Created in 1957 as advertising for the Bremen cigarette factory Martin Brinkmann AG. It shows scenes from tobacco production, shipping and processing. The Brinkmann group was known for its tobacco imports from various countries of Asia, the Americas and Arabia and had been among the most important tobacco producers in Europe since the end of the 19th century. In the mosaic, people of colour are depicted growing and consuming tobacco. The exploitation and colonial violence that accompanied tobacco cultivation are not shown. The enslavement of people and cultivation on stolen land in the colonies were the rule. The Bremen merchant Hermann Ritter had been the owner of Martin Brinkmann AG since 1900. He was a member of the NSDAP and the SS as well as a senator in the first Bremen Senate under Nazi rule. Later, in Berlin, he even became head of the tobacco industry specialist group in the Nazi government. Bremen still honours Hermann Ritter today with a street of the same name. During the Second World War the group lost many of its overseas trade relations. Instead, it took part in the exploitation of the tobacco-growing areas in the Soviet Union occupied by the Wehrmacht as well as in the massive use of forced labour.