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zptc26 karma

As you'll note, so far I have been very careful to attribute a lot of these claims to Ohler and asses the validity of these claims in my writing here. This is because Der totale Rausch suffers from a phenomenon that is quite common with academic and popular literature alike: The superelevation of one aspect of history that results in an almost mono-causal explanation. Ohler basically makes the claim that the military success of the Germans in the beginning of the war as well as a lot of political decisions in the upper echelons of Nazi leadership can almost solely be attributed to the use of drugs. From Hitler's decisions concerning the persecution of Jews to the fall of France after 6 weeks in 1940, according to Ohler this all comes down to Pervitin. And that's a problem. Historical occurrences seldom have just one monumental underlying cause and especially something as complex as military operations or ideological politics can not be explained by one factor...

His claims concerning Hitler seem to be en large on the true side when it comes to Hitler's drug use towards the end of the war. At the same time, he again over interprets here. I have on previous occasions stated that I find little value in purely Hitler-centric approach to Nazism and its crimes and Ohler's narrative of Hitler's drug use being the end all be all factor in explaining his decisions as well as indirectly explaining Nazism on the whole is exactly one of the things I would heavily criticize. It rings very true what the German newspaper Die Zeit wrote about the book, calling it "sensation-hungry Hitler voyeurism mixed with non-fiction prose".

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4tjqri/documentary_claimed_nazi_soldiers_were_hooked_on/d5hyhqs/

zptc5 karma

Who's your favorite bassist? Orchestral or otherwise

zptc3 karma

afaik only if it uses the np prefix