History

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 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...

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