Norman Ohler

Updated on Oct 19, 2023

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Language German, English Parents Wolfgang Ohler		Citizenship Germany Movies Palermo Shooting

Occupation Author, Screenwriter, Journalist Genre Literary fiction, Nonfiction, History Notable works Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany Relatives Wolfgang Ohler (father) Books Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany, Ponte city, Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Similar Theodor Morell, Ian Kershaw, Wolfgang Ohler, Adolf Hitler, Peter Przygodda

Norman Ohler (born 1970) is a German journalist, author and screenwriter.

Blitzed by norman ohler

Overview

Ohler was born in Zweibrücken, Germany in 1970 and attended journalism school in Hamburg, Germany.

Norman Ohler wwwdwcomimage18703557404jpg

In the fall of 2004, Ohler was invited by the German cultural association Goethe-Institut to act as writer-in-residence in Ramallah. There, Ohler wrote about the life of the Palestinians in the West Bank and published the last interview Yassir Arafat gave, shortly before his death. After his time in Ramallah, Ohler also worked as writer-in-residence in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

In September 2015, Ohler published his first nonfiction work, titled The Total Rush: Drugs In the Third Reich. In the book, Ohler researches what role psychoactive drugs, particularly stimulants such as methamphetamine, played in the military history of World War II, concluding that many of the German military and political leadership—especially Adolf Hitler—abused psychoactive drugs during the war. The book was praised by a few war historians:

Norman Ohler Blitzed Drugs In Nazi Germany Norman Ohler Dan Snow39s HISTORY HIT

Antony Beevor: "A remarkable work of research"

Ian Kershaw, a leading Hitler researcher, described Ohler's book as “a serious piece of scholarship”.

Other historians disagree with Ohler's approach:

Nicholaus Wachsmann, professor of history at Birkbeck College, University of London, author of KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps: "Ohler overstates his case (...) [he eschews] nuance for headlines (...) [he] appears to mix fact and fiction. (...) Again and again, Ohler’s hyperbole stands in the way of sober understanding."

Richard J. Evans, eminent British historian, Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge from 2008 to 2014, author of History of the Third Reich: "[Ohler's] sweepy generalizations [are] wildly implausible." Evans calls Ohler's book "a crass and dangerously inaccurate account". He also thinks Ohler's book is "morally and politically dangerous" because it implies Hitler was not really responsible for his actions.

The title was later translated to English as Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany.

Novels

Die Quotenmaschine (1998)

Mitte (2001)

Ponte City (2003)

Non Fiction

Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany (2016), ISBN 0241256992

Film

Palermo Shooting, screenwriter (2008)

Infinite Reich, by Patricia Kirgo, Sirin Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-8826065373

Was Hitler ill?, by Henrik Eberle & Hans-Joachim Neumann, Polity, 2012, ISBN 978-0745652221

Hitler's drugged soldiers, article by Andreas Ulrich, Der Spiegel, 2005

Nazis on speed, by Werner Pieper, The Grüne Kraft, 2002, ISBN 978-3930442393

Hitler: diagnosis of a destructive prophet, by Fritz Redlich, Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0195057829

Norman Ohler High Hitler the secret to Nazism and the Blitzkrieg revealed

Norman Ohler Blitzed Drugs in Nazi Germany by Norman Ohler Saturday Review

References

Norman Ohler Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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