Klopp, the Nazis and Pervitin.
Pervitin is a drug developed in Germany in the 1930s. It was originally intended as a recreational drug to help the famously dour Germans relax. It was soon repurposed for military use once its qualities were better understood.
As a German it is likely Jugen Klopp would be familiar with the history and properties of Pervitin. Indeed, it is believed several of his ancestral relatives were enthusiastic members of either the SS or Hitler youth. Pervitin was used by the Nazi’s during their successful conquest of most of Europe between 1939 and 1940. Of course, prolonged use of the drug led to adverse effects, and its use was restricted in the later stages of the war. Germany was unable to maintain its previous success and was eventually comprehensively defeated.
The producer of Pervitin, a company called Temmler, is still in business today and based in a Town called Marler under a hundred miles from Dortmund where Klopp had his first major successes as a football coach. The clubs where Klopp learnt his trade, Mainz 05 and Frankfurt, are closer still to the town of Marler, and Temmler’s headquarters. Klopp could’ve finished training, driven to Marler on the unrestricted autobahn and still got home in time for tea. Other than four games as a youth team player, in his long and distinguished career Klopp has never played for or managed a team in Germany more than 100 miles from Temmler’s headquarters in Marler.
It is unlikely that Temmler would’ve stopped research into Pervitin following the war. West Germany was under existential threat from the Soviet Union which already occupied the other half of the country. Given the West German government knew the military advantages of Pervitin it is inconceivable that they wouldn’t have continued to research it. Being able to test the drug in an athletic environment would be of inestimable value as a proxy for a wartime environment.
Newer versions of the drug would likely not be detected by the typical drug tests used by sporting bodies like the World Anti-Doping Authority. In football the anti performance enhancing drug regime is known to be lax. The drug cheat Rio Ferdinand, for example, was able to escape serious punishment by simply hiding when required to provide any samples.
Klopp’s reign over Dortmund had uncanny parallels with the Nazi conquest of Europe. Initial shocking and rapid success was followed by equally rapid failure and eventual collapse. There are few equivalent stories of such rise and decline seen in the history of professional football, or at least not without any obvious explanation. Klopp’s story is in many ways unique. Despite Dortmund’s reversal in fortune Klopp had arrived on the scene as one of football’s leading lights.
Liverpool wasn’t an obvious next step for Klopp as one of the most highly rated young managers in world football. Many other teams possessed higher budgets and more accomplished playing squads, as well as providing a better life environment. Liverpool also has a shameful reputation for attracting violent unruly fans as seen at Hysel in 1985.
However, Liverpool as a city has two qualities that are unique amongst those hosting major European football clubs. Its illegal drug trade is still in the control of local gangs rather than the Albanian organised crime organisation that dominates the rest of Europe. Also, it is a major port city with a notoriously corrupt workforce under the control of Marxist unions.
Liverpool football club has long had visible connections to both of these worlds. Its players have repeatedly voiced support of the dockers during their numerous prolonged periods of industrial action, and have also had well publicised connections and occasional disagreements with local crime lords (for example, Steven Gerard’s troubles which were resolved swiftly by the intervention of the club’s senior staff).
Through the combination of Klopp’s connections with the German drug giant Temmler, and the longstanding connections between Liverpool football club and the dockers and local crime gangs, there was a clear opportunity for Klopp to continue his experimentation with the use of Pervitin 2.0 in the Premier League. Klopp’s surprising choice of Liverpool is therefore easily explained.
The performance of Klopp’s Liverpool team has been strangely inconsistent. Excellent seasons followed by poor ones with no explaining factors such as the sale of players or injuries. Good wins against quality teams followed by abject defeats. It is hard to develop a plausible footballing reason for such a pattern of results. However, such a pattern of performance can be explained by the selective use of a performance enhancing vector, such as a drug like Pervitin.
