Ban on Smoking in Germany Fought With Images of Hitler and Fascism

By Tracy Dove, Ph.D
Editor, The Russia News Service

January 2, 2008

While most of the western world is heading for a bright and smoke-free environment, France and Germany have resisted the call to crush their butts- until now. As of January 1, 2008, smoking in restaurants and bars is illegal and punishable with prohibitory fines. The French, perhaps, have it worse than the Germans, since a morning shot of espresso and a stogy were a back pillar of French culture in cafes, cinema and cuisine- and the nation is at a total loss now as to what it will replace this habit with. But it is the German smoker who has taken off the gloves in Sein Kampf against the ban on smoking in restaurants and bars. In an effort to find common ground with German non-smokers, they are claiming that the new law is nothing but a return of Nazism and have smeared the anti-smoking campaign with images of Hitler and calling it a return to fascist rule.

This tactic is by no means new to the German political scene and Germans are not running out marching or alternatively hiding the family silverware. Germany- unlike Japan- has spent the last 60+ years torturing itself for its Nazi past and there is hardly a German alive today who doesn't know the history and regrets what happened so many years ago. But the fight in Germany to keep the memory alive and to prevent fascism from ever surfacing again has fed into the political propaganda trough of opposition groups who equate harsh rules in Germany with an embryonic return of the little man with the moustache. If that wasn't enough, then there was always the threat from the "other" Germany that threatened West Germans' hard won freedom from fascism- and in this case, how fast they are allowed to drive. As evidence of such a ridiculous display of historical bravado, Germany to this day has no speed limits on many hundreds of Autobahn kilometers, and the slogan of Freie Fahrt fuer freie Buerger (open roads for free citizens) resounds loudly in the ears of most politicians whenever the federal government mulls over capping the German speedometer. Indeed, the opposition's practice of equating any proposed legislation with German extremes on the left and right has become usual, which forces the government to practice damage control from an historical standpoint to counter an opposition that truly knows its history well.

What is interesting is that Germany's ban on smoking- unlike the spurious arguments for turning the country's highways into racetracks- does actually have a connection to Germany's fascist past, and the smokers and tobacco industry have spared no costs to let this be widely known to all Germans whether they smoke or not. Since the medical evidence has abandoned the smokers' cause- as well as the rest of Europe- German smokers have turned to the great bogeyman of history: Hitler wouldn't let you smoke, either.

Adolf Hitler was a famous vegetarian, minimal drinker of alcohol and a rabid non-smoker. Accordingly, Nazi Germany pursued a cleaner and purer German race. In 1938, the Public Health Service stated 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." Smoking was prohibited in most of the party's organizations, and especially women were singled out as the Reich's potential carriers of baby Germans that smoking was not a female fashion statement.

Once the war broke out in 1939, the army moved forward to forbid its soldiers from smoking in public places. By 1943, teachers were recruited to kick the habit and set a good example for the young people before they headed off to the eastern front. The restrictions on smoking increased in severity in direct proportion to Germany's failed military campaigns; by 1944, smoking was no longer allowed on any public transportation, in work places or at any government building.

To read the memoir of Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, recently published in English as Until the Final Hour, is to get a feeling what it was like to be smoke-free with Hitler in the final days of World War II. It was usual that the Fuehrer liked a late dinner, and as allied troops closed in on the hopeless cause, Hitler's late night monologues often lasted until the morning hours. Junge recalls how Hitler's entourage was craving cigarettes and alcohol in those trying hours, and quite often they slipped out to go to the bathroom and met instead to take long drags off each others' cigarettes and steal a shot or two from a colleague's flask. The ultimate treason, perhaps, but a risk they assumed as the end drew nearer.

The smokers' campaign to keep the ashtrays full in Germany ultimately failed, but they held out long enough to put Germany at the end of the non-smoking train in Western Europe. Just like the Scientology scare and the ban on Tom Cruise, Germans are sensitive about avoiding anything that could possibly smack of fascism, and despite how real the scare is, many Germans will still sit up and listen. But the history lesson is over for German smokers; invoking memories of Hitler may help to suppress harsh rules, but this time common sense won out over abuse of history.

Tracy Dove, editor of The Russia News Service, is a Professor of History and Dean of Summer Programs for the Lessing Institute. He also teaches history at the Anglo-American College in Prague.

See all previous articles by Tracy Dove here.