Rauchen Sie Nicht! Hitler's Smoke Screed
The people who brought you last week's blitzkrieg of antismoking
billboards may have an unlikely forebear: Adolf Hitler. In his
forthcoming book, "The Nazi War on Cancer" (Princeton University Press),
Penn State history professor Robert N. Proctor suggests that
Nazi researchers were the first to recognize the connection
between cancer and cigarettes. The prevailing view was that
British and American scientists established the lung-cancer link
during the early 1950s. In fact, says Proctor, "the Nazis
conducted world-class studies in this field." But their
findings, because of the abhorrent medical practices used by the
regime, were ignored. Hitler, a teetotaling vegetarian, believed
healthy living advanced the master race; Jews, Gypsies and
smokers soiled the purity of the nation. The Führer even boasted
that his kicking the habit in 1919 helped bring about the
"salvation of the German people." Hence the Allies saw the Third
Reich's campaign against smoking as the product of fascism, not
science. "It is still taboo to say anything positive about Nazi
research," says Proctor, whose earlier work exposed the
unspeakable acts of doctor-torturers like Josef Mengele.
Not that the Third Reich was averse to using nicotine to help the Nazi cause -- the Führer and his cronies continued to supply tobacco to
their troops throughout the war.