Norman Ohler

Author of Blitzed & Tripped

Topics:

Expertise:

Drugs & World War II

Norman Ohler

Norman Ohler is a New York Times bestselling author, novelist and screenwriter, best known for his non-fiction book “Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich“, which has been published in over 30 languages, and has been praised by the media worldwide.

He recently appeared with his new non-fiction book “Tripped – Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age“ on Joe Rogan’s Podcast which received over 1 Million views in its first ten days.

“Blitzed – Drugs in the Third Reich” is an explosive true story which uncovers an untold aspect of what fuelled the Nazi war machine during World War II.

“Tripped – Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age” is also based on extensive archival research on both sides of the Atlantic: a wild, unconventional postwar history with a personal angle, telling how microdoses of psychedelics are helping Norman’s mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s.

Revealing the close relationship and hidden connections between the Nazis, and the early days of drug prohibition in America, the author shares how this secret history held back therapeutic research for decades and became the foundation of America’s unsuccessful War on Drugs.

LSD for Mom
Berlin 1945. Following the fall of the Third Reich, drug use—long kept under control by the Nazis’ strict anti-drug laws—is rampant throughout the city. Split into four sectors, Berlin’s drug policies are being enforced under the individual jurisdictions of each allied power—the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and the US. In the American zone, Arthur J. Giuliani of the nascent Federal Bureau of Narcotics is tasked with learning about the Nazis’ anti-drug laws and bringing home anything that might prove “useful” to the United States.

Five years later, Harvard professor Dr. Henry Beecher began work with the US government to uncover the research behind the Nazis psychedelics program. Begun as an attempt to find a “truth serum” and experiment with mind control, the Nazi study initially involved mescaline, but quickly expanded to include LSD. Originally created for medical purposes by Swiss pharmaceutical Sandoz, the Nazis coopted the drug for their mind control military research—research that, following the war, the US was interested in acquiring. This research birthed MKUltra, the CIA’s notorious brainwashing and psychological torture program during the 1950s and 1960s, and ultimately shaped US drug policy regarding psychedelics for over half a century.

Based on extensive archival research on both sides of the Atlantic, Tripped is a wild, unconventional postwar history, a spiritual sequel to Norman Ohler’s New York Times bestseller Blitzed. Revealing the close relationship and hidden connections between the Nazis and the early days of drugs in America, Norman Ohler shares how this secret history held back therapeutic research of psychedelic drugs for decades and eventually became part of the foundation of America’s War on Drugs.

Please send availability and fees for

Norman Ohler