Blood and Gold arrived on Netflix on 26 May. This World War II action movie from German director Peter Thorwarth plays more like a spaghetti western than a traditional war film. Everything from its soundtrack to its set pieces evokes the feeling of 1960s classics like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and A Fistful of Dollars. However, the backdrop of Nazism makes for an interesting twist on the genre. One question viewers have been asking is “what is Pervitin?”, the drug taken by the Nazi officer at the start of the movie.
Before we get into that, let’s go over the premise of the movie.
Blood and Gold follows Heinrich (Robert Maaser), a German deserter disillusioned by the Nazi machine after years at war. He is being pursued by Nazi soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel von Starnfeld who are also in search of hidden gold.
As the start of the movie, Heinrich is caught by his former comrades and sentenced to die for treason. Rather than going through a formal court, von Starnfeld decides he will be hung from a nearby tree. As the Nazi officers are preparing the noose, we see that Nazi officer von Starnfeld consumes a pill labelled “Pervitin”. But what is Pervitin? And why did he take it?
What is Pervitin in Blood and Gold?
What is Pervitin, the drug taken by the Nazi at the start of Blood and Gold? Pervitin was an early version of methamphetamine that was available in Nazi Germany and was distributed among the armed forces. Known as “tank chocolate” or “pilot’s chocolate”, Pervitin kept the German forces alert and happy despite the exhausting horrors of war.
Being an amphetamine, Pervitin also had serious side effects. Not only was it highly addictive and consequently had severe withdrawal symptoms, it could also cause bouts of paranoia and psychosis.
Trials of the pill were conducted in Britain where it was soon abandoned because of its negative side effects. However, use remained high among the Nazi command, armed forces, and the general population.
In Blood and Gold, Lieutenant Colonel von Starnfeld can be seen using the drug before the attempted execution of Heinrich. The implication here is that he uses the drug to enable him to commit horrific crimes as an officer in the Nazi army.
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