Knowledge on how to help patients to stop smoking is poor in Germany. We designed a digital educational unit to promote current national guidelines as a mandatory part of internal education. We have reached about 63% of all employees (doctors, nurses, medical experts, N=6114) within the first 6 months after launching. Only 2% (n=119) used an option to comment on this unit; we have used qualitative data analysis to find out about the 50% who gave positive emotional feedback. About 20% criticized the irrelevance of the topic for their job and expressed their anger: ‘This is going much too far, this content should not be part of this online program, this is part of a postgraduate education for physicians and should not be compulsory, just keep it to the legal commitments – what will be next – a swimming course?!’. Digital units are helpful in delivering specific knowledge, but emotional roadblocks to transfer theory into practice need to be considered.