Publishers Weekly
★ 02/26/2024
Bestseller Ohler follows up Blitzed, his exploration of Nazi drug use, with a fleet-footed and propulsive account of how the U.S. government picked up where the Nazis left off when it came to drugs. Concisely recapping the mid-century birth of psychedelics, he shows that the Nazis’ approach to drugs—punitive regulation coupled with extensive utilization for military purposes—was adopted by the U.S. after WWII. (Juicing up the troops was the Nazi goal, achieved via amphetamines; interrogation and mind control became the American military aims for LSD.) So too the Nazi penchant for unethical drug testing was taken up by the U.S.—the sordid history of MKULTRA is elegantly laid out, including a Greenwich Village CIA safe house where beatniks unwittingly dosed with LSD were recorded and observed. Ohler laments this history while tracking it (mainly through scientists and officials who over time had a foot in both the Nazi and U.S. government orbit), pointing to the promising medicinal uses of LSD (especially for Alzheimer’s, from which his mother suffers) that were quashed by American officials, who imagined the drug to be a powerful weapon. (LSD was powerful, but in a different way, according to Ohler, who argues the 1960s’ cultural upheaval stemmed from widespread psychedelics use; he even insinuates that JFK’s 1963 speech calling for world peace resulted from an acid trip.) Brilliantly sifting a massive history for its ideological through lines, this is a must-read. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Ohler’s book is at once a jaunty history of psychedelics, and a fascinating lament that the double-pronged legacy of Nazi drug policy — zero tolerance and weaponization — so severely limited research into their medicinal properties.” — New York Times Book Review
“A superb sequel to Blitzed, Tripped is a riveting and witty book about the obscure history of LSD. From the Swiss scientist and corporation that created the powerful hallucinogenic to the Nazis, G-men, and spooks that criminalized the chemical to the current boom in psychedelic research and start-ups, Tripped—meticulously researched and deeply personal—shows the awesome power of acid. Norman Ohler weaves a masterful tapestry of history in this revealing and fresh account.” — David de Jong, author of Nazi Billionaires
A fascinating book about the battle for LSD, which shines a light on the relationship between antagonistic powers, secret services, and the medical industry. An astonishing read, with remarkably vivid protagonists.” — Harald Jähner, author of Aftermath
“A fleet-footed and propulsive account . . . Brilliantly sifting a massive history for its ideological through lines, this is a must-read." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A winning addition to the literature of psychedelia.” — Kirkus Reviews
"Entertaining...Tripped is a story of front organizations, dodgy funds, bizarre experiments, assassinations, scientists, magicians, hookers, and spies." — The Times (London)
“A brilliant exposé of how Dr. Albert Hofmann’s epic discovery of LSD got lost in the ensuing War on Drugs and the corollary, its misuse for mind control, which hurt him personally and has hampered investigation into the potential therapeutic and spiritual benefits of the pharmaceutical.” — Professor Carl Ruck, coauthor of The Road to Eleusis
“Norman Ohler’s fascinating study involves Nazis, the CIA, and LSD in an engaging narrative that provides a mind-altering history of ‘brain warfare’ and exposes the Cold War psychedelic fantasies of many within the US scientific and intelligence communities. A must-read for those interested in understanding the apocalyptic mindset of the nascent superpower rivalry.” — Edward B. Westermann, author of Drunk on Genocide
“Illuminating . . . entertaining” — Booklist
“With cracking prose, Norman Ohler’s Tripped is high-octane history writing, rich in acidic humor. You’ll be in ecstasy.” — Joseph Pearson, author of My Grandfather’s Knife
“The strengths of Ohler’s account lie not only in the rich array of rare documents he mines and the archival images he reproduces to accompany the text, but also in his character studies… Ohler effectively captures Hitler’s pathetic dependence on his doctor and the bizarre intimacy of their bond…Blitzed makes for provocative reading.” — New York Times Book Review on Blitzed
“A revelatory work that considers Hitler’s career in a new light. Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich is that rare sort of book whose remarkable insight focuses on a subject that’s been overlooked, even disregarded by historians.” — San Francisco Chronicle on Blitzed
“Ohler’s astonishing account of methamphetamine addiction in the Third Reich changes what we know about the Second World War...Blitzed looks set to reframe the way certain aspects of the Third Reich will be viewed in the future.” — Guardian on Blitzed
“Transforming meticulous research into compelling prose, Ohler delves into the little-known history of drug use in Nazi Germany.” — Entertainment Weekly on Blitzed
“[A] fascinating, engrossing, often dark history of drug use in the Third Reich.” — Washington Post on Blitzed
Kirkus Reviews
2024-02-01
An idiosyncratic trip through the annals of LSD.
German author Ohler, author of Blitzed, took on the study of the history of lysergic acid, he recounts, when his father began to give Ohler's mother microdoses to help mediate her Alzheimer’s disease. Indeed, he writes, legalization looms largely because “more and more governments are beginning to rely on scientific knowledge rather than bow to the ideological demands of the Cold War,” with promising results in the treatment of dementia, addiction, and other maladies. The Cold War is an instrumental part of the history of psychedelic drugs, which stretches back into the annals of the Third Reich, developed by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann and experimentally used in Nazi camps to break down prisoners under interrogation. American investigators puzzling through the experimenter’s records on “Chemical Methods for Neutralization of the Will” divined the possibilities such a drug might hold. Meanwhile, Ohler writes, postwar Germany was witnessing a narcotics boom as “more and more people took recourse to substances to help them get through the day—or the night.” The reluctance of the Soviets to enforce anti-drug laws led to the suspicion that they might possess Nazi secrets related to LSD; soon, CIA agents were at pharmaceutical giant Sandoz’s door buying up as much acid as they could. Enter the Ford Foundation, then Timothy Leary, the Beatles, and the psychedelic era. Ohler’s travels in search of information take him from archives to the inner recesses of the mind, thanks to a little dosing of his own, and they’re often entertaining. Jesse Jarnow’s Heads covers a lot of the same ground, but the interweaving of Cold War spy-versus-spy yarns, as well as the speculation that the Nazis were racing to make new psychotropic drugs as much as new rockets, lends considerable drama to the tale.
A winning addition to the literature of psychedelia.
