Usage of Pervitin

[Nick Beale]

Thread closed.

[Chris Going]

Anyone keen to follow up non-recreational pharmaceutical use use might, I think, make progress through a contemporary but secondary source lurking in AIR 57, in which are to be found the minutes of the Flying Personnel Research Committee (FPRC). This organization started life in January 1939, and was at that time much concerned with the use of stimulants. They were very much aware of Wehrmacht practice by the summer of 1940, and I imagine that the discovery of Pervitin in a crashed a/c would have been communicated by the relevant bit of AI to FPRC and is likely to have attracted a passing reference in their meeting minutes. A useful tour of the scene is Pugh, James (2011) ‘The Royal Air Force, Bomber Command and the use of Benzedrine Sulphate’. Journal of Contemporary History. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009416652717. Footnotes are useful with TNA references. Good hunting.

[BrianC]

Hi guys

A vague enquiry:

Is there any record/documentation of any Luftwaffe airman captured during August/September 1940 'suffering' the affects of Pervitin on interrogation?

Cheers
Brian

[VtwinVince]

That's a good question, although I'm wondering what sort of 'effects' those could be. Of course 'go-pills' are a staple of most modern armies, including our erstwhile 'friends' in Ukraine.

[edwest2]

Here's an overview from the period:

https://thesecuritydistillery.org/al...are-in-1939-45

[BrianC]

Thanks for the responses.

However, I am specifically interested as to how the British interrogators initially reacted to Pervitin-infused prisoners, especially those captured during August and September 1940.

Perhaps our respected and knowledgeable moderators are able to comment?

Cheers
Brian

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by BrianC

Perhaps our respected and knowledgeable moderators are able to comment?

Cheers
Brian

Sorry, John’s away from his computer at the moment!

[Chris Goss]

In all the K reports I have seen, only operational matters were generally commented on

[Larry deZeng]

Does B.C. mean were the Luftwaffe POWs juiced up on Pervitin more able to lie and deceive their interrogators than those who were not? Could the interrogator tell the difference between the two?

It would seem to me that by 1940 Pervitin had been around long enough in the Wehrmacht and German society to enable British military intelligence to have a pretty good grasp of the situation, and to have the subject quite well covered in interrogator training literature and handbooks. Accordingly, B.C. might want look for these training materials in the BNA holdings.

[Nick Beale]

I'm not that familiar with prisoner interrogations from the BoB period (I've only looked at a couple at best) but if a prisoner was speeding or crashing, wouldn't the symptoms be superficially explicable in terms of adrenaline and post traumatic stress? If you've just been zipping round the sky at 500 km/h firing guns at people who shot back, you might be a bit hyped up. And if that came to a sudden stop and you narrowly escaped with your life, your mood might drop abruptly.