For no particular reason, I was wondering about this the other day while watching some program or another on the war. Cigarette factory remained active in Germany during the war, and contemporary magazine ads during the war featured ads for tobacco products. Thus I was curious, where was this tobacco grown? Obviously it wasn't being imported. The area around Sarajevo in the Balkans used to have great tobacco (before the unpleasantness in the 90s), but would Balkan tobacco have sufficed to supply all of the continent during the war?

Sieben/Elf?

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Regards, Ron
USASA 1965/69

Interesting question. Russia, Turkey, until the war turned against the Germans? Pre-war stocks that finally ran out? I've read tobacco was in short supply after 1942.

Herman Goering had his own brand of cigars iirc. http://snyderstreasures.com/images/g...rBoxLargeO.jpg

I was surprised to read Hitler and other Nazis were against tobacco use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-to...n_Nazi_Germany

Smoke Nazis

Toward the end of the war, the Germans had "ersatz" tobacco, coffee, and a few other things. The foodstuffs tasted like ****, so I've been told. Joe

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Wisdom chases me; I'm faster

I thumbed through a couple of my books and it looks like Turkish, Egyptian (early) mostly through Italy. 4 examples were shown, one German and 3 Italian, 3 Turkish and 1 Egyptian. According to the credits, they were all picked up in North Africa. Don't know how they did it in Europe proper, but they still had access to the outside world through Vichy France until late '43. Best I could do.

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James L. "Jim" Rhiner

I believe in Donald Burgetts book, The Road to Arnhem: A Screaming Eagle in Holland he details a fight in a tobacco field. I suppose at that time Germans could have been smoking Dutch tobacco or growing their own. If you haven't read Don's books I strongly recommend you buy all of them.

Col. Hans Von Luck in his book "Panzer Commander" tells a story of capturing a British officer in Libya who was an heir to a tobacco company. The officer negotiated his release by promising a large amount of English cigarettes. The Germans were thrilled, they would have enough surplus that they would be able to trade for an array of other supplies that they badly needed. The only problem was that they did not have enough transport for the mountain of cigarettes offered. They then asked for a smaller amount. The British officer took offense that his release was brokered at such a paltry amount and he then refused to cooperate. The Germans were dismayed to have to send him to a German POW camp without a single smoke.

This was during a period of the war that Von Luck considered the last civilized war and it was largely between the desert recon units. They considered the enemy the desert and not
nations.

Great book.

The tobacco was produced from fields right beside the Rhine river and some parts in Bavaria.
Today this is rather limited, but there are still tobaco "fields" as well as plenty of hops for the beer ....

This might be of interest, a pack of 10 menthol cigerettes. I don't know if they are early or later war years, , the tax seal is swatzstika marked. Can't find my magnifying glass, but looks like "Turkischen Provenienzen" appears.

Attached Images

	German cigs 001.jpg (98.4 KB, 248 views)
	German cigs 003.jpg (101.8 KB, 259 views)

I recall reading in Von Luck's book of the time he was in a restaraunt and was approached by an elegantly dressed lady who asked him if she have the scraps abd stubs of his cigarettes, he said yes, and she produced a rather sophisticated silver container and a matching scoop-she explained that was one the few pleasures available to her. The German
military got the best of everything in WWII, the Home Front got what was left. They came up with all sorts of strange and often unpleasant substutes-"ersatz". Chicory was a frequent substitute for coffee, and I'm sure they confiscated all available stock of Russian
"makhorka" tobacco. The nicotine fiends I have known who have tried say, French Gaulois brand cigarettes said they were pretty vile.

I don't know about their tobacco but I do like the "Hops" from Germany.

I had a customer who was from East Germany and has escaped in the mid 1960's. I asked her how she crossed and her answer was, "cigarettes". She had hoarded smokes for years mostly one at a time from visitors and would carefully repackage them. When she had about
75 packs she sewed them into a raincoat and approached a East German border guard who waved her away. One year later and about 25 packs more she tried again. This time the guard told her to drop the coat and he turned his back just long enough for the woman to scamper over the barrier.
She tells her grandchildren that they owe their lives to cigarettes.

And most folks think we just learn about guns here.

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Mike
S&WCA #3065

Ich weiß eigentlich kein Deutsch, aber ich versuche ordentlich und klug zu handeln.

Two thing I know about this subject. Tobacco readily grows in colder climes. I grew up (50s & 60s) in southwestern Massachusetts where the primary agricultural product, by a large margin, was tobacco. The second thing I know is that Turkish tobacco is terrible. If I had to choose between Turkish tobacco & dried cow dung, I'd pick the dung. Oh yeah, one more thing, tobacco is a New World discovery, a part of the nightshade family.

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NRA Benefactor

All I know is this thread is eight years old.

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Jamie wants big boom

Met a Dude who flew B-24s out of Baghdad.
He said that the only US Items there were his uniforms and his B-24.
He didn't like the Brit cigarettes, food or bombs.
Half the bombs didn't explode.
The aviation gas was ok. The Brits were already refining down in S Iraq.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

I never saw this thread before, but to reply to all the speculation with the actual answer:

The bulk of the German tobacco supply traditionally came from Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey, so the coming of war did not significantly impact German access to tobacco except for cigar tobacco from overseas.

From 1941 until the retreat, the Reemstma brothers of Hamburg, by far Germany's largest purveyor of tobacco products, set up large-scale production in Russia on the Crimea, where the climate was particularly suited. A rather sordid story involving whole "tobacco villages" performing slave labor.

Of course, the tobacco supply went down with everything else as the Reich's borders shrunk in the last years of the war, just as the stress level went up. That's why (especially American) cigarettes were so much in demand as trade currency and on the black market among the civilan population as the Allies advanced and after the end of the war.

Finally, after 8 years of no sleep, I got my answer!!!!

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Thirty characters. Exactly...

What a waste, all these years! You should have just called ...

Smokin' dat terbacky.

Die Thread DIE!!

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SWCA #2306
DAV in honor of POP