Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany

**Nazi Germany** started a strong **anti-tobacco movement** and led the first public anti-smoking campaign in modern history.  In 1940, German scientists found a link between smoking tobacco, and lung cancer. 

Anti-tobacco movements grew in many countries from the beginning of the 20th century. But all these had little success. The only exception was Germany where it was supported by the government after the Nazis came to power. It was the most powerful anti-smoking movement in the world in the 1930s and early 1940s. The Nazi leaders opposed smoking and some of them openly said what is wrong with tobacco consumption. and was the most important of its type at that time. Adolf Hitler did not like tobacco and the Nazi reproductive policies were among the causes due to which the Nazis started their campaign against smoking. This campaign was linked with antisemitism and racism.

The Nazi anti-tobacco campaign used many methods like restrictions on smoking in public spaces, limiting tobacco advertising, restrictions on tobacco rations for women, restrictions on restaurants and coffeehouses, banning smoking in trams, buses and city trains, limiting cigarette rations in the Wehrmacht, organizing medical lectures for soldiers and increasing the tobacco tax. But smoking by military personnel declined from 1939 to 1945. This anti-smoking campaign was more powerful and serious than the anti-tobacco movement in Germany at the beginning of the 21st century.

These groups published journals advocating nonsmoking. The first such German language journal was *Der Tabakgegner* (The Tobacco Opponent), published by the Bohemian organization between 1912 and 1932. The *Deutsche Tabakgegner* (German Tobacco Opponents) was published in Dresden from 1919 to 1935, and was the second journal on this issue. The anti-tobacco organizations were also against drinking of alcohol.

## Hitler's attitude towards smoking
 encouraged his close workers to quit smoking.|thumb|329x329px]]
Adolf Hitler was a heavy smoker in his early life, smoking 25 to 40 cigarettes daily. He gave up when he realized it was a waste of money. 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 was angered when a statue of Göring showed a cigar in his mouth.

Hitler disapproved of the military personnel's freedom 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 end the use of tobacco in the military after the end of the war. Hitler personally encouraged close friends not to smoke and rewarded those who quit smoking. However, Hitler's dislike for tobacco was only one of several reasons behind the anti-smoking campaign. Martin Staemmler, an important doctor during the Third Reich, said that smoking by pregnant women resulted in a higher rate of stillbirths and miscarriages. This was supported by the well-known female racial hygienist Agnes Bluhm, in her book published in 1936. The Nazi leadership was concerned about this because they wanted German women to give birth. An article published in a German gynecology journal in 1943 stated that women smoking three or more cigarettes per day were more likely to remain childless compared to nonsmoking women.

## Research
Research and studies on tobacco's effects on the population's health were more advanced in Germany than in any other nation by the time the Nazis came to power. contrary to the popular belief that American and British scientists first discovered it in the 1950s. Nazi Germany supported epidemiological research on the harmful effects of tobacco use. Established in 1941, it was the most significant anti-tobacco institute in Nazi Germany. 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 many of the causes behind it such as 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".

Physicians in the Third Reich were aware that smoking is responsible for cardiac diseases, which were considered to be the most serious diseases resulting from smoking. The use of nicotine was sometimes considered to be responsible for increased reports of myocardial infarction in the country. In the later years of World War II, researchers considered nicotine 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." published warnings about the health consequences of smoking In June 1939, a Bureau against the Hazards of Alcohol and Tobacco was formed and the *Reichsstelle für Rauschgiftbekämpfung* (Bureau for the Struggle against Addictive Drugs) also helped in the anti-tobacco campaign. Articles advocating nonsmoking were published in the magazines *Die Genussgifte* (The Drugs for Enjoyment), *Auf der Wacht* (On the Guard) and *Reine Luft* (Clean Air). Out of these magazines, *Reine Luft* was the main journal of the Nazi anti-tobacco movement. 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. Smoking was also outlawed in schools. 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 on selling tobacco products to women were imposed on the hospitality and food retailing industry. The next step in the anti-tobacco campaign came in July 1943, when public smoking for persons under the age of 18 was outlawed. enacted on December 7, 1941, and signed by Heinrich Hunke, the President of the Advertising Council. Advertisements trying to depict smoking as harmless or as an expression of masculinity were banned. Ridiculing anti-tobacco activists was also outlawed, as was the use of advertising posters along rail tracks, in rural regions, stadiums, and racing tracks. Advertising by loudspeakers and mail was also prohibited.

Restrictions on smoking were also introduced in the Wehrmacht. Cigarette rations in the military were limited to six per soldier per day. Extra cigarettes were often 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 arranged to persuade military personnel to quit smoking. An ordinance enacted on November 3, 1941, 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.

The cigarette manufacturing companies in Germany made several attempts to weaken the anti-tobacco campaign. They made new journals and tried to show the anti-tobacco movement as "fanatic" and "unscientific".

## Association with antisemitism and racism
Apart from public health concerns, the Nazis were heavily influenced by ideology; Nazi leaders believed that it was wrong for the master race to smoke The Nazis viewed tobacco as a "genetic poison". Nazi anti-tobacco activists often tried to depict tobacco as a "vice" of the "degenerate" Africans.

## After World War II
After the collapse of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II, American cigarette manufacturers quickly entered the German market. Illegal smuggling of tobacco became prevalent, and leaders of the Nazi anti-smoking campaign were silenced. In 1949, approximately 400&nbsp; 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 free tobacco to Germany; the amount of tobacco shipped into Germany in 1948 was 24,000 tons and was as high as 69,000&nbsp; tons in 1949. The Federal government of the United States spent $70&nbsp; million on this scheme, to the delight of cigarette manufacturing companies in the United States, who profited hugely. Per capita yearly cigarette consumption 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 1939–41 and German tobacco health research at the end of the 20th century is described by Robert N. Proctor as "muted".

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