Jump to full article: DW World (Deutsche Welle) (de), 2008-08-26
Intro: A pro-smoking campaign launched in Denmark by one of the country's best-known rockstars features a notorious Nazi slogan. The country's modest Jewish community is refusing to take offense.
As frontman of Gasolin', a seminal rock band which enjoyed its heyday in the 1970s, Kim Larsen has always been one of the bad boys of Danish rock. And like any self-respecting hellraiser, he's vociferously anti-establishment.
In the best rock 'n' roll tradition, he's also a die-hard smoker. So it comes as no surprise that he doesn't like the EU's anti-smoking laws introduced in Denmark one year ago, which ban smoking in public bars and restaurants. . . .
Not the type who likes being told what to do, Larsen recently helped fund an advertising campaign revolving around the slogan "Tillykke med rygeforbudet -- Gesundheit macht frei!!!"
The first claim means "good luck with the smoking ban" in Danish, while the German slogan "health sets you free" is an obvious allusion to the Nazi slogan "Arbeit macht frei," or "work sets you free," which was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps, such as Auschwitz and Dachau.
"The people who introduced the smoking ban are health fascists," Larsen has been quoted as saying.
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