Episode · Lex Fridman Podcast · 2025-09-19
Books mentioned on #481 – Norman Ohler: Hitler, Nazis, Drugs, WW2, Blitzkrieg, LSD, MKUltra & CIA
Norman Ohler is a historian and author of “Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich,” a book that investigates the role of psychoactive drugs, particularly stimulants such as methamphetamine, in the military history of World War II.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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On the Road
On the Road by Jack Kerouac is a seminal autobiographical novel chronicling the author's cross-country road trips across America with his friends, defining the Beat generation.
Discussed“"On the Road" was apparently written in two weeks on amphetamines.”
Where to get it
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Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is an autobiographical manifesto by Adolf Hitler outlining his political ideology and future plans for Germany.
Discussed“Also, they were sentenced to prison, and Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in prison.”
Where to get it
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Animal Farm
Animal Farm by George Orwell is an allegorical novella depicting a farm where animals overthrow their human farmer, eventually descending into totalitarian corruption.
Discussed“It's like in Animal Farm when the pigs discover alcohol. Animal Farm by George Orwell. There's no evidence that they drank.”
Where to get it
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Man S Search For Meaning
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Emil Frankl is a profound psychological memoir and exploration of human resilience, detailing the author's survival in Nazi concentration camps and introducing his framework of logotherapy.
Discussed“I mean, one of the things you get from books like Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl”
Where to get it
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey is a classic American novel that examines institutional oppression, individuality, and mental health through the experiences of patients in a psychiatric ward ruled by the tyrannical Nurse Ratched.
Discussed“So then it spilled out, obviously, because one of the guinea pigs was Ken Kesey. He received 75 US dollars for taking LSD for the CIA, and he was working in Menlo Park in a psychiatric ward. And on LSD, he basically had the idea to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.”
Where to get it
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Ulysses
Ulysses by James Joyce is a monumental modernist novel chronicling a single day in the life of Leopold Bloom in Dublin, celebrated for its stylistic experimentation and intricate parallels to Homer's Odyssey.
Recommended“Yeah, it's Ulysses by James Joyce. Ulysses is good, but only when you're in your early 20s, living in New York, and you're writing your first book, and you just have taken LSD.”
Where to get it
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The Stranger, The Plague (Coles Notes)
The Stranger by Albert Camus is a classic philosophical novel exploring absurdism through the experiences of its detached protagonist, Meursault.
Recommended“But the most influential book, maybe, is "The Stranger" by Camus. Because I like the language so much, and I'm really mostly interested in language. I don't really care what it's about. I was lying on the beach in Morocco when I was 20 and reading "The Stranger."”
Where to get it
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Gravity's rainbow
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon is an epic, complex postmodern novel set near the end of World War II, exploring themes of paranoia, rocketry, entropy, and government conspiracies.
Recommended“So the ones I mentioned, and also then Thomas, Thomas Pynchon. who wrote "Gravity's Rainbow," which I think is one of the best novels of the 20th century. And I read that in Berlin in the late '90s, and it really blew my mind. I thought it... I think it's an absolute masterpiece.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (3) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“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.”
“He was quite old, but quite ready to be my mentor for this book, "Blitzed."”
“I mean, that's why I wrote the book, The Bohemians, because there were a few people in Berlin that didn't react this way, but they reacted in a different way. They said, "We cannot be part of this."”