Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany

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A Nazi anti-smoking ad titled "The chain-smoker" saying "He does not eat it (the cigarette), it eats him"

Nazi Germany initiated a strong anti-tobacco movement^[1] and led the first public anti-smoking campaign in modern history.^[2] Anti-tobacco movements grew in many nations from the beginning of the 20th century, but these had little success, with the only exception being Germany, where the anti-tobacco campaign was supported by the government after the Nazis came to power.^[3] It was the most powerful anti-tobacco movement in the world in the 1930s and early 1940s.^[4] The Nazi leadership condemned smoking^[5] and several of them openly criticized tobacco consumption.^[4] Anti-tobacco research thrived under the Nazi rule^[6] and at that time, the most important research on smoking and its effects on health was conducted in the Third Reich.^[7]

The anti-tobacco campaign established by the Nazis included restrictions on smoking in public spaces, restrictions on tobacco rations for women, restrictions on advertising of tobacco products,^[4] promoting health education,^[8] imposing restrictions on restaurants and coffeehouses, banning smoking in trams, buses and city trains, limiting cigarette rations in the military, organizing medical lectures for soldiers and rising tobacco tax.^[4] The anti-tobacco movement did not have much effect in the early years of Nazi rule and tobacco use increased between 1933 and 1939,^[9] but total tobacco consumption by military personnel declined in the later years from 1939 to 1945.^[10] This world's first public anti-smoking campaign was more powerful and serious than the anti-tobacco movement in Germany at the beginning of the 21st century.^[9]

[edit] Prelude to Nazi anti-tobacco campaign

Anti-tobacco sentiment and criticism of smoking existed in Germany in the early 1910s, long before the advent of the Nazis. Critics of smoking organized the first group in Germany named the Deutscher Tabakgegnerverein zum Schutze der Nichtraucher. Established in 1904, this organization existed for a brief period only. The next anti-tobacco organization was the Bund Deutscher Tabakgegner, established in 1910 in Trautenau, Bohemia. Other anti-smoking organizations were established in 1912 in the cities of Hanover and Dresden. In 1920, a Bund Deutscher Tabakgegner in der Tschechoslowakei was formed in Prague, after Czechoslovakia was separated from Austria at the end of World War I. A Bund Deutscher Tabakgegner in Deutschösterreich was established in 1920 in Graz.^[11]

These groups started publishing journals critical of smoking. The first such German-language journal was Der Tabakgegner, published by the Bohemian organization. The first issue of Der Tabakgegner was published in 1912 and this journal continued to be published until 1932. The Deutsche Tabakgegner was published in Dresden, and was the second journal on this issue, being published from 1919 to 1935.^[11] Apart from opposing tobacco smoking, the anti-tobacco organizations were against consumption of alcohol also. This opposition to alcoholic beverages remained significant for the anti-tobacco campaign by the Nazis.^[12]

[edit] Hitler's attitude towards smoking

Adolf Hitler viewed smoking as "decadent" and personally encouraged people close to him to give up smoking and rewarded those who quit it.

Adolf Hitler was a heavy smoker in his early life, when he used to smoke approximately 25 to 40 cigarettes daily, but gave up smoking after coming to the conclusion that it was a waste of money.^[13] In later years, Hitler viewed smoking as "decadent"^[10] and "the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man, vengeance for having been given hard liquor,"^[13] lamenting over the fact that "so many excellent men have been lost to tobacco poisoning".^[14] Hitler is often considered to be the first national leader to advocate nonsmoking.^[15] He was unhappy because both Eva Braun and Martin Bormann were smokers and was concerned over Hermann Göring's continued smoking in public places. He became angry when a statue of Göring showed a cigar in his mouth.^[13]

Hitler felt regret over the fact that military personnel were permitted to smoke, and during World War II he said on March 2, 1942, "it was a mistake, traceable to the army leadership at the time, at the beginning of the war". He also said that it was "not correct to say that a soldier cannot live without smoking". He promised to terminate the use of tobacco in the military after the end of the war. Hitler personally encouraged people who he knew very well not to smoke and rewarded those who quit smoking. However Hitler's personal distaste for tobacco was not the main cause behind Nazi anti-tobacco movement; it was only one of several catalysts behind the anti-smoking campaign.^[13]

[edit] Reproductive policies

The Nazi reproductive policies were a significant factor behind their anti-tobacco campaign. Women who smoked were considered to be vulnerable to premature ageing and loss of physical attractiveness and were generally viewed as being not very suitable for their roles as wives and mothers of a German family. Werner Huttig of the Nazi Party's Office of Racial Policy claimed that breast milk of smoking mothers was revealed to contain nicotine.^[16] Martin Staemmler, a prominent physician during the Third Reich, opined that smoking by pregnant women resulted in increasing the number of stillbirths and miscarriages. The responsibility of smoking for miscarriages was also supported by well-known female racial hygienist Agnes Bluhm, who in a book published in 1936 expressed the same view. The Nazi leadership was concerned over this because they wanted the German women to give birth to more children. An article published in a German gynaecology journal in 1943 stated that women smoking three or more cigarettes per day were more prone to remain childless compared to women who did not smoke.^[17]

[edit] Research

Research projects were funded by the Nazis which revealed many disastrous effects of smoking on health.^[18] The link between lung cancer and tobacco was first proved in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, contrary to the popular belief that American and British scientists first discovered it in the 1950s.^[14][19] Nazi Germany supported epidemiological research on the harmful effects of tobacco use.^[1] Research and studies on the effects of tobacco on the health of the population was most advanced in Germany than any nation by this time.^[4] The term "passive smoking" was coined in Nazi Germany.^[2] Hitler personally gave financial support to the Institute for Tobacco Hazards Research (Wissenschaftliches Institut zur Erforschung der Tabakgefahren) at the University of Jena, headed by Karl Astel.^[10][20] Established in 1941, it was the most significant anti-tobacco institute in Nazi Germany.^[20]

Franz H. Müller in 1939 and E. Schairer in 1943 first used case-control epidemiological methods to study lung cancer among smokers.^[10] In 1939, Müller published a study report in a reputed cancer journal in Germany which demonstrated that prevalence of lung cancer was higher among smokers.^[1] Müller, described as the "forgotten father of experimental epidemiology",^[21] was a member of the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK) and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP). Müller's 1939 medical dissertation was the world's first controlled epidemiological study of the relationship between tobacco and lung cancer. Apart from mentioning the increasing incidents of lung cancer and the general causes behind it like dust, exhaust gas from cars, tuberculosis, X-ray and pollutants emitted from factories, Müller's paper pointed out that "the significance of tobacco smoke has been pushed more and more into the foreground".^[22]

Physicians in the Third Reich were aware of the fact that smoking is responsible for cardiac diseases, which were considered to be the most serious diseases resulting from smoking. Use of nicotine was sometimes considered to be responsible for increasing reports of myocardial infarction in the country. In the later years of World War II, nicotine was viewed by researchers as a factor behind the coronary heart failures suffered by a significant number of military personnel in the Eastern Front. A pathologist of the Heer examined thirty-two young soldiers who had died from myocardial infarction at the front, and documented in a 1944 report that all of them were "enthusiastic smokers." He cited the opinion of pathologist Franz Buchner that cigarettes are "a coronary poison of the first order."^[16]

[edit] Anti-tobacco measures

A Nazi anti-smoking ad portraying the devilish "Tobacco capital" raining down tobacco products to spoil the "people's health", "labor power", "demographic political goals", and the "people's wealth"

The Nazis used several public relations tactics to influence the general population of Germany into not smoking. Some well-known health magazines like the Gesundes Volk published warnings regarding the effects of smoking. Posters showing the harmful effects of smoking were published and anti-smoking messages were sent to the people in their workplaces. Anti-smoking messages were spread through the Hitler-Jugend (HJ) and the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM).^[18] The anti-smoking campaign undertaken by the Nazis also included health education.^[8][23] In June 1939, a Bureau against the Hazards of Alcohol and Tobacco was formed and the Bureau for the Struggle against Addictive Drugs (Reichsstelle für Rauschgiftbekämpfung) also helped in the anti-tobacco campaign. Articles advocating nonsmoking were published in the magazines Die Genussgifte, Auf der Wacht and Reine Luft.^[24]

After recognizing the harmful effects of smoking on health, several items of anti-smoking legislation were enacted.^[25] The later 1930s increasingly saw anti-tobacco laws implemented by the Nazis. In 1938, the Luftwaffe and the Reichspost imposed a ban on smoking. Smoking was also banned not only in health care institutions, but also in several public offices and in rest homes.^[4] Midwives were restricted from smoking while on duty. In 1939, the Nazi Party outlawed smoking in all of its offices premises, and Heinrich Himmler, the then chief of the Schutzstaffel (SS), restricted police personnel and SS officers from smoking while they were on duty.^[26] Smoking was outlawed in schools also.^[18]

In 1941, tobacco smoking in trams was outlawed in Germany's sixty large urban settlements.^[26] Smoking was outlawed in bomb shelters also; however a few of these structures had separate rooms for smoking.^[4] Special care was taken to prevent women from smoking. The President of the Medical Association in Germany announced, "German women don't smoke".^[27] Pregnant women and women below the age of 25 and over the age of 55 were not given tobacco ration cards during World War II. Restrictions were imposed on the hospitality and food retailing industry also such as restaurants and coffeehouses so that they could not sell tobacco products like cigarettes to women.^[26] Anti-tobacco films aimed at women were created and publicly shown. Editorials were published in newspapers which discussed the issue of smoking and its effects. Strict measures were taken in this regard and a district department of the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (NSBO) announced that it would expel female members who smoked publicly.^[28] The next step in the anti-tobacco campaign came in July 1943, when public smoking for persons under the age of 18 was outlawed.^[26] In the next year, smoking in buses and city trains was made illegal,^[10] on the personal initiative of Hitler, who feared that female ticket takers might be the victims of passive smoking.^[4]

Restrictions were imposed on the advertisement of tobacco products,^[29] enacted on December 7, 1941 and signed by Heinrich Hunke, the President of the Advertising Council. Advertisements trying to depict smoking as harmless or smoking as an expression of masculinity were banned. Ridiculing anti-tobacco activists was also outlawed,^[30] as was the use of advertising posters along rail tracks, in rural regions, stadiums and racing tracks. Advertising by loudspeakers and mail was also made illegal.^[31]

Restrictions on smoking were introduced in the Wehrmacht also. Any soldier in the Wehrmacht was not given more than six cigarettes a day. Often extra cigarettes were sold to the soldiers, especially when there was no military advance or retreat in the battleground, however these were restricted to 50 for each person per month. Access to cigarettes was not allowed for the Wehrmacht's female auxiliary personnel. Medical lectures were also arranged to persuade military personnel to quit smoking. An ordinance was enacted on November 3, 1941 which raised tobacco taxes by approximately 80%-95% of the retail price. It would be the highest rise in tobacco taxes in Germany for more than 25 years after the collapse of the Nazi regime.^[4]

[edit] Effectiveness

Production of cigarettes in Germany from 1932 to 1944. The early anti-smoking campaign failed and tobacco consumption rose between 1933 and 1937 peaking in 1940 when per capita cigarette consumption was 1,022 per annum.^[9] But implementation of anti-tobacco measures increased in the later 1930s and by the early years of World War II, tobacco usage gradually declined. Average tobacco consumption per soldier in the Wehrmacht declined by 23.4% in 1944 compared to the immediate pre-World War II years.^[4]

The early anti-smoking campaign was largely a failure, and the years from 1933 to 1937 saw a rapid increase in tobacco consumption in Germany.^[9] The rate of smoking in the nation increased faster even than in neighbouring France, where the anti-tobacco movement was tiny and far less influential. Between 1932 and 1939, per capita cigarette consumption in Germany increased from 570 to 900 per year, while the corresponding numbers for France were from 570 to 630.^[4]

The cigarette manufacturing companies in Germany made several attempts to weaken the anti-tobacco campaign. They published many new journals and tried to depict the anti-tobacco movement as "fanatic" and "unscientific".^[4] The tobacco industry also tried to counter the government campaign to prevent women from smoking and used smoking models in their advertisements.^[27] Despite government regulations, many women in Germany regularly smoked, including the wives of many high-ranking Nazi officials. For instance, Magda Goebbels smoked even while giving an interview to a journalist. Fashion illustrations showing women with cigarettes were often published in prominent publications such as the Beyers Mode für Alle. The cover of the popular song Lili Marleen showed singer Lale Andersen with a cigarette.^[28]

The Nazis implemented more and more anti-tobacco policies at the end of the 1930s and by the early years of World War II, the rate of the tobacco usage experienced a decline. As a result of the anti-tobacco measures implemented in the Wehrmacht,^[4] the total tobacco consumption by soldiers decreased between 1939 and 1945.^[10] According to a survey conducted in the 1944, the number of smokers increased in the Wehrmacht, but average tobacco consumption per military personnel declined by 23.4% compared to the immediate pre-World War II years. The number of people who used smoke 30 or more cigarettes per day declined from 4.4% to 0.3%.^[4] Below is a comparison of per capita cigarette consumption rate per year in Germany and the United States from 1930 to 1944.

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Racism and anti-smoking sentiment

There is some controversy over the attitude of the Nazis for the anti-tobacco movement as they equated the anti-tobacco campaign with both racism and antisemitism. Apart from the public health concerns, the Nazis were heavily influenced by ideology.^[18] The anti-tobacco movement was influenced by the ideological concept of racial hygiene and bodily purity.^[32] Nazi leaders held a view that it was not right for the master race to smoke^[18] and tobacco consumption became equal to "racial degeneracy".^[33] According to the Nazi view, tobacco was a "genetic poison"^[32] and racial hygienists opposed tobacco out of the fear that tobacco would "corrupt" the "German germ plasm".^[34] Nazi anti-tobacco activists often tried to depict tobacco as a "vice" of the "degenerate" Africans.^[32]

[edit] Antisemitism in the anti-tobacco campaign

The Nazis often equated the Jews with the harmful effects of tobacco. The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Germany announced that smoking was an unhealthy vice spread by the Jews.^[34] Johann von Leers, editor of the Nordische Welt, during the opening ceremony of the Institute for Tobacco Hazards Research in 1941, proclaimed that "Jewish capitalism" was responsible for the spread of tobacco use across Europe. He said that the first tobacco on German soil was brought by the Jews and that they controlled the tobacco industry in Amsterdam, which was the principal European entry point of Nicotiana.^[35]

[edit] After World War II

After the collapse of the Nazi Germany at the end of World War II, American cigarette manufactures quickly entered the German market. Illegal smuggling of tobacco became prevalent,^[36] and the majority of the leaders of the Nazi anti-smoking campaign were silenced by various methods.^[6] In 1949, approximately 400 million cigarettes manufactured in the United States entered Germany illegally every month. In 1954, nearly two billion Swiss cigarettes were smuggled into Germany and Italy. As part of the Marshall Plan, the United States sent tobacco free of cost to Germany: the amount of tobacco shipped into Germany in 1948 was 24000 tons and reaching as many as 69000 tons in 1949. The Federal government of the United States spent $70 million in this scheme, to the delight of cigarette manufacturing companies in the United States, who were making a huge profit out of it.^[36] Per capita yearly cigarette consumption in post-war Germany steadily rose from 460 in 1950 to 1,523 in 1963. The present day anti-tobacco campaign in Germany has been unable to exceed the seriousness of the Nazi-era climax in the years 1939-1941 and the situation of German tobacco health research at the end of the 20th century is described by Robert N. Proctor as being "muted".^[9]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Berridge, Virginia (2007), Marketing Health: Smoking and the Discourse of Public Health in Britain, 1945-2000, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0199260303
• Bynum, William F.; Anne Hardy & Stephen Jacyna et al. (2006), The Western Medical Tradition, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521475244
• Clark, George Norman; Asa Briggs & A. M. Cooke (2005), A History of the Royal College of Physicians of London, Oxford University Press, ISBN 019925334X
• Coombs, W. Timothy & Sherry J. Holladay (2006), It's Not Just PR: Public Relations in Society, Blackwell Publishing, ISBN 140514405X
• Daunton, Martin & Matthew Hilton (2001), The Politics of Consumption: Material Culture and Citizenship in Europe and America, Berg Publishers, ISBN 1859734715
• Gilman, Sander L. & Xun Zhou (2004), Smoke: A Global History of Smoking, Reaktion Books, ISBN 1861892004
• Guenther, Irene (2004), Nazi Chic?: Fashioning Women in the Third Reich, Berg Publishers, ISBN 1859734006
• Proctor, Robert (1999), The Nazi War on Cancer, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691070512
• Szollosi-Janze, Margit (2001), Science in the Third Reich, Berg Publishers, ISBN 1859734219
• Tillman, Barrett (2004), Brassey's D-Day Encyclopedia: The Normandy Invasion A-Z, Potomac Books Inc., ISBN 1574887602
• Uekoetter, Frank (2006), The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521848199
• Young, T. Kue (2005), Population Health: Concepts and Methods, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195158547

[edit] Further reading

• Brooks, Alexander. "Guest Column: Forward to the Past", The Daily Californian, 1996-01-19. 
• N. Proctor, Robert (1999). "Why did the Nazis have the world's most aggressive anti-cancer campaign?". Endeavour 23 (2): 76-79. 
• Doll, Richard (2001). "Commentary: Lung cancer and tobacco consumption". International Journal of Epidemiology 30: 30-31. 
• Bachinger, E. (2007). "Tobacco policies in Austria during the Third Reich". The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease 11: 1033-1037. 
• R. Nicosia, Francis & Jonathan Huener (2002), Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany, Berghahn Books, ISBN 1571813861