Jonathan Lewy. Substance Use & Misuse. Volume 41, Issue 8. 2006.
Introduction
We do not forget that the National Socialist revolution was simultaneously a biological revolution! The thoughts of the individual beget the thoughts of the community, and the thoughts of the community are connected with the state. Indeed, one can say that they are identical.
So Hans Reiter of the Health Ministry stated before the opening of the Institute for Tobacco Research at the Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena on 4 April 1941. Reiter’s individual was primarily a biological organism whose ancestry determined his characteristics; to defend the biological development of the community, the state, and the race, one had to prevent individuals with hereditary defects from spreading their seed onto what was perceived as the healthy German public. The fear was that the defects would find their way into the next generation. As a result, research on tobacco was important to determine whether it caused hereditary defects and was the prime objective of the Institute in Jena.
Biology, heritage, genes, and the betterment of posterity fascinated the Nazis. National Socialism was in many ways a utopian movement whose goal was to improve the “superior race” by using a biological measuring rod to determine who is worthy and who is not; they wanted to make their world a better place by removing undesirable elements. The movement brought with it a long list of health activists and others who desired to improve the public’s health. It was in an essence a movement of young people, composed of idealists and optimists who thought they could change the world. Their goals might have been lofty, but their methods were brutal, ruthless, and murderous. Yet, one must remember that they were not the only ones who sought to improve the human race, but they were the only ones who tried to do so on a grand scale unheard of before or ever since.
The deeper the researcher explores the Nazi ideology, the more contradictory he finds it. It is almost safe to say that no two Nazi scientists shared the same opinion on how National Socialism affected science and how science affected their ideology. The more opinions the researcher finds, the less coherent will the National Socialist Worldview appear to be, but it exists nonetheless. In spite of these difficulties, the purpose of this study is to isolate two seemingly unimportant Nazi policies on psychoactive substances and extrapolate about the Nazi ideology from its enforcement. To accomplish this goal, the study is divided into three major parts: one on alcohol, another on alcoholism, and the last on tobacco.
Alcohol in the Third Reich
Accounts of physicians drinking alcohol while conducting the infamous selections of who was to be killed immediately and who was to become part of slave labor, only to be “selected” later on in Auschwitz, are abundant, but the testimonies of the physicians reflect ad hoc local arrangements rather than a policy orchestrated from above in one of the halls of administration of Berlin. Such a policy simply did not exist. Nonetheless, claims that the Nazi regime purposefully used psychoactive substances to alleviate the moral objections of soldiers to enable them to perpetrate atrocities persist to this day. Surprisingly, such claims of drugs used to induce social control are as old as the war itself. On 5 February 1941 the Stuttgarter Neues Tageblatt reported that Reuters published an article blaming Germany for sedating the Poles with opium in the same manner the Japanese were drugging the Chinese in Shanghai. In response, the German press recounted the opium problem in India and China and reminded the readers how England benefited from the trade in the 19th century.
In 1944, Reuters reported that English authorities arrested 35 suspects of Swiss and German nationality in Cairo. It was estimated that the German ring had trafficked 50,000 Pounds Sterling worth of opium from Turkey to Egypt with the purpose of corrupting the free world and weakening public morals. German analysts at the Foreign Ministry refuted the accusation by noting that England deported all Germans from the Middle East in 1939 and those who lived in the region were either Jews or Germans who had fled the Reich in 1933. Thus the Nazi conclusion was typical; Communists, Jews, or Social Democrats were responsible for the ring but certainly not real Germans.
Each side blamed the other for utilizing psychoactive substances in social control. The purpose was to blacken the reputation of the enemy by adding an evil twist to their conquests. But in spite of such idle claims, no proof was ever found to support the propaganda. Handing troops cigarettes and alcohol in the field is the closest thing that comes near to psychoactive substance-induced social control; however, suggesting that such morale boosters were more sinister than they appeared requires more proof, especially since all armies used and still use similar boosters to some degree. The history of soldiers smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol is almost as old as the existence of the substances themselves.
Before one considers the employment of alcohol in social control, one must first understand the National Socialist stance toward alcohol and alcoholism. Alcohol prohibitionists began their activities in Europe and America in the late 19th century. Some youth organizations, such as the nature-loving Wandervogel and other nationalistic movements, frowned upon alcohol consumption, and many physicians warned the public about the negative effects of alcohol overindulgence. Prohibitionists scored some successes in the United States, Scandinavia, and other countries that imposed control measures on alcohol but not in Germany. Yet, despite the economic importance and popularity of alcohol, the National Socialists began a campaign against alcohol and alcoholism. On 31 March 1926 the Voelkischer Beobachter published an article that read: “The struggle against alcohol, however, became an unquestionable and an undeniable moral national calling (Voelkermission).” The National Socialist Party voiced its opinion early and contrary to public opinion as construed from the widespread demand.
The German antitobacco journal Reine Luft published a caricature in 1939, which expresses the National Socialist attitude toward alcohol. Under the title: “Two men—two worldviews” (Zwei Maenner-zwei Weltanschauungen), the caricature portrays the depraved fat and bald man sitting idle behind a window and drinking a Mass of beer, while the young, healthy, and strong brown-shirt marches purposefully on at the front. The decadent fat man, whose drink paralyzes him, is certainly not part of the new German worldview and has no place in the future of the German Reich. In fact, he is synonymous to the decadence that spread into German society, which the Nazis swore to change.
Nevertheless, alcohol remained popular in Germany, and the alcohol industry played so great a role that it is not surprising that the prohibitionists’ call was only partially heeded. In 1933, over a 100,000 workers were employed in the alcohol manufacturing industry, or 2.2% of the German workforce. In addition there were the enormous number of workers who were employed in hotels, restaurants, and pubs, which distributed alcohol and in some cases were fiscally dependant on it. Alcohol consumption rose and fell with the economic situation of the Reich. Before the outbreak of the First World War;
The importance of beer among consumption goods in Germany may be judged from these figures of consumption per capita. German beer consumption reached its highest level with 118 liters in 1909, decreasing slightly to 102 liters in 1913. … The consumption fell sharply to about 39 liters in 1918. With 718 million marks the brewing industry occupied the second place in the capital stock league in 1913-1914, leaving such industrial sectors as metals and coal behind and having only machine building with eleven hundred and eighteen million marks as the front runner.
After the war, consumption steadily rose. One estimate showed that 6.7% of an individual’s salary was spent on alcohol in 1935. Other estimates were higher. In 1933-1934, Germans spent four billion Reich Marks on alcohol, 65 Reich Marks per capita, or 9% of Germany’s national income. thirteen and a half million bottles of Sekt (German Champagne) were consumed in 1936, the same number as before the beginning of the First World War. These figures may have been behind the conclusions of the Study Group for Combating Drugs (Arbeitsgemeinschaft fuer Rauschgiftbekaempfung) to the Ministry of Interior in 1939 to ban the sale of spirits on paydays and to minimize the number of stores where alcohol was sold. None of these measures saw the light of day.
Not only the Nazi party opposed alcohol, but also physicians expressed their disdain for the drink. In articles published in Deutsches Aerzteblatt, the official gazette of the physicians’ professional union and chamber, warnings against alcohol were raised. Its danger was equated with that of other addictive drugs (Rauschgiften or Genussgiften). According to one article, mild drunkenness could have physical effects such as manual awkwardness; hence “alcohol poisoning” caused about 60% of car accidents. Some figures, such as Dr. Guenther Hecht of the Racial Political Office of the Nazi Party (Rassenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP), even linked the dangers of alcohol to the race policies of the Third Reich, claiming that the lack of self control of the “oriental people” led to the ban on alcohol in Islam, but instead the people of the East smoked hashish. The Jews were alcohol free but used cocaine or morphine to calm their nerves instead. The Aryan race had no historical need for narcotics; its bane lay in alcohol, whose market was controlled by Jews. Alcohol was also a threat to youths and children who drank it, because the habit endangered family values and resulted in illegitimate liaisons between the sexes. However, no legal measure was taken to illegalize alcohol or to include it on the list of illegal drugs, in spite of physicians’ warnings.
Additional attempts were made to link between alcohol and habit-forming drugs. On 29 November 1940, a convention on Youths and Educators (Jugend und Erzieher) of the Reich Office against the Dangers of Alcohol and Tobacco (Reichsstelle gegen die Alkohol- und Tabakgefahren) of the Health Ministry concluded that alcohol should be designated as a drug (Genussgifte) when consumed by children. Therefore, role models and educators should avoid consuming tobacco and alcohol to set an example for the younger generation. Furthermore, the Reich Office recommended that the state would provide additional information to schools on the dangers of tobacco and alcohol. It should encourage alcohol-free drinks for youths and support “drug-free” restaurants, where smoking or drinking was forbidden. The Office suggested that cigarette machines would be banned and that advertisements that stress the enjoyment from tobacco and alcohol would be controlled. Some of these ideas were already implemented in the Police Ordinance for the Protection of Youths back in March of the same year.
In the situation report, the Security Service of the SS (Sicherheitsdienst, or SD) reported on the Hitlerjugend propaganda against alcohol and tobacco as part of the watchword of the Year of Health (Gesundheitsjahre) program of 1939. The program was well received in the Reich, especially in the centers of alcohol consumption in the Northeast, in Pomerania, and in East Prussia. The result of the program was an increase in the number of people who were arrested for drunkenness. Very little else was reported. Even in the SD reports, the line between luxury goods and foodstuffs was unclear. On 13 December 1939 the SD drew a list of consumer goods the public expected to have available during the war. Of note, beer and chocolate were included as foodstuffs and not luxury items. Thus the population deemed beer as important as other nutrients. It appears as if the public kept its taste for alcohol in spite of Nazi propaganda. Alcohol was never banned in Germany, and during the war it was a highly valuable commodity rationed by the state.
The Fuehrer was a vegetarian. He did not smoke or drink alcohol. Every German knew that. The role model had been set, but no coercive measures were used to force the public to follow his example; meat, tobacco, and alcohol remained legal in the Third Reich. No one dared upset the public by banning these goods. In addition, little had the public known that on rare occasions, when health permitted, Hitler allowed himself a sip. Other eminent personas of the Reich were often spotted drunk in bars, as in the case of the chief of the Main Office of Reich Security (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA), Reinhard Heydrich. The only leader who truly abstained from alcohol and despised it was the aesthetic Heinrich Himmler. One thing is certain. The German public as a whole never abstained, in spite of the National Socialist proclaimed goals.
Defending the Race from Alcoholism
Most people would probably identify alcoholism as being a byproduct of alcohol overindulgence. If alcohol was so popular and the regime dared not proscribe it, how were alcoholics treated? The answer lies in how the National Socialists treated antisocial behavior. For practical administrative purposes, a clear definition of antisocial behavior was required. However, German vocabulary during the National Socialist period was characterized by the use of euphemisms and words, “whose meanings were utterly twisted out of shape and at times turned on their head.” Heydrich, as the chief administrator of German police, believed that an effective administration could not function without clear definitions; therefore, he circulated a bill proposal in 1941 that would clarify the situation. The proposal codified the term antisocial behavior and gave extreme enforcement authority to the police. A modified proposal was resubmitted on 19 March 1942 but was rejected again, this time raising a strong opposition within the cabinet: Hans Frank, the General Governor of Poland; Konstantin von Neurath, the former Foreign Minister; Johannes Popitz, the Finance Minister of Prussia; Otto Thierack, the Minister of Justice; and Goering actively scuttled the second proposal. Some even claim that Hitler himself opposed the law because he believed the German people would not stomach the new legislation.
Contrary to popular belief, the Nazis did not have a clear legal definition for antisocial people, Suffice it to say the term remained ambiguous. It was used by Nazis ideologues to define anyone who did not act according to what they thought was a “good citizen,” someone who avoided what was understood to be one’s proper social responsibilities. Antisocials were usually ascribed to have weak character, loose morals, and poor working habits. However, the lack of proper legal definition of antisocial behavior forced the police to hunt them down using existing laws, an action that caused many irregularities and contradictions. But for practical purpose, the historian can claim that only those who were persecuted were considered to be antisocial.
Although contemporary scholars could not agree on a clear definition, studies proving that antisocial behavior was hereditary were conducted in France, England, and Germany and were supported by many, not excepting quite a few National Socialists. The sterilization of antisocials whether forced or voluntary was discussed before the National Socialist takeover of power and had many proponents since the end of the 19th century both in Germany and abroad. The United States and other countries conducted such sterilization programs in the 1920s before Germany, because no political party dared to change the German law prohibiting sterilization.
The question of the sterilization law was raised again with the Nazi takeover of power. The Fulda Bishop Conference of May 1933 objected to a draft of the law providing the voluntary sterilization of antisocials. This marked the continual resistance of the church toward the draconic measures offered by the National Socialists. The physician Dr. Leonard Conti of the health department of the Prussian Ministry of Interior and the physician Dr. Arthur Guett, the ministerial director of the health division at the Ministry of Interior and Conti’s predecessor, wrote the draft of the law and offered it to Hitler. On 14 July 1933 in the same cabinet session that approved the Concordat with the Vatican, the government approved the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring.” But to avoid jeopardizing the agreement, the publication of the decree was postponed until July 25. Guett, the psychiatrist Dr. Ernst Ruedin, a director at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut for genealogy and demography, and the jurist Dr. Falk Ruttke of the Ministry of Interior wrote the commentary on the law, which was mandatory for physicians according to an order by Gerhard Wagner in 1934, the leader of the Nazi physicians’ league and yet another predecessor of Conti.
Ruedin already suggested a similar proposal to sterilize incurable alcoholics at the Ninth International Congress to Combat Alcoholism in 1903 but was refuted. Hitler, this time, accepted the proposal. The cabinet, due to Hitler’s popularity and the intensification of the Fuehrer’s cult, approved the law, in spite of the Vice-Chancellor’s, Franz von Papen, ill-feelings toward the law and its possible ramifications for the relationship with the Catholic church. The law fitted the National Socialist scientific worldview like a glove, asserting that all diseases could be cured by scientific means. This latter idea was not in a sense Nazi, but conveyed the spirit of science of the time, which was implemented by the Nazis.
The second section of the first paragraph of the law categorized “hereditary disease” as mental illness from birth, schizophrenia, manic depression, hereditary epilepsy, hereditary Huntington’s chorea, hereditary blindness, and serious hereditary physical deformities. In a separate section of the paragraph the law read: “Furthermore, whoever suffers from severe alcoholism, can be sterilized.” Although the law was proposed to be eugenic rather than castigatory, some claimed that it would also reduce antisocial behavior, because there was a strong belief that biological defects manifested socially; especially in repetitive criminality. Drug addicts, however, were not listed as those who suffered from hereditary disease. Apparently, the addicts were not suspected of being a biological threat. Instead, they were treated according to different regulations.
According to the sterilization law, anyone who suffered from the listed diseases was to be sterilized, if it was determined with high probability by medical or scientific experience that the offspring would suffer from the hereditary disease as well. Any state-employed (beamteter) physician was allowed to sterilize in a hospital, sanatorium (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt), or in prison. The regional Court for Hereditary Health (Erbgesundheitsgericht)—a de facto physicians’ committee—evaluated each case and decided whether the “patient” was to be sterilized or not. It was the duty of physicians in private practices to report anyone they suspected for having a hereditary disease to the regional authorities or else they could be fined with 150 Reich Marks. Some 1,700 of such committees were created at the cost of 14 million Reich Marks. The goal was clear: To battle a biological defect, one must stop it from spreading in the following generation. “Whoever is not bodily and spiritually healthy and worthy, shall not have the right to pass on the suffering in the body of his children,” Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, and some 350,000 individuals fell victim to the forced sterilization, of which an unknown number were alcoholics. However, alcoholism was the fourth most popular ground for sterilization in three separated reports conducted in 1934: 5% of 6,052 men, 0.5% of 6,032 women, 6.8% of 325 men and women—in all about 327 sterilized alcoholics out of 12,409 victims.
A different picture precipitated in other regions of the Reich. In a speech before the German Union against Alcoholism (Deutcher Verein gegen den Alkoholismus) in 1935, Gerhart Feuerstein, the head of the Study Group for Combating Drugs, stated that the National Socialist state must take care of its citizens against drugs as part of its many new medical undertakings. By April 1935, for example, 1364 biologically defective persons were sterilized in Hamburg. Five hundred sixty-one (or 41%) of these were severe alcoholics. Drugs, according to Feuerstein’s speech in 1935, damage the body and soul. Cleaning the population from drugs should be part of the social hygiene program of the state. Interestingly, Feuerstein used the term “social hygiene” instead of racial—-or biological—-hygiene, in spite of the fact that in 1935 only a biological program existed. The statement might have occurred due to confusion between the two or, more likely, due to Feuerstein’s desire to broaden the biological program to social matters, hence increasing the importance of his study group.
Feuerstein, like other professionals, tied together alcoholism and narcotic use, claiming that characteristics displayed by one existed in the other. Therefore he called both substances Rauschgift (stupefying poison). He traced a link between Rauschgift users and addicts to the amount of children they bear and their cost to the public purse. Therefore, the problem had to be eradicated. Thus he questioned whether the various treatment sanatoria were effective. Once a soul was lost to the vile Rauschgift, not much could be done. Control was another goal Feuerstein vied for. The very fact that alcohol was accessible to all made the eradication impossible; hence, alcohol should be controlled like any other drug. Success in the struggle against drugs lay with education. Teaching the masses about the dangers of alcohol and drugs before the possible addict would touch the substances, therefore preventing the vice to occur before it began. Some education programs were created, but other than that Feuerstein’s plans, as were depicted in his speech, were never implemented by the regime.
On 28 September 1934 Dr. Frey of the health department of the Berlin government published a warning in which he chastised the local authorities of Berlin for publishing the number of men and women who were sterilized. He reminded the authorities that such information should be kept confidential. The regime tried to hide the scope of the sterilization process. From the lists that survived the war, drug users were not mentioned among those who were sterilized. In fact, the file concerning hereditary diseases in the Berlin Landesarchiv ignored their existence completely, even though four sanatoria existed in the region, which handled cases of sterilization. These four institutions had a rehabilitation program for alcoholics, who were not deemed to have a biological defect and so could be saved by a “social” program. The program, presumably, was not intended for the severe alcoholics.
By 1939, the sterilization process slowed down, and only 5% of all sterilization occurred after that date, either due to lack of qualifying cases, internal changes within the committees, the war, or legal changes. For example, on 20 March 1940 the health office of Berlin-Steglitz reported to the Main health office that because of the war and cutbacks, the local office was reducing its activity in reviewing pharmacists, far away schools, alcoholics, and drug addicts. However, the office would continue its activities concerning children and hereditary diseases. The source does not explain the discrepancy why alcoholism was singled out of the other hereditary diseases.
The question of severe alcoholism and other biological diseases continued to pester the authorities. In report number 51, dated 9 February 1940, the SD reviewed the drug-fighting program of the Wehrmacht during the war. It was concerned with the possibility that new alcoholic recruits would enter the military; therefore, a program was being developed to battle this danger. Furthermore, the SD raised the possibility that alcoholics, who did not manage to receive wedding certificates because of their habit, might try to enlist into the army and as soldiers try to get married, because their medical record was not present.
The SD expressed its fear that “severe” alcoholics could circumvent the law on the health of married couples (Ehegesundheitsgesetz), which forbade the marriage of hereditary diseased persons, as defined by the law of 1933. A similar concern was reflected in the criminal statistics of the SS courts in 1943. Of 16,567 cases, 359 persons were convicted for drunkenness; one was jailed for a period between 5 and 10 years. Four were sentenced for up to 5 years in jail, and the rest were arrested for a period of less than a year. Only 32 of the convicted drunkards received light disciplinary penalties. In conclusion, the Nazis tolerated alcohol; drunkenness was frowned upon, and alcoholism was treated by force.
Tobacco in the Third Reich
The fact that Hitler abstained from smoking and alcohol in his later years as a politician does not necessarily prove he had a specific policy against tobacco, especially in the military. It is true that the German cigarette rations were lower than those of the Americans, but they may simply have had better things to invest in other than cigarettes in 1942. They certainly did not have the luxury of providing soldiers with 30 cigarettes a day like the Americans. A program against tobacco existed in Germany, but it was directed at women and children, not at male adults and certainly not at soldiers. According to Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s personal secretaries and an avid smoker, the Fuehrer forbade smoking during meetings that he attended. This ban was only relaxed on 24 April 1945 when relations became informal in the bunker under scorched Berlin. At any rate, the Fuehrer’s disdain for smoking could not have been too severe, since even Eva Braun occasionally smoked, as did other important figures of the Reich such as Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering, who even smoked in public.
If the National Socialists had the inclination to proscribe tobacco, they could have relied on historical precedents. In the 17th century smoking bans were enacted in various German principalities with various degrees of severity, which even reached the death penalty in Lueneberg. On 18 October 1758 the King of Prussia barred the smoking of tobacco in flammable areas. Other European countries also prohibited tobacco use during the 17th and 18th centuries, but to no avail. Their reasons varied from religious convictions to resistance to foreign habits. By the “professor revolution of 1848,” most these bans were abolished. Incidentally, “Nazi philosophers would later use this coincidence to argue that liberalism spurred the uptake of corrupting vices like alcohol and tobacco.” At any rate, the fact that the Nazis did not ban tobacco does not mean they endorsed the use of the substance.
Propaganda against smoking was a result of an increase in tobacco consumption. Some 194 cigarettes were smoked per person in the German Reich in 1913; 489 cigarettes per capita were smoked in 1930, 503 cigarettes were smoked in 1933, and 609 by 1937. There was a clear rise; after the First World War, the Germans increasingly began to pollute their lungs, which may explain both the placement of Nazi propaganda on cigarette packs and the concern of the government. In 1930 the financier Otto Wagener persuaded a tobacco company to produce “Sturm” cigarettes for SA men; this was a sponsorship deal, which benefited both the business and the SA coffers. The storm troopers were encouraged to smoke only that brand and in exchange the manufacturer contributed to the brown shirts. At first, the payments were sent to the SA, but after Ernst Rhoem took over the organization, the treasurer of the Party seized the revenues. Thus Hitler’s repugnance of smoking did not stop the Party from conducting business with the tobacco industry, especially when it involved accepting money from the German tobacco magnate Reemtsma.
Smoking and drinking were one of the first issues on which the fledgling SS tried to distance itself from the rowdy SA. The elite black-shirted SS always tried to distance itself from the rough brown-shirted SA, whose image was of low class ruffians. In one of the first orders of the SS in 1925, drunkards and gossipmongers were barred from the organization. In 1927 members of the SS were instructed to stop smoking while at Party meetings. The opposition to smoking was not ideological but rather a way of maintaining an image of aloofness, organization, and discipline to contrast the SS from the bigger SA. Therefore, the National Socialist attitude toward tobacco is ambiguous. Propaganda was delivered on the covers of cigarette packs using the fact that many people smoked, but the Party also used the famous slogan Die deustche Frau raucht nicht! (The German woman does not smoke!) or, in 1939, the Hitlerjugend used Du hast die Pflicht Gesund zu sein! (It is your duty to be healthy!). At any rate, the antitobacco propaganda program seems to have succeeded to a certain extent; recent research has suggested that there are fewer cases of lung cancer among German women of the Nazi generation than elsewhere in the developed world, even though tobacco consumption grew during the first 6 years of Nazi rule and was perhaps only stopped by the Second World War. Aside from traditional propaganda, the state took over two antitobacco journals, the Reine Luft (clean air) and the Zeitschrift fuer Krebsforschung (journal for cancer research). In the former, general articles against tobacco smoking, bordering propaganda, were published, whereas in the latter scientific essays against tobacco occasionally appeared. In addition, several governmental organizations were created to study tobacco and even propose ways to limit its use.
Not only propaganda tools were used to keep the good citizens of the Reich from tobacco. Smoking was banned in the entryways and waiting rooms of factories where the danger of fire was present, and attempts were made to reduce alcohol and tobacco use by youth. On 1 November 1943 the German Ministry of Justice sent a communiqué to judges concerning the case of a 14 and a half year old who was caught by a Hitlerjugend-Fuehrer with a lit cigarette in public. An investigation revealed that the boy was a member of the organization since 1936. The boy’s teacher testified that he had never had a worse student or one with more disciplinary problems. Attempts to reform the boy had failed, including the Jugendarrest, a “working detention,” which a Hitlerjugend leader could impose on a member according to the Ordinance for the Duration of the War of 20 May 1940. The boy’s mother claimed that he was uncontrollable. He had already received detention (Freizeitarrest) in 11 different occasions for smoking. In a premilitary camp (Wehrertuechtigungslager), he had been sentenced to quarters for 3 weeks (Stubenarrest) for smoking. The Juvenile Court finally sentenced the boy to 3 weeks in a juvenile prison. The Ministry later wrote that the sentence had been especially extreme due to the boy’s problematic personality.
The legal ground for this punishment was the Police Ordinance for the Protection of Youths of 9 March 1940. This ordinance was signed by Himmler and is probably the basis for the current law for the protection of youths in both Germany and Austria. The ordinance included the following:
- Children under 18 were not to enter public areas during darkening.
- Children under 18 must have an adult escort to stay in a restaurant after 21:00.
- Children under 16 must have an escort at all times.
- Children under 18 were not allowed to drink spirits in restaurants.
- Children under 16 were not allowed to drink at all without an adult escort.
- Children under 18 were not allowed to smoke in public.
The punishment for breaking the law could be up to 3 weeks in prison and a 50 Reich Marks fine. The legal guardian of the child was liable for up to 6 weeks in prison and 160 Reich Marks for negligence. In comparison, the price of a pack of Atikah cigarettes was just 6 Pfenig, and the monthly salary of an unskilled female secretary was about 300 Reich Marks. If the mother knew the sanctions awaiting her for her son’s smoking, it would hardly be surprising that she declared she could not control her son.
Forbidding children from smoking was not a novel idea. Lewis Lewin wrote that there had been suggestions to require 3 months in jail or a fine for smoking a cigarette for those who smoke under 16 years of age in the first quarter of the 20th century. In 1917, ordinances similar to the one signed by Himmler were promulgated in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Reuss ae. L., Bremen, and the majority of Baden. Similar ordinances already existed in Sachsen-Meiningen and Alsace-Lorraine. The minimum age of prohibition varied from 16 to 18. The War loosened the discipline of children at home, of which one of the symptoms was smoking. The government tried to remedy the situation by legislation. In the Second World War, youth gangs roamed the empty streets of the cities in Germany. The government sought to restore their discipline, thus extreme measures, such as laws against jazz and smoking, were passed. Other measures were used to retain control over the youths by the Hitlerjugend and in extreme cases the security services.
The regime not only tried to prevent children from smoking but also imposed control measures on the tobacco industry and even financed research to discover the physical—and consequently social—dangers caused by tobacco. According to Gerhart Feuerstein, the head of the Study Group for Combating Drugs, the primary purpose of the Study Group was to raise public opinion against nicotine and alcohol use and propose efficient ways to combat the drug menace. The Group kept track of dangerous undertakings of the tobacco companies; for example, it reviewed the tobacco company Astra‘s claim for 450% increase in profit for their low nicotine cigarettes. Furthermore, Feuerstein said that women under 45 should not smoke to avoid sterility. It was a traditional line of the Study Group and other research institutes that tobacco should be treated like any addictive substance, like morphine and cocaine.
On the 5 and 6 April 1941, State Secretary and the Reich health leader, Dr. Conti, convened the first scientific meeting for studying the dangers of tobacco in Weimar. The meeting was opened by reading a telegram of the Fuehrer and the presentation of a 100,000 Reich Marks grant to the Institute for Tobacco Research at the Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena. Conti continued by stating that most people underestimated the dangers of tobacco and smoking. Tobacco was actually such a dangerous poison that it should be fought even more strenuously than alcohol. The next speaker, Prof. K. Astel, the head of the institute in Jena, stressed that women and children should avoid smoking at all costs; he was supported by the Dr. H. Wintz, who claimed that tobacco particularly damaged the female organism during puberty, pregnancy, and after menopause. He too claimed that smoking in early life could result in sterilization. Smoking did not only cause sterilization but also cancer; consequently, extensive research was conducted trying to find a link between the two.
The link between tobacco and cancer was perhaps what concerned the Nazis the most, and they were the first to trace lung cancer to smoking. The regime was obsessed with cancer in general, using the word for political purposes to describe social phenomena. The Jews, the antisocial, communists, and others were all cancerous to the body politic of the Reich. But the particularly negative attitude the regime took against tobacco must be understood in the broader Nazi worldview that society was influenced by the sum of individuals, who are in turn nothing but a collection of biological organism. The words of Hans Reiter, which are quoted above, explain that when a Nazi spoke of a physical cancerous tumor in an individual, he could have spoken under the same breath about cancer in society. After all, to a Nazi, society was just composed of multiple biological individuals. Thus, the possibility that tobacco was a carcinogen troubled the regime.
Some contemporary researchers, such as Fritz Lickit, even suggested that not only susceptibility to alcohol was genetic, but also that the susceptibility to tobacco and other drugs was genetic. Tobacco, nonetheless, remained legal. The regime did not nationalize the tobacco industry as it had promised, nor were adults forbidden to smoke. Although one branch of the government, the proponents of health and racial purity, sought to marginalize or eradicate the phenomenon, the other branch of government, the one that cared for public opinion and acceptance, did not wish to anger the populace. In the end, the latter prevailed and tobacco remained legal, albeit under strenuous antitobacco propaganda financed by the state, even during the war.
Conclusions
The personal beliefs of the leaders of the regime seem to have had very little bearing on the policies or ideology concerning alcohol and tobacco. The fact that Hitler refrained from tobacco and alcohol had very little to do with the policies of the Third Reich, although Goebbles did use Hitler’s abstinence in propaganda, the most famous of which being the division between the “good” young nonsmokers—Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco—and the “bad” decadent smokers—Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Naturally, Goebbels did not mention that he too was a smoker and even forbade publishing pictures of him smoking.
Tobacco and alcohol did not fit into the National Socialist worldview and aesthetics. They encompassed the posited evils of a decadent society; not only because they defied the social cleanliness that the Nazis preached, but also because the two were unhealthy. One was a carcinogen and the other was the source of a hereditary disease. In fact, one might claim that tobacco and alcohol flawed the Nazi aesthetic exactly because of the damage that these two substances caused to a living organism. However, the substances were not equally vile in the eyes of the Nazis. Alcohol was tolerated, but not alcoholics. Tobacco, on the other hand, was also tolerated, but not when smoked by the next generation. Tobacco and alcohol were very popular among the Germans. The high demand for these products prevented even from an authoritarian regime to ban these substances. Instead, the regime directed its efforts to bar these substances from the public utilizing propaganda methods, instead of castigatory ones.
The National Socialist worldview was one of betterment and improvement. To achieve this goal, the Nazis believed they ought to defend the race, nation, and state from the various nemeses, which tried to throw their unclean tentacles and progeny into the pure Aryan genes. However, some enemies were stronger than others; thus different measures were taken. Alcoholism was considered a serious nemesis; as a result the sterilization laws were enacted. Jews, Gypsies, criminals, and others were all very serious threats to National Socialism, and they were treated accordingly. However, alcohol and tobacco, which were agents of poor health, were not as serious and so they were treated with a lighter hand. After all, not every alcohol drinker turned into an alcoholic and not every smoker developed cancer. Whatever the case may be, the popularity of the two substances caused the regime to bow down before public demand and keep the ideologues at bay.