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No.
1937 - 1944
Nazi Germany,
At FORCES, we have been accused many times to be out of place when comparing the
antismoking propaganda with fascism and nazism. Sometimes, outraged readers have written to
us comments like this: "Anyone that would equate Nazism with smoking bans has a screw loose!
Go shoot yourself in a bunker!" Many people believe that we are exaggerating, and one cannot
compare smoking restrictions to the Nazi environment. Perhaps these people should check their
history.
People who know us, also know that we do not have the tendency to exaggerate. To the contrary,
we try to stay as factual as possible. It is not our fault if the whole antismoking affair has become
a sinister emulation of the Nazi regime.
So we have decided to prove our case.
Here are excerpts from "Smoking and health promotion in Nazi Germany", published in the
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (1994; 48:220-223), authored by George Davey
Smith (Dept. of Public Health, University of Glasgow), Sabine A. Ströbele (Institute of Medical
Sociology, University of Hamburg), and Matthias Egger (Dept. of Social and Preventive Medicine,
Univ. of Beme).
This commentary depicts with great precision and accurate bibliographical references the
astonishing similarity of the nazi propaganda against smoking with the current propaganda of the
antismoking industry. Had we removed the refereces to the Nazis, the reader would think that this
is contemporary material.
We hope that what follows is an eye-opener for people of good conscience about what is going
on in these bleak times. The resurgence of fascism under the guise of health is not new, and we
better learn the lesson of history once and for all, or the price to pay for our ignorance will be
dear indeed.
To quote US senator Jesse Helms: "One definition of
stupidity is trying the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result."
SMOKING AND HEALTH PROMOTION IN NAZI GERMANY
From the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (1994; 48:220-223)
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While accusations about the health damaging effects of tobacco stretch back over the centuries, a particularly strong tradition of scientific investigation emerged in Weimar Germany and was developed during the Nazi period. Take, for example, the case of smoking and lung cancer.
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From the late 1920s on, Fritz Lickint published a series of detailed reviews of smoking and lung cancer trends, of ecological associations, autopsy series, experimental annual studies, and clinical reports which, he already considered in 1929, left no doubt that tobacco smoke was a major cause of lung cancer. In 1939, Franz Muller, from Cologne, performed what is generally recognised as the earliest controlled study, in which the smoking histories of 80 male lung cancer cases were compared with those of 86 ill defined control subjects. A markedly higher proportion of the former were found to be heavy smokers.
This activity occurred against a backdrop of official concern regarding the health damaging effects of smoking. Conti, the Reich Health Führer, established the "Bureau Against the Dangers of Alcohol and Tobacco" in 1939. In 1942 an "Institute for the Struggle against the dangers of Tobacco" was established at the University of Jena, under the directorship of Professor Karl Astel.
Originating from this institute in 1943 was the first formal case-control study of smoking and lung
cancer, a convincing investigation in which Schairer and Schuniger showed a sophisticated
understanding of the potential biases which could distort the findings. They included both
population and clinical control series and examined whether changes in smoking pattern
consequent upon illness could lead to artifictious results. It can now be calculated that the dose-
response association between smoking and lung cancer risk in their study is significant at the
p<= 0.0000001 level.
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The institute from which this study came was supported by 100,000 Reichmarks of Adolf Hitler's personal finances.
The investigation of the health effect of smoking was not restricted to lung cancer. The 1938 annual report of the Public Health Service (Offentliche Gesundheltsdiesnt) considered that "the nervous disorders of every sort which are being reported in increasing numbers from nearly every part of Germany are for the larger part due to excessive indulgence in tobacco and alcohol"
In 1939, Lickint's monumental 800 page study "Tabak und Organlsmus" was published by Hyppokrates Verlag, the editorship of which the censorious Kurt Klare had taken over from Erwin Liek, a doyen of Nazi medicine from the early years. This reviewed a huge body of work on the association between smoking and ill health, much of it carried out or published in Germany. In the same year, research into the effect of smoking on chromosomes was commissioned by the Reich Health Office.
Tobacco had long been considered a potential "genetic poison" by the Racial Hygiene movement in Germany, clearly the high level of concern regarding the health effects of smoking was strongly connected to the goal of general improvement of the Arian "race".
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In March 1939 there was an attendance of 15,000 at a conference on the effects of tobacco and alcohol consumption. At this meeting Hans Reiter, president of the Reich Health Office, charged all the medical societies of Germany with the responsibility for determining scientifically the degree to which tobacco caused disease. At the official opening of the Institute for the Struggle Against the Dangers of Tobacco, Reiter outlined a research agenda which should guide its work: statistical inquires, clinical research into the effects of tobacco in humans, and experimental animal research.
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The scientific research into the health effects of smoking went hand in hand with extensive health promotion activities aimed at reducing the prevalence of the habit. Popular health magazines such as Gesundes Volk (Healthy people: Journal for the Health and Entertainment of the Workforce), Volksgesundheit (People's Health), and Gesundes Leben (Healthy Life) contained warnings against the dangers of smoking. There was also a Journal Die Volksgifte (The Popular Poison) devoted to the campaign against alcohol and tobacco. General interest magazines and newspapers also drove home the message, which clearly meshed well the goals of racial hygiene: the improvement of national-biological resource of the health of the population.
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Propaganda against smoking was also disseminated by the Hitler Youth and the League of Germany Girls. In 1939, Göring issued a decree forbidding the military to smoke on the streets, on marches, and on brief off duty periods and in the summer of 1942 the Federation of German Women launched a campaign against tobacco and alcohol abuse.
Self restraint was supplemented through restaurants and cafés being forbidden to sell cigarettes to women customers. Smoking was banned - for pupils and teachers alike - in many schools. Teachers were also expected to set an example to pupils outside of schools by not smoking. In July 1943, a law was passed forbidding tobacco use in public places by anyone under 18 years of age.
Transportation, workplaces, and public buildings became targets for smoking reduction campaigns. Thus it was considered criminal negligence if drivers were involved in accidents while smoking, and in 1944 smoking was banned on trains and buses. Aside from work-related antismoking propaganda, smoking was prohibited in many individual workplaces and public buildings, including government bureaus, hospitals, and rest homes.
The advertising of tobacco products also came under strict control. Advertisement could not give the impression that smoking had any :hygienic values". Furthermore, tobacco manufacturers could not "represent the use of tobacco as a sign of manliness, nor ridicule opponents of tobacco.
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They may not make advertising appeal to women and those interested in sports, nor picture smokers at the wheel of automobiles.
In accord with much current health proclamation theory, there was considerable endorsement of the goal of smoking cessation from role models. Thus, Robert Ley, the leader of the German Labour Front, attested personally the benefits of non smoking. While many other influential figures joined this roster, the state performer in antismoking propaganda was Adolf Hitler. As one magazine put it: "brother national socialist, do you know that our Führer is against smoking and think that every German is responsible to the whole people for all his deeds and emissions, and does not have the right to damage his body with drugs?"
Brenner shows that despite the intense health promotion activity smoking continued to increase.
This was recognized at the time, and it was perhaps with
some glee that the Berlin
correspondent from the Journal of the American Medical Association -- a regular if somewhat
cynical reporter of the crusade against tobacco -- noted that cigarette consumption increased in
1938 from 609 per head to 676 per head.
The processes acting in such a case have a more general form within health promotion, which
can be termed the King Canute principle. In popular imagination (if not in mythology or fact), King
Canute sat on the beach and, in order to demonstrate the enormity of his power, told the tide to
stop coming up. His supposed failure in this enterprise is his lasting contribution to British folklore.
Health promotion, on the other hand, has learned from Canute's experiences, choosing instead
to sit on the beach while the The
statistical junk science methodology was invented by the Nazis.
Differently than the junk science statistics on tobacco,
however, the reality that today's "health movement" (and its
contempt for liberty and self-determination) is of Nazi
origins cannot be dismissed.
tide is going out and applauding. In this situation, it is then possible
to claim that the ebbing tide is a direct outcome of the applause.
Yesterday as it is today: after attacking
tobacco, the Nazis sought total social control expanding to food and
alcohol; but today's Nazis hide in white coats.
Take, for example, the celebrated North Katelia heart disease prevention programme. Initiative efforts were made to modify the coronary risk factor profile in north karelia in Finland from the early 1970s, and the success of the program was announced. As the figure shows, the declines in ischemic heart disease mortality in North Carelia were no greater than elsewhere in Finland - - it was simply that, unlike with King Canute, the proclamation that heart disease would be prevented was made just as the tide of ischemic heart disease was beginning to ebb.
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The emigrè Jewish physician and energetic campaigner against the Nazi regime, Martin Gumpert,
[..] discussed "the Führer's distaste for injurious smoking and drinking habits" which it might be
thought, would "produce beneficial results for the national economy and the national health". He
considered that the large increase in alcohol consumption and drunkness in Germany reflected
"The abstinent Hitler, who from conviction never takes a drop of alcohol, and whose movement
first emerged from the beer halls of Münich, now drives the people at whose head he stands into
fatal alcoholism."
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Yesterday
as it is today: exaggerating the power of the tobacco industry to create
a popular emotional response against it, and distract the public from scientific frauds,
taxation, and social control agendas.
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The history of smoking and health in Germany, which cannot be taken to start in the post war world with a population free of restrictions on smoking, shows the inadequacy of simple diffusion models. [...]
