Abstract
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the West German government was faced with the challenge of addressing a damaging health behaviour, smoking, in the context of an emerging late modern democracy, when the precedent for addressing that behaviour was set in the Nazi past. This paper details the two-pronged approach which the government took: seeking restrictions on cigarette advertising, whilst educating young people to adopt positive health behaviours in the face of pressure to smoke. This approach can be understood in the social and economic context of the time: an economic commitment to the social market economy worked against restrictions on the sale of cigarettes; whilst concerns about past authoritarian structures prompted the health authorities to seek novel ways of addressing smoking, emphasising choice. In a nuanced way, post-war anti-smoking strategies were a response to West Germany's National Socialist past, but more importantly, a signal of an increasingly international outlook.
Highlights
This paper details the two-pronged approach which the government took: seeking restrictions on cigarette advertising, whilst educating young people to adopt positive health behaviours in the face of pressure to smoke. This approach can be understood in the social and economic context of the time: an economic commitment to the social market economy worked against restrictions on the sale of cigarettes; whilst concerns about past authoritarian structures prompted the health authorities to seek novel ways of addressing smoking, emphasising choice
In the German case, this paper argues there was an acceptance of the health risks of smoking within the cigarette industry; the issue had been acknowledged since the Nazi period
The organisation attempted to utilise peer pressure: readers were encouraged to set up non-smokers’ clubs and to send away for a free badge that read ‘I can smoke too’, allegedly making the need to prove this superfluous.96. Describing this campaign at the Second World Conference on Smoking and Health in 1971, Dr Fritsche, President of the BZGA, explained: ‘we found that young adolescent teenagers did not trust adults ... to talk to them about smoking ... material is only accepted when we use the channels that teenagers use themselves’
Summary
In the post-war years, tobacco firms and trade organisations lobbied the new West German government in support of the re-establishment of the domestic tobacco industry in the face of the smuggling of Virginia cigarettes and international competition.31 This lobbying positioned tobacco as an important element of post-war economic and trade policy, despite lingering concerns about the health risks of smoking in the early 1950s. The Commission made a number of broader recommendations, including that the government reach an agreement with the cigarette industry about advertising; that smoking on public transport be prohibited; that sales to young people be prohibited; that filters reach minimum requirements in terms of removing nicotine and tar products; and that health education be targeted at young people These recommendations were similar to those put forward in the original report, the West German committee argued the British experience showed general health education campaigns to be largely ineffective, and efforts should focus on preventing youth smoking.. 28 October 1969, p. 20C. 78Detlef Siegfried, ‘Don’t Trust Anyone Older Than 30?’
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