Zyklon B
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Image:Zyklon cannister used in WW2.JPG
Zyklon B (IPA tsykloːn ˈbeː, also spelled Cyclon B) was the tradename of a cyanide-based insecticide notorious for its use by Nazi Germany to kill over one million people in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Majdanek. It consisted of hydrocyanic acid (prussic acid), a stabilizer, and a warning odorant that were impregnated onto various substrates, typically small absorbant pellets, fiber discs, or diatomaceous earth. It was stored in airtight containers; when exposed to air, the substrates evolved gaseous hydrogen cyanide (HCN).
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History and Production
Ironically, Zyklon B was originally developed by Fritz Haber, a German Jew who was forced to emigrate in 1934. It was first produced in World War I by TASCH (Technische Ausschuss fur Schädlingsbekämpfung, or Technical Committee for Pest Control) as a delousing agent. Out of TASCH emerged Degesch, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung mbH, which played a key role in the manufacturing of Zyklon B in World War II. Many German companies had a stake in Degesch, but all eventually sold their shares to the chemical giant Degussa in the early 1920's. Degussa developed the process to manufacture Zyklon B in crystals, such as it was used during World War II. To raise capital, Degussa split its controlling interest of Degesch with I.G. Farben in 1930: both companies held a 42.5% share in Degesch, with the remaining 15% held by the Th. Goldschmidt AG of Essen.
Degesch's role at this point was limited to acquiring patents and intellectual properties: it did not itself produce Zyklon B. The manufacture of Zyklon B was handled by the Dessauer Werke für Zucker and Chemische Werke, which acquired the stabilizer from I.G. Farben, the warning agent from Schering AG and the prussic acid from Dessauer Schlempe and assembled them into the final product. This company extracted it from the waste products of the sugar beet refining process. From 1943 to 1945, the Kaliwerken, from the Czech town of Kolin, also supplied prussic acid to the Dessauer Werke. When Zyklon B became used in the gas chambers, the Nazis ordered the warning agent removed, in breach of German law.
Zyklon B is still in production in Czech Republic in Kolín under the tradename Uragan D2, sold for eradicating insects and rodents.
Upon production, Zyklon B was sold by Degesch to Degussa. To cut costs, Degussa sold the marketing rights of Zyklon B to two intermediaries: the Heerdt and Linger GmbH (Heli) and Tesch and Stabenow (Tesch und Stabenow, Internationale Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung m.b.H., or Testa) of Hamburg. Both suppliers split their territory along the Elbe river, with Heli handling the clients to the West and Testa doing the same in the East.
Use on humans
The pesticide was used as a lethal chemical weapon by Nazi Germany in the gas chambers of the largest extermination camp, Auschwitz Birkenau, and also at Majdanek, one of the Operation Reinhard camps. (At the other extermination camps, engine exhaust was the used in the gas chambers).
Image:GiftgasAuschwitzMuseum.jpg
Zyklon B was used in the concentration camps initially for delousing to control typhus.
In January or February, 1940, 250 Gypsy children from Brno in the Buchenwald concentration camp were used as guinea pigs for testing the Zyklon B gas (see Proester's report ref.). On September 3, 1941, 600 Soviet POWs were gassed with Zyklon B at Auschwitz camp I; this was the first experiment with the gas at Auschwitz.
After the war, two directors of Testa were tried by a British military court and were executed for their part in supplying the chemical.
The use of the word Zyklon (German for cyclone) continues to prompt angry reactions from Jewish groups. In 2002 both Bosch Siemens Hausgeräte and Umbro were forced to withdraw from attempts to use or trademark the term for their products.
Modern Holocaust deniers assert that Zyklon B gas was not used in the gas chambers, as evidenced by the lack of Prussian Blue residue in the chambers themselves. The Institute for Forensic Research in Krakow, however, refuted this claim, finding substantial concentrations of cyanide in the buildings in 1994.[1]
Zyklon A was also used as a pesticide, with methyl cyanoformate as the active agent. Its manufacture was banned under the Treaty of Versailles as it could be an intermediate in poison gas production.
Reference
- Emil Proester, Vraždeni čs. cikanu v Buchenwaldu (The murder of Czech Gypsies in Buchenwald). Document No. UV CSPB K-135 on deposit in the Archives of the Museum of the Fighters Against Nazism, Prague. 1940. (Quoted in: Miriam Novitch, Le génocide des Tziganes sous le régime nazi (Genocide of Gypsies by the Nazi Regime), Paris, AMIF, 1968)
See also
External links
- Chemistry is Not the Science - a critique of the arguments of Holocaust deniers regarding the use of Zyklon B in gas chambers.
- [2] - a summary of Degussa's role in the production of Zyklon B during the National Socialist era.cs:Cyklon B
de:Zyklon B es:Zyklon B fi:Zyklon B fr:Zyklon B he:ציקלון בי it:Zyklon B ja:ツィクロンB nl:Zyklon B no:Zyklon B pl:Cyklon B pt:Zyklon B sk:Zyklon B sl:Zyklon B sv:Zyklon B