Document nmNJ6Ky2abXNDD9wzDqpnOw98

342 NOTES TO PAGES 239-43 commission was clearly a puppet project of the German tobacco industry. Some records of the commission are preserved in the Deutsche KongressZentrale, Hoover Institution Archives. 203. Aschenbrenner was obviously already nervous in March of 1939, when he wrote the German Congress Board to inquire about an upcoming meeting of the International Antitobacco League (Weltbund gegen die Tabakgefahren): preparations were underway for the International Tobacco Congress sched uled for later that year in Bremen, and Aschenbrenner wanted to make sure the pro- and antitobacco meetings did not coincide (this was to be "avoided at all costs"); see Aschenbrenner to Deutsche Kongress-Zentrale, March 10,1939, DKZ, HIA. 204. DKZ to Aschenbrenner, September 12,1941, DKZ, HLA. 205. Conti to Internationale Tabak Gesellschaft, August 26,1941, DKZ, HIA. 206. Aschenbrenner to Reichswirtschaftsministerium (hereafter RWM), Sep tember 1,1941, DKZ, HLA. 207. Aschenbrenner to RWM, September 1,1941, DKZ, HIA. Aschenbrenner claimed that an effort had been made to protest the ban, including a threat by some doctors to boycott the 1939 meeting--which Aschenbrenner cautioned against (ibid.). The threat was of little consequence, since the meeting never took place. 208. Aschenbrenner to RWM, October 4, 1941, DKZ, HIA. Aschenbrenner protested Conti's ban on the society as a violation of the "great tradition of international physicians' organizations"; see Aschenbrenner to RWM, Septem ber 9, 1941, DKZ, HIA. Bresler had authored a book with the title Tabakologia medizimlis: Literarische Studie iiber den Tabak in medizinischer Beziehung (Halle: Marhold, 1911), though a Prof. Mayer Gmelin was also sometimes called the "Nestor der Tabakforschung." 209. Aschenbrenner to Schweig, December 24,1941, DKZ, HIA. 210. Aschenbrenner to Reichsstelle, November 1,1941, DKZ, HIA. 211. See my Cancer Wars, pp. 106-10. 212. "Rauchen: Wie Gut," p. 64. 213. Reichswirtschaftsminister to Lammers, February 24, 1944, R43 11/ 1226b, BAP. 214. Charman, German Home Front, p. 53. The Reich Health Office spenta lot of time in 1943 and 1944 evaluating tobacco substitutes; see R86/4041, BAK. A list of more than a dozen legal substitutes--including lavender, thyme, thistle leaves, and lemon peels--can be found in the Reichs-Gesundheitsblatt 14 (1939): 491. Allied airplanes dropped propaganda leaflets over Germany in January of 1945, making fun of Germany's tobacco shortages and tobacco substitutes, in cluding marijuana (Hanfbldtter); German authorities wondered if this might be part of a subtle ploy to get people to try the drug and poison themselves in the process (Hudolin to Brendemuhl, January 13, 1945, R86/4041). 215. Kittel, "Hygiene des Rauchens/' p. 245. The order in question was H.Dv. 86/1 Nr. 17 of 20.6.1940. 216. Pritzkoieit, Au/ einer Woge von Gold, pp. 221-22. Allied occupation au thorities after the war lowered the tax to 60 percent, and subsequent German legislation lowered it into the 42-56 percent range. Cigarettes manufactured in NOTES TO PAGES 243-46 343 Berlin were not taxed at all, which is the main reason production in that city grew from 168 million in 1953 to 18.8 billion in 1960 (ibid.). The Social Demo cratic Party opposed postwar tobacco taxes as unfair to workers; see "Der teure Tabak," Der Sozialdemokrat, October 17,1946. 217. Kittel, "Hygiene des Rauchens," p. 245. The Russian POW figures were reportedly gathered by Prof. Arnold Loeser of Freiburg, a consulting pharma cologist for the army (ibid.). 218. Seufert, Der Feldzug, p. 31. 219. In the summer of 1946, Germany's six largest cigarette companies in the British zone of occupation were producing only 10 million cigarettes per day, compared to ten times this amount for the years prior to 1939. In 1947, 14.8 million cigarettes were being manufactured daily in the British, French, and American zones of occupation; one year later, production had still risen only to 24.3 million per day in the western zone. Contrast this with the year 1979, when West German manufacturers produced 370 million cigarettes per day. See Friedheim Merz, Die Stunde Null--Fine Sonderdokumentation (Bonn: Neuer Vorwarts, 1981), pp. 62-64. Merz estimates a ratio of illegal to legal production of cigarettes in the immediate postwar years of about two to one. This would mean a German postwar production on the order of 30 percent of prewar lev els, assuming no illegal production in prewar years. 220. Merz, Stunde Null, p. 66. 221. Richard Doll et al., "Lung Cancer Mortality and the Length of Cigarette Ends: An International Comparison," British Medical Journal 1 (1959): 322-25; Cyran, Genuss, pp. 20-21 and 34-35. 222. One can refine such estimates for later periods, when statistical data are presumably more reliable and when occupational factors may have played a lesser role in the genesis of lung cancers--making cigarettes the more exclu sive cause of the disease. The 3,958 cigarettes smoked per person in the United States in 1962, for example, yielded a male lung cancer death rate of about 72 per 100,000 in 1984, meaning that (given the above assumptions) it still takes about five or six million cigarettes to produce a lung cancer. In Germany the yield is still somewhat higher, though the gap has narrowed: 1,640 cigarettes were smoked per adult in 1960, producing a male lung cancer mortality of 42 per 100,000 in 1980, which means that it took about four million cigarettes to cause a given cancer. 223. Paul Koenig, Tabakkleitianbau (1944), 2d ed. (Hanover: M. & H. Schaper, 1946), p. 7. There were only 6,000 to 10,000 home growers in Germany prior to 1939, concentrated in the northeastern parts of Germany. Home growers were allowed to cultivate up to 50 square meters, or a maximum of 200 plants, from which 10-12 kg of dried tobacco could be produced. Up to 25 plants could be grown tax free. The same regulations were preserved by Allied authorities after the war, though the tax-exempt amount was reduced to 15 plants (ibid.). 224. Daily tobacco rations in the early war years for males included 5 ciga rettes (or 1-2 cigars) for males and half this amount for women. Rations in the later years of the war were smaller. In the early postwar years, men were allot ted between 0.9 and 1.3 cigarettes per day, while women were allotted only half this amount. See ibid., p. 63. Rations for Waffen-SS men were increased to