@Skide: My bad. I am normally pretty fail at history beyond general details, so I was overestimating where Stalingrad was on the WWII timeline before I looked it up just now. I did know the gist of Stalingrad, though, and I also know the part about him spending his last days completely strung out of his mind on absurdly high doses of amphetamines and barbiturates is true. Based on his actions then, I believe his mental state had deteriorated just short of a paranoid schizophrenic's. His actions and commands strongly suggest that, and it's very consistent with his drug cocktail of choice, but this is just pure speculation on my part without any solid documentation of his actual behavior and mannerisms.
I also know Hitler's drug abuse started relatively early in the war; that much is pretty well documented. Given Stalingrad's position on the timeline, he was certainly popping amphetamines and barbiturates by then, so that makes it likely he was strung out during Stalingrad, too. He just wasn't yet on doses so extraordinarily high that they would easily kill anyone who hadn't developed tolerance to them. It is possible he was "sober" most of the time then if he hadn't yet become physically and psychologically dependent on them, but I find that unlikely. Even if he didn't "act" high, the drugs were obviously still "influencing" his strategic-thinking and decision-making skills (read "impairing"). Either way, unless Hitler was just totally, utterly incompetent, he had to have been unusually fucked-up on speed and barbies for Stalingrad (or maybe he was in withdrawal from them, and that fucked up his judgment?).
Edit: He apparently abused cocaine and opioids, too. JFC. Speedballs are even worse than amphetamine and barbiturates. Same general effect, though, just cranked up to eleven. He also apparently took bull semen. WTF?? Hitler was a sick, sick, sick creature, even more than his "legacy" already clearly demonstrates.
[aside]Yeah, sorry for that ramble. It's obvious I find the history of WWII less interesting than I find the morbid details of Hitler as a "person" and his altered states of consciousness. I also refuse to call him a "person" without using quotation marks.[/aside]
@MisterSpak: lol wut, that's one fail of an excuse
