After the trauma of WWI, Berlin residents didn't just want to forget, they wanted to be elsewhere altogether, if not in body, then in mind. As the Kaiser’s regime collapsed into the economic chaos of the Weimar Republic, Berliners fell for a miracle drug that filled the void in their hearts and nostrils: Cocaine.

During this era, Germany was the undisputed world leader in pharmaceutical production, holding a near 80% global monopoly on laboratory-produced narcotics. Companies like Merck in Darmstadt were legally producing tons of high-grade cocaine, much of which leaked directly into the vibrant night veins of Berlin.

In districts like Mitte and Schöneberg, the air was literally and figuratively dusty. At the Eldorado, the legendary queer club where even SA leader Ernst Röhm was a regular, Cocaine was the currency of the night. It was a time of total liberation fueled by chemical courage, where performers like Anita Berber danced in a drug-induced haze, pushing the boundaries of art and scandal.

While the "New Woman" and the avant-garde celebrated, the city was also a hub of numbing, where WWI veterans self-medicated their PTSD with morphine and opium. The 1920s were a chaotic, groggy tightrope walk between artistic explosion and total social collapse.