BERLIN (Reuters) - The Nazis conducted tests on a cocaine-based "wonder drug" during World War II they hoped would enhance the performance of the war-weary German army, a German magazine reported on Monday.The weekly Focus said crime researcher Wolf Kemper had discovered that Hitler was trying to develop the drug, code-named D-IX, in 1944. The pills were to contain a mixture of cocaine, the amphetamine pervitin and a morphine-related painkiller. Prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp who had been given the drug were reportedly able to march 55 miles with 44-pound packs without a rest.
It was hoped the drug would give soldiers almost unlimited fighting powers at a time when the front was beginning to crumble and the Nazis were in retreat.
Nazi doctors were enthusiastic about the results, but the war ended before the pill could be put into mass production.
Hitler was against drug use, particularly condemning the use of cocaine, a popular society drug in the 1920s that the Nazis called "Devil's stuff."
