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Advertisement for Lux Cigarettes from Quick Magazine (1956)

As postwar German society became increasingly prosperous, foodstuffs, drinks, and tobacco were advertised more widely, and print publications such as Quick magazine played a key role in these marketing efforts. Women represented a new target group for postwar cigarette advertisements, since they had smoked very little during National Socialism. First, tobacco was in short supply between 1933 and 1945, particularly during the war, and was thus reserved mostly for soldiers; and secondly, Nazi propaganda had proclaimed that “the German woman does not smoke.” This advertisement for “Lux” cigarettes, a popular brand by the company Hamburg-Bremische Zigarettenfabrik Brinkmann AG, suggests not only that smoking was now socially acceptable for women, but also that cigarettes were just as important as fashionable clothes, hairstyle, and makeup in symbolizing the new carefree, consumption-oriented prosperity of women in postwar West German society. The advertisement reads "Take it easy with Lux" and indicates that "Lux" cigarettes were available with and without filters.

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Advertisement for Lux Cigarettes from <i>Quick</i> Magazine (1956)

© Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz