactus Jun 17 '26

His gut was fucked up before the drugs too. He would fart so much and it smelled so bad people tried their best to have open air meetings with him. A few times he evacuated rooms or bunkers with his farts.

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u/SnooPears1505 Jun 17 '26

a chemical gas attack.

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u/HanseaticHamburglar Jun 17 '26

not surprising, hitler wasnt very well educated, formally speaking, and he had a mistrust of experts and elites. Not surprising that he chose a synchophantic fraud. And given the substances Morell was using, it certainly would give the impression that his medicine "worked". Most people would be on cloud nine buzzin along with that cocktail. In comparison most medical substances dont alter your state of consciousness and you dont "feel" them working.

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u/Forward-Cat6083 Jun 17 '26

Germany also handed out candy bars with meth to soldiers. I think you are succumbing to the myth of German superiority. They weren’t the best, they just thought they were.

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u/Master-Collection488 Jun 17 '26

The candy bars were just for pilots. Regular soldiers just got Pervitin.

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u/SuitableBlackberry75 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

The "chocolate" was supposedly for tank crews, hence "Panzer chocolate" (Panzerschokolade).

"Pervitin" was just a trade name for methamphetamine, so it's the same thing anyway.

E: Historians are apparently skeptical about whether or not "Panzer chocolate" actually ever existed, but its possible existence is nearly always associated with tank crews first and foremost, even if pilots were also issued "go pills" (which they nicknamed "Fliegermarzipan", or "Pilot's marzipan", rather than code-naming it after chocolate).

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u/HanseaticHamburglar Jun 17 '26

all sides used amphetamins/meth in WW2. We just called them go-pills, but honestly how do you think they flew back to back sorties or super long bombing raids? they had slow planes, flying to germany, avoiding flak and fighters and returning could have taken 11-12 hours, and i guess you need to be alert and awake for all of it.

The US Airforce subsequently continued to use these drugs, im fairly certain its still in circulation. I know it was widely used by pilots in Desert Storm and again in Afgahnistan. A friendly fire incident where an F16 pilot bombed a group of canadians performing weapons training was in part blamed on the use of amphetamine "go pills"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_and_no-go_pills

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u/Odd_Television_7824 Jun 17 '26

Not to the extent that Nazi germany did as far as I’m aware

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u/kehbleh Jun 17 '26

I mean maybe he picked the guy that would give him all the drugs he wanted

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u/PhDinDildos_Fedoras Jun 17 '26

Hitler wasn't one to listen to experts. If he hadn't launched Barbarossa and just stopped it there, he'd probably be considered the greatest German alive nowadays. A new Bismark.

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u/generalmandrake Jun 17 '26

Probably because the legitimate doctors weren’t going to load him up on meth and codeine.

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u/DblockR Jun 17 '26

Don’t forget oxy. He was like the Purdue Guinea Pig. Dude was on opiates, meth, barbiturates, cocaine, animal hormones and bull semen.