Zyklon B-Agent of Death

Even in their preferred choice of mass killing, the Nazis used a poison originally designed to kill insects and other pests, and that is the clearest indication of what they thought of their victims. Zykon B was the brand name for a hydrogen cyanide-based chemical compound initially created as a pesticide and rodenticide in the early 1920s in Germany.

In this piece I want to focus more on the companies involved in making this agent of death, ironically there is a Jewish link.

Zyklon-B was developed by German chemists Walter Heerdt, Bruno Tesch, and Gerhard Peters in the early 1920s and patented in 1926. It was manufactured by two German companies: Tesch and Stabenow (which was based in Hamburg) and Degesch, a subsidiary of Degussa.

In 1930, Degussa ceded 42.5 per cent ownership of Degesch to IG Farben and 15 per cent to Th. Goldschmidt AG, in exchange for the right to market pesticide products of those two companies through Degesch. Degussa retained managerial control.

I mentioned a Jewish link earlier on, The aforementioned company Th. Goldschmidt AG, was founded by Theodor Goldschmidt. He was a German-Jewish entrepreneur and chemist.

Goldschmidt studied chemistry at the University of Berlin and then trained as a colourist, a specialist in dyeing textiles. In 1834, he converted to Protestant Christianity. On 8 December 1847, he founded a chemical factory in Berlin. In 1911, it became “Th. Goldschmidt AG”. His Grandson Theo was at the helm of the company between 1922 and 1958.

During World War II, IG Farben used thousands of forced labourers from the Auschwitz-Monowitz camp at its factory there. It was its subsidiary Degussa which produced Zyklon B, which was used to kill prisoners in gas chambers. Several Nobel prize-winning scientists also worked for the company during its history.

IG Farben was once the world’s largest chemicals company and the Allied powers ordered it dismantled after 1945. Several of IG Farben’s top executives were tried in Nuremberg and imprisoned at the time. Companies including BASF, Bayer, Agfa and Hoechst (now part of French Sanofi) were formed from the fragments of IG Farben.

The other companies are now trading under the trade name “Evonik”

In March 1946, Bruno Tesch -the chief chemist-was tried jointly with Weinbacher and Drosihn. The prosecutor was British Army Major Gerald Draper, who argued that Tesch knew the SS was using Zyklon B to systemically exterminate human beings, and had chosen to continue selling massive quantities of the gas to them. Draper’s first witness was Emil Sehm, who discussed the report he had found.

The prosecutor presented several other witnesses who backed the existence of the report:

Erna Biagini, a former secretary of the firm who had been in charge of the registry, claimed to have read, in “approximately 1942,” a travel report from Tesch which stated that Zyklon B could be used for killing human beings as well as vermin.
Anna Uenzelmann, another secretary, said that in June 1942, after dictating a travel report on returning from Berlin, a seemingly horrified Tesch told her that Zyklon B was being used to gas people.
Karl Ruehmling, who had been a bookkeeper and assistant gassing master for the firm, said that Zyklon B was sent by Tesch to Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, and Neuengamme. Auschwitz received the largest amounts of gas. According to another witness, Drosihn had once visited the camps. Afterwards, he reported to Tesch. Drosihn told his boss that he saw things “unworthy of human dignity.” However, the Zyklon B sales continued. Draper presented an affidavit from a high-ranking German government official showing that in 1943, it was common knowledge in Germany that gas was being used to kill people, albeit Zyklon B was not the only gas being used.

Walter Freud, Grandson of Sigmund Freund, was the first person to interrogate Bruno Tesch

Below is the transcript of the statement at the trial of Bruno Tesch.

STATEMENT

“By

Dr Bruno TESCH

Dr Bruno TESCH, having been duly sworn, states:–

My name is Dr Bruno TESCH, born on 14th August 1890, in Berlin, and living at HAMBURG-BLANKENESE, Wittspark 14.

In 1924 I founded, together with Mr STABENOW, the firm of TESCH & STABENOW, which, since 1927, has been under the direction of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schaedlingsbekaempfung. Our firm had the sole right to supply Cyan-Gas in the form of Zyklon B to the country east of the ELBE. On the foundation of the firm I held thirty-three and a third per cent of the shares; in 1927, sometime before the alleged suicide of my colleague, STABENOW, I acquired another eleven and two-thirds per cent, so that my share was forty-five per cent. In 1942 I acquired the remaining fifty-five per cent and was therefore, the sole proprietor of the firm.

In 1933 I joined the NSDAP and in the same year became a supporting member of the SS.

Since 1927 Mr WEINBACHER was the Prokurist of the firm. All incoming orders went through his hands, and in my absence, approximately two hundred days a year, he took over the management of the firm. Dr Joachimhans DROSIHN was the biological adviser of the firm. He, too, was travelling most of the time. Mr ZAUN was the head bookkeeper. Mr SEHM was a bookkeeper. He had no reason to wish me ill; on the contrary, he should be thankful as I once helped him in a situation.

I kept no ‘black book’ in which I recorded the misdeeds of my employees. Neither did I keep a sealed envelope about Dr DROSIHN.

I wrote very exact travel reports about my journeys, which on my return I divided evenly over my secretaries for typing. My private secretary was Miss RATOKE, but also Mrs UENZELMANN and Miss BIAGINI and the others wrote my reports.

I was never told in BERLIN at a conference, or by any other source, that Zyklon B gas should be used against human beings. I mentioned this fact in none of my travel reports and I have never spread no[r] heard such a rumour in my office.

Except for Zyklon gas, my firm also supplied a circulation plant for gas chambers of 10 cbm size. Chambers of the capacity of more than 50 cbm are not known to me, and therefore I did not know that the SS was our best customer. I also know nothing of the huge deliveries which we made to AUSCHWITZ in the years 1942-43. Since 1943 all orders of state customers went through the Haupt-sanitaetspark, BERLIN. Our firm never supplied the Wirtschafts-Verwaltungs Hauptaert (WVHA) either directly or indirectly. My accounts books were checked by Dr PLINKER and I only know the yearly and monthly general balance.

SUMMARY PRODUCTION No. 10

Of sales of ZYKLON B to Concentration Camps during 1942 and 1943, extracted from Exhibits HG and HH.

KZ Camp 1942 1943
DATE Kg RM DATE Kg RM
AUSCHWITZ 6 Feb 480.0 3,038.0 13 Jan 1,004.4 6026.0
9 Mar 516.0 3,266.0 19 Jan 1,026.0 6156.0
3 Jun 50 317.0 29 Jan 999.0 5,994.0
3 Aug 495.0 3,133.0 24 Mar 999.0 5,994.0
6 Aug 1,756.8 11,120.0 10 Mar 999.0 5,994.0
31 Aug 1,008.0 6,381.0 22 Mar 999.0 5,994.0
8 Sep 504.0 3,190.0 29 Mar 1,018.0 6,108.0
8 Oct 489.6 3,099.0 31 Jul 216.0 1,231.0
8 Oct 489.6 3,099.0 30 Apr 1,018.0 6,108.0
28 Oct 1,497.6 9,480.0 17 Aug 810.0 4,617.0
9 Dec 192.0 1,152.0 30 Aug 972.0 5,540.0
7,478.6 44,575.0 14 Sep 999.0 5,694.0
30 Nov 999.0 5,694.0
31 Dec 116.5 699.0
12,174.9 71,849.0
SACHSEN-HAUSEN 10 Feb 72.0 456.0 22 Jan 192.0 1,152.0
25 Mar 96.0 608.0 5 Feb 192.0 1,152.0
24 Apr 96.0 608.0 26 Feb 288.0 1,728.0
15 Jun 96.0 608.0 8 Mar 288.0 1,728.0
18 Jul 96.0 608.0 17 Feb 192.0 1,152.0
13 Aug 96.0 608.0 18 Mar 288.0 1,728.0
31 Aug 96.0 608.0 6 Apr 288.0 1,728.0
28 Sep 96.0 608.0 6 Jul 288.0 1,641.0
28 Oct 96.0 608.0 31 Aug 288.0 1,641.0
6 Nov 96.0 576.0 28 Sep 288.0 1,641.0
26 Nov 192.0 1,152.0 17 Dec 288.0 1,641.0
15 Dec 192.0 1,152.0 31 Dec 33.6 201.0
23 May 118.0 683.0 2913.6 17,133.0
1,438.0 8,883.0
NEUEN- GAMME 3 Mar 24.0 152.0 21 Jan 60.0 360.0
9 Jun 12.0 76.0 29 Jan 60.0 360.0
14 Aug 12.0 76.0 17 Feb 60.0 360.0
9 Sep 36.0 228.0 10 Mar 60.0 360.0
9 Nov 36.0 216.0 10 Jun 60.0 342.0
18 Dec 60.0 360.0 30 Aug 60.0 342.0
180.0 1,108.0 19 Oct 60.0 342.0
31 Dec 7.0 42.0
427.0 2,508.0
GROSS-ROSEN NIL 8 Jan 60.0 360.0
27 Feb 120.0 720.0
8 Jun 124.5 710.0
17 Sep 125.0 713.0
429.5 2503.0
LUBLIN nil 19 Jul 513.0 2,924.0
14 Sep 999.0 5,694.0
31 Dec 115.5 693.0
1,627.5 9,311.0
Signed A. ZAUN.
PRODUCTION No. 10

KZ Camp 1942 1943
DATE Kg RM DATE Kg RM
RAVENSBRUCK NIL 19 Apr 114.0 684.0
10 Jun 114.0 650.0
15 Sep 90.0 313.0
19 Oct 30.0 171.0
31 Dec 3.5 21.0
351.5 2039.0

(Signed) Alfred ZAUN

Hamburg, the 26th of October 1945

Sworn before me Capt. R.A. Nightingale Int. Corps of No. 2 War Crimes Investigation Team this twenty-eighth day of October 1945.

(Signed) R.A. Nightingale

Captain”

Tesch and Weinbacher were both found guilty and sentenced to death. They were executed by hanging on 16 May 1946, by Albert Pierrepoint in Hamelin Prison.

The companies that were set up after the war from the foundation of IG Farben, Degussa and Th. Goldschmidt AG all became multi-billion multinational companies.

On January 26, 2015, Dr Klaus Engel, the then-CEO of Evonik Industries, visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. He laid a wreath in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust.
“We bow with humility and feelings of guilt here at this Memorial for the victims of the Holocaust and we ask for forgiveness and reconciliation from those still alive, as well as from the descendants of those who suffered,” he wrote in the Memorial’s visitors book. Dr Engel also said that the values of Germany’s political system must be defended at all costs against those who would stoke the flames of xenophobia, intolerance, and violence.

It appears to me that the legacy of that agent of death is still quite profitable.

sources

https://history.evonik.com/en/predecessor-companies

https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/auschwitz-iii/ig-farben/

https://www.dw.com/en/stock-of-former-nazi-chemicals-giant-to-be-delisted/a-15327052

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/IG_Farben.html

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/holocaust/trial-bruno-tesch/

Click to access Microsoft%20Word%20-%206326.pdf

https://www.jewage.org/wiki/en/Article:Theodor_Goldschmidt_-_Biography

https://www.britannica.com/science/Zyklon-B

Two sides of the Holocaust-Innocence and Evil.

May 16 is a date which links two events in relation to the Holocaust, even though they are 15 years apart.

Hana Bradyová was born on 16 May 1931 in Prague, the daughter of Markéta (née Dubsky) and Karel Bradyová. Her family lived in Nové Město na Moravě in the Vysočina Region of Czechoslovakia.

Most people will know Hana Bradyová as Hana Brady, her story was brought to light in the book “Hana’s Suitcase” by Karen Levine.

Hana was described as a happy, active and athletic little girl who was very close to her family. Hana was just eight years old when the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia. The family’s life became restricted, and they were forced to hand over their radio and other valuables to the Nazis. Their Christian friends stopped playing with Hana and her brother George(Jiří ) , because their parents feared they would be punished for playing with Jewish children. Hana and George remained close and supported one another during this time.

In March 1941, their mother, Marketa, was assigned to a Nazi transport and taken away. Soon after, they were forced to sew yellow star badges to their clothing along with all the other Czech Jews. When one man in town refused to comply, a Nazi officer was furious and ordered the arrests of all the other Jewish men in town. Hana and George’s father Karel was arrested and taken away a few days later, and the two children were left with the family’s housekeeper.

In 1942 Hana and George were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Hana was assigned to the girls’ home in barrack L410.In 1944, Hana was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. While her brother survived by working as a laborer, Hana was sent to the gas chambers a few hours after her arrival on 23 October 1944, she was murdered aged 13. Her body was cremated with other victims in the ovens at the crematorium.

Bruno Tesch

15 years after Hana’s birth Bruno Tesch and Karl Weinbacher were executed, on May 16,1946.

Karl Weinbacher worked at Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung, which translates as German Corporation for Pest Control) until 1924, and then at Tesch & Stabenow (Testa, for short), where he received the position of manager in 1927, and by 1943 was director and deputy executive under owner and chief executive officer Bruno Tesch. Testa manufactured and sold Zyklon B, which was used control in the gas chambers of Auschwitz to murder people, including Hana Brady. Weinbacher received royalties on sales of Zyklon B.

Bruno Emil Tesch (14 August 1890 – 16 May 1946) was a German chemist and entrepreneur. Together with Gerhard Peters and Walter Heerdt, he invented Zyklon B, He was the owner of Tesch & Stabenow (called Testa), a pest control company he co-founded in 1924 with Paul Stabenow in Hamburg, Germany, which was a major supplier of Zyklon B to the Nazi concentration camps.

Below is the transcript of a statement at the trial of Bruno Tesch.

By

Dr. Bruno TESCH

Dr. Bruno TESCH, having been duly sworn, states:–

My name is Dr. Bruno TESCH, born on 14th August 1890, in Berlin, and living at HAMBURG-BLANKENESE, Wittspark 14.

In 1924 I founded, together with Mr. STABENOW, the firm of TESCH & STABENOW, which, since 1927, has been under the direction of the Deutsche Gasellschaft für Schaedlingsbekaempfung. Our firm had the sole right to supply Cyan-Gas in the form of Zyklon B to the country east of the ELBE. On the foundation of the firm I held thirty-three and a third percent of the shares; in 1927, some time before the alleged suicide of my colleague, STABENOW, I acquired another eleven and two-thirds percent, so that my share was forty-five percent. In 1942 I acquired the remaining fifty-five percent and was therefore sole proprietor of the firm.

In 1933 I joined the NSDAP and in the same year became a supporting member of the SS.

Since 1927 Mr WEINBACHER was the Prokurist of the firm. All incoming orders went through his hands, and in my absence, approximately two hundred days a year, he took over the managament [sic] of the firm. Dr. Joachimhans DROSIHN was the biological adviser of the firm. He, too, was travelling most of the time. Mr. ZAUN was the head book-keeper. Mr. SEHM was a book-keeper. He had no reason to wish me ill; on the contrary he should be thankful as I once helped him in a situation.

I kept no ‘black book’ in which I recorded the misdeeds of my employees. Neither did I keep a sealed envelope about Dr. DROSIHN.

I wrote very exact travel reports about my journeys, which on my return I divided evenly over my secretaries for typing. My private secretary was Miss RATOKE; but also Mrs. UENZELMANN and Miss BIAGINI and the others wrote my reports.

I was never told in BERLIN at a conference, or by any other source, that Zyklon B gas should be used against human beings. I mentioned this fact in none of my travel reports and I have never spread no[r] heard such a rumour in my office.

Except Zyklon gas, my firm also supplied circulation plant for gas chambers of 10 cbm size. Chambers of the capacity of more than 50 cbm are not known to me, and therefore I did not know that the SS was our best customer. I also know nothing of the huge deliveries which we made to AUSCHWITZ in the years 1942-43. Since 1943 all orders of state customers went through the Haupt-sanitaetspark, BERLIN. Our firm never supplied the Wirtschafts-Verwaltungs Hauptaert (WVHA) either directly or indirectly. My accounts books were checked by Dr. PLINKER and I only know the yearly and monthly general balance.

SUMMARY PRODUCTION No. 10

Of sales of ZYKLON B to Concentration Camps during 1942 and 1943, extracted from Exhibits HG and HH.

KZ Camp 1942 1943
DATE Kg RM DATE Kg RM
AUSCHWITZ 6 Feb 480.0 3,038.0 13 Jan 1,004.4 6026.0
9 Mar 516.0 3,266.0 19 Jan 1,026.0 6156.0
3 Jun 50 317.0 29 Jan 999.0 5,994.0
3 Aug 495.0 3,133.0 24 Mar 999.0 5,994.0
6 Aug 1,756.8 11,120.0 10 Mar 999.0 5,994.0
31 Aug 1,008.0 6,381.0 22 Mar 999.0 5,994.0
8 Sep 504.0 3,190.0 29 Mar 1,018.0 6,108.0
8 Oct 489.6 3,099.0 31 Jul 216.0 1,231.0
8 Oct 489.6 3,099.0 30 Apr 1,018.0 6,108.0
28 Oct 1,497.6 9,480.0 17 Aug 810.0 4,617.0
9 Dec 192.0 1,152.0 30 Aug 972.0 5,540.0
7,478.6 44,575.0 14 Sep 999.0 5,694.0
30 Nov 999.0 5,694.0
31 Dec 116.5 699.0
12,174.9 71,849.0
SACHSEN-HAUSEN 10 Feb 72.0 456.0 22 Jan 192.0 1,152.0
25 Mar 96.0 608.0 5 Feb 192.0 1,152.0
24 Apr 96.0 608.0 26 Feb 288.0 1,728.0
15 Jun 96.0 608.0 8 Mar 288.0 1,728.0
18 Jul 96.0 608.0 17 Feb 192.0 1,152.0
13 Aug 96.0 608.0 18 Mar 288.0 1,728.0
31 Aug 96.0 608.0 6 Apr 288.0 1,728.0
28 Sep 96.0 608.0 6 Jul 288.0 1,641.0
28 Oct 96.0 608.0 31 Aug 288.0 1,641.0
6 Nov 96.0 576.0 28 Sep 288.0 1,641.0
26 Nov 192.0 1,152.0 17 Dec 288.0 1,641.0
15 Dec 192.0 1,152.0 31 Dec 33.6 201.0
23 May 118.0 683.0 2913.6 17,133.0
1,438.0 8,883.0
NEUEN- GAMME 3 Mar 24.0 152.0 21 Jan 60.0 360.0
9 Jun 12.0 76.0 29 Jan 60.0 360.0
14 Aug 12.0 76.0 17 Feb 60.0 360.0
9 Sep 36.0 228.0 10 Mar 60.0 360.0
9 Nov 36.0 216.0 10 Jun 60.0 342.0
18 Dec 60.0 360.0 30 Aug 60.0 342.0
180.0 1,108.0 19 Oct 60.0 342.0
31 Dec 7.0 42.0
427.0 2,508.0
GROSS-ROSEN NIL 8 Jan 60.0 360.0
27 Feb 120.0 720.0
8 Jun 124.5 710.0
17 Sep 125.0 713.0
429.5 2503.0
LUBLIN nil 19 Jul 513.0 2,924.0
14 Sep 999.0 5,694.0
31 Dec 115.5 693.0
1,627.5 9,311.0
Signed A. ZAUN.
PRODUCTION No. 10

KZ Camp 1942 1943
DATE Kg RM DATE Kg RM
RAVENSBRUCK NIL 19 Apr 114.0 684.0
10 Jun 114.0 650.0
15 Sep 90.0 313.0
19 Oct 30.0 171.0
31 Dec 3.5 21.0
351.5 2039.0

(Signed) Alfred ZAUN

Hamburg, the 26th of October 1945

Sworn before me Capt. R.A. Nightingale Int. Corps of No. 2 War Crimes Investigation Team this twenty-eighth day of October 1945.

(Signed) R.A. Nightingale

Capt

sources

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/holocaust/trial-bruno-tesch/

https://www.butterfliesintheghetto.com/hana-brady-and-the-long-lost-suitcase/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-house-zyklon-b-180965184/

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Heinrich Bütefisch- virtually unpunished.

Heinrich Bütefisch- is not a well known name in the context of WWII and the Holocaust, yet he was responsible for the deaths of thousands, In addition to that he also worked for a company who had helped to develop Zyklon b, the gas used to kill millions.

The company that produced Zyklon B was Degesch -Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung(German Corporation for Pest control) which was owned for 42.5 per cent by IG Farben.

Heinrich Bütefisch was a leading manager at IG Farben, and an Obersturmbannführer in the SS.

He was placed as the head of the gasoline synthesis program to be established at the I.G. Auschwitz plant.He was places in charge  of production at the Buna werke facitory at Monowitz, sometimes referred to as Auschwitz III.

When the factory was being built Jews in the surrounding areas were removed from their homes, and the homes were given to Germans employed at the factory. Some Polish residents were also moved.

The life expectancy for Jews working at Monowitz were 3 to 4 months, and for those working in the nearby supply mines it was only 1 month.

An estimate 10,000 died at Monowitz/Buna Werke . Bütefisch claimed he was never actually present at the Monowitz concentration camp, and he only  knew the construction site only from a few visits. I doubt this was true, and even if it was he was the man in charge and ultimately was responsible for everything that happened there.

He was arrested  by the U.S. Army in 1945, and was indicted at the Nuremberg IG Farben trial in 1948. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison , including time already served.

After his early release from prison in 1951, he became a member of several supervisory boards, including Deutsche Gasolin AG, Feldmühle, and Papier- und Zellstoffwerke AG, the following year.

He also was hired as a  consultant for Ruhrchemie AG Oberhausen, and became a member of its supervisory board in 1952.

Of the 24 defendants at the IG Farben Trial, 10 were acquitted . One was removed due to medical reasons. The remaining 13 men received sentences varying form 1 to 8 years, none of them served the full term.

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I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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sources

http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/heinrich_buetefisch_18941969

https://www.chemie.de/lexikon/Heinrich_B%C3%BCtefisch.html

https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/nuremberg_photos/63/

Majdanek-Zyklon B

This picture was taken after the Death Camp Majdanek was liberated in July 1944.The Majdanek extermination camp in Lublin was liberated by Soviet troops on July 23, 1944; it was the first of many Nazi concentration camps to be liberated by the Allies.

In the foreground of the picture you can see a few dozen of empty cans. These cans had all contained Zyklon B.

Zykon B was the cyanide-based pesticide used to gas victims in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, and other death camps.

When you look at the amount of empty cans you only get a slight indication of the scale of the industrialized murder. The death toll in Majdanek was up to 150,000 of which 60,000 Jews, most of them known by name.

The 2 soldiers in the picture are soviet soldiers who are inspecting the ovens which were used to burn the bodies.

Every time when I think I can’t discover anything more about the Holocaust, I stumble on hundreds of more documents and pictures, with more information and evidence.

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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Sources

NIOD

 

 

The slow death in the Gas chambers.

There are so many myths about the gas chambers but let me dispel them. Many still say there were no Gas chambers, but in fact there were.There are eyewitness reports of those who were assigned to remove the bodies from the gas chambers. On top of that there are plenty of Nazi documents and blue prints describing how the gas chambers worked and also how the ventilation worked to clear the gas fumes.

I know there will be people who will react to this blog, trying to convince me that the Gas chambers were a myth, while it is them telling the myth of non existing gas chambers.It is actually a shame that I have to put this in the blog, but such is the situation that holocaust deniers, although it is deemed a criminal offence in many countries,  are hardly ever  prosecuted.

Another myth is one that was created by the Nazis themselves, according to them and especially this was the most humane way for the extermination. I suppose they said this to reconcile the atrocities with their conscience.

The reason why the gas chambers were the preferred way of mass murder was to lessen the burden on the SS and Wehrmacht. Prior to the gas chambers the victims were executed by firing squads, they even tried dynamite to kill Jews,ethic Polish people and others. This had become a to big of burden on the troops morale, and it just took too long and was to expensive.

It was when Karl Fritzsch started using it on Russian prisoners of war, the Nazis found the perfect weapon of mass destruction.

Some people believe that although it was horrible,at least it was reasonably painless and quick death, but nothing could be further from the truth.

There was a massive variation in relation to the time it took for people to die. It would often depend on the physical strength of a victim and the actual place they were in the gas chamber.

According to Oscar Groening during his trial, it could take sometimes more then 30 minutes for the victims to die. He also said “The brain and heart are attacked first… It begins with a stinging chest and epileptic seizures”

Those standing near the shafts where the Zyklon B was dispatched ,died almost instantly, the old, the sick and young children also died a quicker death.As did those who panicked and screamed. But for those who were reasonably healthy and stood further away from the Zyklon B, the dying could be prolonged for close to half an hour.

Later on they had to become more efficient with the gassing because of the increased transports of victims to the various death camps, the gassing had to be done in 10 minutes. I presume they used higher amounts of Zyklon b to accomplish this.

After the Gas chambers were opened ,once the gassing was finished, the bodies were retrieved they would be smeared with excrement, vomit and blood.They were transported to the various crematoria.

I know this may be a very clinical summary of the dying in the gas chambers, but that is the only way I can do it. Once emotion gets involved I actually feel physically sick. That’s why I also understand that some of you might find it hard to read this blog. But I feel it is so important to dispel the myth of the ‘easy’ death in the Gas chambers.

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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Sources

Holocaust Research Project

Zyklon B

Zyklon B:hydrogen cyanide adsorbed on or released from a carrier in the form of small tablets, used as an insecticidal fumigant.

(A fumigation team in New Orleans, 1939)

Even in their preferred choice of mass killing the Nazis used a poison which was originally designed to kill insects and other pests, and that is the clearest indication what they thought of their victims.

Hydrogen cyanide, a poisonous gas that interferes with cellular respiration, was first used as a pesticide in California in the 1880s.Research at Degesch(German Corporation for Pest control)  led to the development of Zyklon (later known as Zyklon A), a pesticide which released hydrogen cyanide upon exposure to water and heat.

It was banned after a similar product was used by Germany as a chemical weapon in World War I. In 1922, Degesch was purchased by Degussa, where a team of chemists that included Walter Heerdt  and Bruno Tesch developed a method of packaging hydrogen cyanide in sealed canisters along with a cautionary eye irritant and adsorbent stabilizers.

The new product was also named Zyklon, but it became known as Zyklon B to distinguish it from the earlier version. Uses included delousing clothing and disinfesting ships, warehouses, and trains.

During the killing process, prisoners at Auschwitz and other killing centers were forced into the air-tight chambers that had been disguised by the Nazis to look like shower rooms. The Zyklon pellets were then dumped into the chambers via special air shafts or openings in the ceiling.

The pellets would then vaporize, giving off a noticeable bitter almond odor. Upon being breathed in, the vapors combined with red blood cells, depriving the human body of vital oxygen, causing unconsciousness, and then death through oxygen starvation.It could take up to 20 minutes before the victims died.

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Karl Fritzsch- the man who first used Zyklon B.

Not many people know that the poisonous gas Zyklon B was first used on Russian Prisoners of War, long before the Nazi’s had decided on the ‘final solution’ at the Wannsee conference.

Today marks the 76th anniversary of the first mass killing by Zyklon B.

SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch (10 July 1903 – reported missing 2 May 1945), was a German SS Captain and Auschwitz concentration camp Deputy who first suggested using poisonous gas Zyklon B for the purpose of mass murder according to Rudolf Höss and experimented with the first gassings himself.

Karl Fritzsch was born in Bohemia into the family of a stove builder. His father moved constantly on work assignments, and therefore Fritzsch never received formal education. For some years he worked as labourer on river ships along Danube. His marriage in 1928 to Franziska Stich produced three children, but ended in divorce in 1942.Fritzsch joined the Nazi Party and the SS (NSDAP # 261135 SS # 7287) in 1930 at the age of 27. He became a career SS man. Almost as soon as it opened, he acquired a position at the Dachau concentration camp in 1934.

Due to his camp experience, several months after the German invasion of Poland, in May 1940 he became deputy to Rudolf Höss and the head of the economic operation of Auschwitz (Schutzhaftlagerführer). Fritzsch quickly obtained a reputation as the Auschwitz horror. He used to select prisoners to die of starvation in reprisal for the escape attempts among prisoners. Together with Höss, he was responsible for the torture death of victims locked inside standing cells in the basement of the Bunker, i.e. the Block 11 or 13 prison until they died.

On 29 July 1941, a camp count found that three prisoners were missing and Fritzsch sentenced 10 remaining prisoners to immurement(walling in). One of the condemned, Franciszek Gajowniczek, was reprieved when a fellow prisoner, the Franciscan priest Maximilian Kolbe, offered to take his place. After over 2 weeks starvation, only Kolbe remained alive and the priest was killed in the underground bunker by lethal injection. Kolbe was later canonized by Pope John Paul II.

Maximilian Kolbe: He died, doing good.

Fritzsch was also fond of psychological torture. Former Auschwitz prisoner Karol Świętorzecki recalled the first Christmas Eve behind the camp barbed wire, on 24 December 1940, was also one of the most tragic. “The Nazis set up a Christmas tree, with electric lights, on the roll-call square. Beneath it, they placed the bodies of prisoners who had died while working or frozen to death at roll call. Lagerführer Karl Fritzsch referred to the corpses beneath the tree as “a present” for the living, and forbade the singing of Polish Christmas carols.”

According to testimony of his superior Rudolf Höss, it was also Fritzsch who first came up with the idea of using poison gas Zyklon B for the purpose of mass murder. Fritzsch ordered the killing of Soviet POWs locked in cells in the basement of the Bunker while Höss went away on an official trip in late August 1941. Fritzsch tried out the effect of Zyklon B inside cells which were not air-tight, subjecting the victims to even more torturous death. Fritzsch repeated the test-killing of additional victims using Zyklon B soon thereafter in the presence of Höss. According to Höss the preferred method for the mass murders in Auschwitz using Zyklon B was devised on site.

The first tests using Zyklon-B had been done in August 1941 in one of the basement cells

The Nazis conducted the first mass killing of people using Zyklon-B in prison cell number 27 in Block 11 on September 3 1941.Adolf Eichmann was visiting the Auschwitz camp on that day, although Commandant Rudolf Höss was away on business, Adolf Eichmann had been the head of Department IV, B4 in the Reich Central Security Office (RSHA); Eichmann’s department was in charge of getting rid of the Jews in Europe. Karl Fritzsch, the camp commander and the deputy of Rudolf Höss, took it upon himself to carry out this first gassing, while his superior officer, Rudolf Höss, was away.

The subjects of this first mass killing on September 3, 1941 were 600 Russian POWs and 250 sick prisoners,test conducted in the previous months had determined the right amount of Zyklon-B needed to kill a room full of people.

On 15 January 1942, Fritzsch was transferred to KZ Flossenbürg as Schutzhaftlagerführer. From early August until October 1942 he was temporary substitute commander of the camp. In October 1943, he was arrested as a part of an internal SS investigation into corruption. An SS court charged him with murder. As a punishment he was transferred to front line duty (SS-Panzergrenadier-Ersatzbatallion 18). It is assumed that he fell during the battle of Berlin in May 1945.

It is commonly believed that Fritzsch perished in the Battle for Berlin but his final fate remained long unknown. Soviet sources claimed that MI-6 caught him in Norway. In his 2007 memoirs, For He Is an Englishman, Memoirs of a Prussian Nobleman, Captain Charles Arnold-Baker recorded that as an MI6 officer in Oslo he arrested Fritzsch: “We picked up, for example, the deputy commandant of Auschwitz, a little runt of a man called Fritzsch whom we naturally put in the custody of a Jewish guard – with strict instructions not to damage him, of course.”

On 4 May 2015 Dutch journalist Wierd Duk published an article on his investigation of Fritzsch’s disappearance. In it he cites a report from 1966 by the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in which Berlin inhabitant Gertrud Berendes claims that Fritzsch had shot himself on 2 May 1945 in the basement of a house at Sächsische Strasse 42 in Berlin. She mentioned that her father and a neighbour had buried Fritzsch in the Preussenpark and she had sent his personal belongings to his wife. In a separate report from 1966 by the Kriminalpolizei Regensburg Fritzsch’s wife states that she had no reason to doubt her husband’s death and that she had received his wedding ring and personal letters.

 

 

Bruno Tesch & Karl Weinbacher, merchants of Death

Today marks the 72nd anniversary of the executions of Bruno Tesch& Karl Weinbacher . I was able to find a few pictures of Bruno Tesch but none from Karl Weinbacher.

 

After the war, several employees of the companies that had supplied Zykon B to the SS in the concentration and extermination camps were brought before the court in a number of criminal trials. The first trial, of employees of the Hamburg distributorship Tesch & Stabenow (TESTA), was held before a British military court in Hamburg from March 1 to 8, 1946. The owner of the firm, Bruno Tesch, and his coworkers Joachim Hans Drosihn and Karl Weinbacher were charged with having wittingly supplied the Zyklon Bused in the German concentration camps to murder citizens of the Allied countries. The defendant Joachim Hans Drosihn was acquitted in the proceedings because he was given no insight into corporate policy. Weinbacher and Tesch, on the other hand, were found guilty of knowingly supplying Zyklon B to murder human beings and were condemned to death.

Dr. Bruno Tesch and his business manager-proxy (“Prokurist”) Karl Weinbacher, who had never been members of the German government or the German armed forces were sentenced to death.The death sentence was carried out in the Hameln (Hamelin) penitentiary on May 16, 1946.

Bruno Emil Tesch (14 August 1890 – 16 May 1946) was a German chemist and entrepreneur. Together with Gerhard Peters and Walter Heerdt, he invented the insecticide Zyklon B, infamous for having been used by Nazi Germany to exterminate approximately a million of the victims of the Holocaust.He was the owner of Tesch & Stabenow (called Testa), a pest control company he co-founded in 1924 with Paul Stabenow in Hamburg, Germany, which was a major supplier of Zyklon B to the Nazi concentration camps.

Following the end of World War II, he was arrested by the British as a war criminal, tried, and executed.

Tesch studied mathematics and physics for one semester in 1910 at the University of Göttingen before studying chemistry at the University of Berlin, receiving his degree in 1914. He attained a position at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute

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Tesch, along with fellow chemists Gerhard Peters and Walter Heerdt, with the support of I.G. Farben, began research into the use of hydrogen cyanide as a fumigating agent. They discovered a process in which the hydrogen cyanide could be manufactured and used in a solid form.

The patent was assigned to Degesch, “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung mbH” (German Limited Company for Pest Control), subsidiary of I.G. Farben, with Walter Heerdt being the only one of the inventors to receive patent rights, a portion of the proceeds from the manufacture and sale. Peters joined Degesch and would become managing director during World War II. Degesch was designated by the German government to set the safety rules and standards for the use of Zyklon B, and was given the authority to authorize shipments from the manufacturer to the customer after the strict criteria were met.

Tesch & Stabenow did not manufacture Zyklon B nor any other chemicals. It was primarily a pest control company specializing in fumigation of commercial properties such as the warehouses and freighters in the Port of Hamburg. Zyklon B was produced by Dessauer Werke and Kaliwerke.

In 1925, Tesch & Stabenow – partly due to the largesse of Paul Haber of Degesch – received the exclusive rights to distribute the insecticide Zyklon B east of the Elbe River. In 1927, Stabenow departed from the firm. Tesch held a 45% share of the company and Degesch 55%. He would assume sole ownership of the company in 1942

Tesch was first interrogated in Hamburg by British Captain and chemist Walter Freud. Freud was accompanied by Emil Sehm, a former Testa bookkeeper. Sehm claimed to have seen a memorandum concerning correspondence between Tesch and a Wehrmacht officer about the use of Zyklon B to gas humans. Tesch was arrested by the British occupation authorities on September 3, 1945, and released on October 1, 1945, only to be re-arrested a few days later on October 6.

Tesch was tried by a British military tribunal in the Curiohaus in Hamburg March 1–8, 1946, the Testa process. His two co-defendants were registered general representative Karl Weinbacher and Joachim Drosihn, the firm’s first gassing technician.

The prosecution case stated that Zyklon B was used for “systematically exterminating human beings to an estimated total of six million, of whom four and a half million were exterminated by the use of Zyklon B in one camp alone, known as Auschwitz/Birkenau”

The charge was that Tesch, “at Hamburg, Germany, between 1st January 1941, and 31st March 1945, in violation of the laws and usages of war, did supply poison gas used for the extermination of allied nationals interned in concentration camps, well knowing that the said gas was to be so used” in violation of Article 46 of the Hague Convention of 1907.One of the witnesses called by the prosecution was SS Rottenführer Perry Broad, who had worked in the political department in Auschwitz. Tesch and Weinbacher were condemned to death; Drosihn was acquitted. Tesch was executed by hanging on May 16, 1946, by Albert Pierrepoint in Hamelin Prison.

Karl Weinbacher (23 June 1898 in Stettin – 16 May 1946 in Hamelin) was a German manager and war criminal who was executed after conviction by a British war tribunal.

Weinbacher worked at Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung, which translates as German Corporation for Pest Control) until 1924, and then at Tesch & Stabenow (Testa, for short), where he received the position of manager in 1927, and by 1943 was director and deputy executive under owner and chief executive officer Bruno Tesch. Testa manufactured and sold Zyklon B, which was used not only for pest control and disinfestation, but also in the Holocaust in the gas chambers of Auschwitz to murder people. Weinbacher was involved with a percentage of the sales proceeds of Zyklon B.

Weinbacher often acted as the CEO whenever Tesch was absent or on business travels, this sometimes could be as much as 200 days a year.In that time Weinbacher would have full authority on all business activities.

After the end of World War II, Weinbacher, Tesch and Joachim Drosihn, the firm’s first gassing technician, were arrested on 3 September 1945. They were tried by a British military tribunal in the Curiohaus Trial in Hamburg from March 1–8, 1946, also called the Testa trial or the Zyklon B trial. In the cases of Weinbacher and Tesch, the court ruled that it had been proven that both knew the purpose of Zyklon B. Tesch and Weinbacher were convicted and sentenced to death on 8 March 1946, while Drosihn was acquitted. Tesch and Weinbacher were hanged in the prison for war criminals in Hamelin on 16 May 1946.

Just because these men weren’t part of the army or any government did not absolve them from any guilt and best they were complacent and worst they were actually worse then the anyone in the army, because the SS or Wehrmacht could always say they were following orders, whereas these men solely did it for profit .

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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