Zyklon B
Zyklon B was the tradename of a pesticide ultimately used by Nazi Germany in some Holocaust gas chambers. It consisted of a quantity of small pellets, fiber discs, or diatomaceous earth substrates which were impregnated with hydrocyanic acid (prussic acid), a stabilizer, and a warning odorant. The substrates evolved gaseous hydrogen cyanide (HCN) once removed from their airtight containers.
Use on humans
The pesticide was used as a lethal chemical weapon by Nazi Germany in the Holocaust gas chambers of the Auschwitz Birkenau and Majdanek extermination camps.
Zyklon B was used in the concentration camps initially for delousing to control typhus. In September 1941, the first experiments were performed in Auschwitz I to test the killing of humans with the poison. Zyklon B was provided by the German companies Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung GmbH) and Testa (Tesch und Stabenow, Internationale Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung m.b.h.), under license from patentholder I.G. Farben. The Nazis ordered Degesch to produce Zyklon B without the warning odorant, in breach of German law. After the war, two directors of Tesch were tried by a British military court and were executed for their part in supplying the chemical. In an example of twisted irony, Zyklon B was originally developed in the 1920s by Fritz Haber, a German Jew who was forced to emigrate in 1934.
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.
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.
External links
- Nizkor.org (http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/auschwitz/auschwitz-faq-06.html) (Auschwitz FAQ)
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Categories: Holocaust | Chemical weapons