The Nazis' Forgotten Anti-Smoking Campaign

Under Nazi rule, Germany launched the first and most broadly reaching anti-smoking campaign of modern times. Smoking was discouraged in the workplace, and banned in cinemas, and in schools. Policemen and servicemen could not smoke in uniform, and it was not permitted to sell women cigarettes in cafes and other public places. Advertising tobacco products was restricted.

“Nazi officials moved aggressively in an all-out campaign against cigarette smoking in which tobacco was proclaimed ‘an enemy of the people,’” according to Proctor. Hitler frequently pointed out that he had quit smoking in 1919, and that fellow fascists Mussolini and Franco were also non-smokers, unlike Allied enemies Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt.

In true fascist fashion, warnings against smoking often featured Hitler himself, according to Proctor, with statements such as “Brother national socialist, do you know that your Fuhrer is against smoking and thinks that every German is responsible to the whole people for all his deeds and omissions, and does not have the right to damage his body with drugs?”

According to Proctor, the campaign also involved “psychological counseling, nicotine gums, methods to make cigarettes distasteful using silver nitrate mouthwash, and injections [of a chemical] that bonded with compounds in tobacco to produce a disagreeable sensation.” COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE