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On Playing the Nazi Card Tob Control: first published as 10.1136/tc.2008.026344 on 25 September 2008. Downloaded from Editorial (1959); ‘‘scare stories’’ (1959); ‘‘time-worn On playing the Nazi card and much-criticized statistical charges’’ (1959); ‘‘extreme and unwarranted con- clusions’’ (1959); ‘‘foggy thinking’’ (1962); Professor Robert N Proctor ‘‘a rehash of previously inconclusive find- ings’’ (1962); ‘‘the easy answer to a Schneider and Glantz in this issue (see tobacco taxes helped prop up the Nazi state complex problem’’ (1962); ‘‘fanciful the- page 291) chronicle the industry’s long- (more than half of all storm-trooper ories’’ (1964); ‘‘propaganda blast’’ (1964); standing efforts to characterise tobacco income, for example, was from tobacco ‘‘statistical volleyball’’ (1965); ‘‘utterly control as ‘‘Nazi’’ or ‘‘fascist’’.1 The indus- taxes).2 They never point out that while without factual support’’ (1965); ‘‘exag- try’s rant has a certain superficial plausi- Nazi authorities tried to curtail smoking, gerations and misstatements of fact’’ bility: the Nazis had one of the world’s the industry was already powerful enough (1967); ‘‘guilt by association’’ (1968); strongest anti-cancer campaigns, one cen- to resist most of these encroachments. The ‘‘‘guesses, assumptions, and suspicions’’ tral feature of which was to curtail tobacco fact is that the Nazi war on tobacco was (1968); ‘‘worse than meaningless’’ (1969); use. Hitler himself stopped smoking in never waged as effectively as, say, the ‘‘claptrap’’ (1969); ‘‘a bum rap’’ (1969); 1919, throwing his cigarettes into the destruction of the Jews. Cigarettes were ‘‘colossal blunder’’ (1970); ‘‘one of the Danube in an act of defiance he later distributed to German soldiers throughout great scientific hoaxes of our time’’ credited for helping the triumph of the war, and cigarettes were still being (1970); ‘‘claims of the anti-cigarette Nazism. The three main fascist leaders of shipped to concentration camps as late as forces’’ (1971); ‘‘repeated assertion with- Europe (Hitler, Franco and Mussolini) all the spring of 1945. Advertising bans were out conclusive proof’’ (circa 1971); ‘‘mis- eschewed tobacco, whereas Roosevelt, imposed, along with bans on smoking in information’’ (1972); ‘‘conventional Stalin and Churchill all were avid smokers.2 certain indoor spaces (notably Nazi party wisdom’’ (1974); ‘‘speculations, and con- The tobacco industry finds such facts offices), but cigarette consumption actually clusions based on speculations’’ (1978); useful, which is why the front group grew throughout the first eight years of the ‘‘weak conjectures based on questionable FOREST (Freedom Organisation for the Third Reich, until war pressures finally assumptions’’ (1979); ‘‘unproved charges, Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) once caused a decline.2 exaggerated conclusions and largely one- offered my 1988 book, Racial Hygiene: Schneider and Glantz are right to see the sided interpretations of statistical data’’ Medicine Under the Nazis, for sale as ‘‘vital’’ charge of ‘‘health fascism’’ as simply one (1979); ‘‘half the story’’ (1981); ‘‘dogmatic for understanding ‘‘the statist and patern- among many rhetorical tricks used by the conclusions’’ (1982); ‘‘Orwellian ‘Official alist world view of the Nazis’’ and ‘‘the industry to try to marginalise public health Science’,’’ ‘‘scientific malpractice’’ (1984); health fascism of contemporary anti-smok- advocacy. Arguments of this sort can, in ‘‘outrageous claims’’ (1995); ‘‘statistical 3 fact, already be found in the 1930s, when ing and ‘health’ lobbies’’. Schneider and jiggery pokery’’ (1995); ‘‘bogus statistics’’ http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/ Glantz rightly conclude that the industry’s the German tobacco industry ridiculed (1995); etc. interest in such matters has nothing to do anti-tobacco activists as ‘‘fanatic psycho- The ‘‘health fascism’’ charge posits with German history, nor with the realities paths’’,4 ‘‘ascetics’’ and ‘‘Muradistin’’,5 tobacco control as totalitarian, but it also of fascism, but rather with an opportunis- with the latter term recalling Sultan taints it as deeply antiquarian. That has tic effort to do whatever it can to keep Murad IV of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire, long been a goal of the industry, to have selling cigarettes. said to have put to death anyone caught tobacco health harms seem like ‘‘old news’’, The industry’s reductio ad Hitlerum is smoking. German tobacco manufacturers stale. Tobacco control advocates are deni- superficial, and ahistorical. The Nazis also defended themselves by setting up the grated as ‘‘modern Carry Nations in excelled at rocketry—does this mean that Tobaccalogia medicinalis and other bodies science’’,7 ascetic drudges, fuddy-duddy the Apollo mission was ballistic fascism? to sow the same kind of scientific doubt party-poopers. The explicit goal of RJ Many Nazis urged fitness and health later coughed up by Hill & Knowlton and Reynolds’s Project Breakthrough from on September 24, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. through exercise: is jogging therefore the Tobacco Institute. One interesting 1994, for example, was to launch a ‘‘mas- athletic fascism? The fact that healthful difference: Nazi health authorities recog- sive, unprecedented public relations blitz’’ or progressive policies were occasionally nised this as a sham and forced the closure tying anti-tobacco activism to 1920s-style endorsed by the Nazis does not mean they of the Tobaccalogia medicinalis soon after prohibition. The idea was to link modern are inherently fascist or oppressive. its formation.2 public health activism to this ‘‘puritanical The industry and its allies push the Nazi The health fascism charge is only part wave to infringe, to restrict and possibly to analogy, but they never probe it very far. of a much larger effort by the industry to eliminate personal freedoms’’.8 They never point out that the German marginalise tobacco prevention as prud- The target of such epithets changes cigarette industry collaborated closely with ish, puritanical, or otherwise foolish, over time, of course, and Schneider and the Nazi government (in confiscating fanatic and antiquated. In a forthcoming Glantz rightly note that the ‘‘health 6 tobacco firms in occupied territories, for book I list some of the many expressions fascism’’ charge has most often been example), or that tobacco taxes provided a used by the American industry to deni- deployed, especially in recent years, to massive source of revenue for the Nazi grate the science demonstrating tobacco counter efforts to reclaim clean air for the state. They never point out that the hazards, including: ‘‘Astounding’’, commons. One key rallying point was the ‘‘Brownshirts’’ had their own brand of ‘‘unwarranted, absurd’’ (1945); ‘‘colored epidemiological demonstration, in the cigarette—the ‘‘Sturm-Zigarette’’—or that by prejudice’’ (1945); ‘‘crude experimenta- early 1980s, of significant health harms tion’’, ‘‘mere opinion’’ (1945); ‘‘at best, from secondhand smoke. The industry Correspondence to: Professor Robert N Proctor, only suggestive’’ (1955); ‘‘nothing new’’ responded by organising a propaganda Stanford University, History Department, CA 94305, (1957); ‘‘opinions of some statisticians’’ campaign identifying smoking essentially USA; [email protected] (1957); ‘‘biased and unproved charges’’ as a form of free speech. Free flags and Tobacco Control October 2008 Vol 17 No 5 289 Editorial Tob Control: first published as 10.1136/tc.2008.026344 on 25 September 2008. Downloaded from copies of the US Bill of Rights were another planet would probably be aston- what might be possible, and where we distributed, and critics of public smoking ished by our willingness to tolerate mass might intervene. And until we broaden were identified as champions of illiberal- death on a scale exceeding any other our imagination, and the media through ism. This new libertarian alliance allowed preventable cause of death.10 The strange- which it is expressed (film! contests! the industry to attack efforts to ban ness of our present situation can be public art!), we should not be surprised smoking indoors as statist and discrimi- grasped by imagining a world in which to have the world still think of tobacco natory, and a great deal of effort went every convenience store sold lead-coated harms as ‘‘old news’’ and tobacco control into trying to identify public health children’s toys, or sacks of asbestos with as tyranny. advocacy with nanny-state puritanical graphic warning labels covering, say, one- Competing interests: I have been an expert witness paternalism. The industry also fostered third of the sack. Equally odd is the fact for plaintiffs in tobacco litigation. historical research bolstering the revisio- that virtually all tobacco control efforts Tobacco Control 2008;17:289–290. nist myth that tobacco’s critics especially are directed at preventing consumption doi:10.1136/tc.2008.026344 before the 1950s were ‘‘moralist’’ rather rather than preventing production. The than ‘‘medical’’. This was yet another industry has managed to direct most of falsification of history,9 designed to our attention onto consumer choice (or REFERENCES show both the recency of medical cri- information), leaving the means by which 1. Schneider NK, Glantz SA. ‘‘Nicotine Nazis strike tiques of smoking and the essentially cigarettes are spun forth into the world again’’: a brief analysis of the use of Nazi rhetoric in attacking tobacco control advocacy. Tob Control illiberal and antiquarian nature of unexamined, unhampered. Few people
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