The use of narcotics during the most massive massacres of the 20th century, a century in which drugs were outlawed for the first time, is a classic tragedy of statism, where on the one hand we have draconian legislation aimed at any possible dealer of Meth (or any drug), but only if that dealer is not authorized by the state. In the event that he is authorized, the drug is wonderful, humane and irreplaceable.
And patriotic!
A tragedy in which the main actors are Methamphetamine, cheap hypocrisy and the drugged up killing machine known as the War Hero.
Methamphetamine, first synthesized in 1893, already in the twenties attracted the attention of the Imperial Japanese Army and somewhat later the German Wehrmacht. In both cases we have a mass distribution of Meth tablets to soldiers (especially tankers and pilots) in combat conditions. The most bizarre form was the German chocolates filled with Speed (known as `Pervitin`) which were distributed to the army. Speed so sweet.
Billions of doses were issued first to the Wehrmacht and the Japanese army and later after seizing a certain amount in 1941. and the Soviet Red Army begins mass production and use of the so-called "Vint", cheap crystal meth, especially for the heroes of the liberation war. Second bizarre fact - when searching the corpses of German soldiers, prisoners or seized supplies by Soviet soldiers, "Pervitin" had priority. Finland, the USA and Britain are other countries known to have used this drug to enhance patriotic fervor and suicidal courage.
How many Japanese suicide "Banzai" attacks were carried out because of Meth and not because of patriotism is hard to say. How much of a role this drug played in the initial successes of the "Blitzkrieg" is not hard to guess. If an SS man could march twice as far as a French or Polish mobilized peasant (trained to work hard and well conditioned) and if he could get by on half as much sleep - the conclusion is not very complicated.
How many casualties fell because a recruit, naturally reluctant to excel in combat, was hit with Speed and suddenly felt like a superhero with a mission to make the enemy cry is not known. Nor how many civilians died during the trigger happy trips of a random private or corporal. How many recruits would have returned home alive or at least returned home without missing an eye, leg, arm, liver or spleen... is just a sad rhetorical question.
Speed is not the only drug used or developed for combat use, just the most massive. The super-drug D-9, which was tested on human guinea pigs after concentration camps and which was supposed to create super-soldiers, with an extremely high pain threshold, endurance and fitness... is just one of the drug secrets of World War II. The consequences of the continuous use of Meth by soldiers are not even known because drugging "their own" soldiers was an official secret that took decades to surface from the septic tank of statism.
The drugs continued their march further, to Korea, Vietnam, ex-Yugoslavia, Africa, Iraq or in almost all post-WW2 conflicts. Synthetics joined alcohol in the realm of militaristic drugs, suitable for inducing false courage and fierce patriotism that once smelled only of Rakija. New time - new aromas.
It is important to have love for the country that loves us and protects us from drugs.
(Roger Mortis 029)
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