Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Woodbines for the Wounded, 1941



Ask any soldier who has known the desperation and depravation of a combat situation and they will tell you that it is often the so-called 'small things' that have the biggest effect on their morale. The dry pair of socks, the warming cup of tea or the humble cigarette.

Mindful of this, during the Second World War, the British government encouraged smokers to donate spare cigarettes to be sent onto hospitals treating wounded soldiers.

What the woman in this photograph, taken at a tobacconist shop in London, doesn't know is that her donated cigarettes were detined to be enjoyed by injured members of Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht.

The owner of this particular shop, Arnold Green, was a notorious Nazi sympathiser who spent the war years supplying German troops with tobacco and confectionery.

At the end of the war, Green was hung for treason.