The Peculiar Truth about the Nazi War Against Smoking

• Nothing positive can be written about Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. The lone exception perhaps was their prescient attitudes about the connection between cigarette smoking and cancer.

• Germany around the turn of the 20th Century was known for several medical advancements. A scientist named Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895. Two years later, a German chemist named Felix Hoffmann discovered acetylsalicylic acid, and Bayer aspirin was created.

• The first government agency in the world devoted to cancer research was created in Berlin in 1900. As far back as 1928, German scientists believed there was evidence that tobacco smoke could cause cancer. American medicine wouldn’t make that claim until decades later when the Surgeon General released his warnings in 1964.

• German opposition to smoking grew nationwide during the Weimar Republic, the government in power prior to the Nazis headed by Paul von Hindenburg.

• When Hitler's Nazi Party rose to power in the 1930s, they wanted a healthy and “pure” populace as part of their aim to create a Master Race. Cancer hindered that goal.

• Long before health foods became commonplace in American food co-ops, Germans promoted eating wheat germ, whole grain bread, and soy, which they called Nazi beans. Those foods were believed to combat cancer.

• Toward the end of his life, Hitler himself became mostly vegetarian, but only because of his doctor's orders due to his poor diet.

• Unlike Winston Churchill who was a lifelong cigar aficionado, Hitler considered tobacco poisonous and never smoked. He hated that many of his closest associates smoked, and he tried to bribe them by offering gold watches to anyone who would quit. Almost none of them took him up on it.

• Aside from health reasons, the Nazis had another ulterior motive for getting people to stop using tobacco: They wanted to make more babies. The Nazis wanted population growth, and they believed smoking caused infertility.

• Germans were the first to ban smoking on public transportation. No smoking was allowed on trains or buses. The same was supposed to be true for German restaurants. The bans were rarely enforced, though. Many high-ranking Nazis smoked, even when they railed at others about the habit.

• Tobacco advertising was strictly regulated, but sales were not. Germans still smoked.

• During World War II, cigarettes were rationed, though, so citizens had limited access to them. By 1942, most of Germany’s tobacco businesses had to switch to manufacturing arms for the war instead.

• After the war, cancer rates plummeted.

• Today, however, German cigarette consumption is among the highest in Europe. Their cancer rates are higher, too.