Norman Ohler

I think you're right to ask about the context, because without the context, it's not really understandable.

So what was the situation?

In the 20s, the Nazi movement basically started.

And it started in Bavarian beer halls.

So alcohol was the drug of choice of the early Nazi movement.

The only guy that didn't drink was Hitler.

He was a teetotaler, I guess you say.

So that was happening in Munich.

So alcohol and national socialism are very closely connected.

At the same time in the 20s in Berlin, there was a completely different thing going on.

People were taking all kinds of drugs.

This had to do actually with the defeat of Germany in the First World War.

I mean, the context is a big context.

The Versailles Treaty had the effect that the German economy was not really able to recover after the end of World War I. The Versailles Treaty was written basically by the Western victorious powers.

Germany had no say in the negotiations.

And I'm certainly not a German nationalist, not even a German patriot.

But even I would say that the Versailles Treaty treated Germany somewhat unfair.

I mean, it laid all the blame on Germany.

And I mean, a war is a very complex thing.

And the First World War