Zyklon B
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 during
the Holocaust. 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).
Zyklon B was originally developed by
Fritz Haber, a German Jew who was forced to emigrate in 1933. It was first produced in World War I by TASCH (Technischer Ausschuss für Schädlingsbekämpfung, or Technical Committee for Pest Control) as a delousing agent. Out of TASCH emerged
Degesch, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung GmbH, 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.
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 used in the gas chambers).
|
Empty poison gas canisters, found by the Allies at the end of World War II |
Zyklon B was used in the concentration camps initially for
delousing to control
typhus. The chemical used in the gas chambers was deliberately made without the warning odorant.
[Van Husen, William H. Zyklon B. World War II in Europe: An Encyclopedia. 1999.]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 low levels of
Prussian Blue residue in the chambers, as found by
Fred A. Leuchter, for instance. In
1994, the Institute for Forensic Research in
Krakow, however, reexamined this claim on the grounds that formation of Prussian blue by exposure of bricks to cyanide is not a highly probable reaction (
Amoklauf gegen die Wirklichkeit. Praca zbiorowa; B. Gallanda, J. Bailer, F. Freund, T. Geisler, W. Lasek, N. Neugebauer, G. Spenn, W. Wegner; Bundesministerium fuer Unterricht und Kultur Wien, 1991). Using more sophisticated
microdiffusion techniques, they tested 22 samples from delousing chambers, alleged gas chambers, and living quarters, finding cyanide residue in both the delousing chambers and the ruins hypothesized as gas chambers, but none in the ruins of the living quarters[
1], thus supporting the identification of the gas chambers as correct. (Leuchter did not test any samples from living quarters or other
negative controls.)
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.
*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)
*
Chemistry is Not the Science - a critique of the arguments of
Holocaust deniers regarding the use of Zyklon B in gas chambers.
*
a summary of Degussa's role in the production of Zyklon B during the National Socialist era
