Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany
After the collapse of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II, American cigarette manufacturers quickly entered the German market. Illegal smuggling of tobacco became prevalent, and leaders of the Nazi anti-smoking campaign were silenced. In 1949, approximately 400  million cigarettes manufactured in the United States entered Germany illegally every month. In 1954, nearly two billion Swiss cigarettes were smuggled into Germany and Italy. As part of the Marshall Plan, the United States sent free tobacco to Germany; the amount of tobacco shipped into Germany in 1948 was 24,000 tons and was as high as 69,000  tons in 1949. The Federal government of the United States spent $70  million on this scheme, to the delight of cigarette manufacturing companies in the United States, who profited hugely. Per capita yearly cigarette consumption post-war Germany steadily rose from 460 in 1950 to 1,523 in 1963. The present-day anti-tobacco campaign in Germany has been unable to exceed the seriousness of the Nazi-era climax in the years 1939–41 and German tobacco health research at the end of the 20th century is described by Robert N. Proctor as "muted".