#481 – Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA

**Lex Fridman** (0:00)
The following is a conversation with Norman Ohler, author of Blitzed, Drugs in the Third Reich, a book that investigates what role psychoactive drugs, particularly stimulants, such as methamphetamine, played in the military history of World War II. It is a book that two legendary historians, Ian Kershaw and Antony Beevor, give very high praise to. Ian Kershaw describes it as very well researched, serious piece of scholarship, and Antony Beevor describes it as remarkable work of research. And it is indeed a remarkable work of research. Norman went deep into the archives, using primary sources to uncover a perspective on Hitler and the Third Reich that has before this been mostly ignored by historians. He also wrote Tripped Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age. And he's now working on a new book with the possible title of Stoned Sapiens. Great title. Looking at the history of human civilization through the lens of drugs. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description or at lexfridman.com. We also have sponsors. It is in fact the best way to support this podcast. We got Uplift Desk for beautiful standing desks, Finn for AI agents, Shopify for selling stuff online, Element for electrolytes, and Hampton for connecting with CEOs. Choose wisely, my friends. And now on to the full ad reads. I try to make them interesting, but if you skip, please still check out the sponsors. I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will too. To get in touch with me for whatever reason, go to lexfridman.com/contact. All right, let's go. This episode is brought to you by Uplift Desk, my go-to for all office and podcast studio furniture. This very podcast, ladies and gentlemen, had the re-desks, uplift desks involved, and a fourth desk in the same room. So that desk you see sort of me place my hands on, that wooden color desk, that's uplift desks. And I've had those for many years, and I've enjoyed them for many years, long, long, long before they became a sponsor. I'm a huge supporter of what they do. I'm a huge supporter of the product they create. I spent so much time behind a desk that really, it might be silly to say, but things like a desk or a Kinesis keyboard are sources of little and big moments of happiness throughout the day, and the days add up to weeks, and the weeks add up to years into a lifetime. And so the amount of happiness that Uplift Desk has brought me is a lot. Immeasurable, really. I'm staying behind an Uplift Desk now as I'm recording this. Anyway, they have a huge number of combinations, the sizes and colors and all that kind of stuff that you can pick. If you go to upliftdesk.com/lex and use code Lex to get four free accessories, free same-day shipping, free returns, a 15-year warranty, and an extra discount off your entire order, that's upliftdesk.com/lex.
This episode is also brought to you by Finn, an amazing world-class AI agent for customer service. It's trusted by over 5,000 customer service leaders, including Anthropic and Synthasia. You know when an AI company trusts another AI company? They're good. Finn is powered by their Finn AI engine, which continuously improves based on the interactions during the analyze, train, test, deploy loop. And so your customer service keeps getting smarter and smarter and smarter. It's built to handle complex multi-step queries like returns, exchanges, disputes, all that kind of stuff. If you haven't tried it, you absolutely must. Go to finn.ai.lex to learn more about transforming your customer service and scaling your support team. That's finn.ai.lex.
This episode is also brought to you by Shopify, a company that brings a smile to my face every time. I bring it up in part because of the incredible conversation I had with the legendary GHH. He is a person, he is a programmer, he is an entrepreneur, as a philosopher, as a human inspires me. He and Shopify work closely together. Obviously, we talked a lot about Toby, the CEO of Shopify. It's an incredible company. The engineering behind the company is incredible. If you haven't listened to that episode and you're at all interested in programming, you should. Because if you're not interested in Ruby on Rails, first of all, it's very likely that you will be by the end of the episode, but you at least will get a chance to listen to a human being that sees the beauty in the programs he creates. So to know that a little bit of that love went behind the engineering of Shopify is really great to know. Anyway, it is also a company and it is also a company that helps companies sell stuff online. So you should sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/lex. That's all lowercase. Go to shopify.com/lex to take your business to the next level today. This episode is also brought to you by Element, my daily zero sugar and delicious electrolyte mix that I'm currently drinking as I dread the prospects after I'm done speaking these words. I will be doing a very long run in the Texas heat. And that's why I'm drinking electrolytes because I'm not bringing any water or electrolytes with me on the run. And it's very possibly going to be eight, 10, 12 plus miles. If I have the guts, it will be over 12 miles. Let us see. One thing is for certain, if I don't get electrolytes into my system beforehand, and afterwards, I'm just not going to feel good. Cold water with some watermelon salt flavor, it is a big component of happiness for me. On a daily basis, get a free eight count sample pack for free with any purchase. Try it at www.drinkelmint.com/lex.