Many Americans know about the scourge of crystal meth from the TV series Breaking Bad, says Fabienne Hurst at Germany's Der Spiegel. "But few know that the drug can be traced back to Nazi Germany, where it first became popular as a way to keep pilots and soldiers alert in battle during World War II." The drug was called Pervitin, a methamphetamine compound launched in 1938 by drug maker Temmler Werke. Almost immediately, "high-ranking army physiologist Otto Ranke saw in it a true miracle drug that could keep tired pilots alert and an entire army euphoric. It was the ideal war drug." For many soldiers, the highly addictive compound became a nightmare.
Pervitin was supplied to the German military for decades — West Germany stopped giving to solders in the 1970s, and East Germany followed suit in 1988. "But its meteoric rise as an illegally produced drug had only just begun," Fabienne says. An excerpt:
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