Several drugs shaped the course of World War II, from methamphetamine tablets that fueled Germany’s blitzkrieg to penicillin that saved Allied soldiers from infected wounds. Both sides relied heavily on pharmaceuticals to keep troops fighting, manage pain on the battlefield, and prevent tropical diseases. Here’s what was used, how it worked, and what happened after the war ended.
Methamphetamine: The Drug Behind the Blitzkrieg
The most infamous drug of World War II was Pervitin, a methamphetamine tablet manufactured by the German pharmaceutical company Temmler. German military leaders distributed it widely to keep soldiers awake and aggressive during rapid advances. The drug saw its first combat use during the invasions of Sudetenland and Poland, then scaled up dramatically for the 1940 invasion of France. In just April and May of that year, more than 35 million three-milligram tablets were produced. Soldiers took them to fight for days without sleep, which was central to the blitzkrieg strategy of overwhelming opponents with speed.
Pervitin wasn’t limited to ground troops. Tank crews, pilots, and submarine operators all received tablets. The drug suppressed fear and fatigue, but it also caused paranoia, hallucinations, and heart problems with repeated use. German military doctors eventually recognized the dangers and attempted to restrict distribution, but by then the practice was deeply embedded in military culture.
Benzedrine: The Allied Stimulant
The Allies had their own version. British and American forces used Benzedrine (amphetamine sulfate) to combat fatigue, particularly among aircrews flying long bombing missions. The Royal Air Force initially banned issuing Benzedrine to pilots on duty, citing the risk of “alarming symptoms” in some individuals. But as the war dragged on and bomber missions stretched to eight or more hours, policy shifted.
RAF medical officers found that Benzedrine was especially useful for air gunners, who suffered intense fatigue from sitting in cramped, cold turret positions for hours. Crews were typically instructed to take a tablet about half an hour before reaching the target, timed to cover the most dangerous phase of a mission, including the return leg. Researchers concluded the drug could be used on every operation over a six-month tour without serious ill effects, though the decision was left to individual aircrew. To counter the insomnia that followed, some crews took a small dose of barbiturates after landing.
Morphine: Pain Relief on the Battlefield
Morphine was the primary painkiller used on both sides of the war. It was delivered through a device called a syrette, a small, single-use tube with a needle attached, similar to a tiny toothpaste tube. Each syrette contained 10 milligrams of morphine for subcutaneous injection. Medics and even individual soldiers were trained to use them on casualties in the field.
The standard practice was to pin the empty syrette to a wounded soldier’s collar or mark an “M” on their forehead with blood or grease pencil. This prevented the next medic from administering a second dose and causing an overdose. Morphine didn’t treat the wound, but it made it possible to move severely injured soldiers to aid stations without them going into shock from pain.
Sulfa Drugs: The First Line Against Infection
Before penicillin became widely available, sulfa powder was the main weapon against wound infections. Sulfanilamide doesn’t dissolve well in water, so it was applied as a yellow powder sprinkled directly into open wounds. Every soldier carried a Carlisle kit on their belt, a bandage package with dressings coated in sulfanilamide. Medics also carried shaker cans of the powder to dust into wounds before bandaging.
Sulfa drugs worked by stopping bacteria from multiplying, giving the body’s immune system time to fight the infection. They weren’t perfect, and they couldn’t treat every type of bacteria, but they marked a dramatic improvement over World War I, when infected wounds killed far more soldiers than the injuries themselves.
Penicillin: The Breakthrough Antibiotic
Penicillin transformed battlefield medicine starting in 1943, but getting there required an unprecedented industrial effort. Early production was painfully slow. By mid-1944, a massive scale-up through commercial fermentation had increased monthly production more than 250 times over in a single year. By January 1945, US manufacturers were producing 4 million sterile packages per month, enough to treat wounded soldiers across multiple theaters of war.
Penicillin was far more effective than sulfa drugs. It could kill bacteria outright rather than just slowing their growth, and it worked against a broader range of infections. Soldiers who would have lost limbs or died from infected wounds in the previous war survived. The drug’s success during the war laid the foundation for the antibiotic revolution that followed in civilian medicine.
Atabrine: Fighting Malaria in the Pacific
In the Pacific theater, malaria was as deadly as the Japanese military. The standard prevention was Atabrine (quinacrine), a synthetic antimalarial taken as a daily 100-milligram tablet. It was effective at suppressing malaria, but soldiers hated it. Common side effects included nausea, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, headaches, and dizziness. At the doses used for daily prevention, it also turned the skin yellow, giving troops a jaundiced appearance that many found alarming.
More serious reactions occurred in a small number of soldiers. About 2.8 per 100,000 troops developed a dangerous condition called aplastic anemia, where the bone marrow stops producing enough blood cells. Some developed severe skin reactions. Military medical authorities acknowledged these risks but concluded that Atabrine’s value in suppressing malaria “far outweighs untoward effects.” Commanders had to enforce compliance because many soldiers refused to take the tablets voluntarily.
Sodium Amytal: Sleep Therapy and Interrogation
Sodium amytal, a barbiturate, served a dual purpose during the war. Military doctors used it to treat soldiers suffering from what was then called “combat exhaustion,” now recognized as post-traumatic stress. The drug induced a deep therapeutic sleep, sometimes lasting days, allowing traumatized soldiers’ nervous systems to reset. In some cases, doctors used it during therapy sessions to help soldiers recall and process traumatic memories while in a sedated, suggestible state.
The same properties that made it useful in therapy also made it attractive to intelligence services. Sodium amytal gained a reputation as a “truth serum” because subjects under its influence were thought to be less able to withhold information. Its actual reliability for interrogation was questionable, but its use in that context became one of the more controversial pharmaceutical legacies of the war.
Dried Blood Plasma: Saving Lives From Shock
While not a drug in the traditional sense, dried blood plasma was one of the most important medical innovations of the war. Fresh blood couldn’t survive transport to forward positions, but plasma could be freeze-dried into a powder and reconstituted with sterile water in under 10 minutes. Medics mixed the powder in the field and administered it through a standard IV line to soldiers going into shock from blood loss. This bought critical time for casualties who would otherwise have died before reaching a surgical unit.
What Happened After the War
The wartime drug that left the most destructive legacy was methamphetamine. After 1945, massive military stockpiles of the drug in Japan flooded the black market. With the country in social and economic chaos under Allied occupation, abuse spread rapidly. What the Japanese called the “hiropon epidemic” (named after a popular methamphetamine brand) became the country’s first major drug crisis. By 1954, Japan had at least 200,000 amphetamine addicts, leading directly to the Stimulant Control Law of 1951, one of the world’s first targeted drug control statutes.
Germany experienced a similar, if less well-documented, surge in civilian methamphetamine use after the war. The same drug that had powered the Wehrmacht’s early victories left a generation struggling with addiction, a cost of war that rarely appears in the history books.