Methadone was developed in Germany in the 1930s by scientists looking to develop synthetic pain medications. The supply of opium, the natural constituent of many pain medications, was cut off to Germany by the allies during World War II. There is a persistent fallacy, found even today in some textbooks, that purport methadone, or Dolophine, was named after Adolph Hitler. Actually, the "dol" in Dolophine comes from the Latin word dolor, meaning pain, and has nothing to do with Adolph Hitler.