Expats, North Americans in particular, are generally shocked by the German love of cigarettes, and find themselves yearning for the good old days in their healthy-lunged homeland, as they anxiously check their expat health insurance policies for passive smoking clauses.

The German fondness for tobacco products is one of the great contradictions of this nation otherwise obsessed with health and the environment. They may buy pricey eco-friendly food at the organic supermarket and fret over acid rain destroying their beloved forests, but when it comes to local air pollution Germans seem to have a curious blind spot.

Perhaps unsurprisingly in a country where beer is considered a soft drink, around 34 percent of German adults smoke. Around one quarter of adolescents partake, in contrast to the eight percent of clean-living Californian teenagers who smoke. (Ten minutes in the company of any group of German teenagers will however convince you that the real figure is nearer four quarters.)

The attraction of smoking becomes clear once you have been exposed to a bit of German media. In trendy young German films, smoking is a convenient visual shorthand for sophistication, attractiveness and general coolness. Visit the German section of your local DVD store and see how many covers you can spot where cigarettes are pressed seductively between luscious female lips.

Such attitudes are reinforced by German cigarette ads, which to the foreign eye look like something from the nicotine-loving 1950s. While British cigarette advertisements are expressly forbidden from glamorising smoking, German ads are clear in their message that smoking is big and clever and makes you more attractive to the opposite sex--no chainsaws and slashed silk here.

Cigarette company West has long had the most blatantly manipulative advertising, with a long-running series of ads showing attractive (often bare-breasted) women flirting with men as cigarettes dangle from their manicured fingers. Advertising from other companies such as former GDR brands Cabinet and F6 show groups of beautiful young people hanging out and cementing their fashionable friendships through smoking, with the subtext that only party poopers do not partake.

Just in case the message from these ads wasn't clear enough, tobacco companies have other subtle means of persuasion at their disposal. Marlboro sponsors club nights in Germany with top-name DJs, while Gauloise puts on rock concerts. Patrons of fashionable bars may find themselves accosted by good-looking young people dressed in cigarette company livery, who dispense free packets with the altruistic benevolence of AIDS activists handing out condoms.

Not that German bar patrons have much need of extra smoking materials. As a rough rule of thumb, the fashionability of any given establishment is inversely proportional to the air quality. Visitors to hip hangouts such as Berlin's Klub der Republik will find the air so thick that they need to swim to the bar, provided their heart does not fail on the way.

Weak-lunged abstainers who foolhardily try to open a window will find themselves on the receiving end of the collective wrath of their puffing peers. Smoking may be considered relatively harmless, but Germans' have a congenital fear of draughts--just try opening a window on public transport and see how long it takes before someone hisses 'es zieht!'--which are alleged to cause ailments peculiar to Germany such as the mysterious Kreislaufstoerungen (circulation disorders).

So why do Germans smoke so much? One explanation could be self-interest on the part of the government, which made EUR 14 billion from tobacco taxes last year. This could be the reason the government is opting for self-regulation for bars and restaurants, rather than bans as in puritanical Ireland and Scotland.

Meanwhile finance minister Hans Eichel is doing his best to keep people puffing by resisting attempts to raise tobacco tax. After all, cash-strapped Germany needs all the fiscal revenues it can get, and (given that smoking is proportionally more common among those out of work) a few dead smokers can only help bring down the inconveniently-high unemployment figures.

But the real reason could be the eternal millstone around Germany's neck, the Third Reich. Hitler was a fanatical anti-smoker and tobacco was condemned as a 'genetic poison' endangering the Aryan race. With that kind of anti-tobacco activist haunting the collective memory, it's no wonder that Germans are keen to be seen as tolerant of smokers, even if the logic is a bit faulty--Hitler may have been a vegetarian but that doesn't mean liberals should eat as much meat as they can.

There is light at the end of the reeky tunnel, however. 'Rauchfrei' (smoke-free) parties are becoming more popular, and are often organised, strangely enough, by the kind of left-leaning groups who are usually first to reach for their rolling papers. This could be the vanguard of a whole-new oxygen-rich way of life for Germans. But don't hold your breath.

April 2005

[Copyright Expatica 2005]

Subject: Inside Track, smoking