Document 4vx8nyZKOx9odDrkZNqYK0BkR

202 CHAPTER 6 when supplies became difficult to obtain after the mid-1930s-- owing to the souring of German-Russian relations--the substance was obtained from high-nicotine tobacco plants bred expressly for this purpose by the Reich Institute for Tobacco Research (Reichsanstalt fur Tabakforschung--an industry group).102 Anyone who doubts that tobacco companies have "manipulated" the nicotine content of cigarettes need only consult German tobacco literature, where we have countless examples of such manipulation. The proliferation of "low-nicotine" and "nicotine-free" tobacco products--often with varying levels of the intoxicant--led to ef forts to regulate advertisements and to standardize nicotine con tents. The Ordinance on Low-Nicotine and Nicotine-Free Tobacco of May 12, 1939, for example, required "low-nicotine" tobacco to contain less than 0.8 percent of the alkaloid, and nicotine-free ciga rettes no more than 0.1 .percent.103 Antitobacco activists by this time were fond of pointing out that nicotine was only one of many harmful elements of tobacco, and that low-nicotine products might actually cause smokers to increase their smoking to maintain a comfortable level of nicotine intake.104 Research was also launched to investigate the psychology and psychopharmacology of smoking. A 1940 medical thesis explored why blind people seldom smoked, and why soldiers found smok ing more pleasurable in the daylight than at night.105 A 1937 article explored the "psychopathology" of smoking, including a pur ported connection between smoking and pyromania.106 Anti tobacco journals routinely blamed fires, thefts, and even murders on the criminal perversions caused by smoking (the 1936 murder of the Viennese philosopher Moritz Schlick by a deranged smok ing student, for example).107 Dozens of preparations were available to assist people in quitting smoking, ranging from a silver nitrate mouthwash--1 part in 10,000 was said to cause tobacco to have an unpleasant taste--to a substance known as "transpulmin," injected into the bloodstream to produce a similar effect (it was said to bond with the terpenes and other aromatic compounds in tobacco, producing a disagreeable sensation). Trade name compounds such as "Analeptol" and "Nicotilon" were offered, as were tobacco sub stitutes such as chewing gums, ginger preparations, atropine, and THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST TOBACCO 203 menthol cigarettes. Hypnotism was popular, as were various forms of psychological counseling. Legal sanctions began to be put into place in 1938. The Luftwaffe banned smoking on its properties that year, and the post office did likewise. Smoking was barred in many workplaces, government offices, hospitals, and rest homes,108 and midwives were ordered not to smoke while on duty.109 "No-smoking" cars were estab lished on all German trains, with a fine of two reichsmarks to be levied upon violators.110 The NSDAP announced a ban on smoking in its offices on April 29,1939, and within a year SS chief Heinrich Himmler had announced a smoking ban for all on-duty uniformed police and SS officers.111 (The secret police were presumably still allowed to smoke while working under cover.) The Journal of the American Medical Association that year reported Hermann Goring's decree barring soldiers from smoking on the streets, on marches, and on brief off-duty periods.112 Sixty of Germany's largest cities banned smoking on streetcars in 1941, and smoking was banned in air-raid shelters--though there is evidence that some reserved sep arate rooms for smokers.113 During the war, tobacco rationing cou pons were denied to pregnant women (and to all women below the age of twenty-five or over fifty-five), while restaurants and cafes were barred from selling cigarettes to female customers-- though some of these regulations were relaxed over time.114 In July of 1943, a law was passed making it illegal for anyone under the age of eighteen to smoke in public.115 Smoking was banned on all German city trains and buses in the spring of 1944; Hitler person ally ordered the measure to protect the health of the young women serving as ticket takers.116 Some of these wartime bans, it should be noted, were designed primarily to prevent fires. That was clearly the case with the May 23, 1940, ban on smoking in fire-endangered factories, but it was also true for the May 18, 1940, police ordinance against smoking near open grain storage bins.117 Fire-sensitive workplaces were required by law to have "no-smoking" areas clearly marked, though violations were apparently so common that Heinrich Himmler ordered "police prophylactic measures" against anyone found smoking in a restricted area.118 Punishment for violators