The Nazis started using Zyklon B in extermination camps in early 1942 to murder prisoners during the Holocaust. Uses included delousing clothing and fumigating ships, warehouses, and trains. The new product was also named Zyklon, but it became known as Zyklon B to distinguish it from the earlier version. Their team of chemists, which included Walter Heerdt and Bruno Tesch, devised a method of packaging hydrogen cyanide in sealed canisters along with a cautionary eye irritant and one of several adsorbents such as diatomaceous earth. It was banned after World War I, when Germany used a similar product as a chemical weapon. Research at Degesch of Germany led to the development of Zyklon (later known as Zyklon A), a pesticide that released hydrogen cyanide upon exposure to water and heat. Hydrogen cyanide, a poisonous gas that interferes with cellular respiration, was first used as a pesticide in California in the 1880s. The product is notorious for its use by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust to murder approximately 1.1 million people in gas chambers installed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, and other extermination camps. It consists of hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid), as well as a cautionary eye irritant and one of several adsorbents such as diatomaceous earth. Zyklon B ( German: ⓘ translated Cyclone B) was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide invented in Germany in the early 1920s. Zyklon labels from Dachau concentration camp used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials the first and third panels contain manufacturer information and the brand name, the center panel reads "Poison Gas! Cyanide preparation to be opened and used only by trained personnel" As well as the infant gas mask, there was a gas-proof pram that could be used to protect babies from poisonous gas attacks."Zyklon-B" redirects here. ![]() Other than a few publicity photos these helmets were never needed, as there was never a gas bomb attack on Great Britain. Luckily, they were never put to the test in a real situation. During demonstrations there were reports that babies fell asleep and became unnaturally still inside the masks! It is likely that the pump didn't push enough air into the mask and the babies came close to suffocating. In fact there was some question over the safety of the baby’s gas mask. Despite instruction courses, few parents were totally happy with putting their child in an airtight chamber. Health Visitors and Child Welfare Centres gave lessons on how to use the mask. When the gas masks were made people didn’t realise that asbestos was a dangerous substance. With the baby inside the mask, an adult could start to use the hand pump. This was pushed back and forth to pump air into the mask. Attached to this was a rubber tube shaped like a concertina with a handle. There was an asbestos filter on the side of the mask, and this absorbed poisonous gases. The canvas had a rubber coating to stop gas seeping through the material, and the straps were tied securely so that the mask was airtight. Then they wrapped the canvas part around the baby's body with the straps fastened under its bottom like a nappy, and its legs dangling free below. ![]() There were also special gas masks for babies - parents placed their baby inside the mask so that the head was inside the steel helmet and the baby could see through the visor. The gas mask in the picture was designed for people who had breathing difficulties or other medical problems and was more like a helmet as it fitted over an adult's entire head. ![]() An advisor to the government - Liddell Hart - told the government to expect 250,000 deaths in the first week of the war alone. The government had planned for tens of thousands of deaths in London alone. In 1938, the British Government gave everyone, including babies, gas masks to protect them in case the Germans dropped poison gas bombs on Britain.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |