Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfare (2008) - The Black Vault

History of Chemical Warfarecourse of the war, slowing the Allied D-Day invasionby several months, enough time for the introduction oflong-range V-weapons to Great Britain. Hitler decidedearly in the war not to use chemical weapons on thebattlefield because he initially wanted peace morethan he wanted to wipe out targets. When he finallythought about using them late in 1944, he no longerpossessed the air supremacy to drop poison gas bombs.The reverse scenario was true for the British, who hadthe means to deliver gas on the Germans. Early in thewar, the British did not have enough stock producedto support a gas war. By the time they had the stocksof weapons to slow the blitzkrieg in 1944, the Britishwere already on the offensive with air supremacy andgas could only hamper their march into France andGermany.A popular explanation for Germany’s reluctance touse gas is that Hitler, a victim of a chlorine gas attackduring World War I, disliked poison gas and wouldonly use chemical agents as a last resort. Hitler waswounded on at least two occasions in World War Iwhen he served as a dispatch runner with the rank ofcorporal. In Mein Kampf, Hitler described his own gasexperience after being blinded by a mustard gas attackin Flanders at the third battle of Passchendaele:In the night of October 13, the English gas attack onthe southern front before Ypres burst loose; theyused yellow-cross gas, whose effects were stillunknown to us as far as personal experience wasconcerned. In this same night I myself was to becomeacquainted with it. On a hill south of Wervick,we came on the evening of October 13 into severalhours of drumfire with gas shells which continuedall night more or less violently. As early as midnight,a number of us passed out, a few of our comradesforever. Toward morning I, too, was seizedwith pain which grew worse with every quarterhour, and at seven in the morning I stumbled andtottered back with burning eyes; taking with me mylast report of the War.A few hours later, my eyes had turned into glowingcoals; it had grown dark around me. Thus Icame to the hospital at Pasewalk in Pomerania, andthere I was fated to experience–the greatest villainyof the century. 106(p118–119)When Germany surrendered, Hitler was angry, feelingthat his physical pain and the deaths of his comradeswere suffered in vain. However, he never states anaversion to the use of gas.Hitler also alluded to Germany’s potential to usenerve agents in public speeches. Hitler’s actions andwords did not give the perception that he was afraidto use nerve agents, despite his negative personalexperiences with gas on the battlefields of World WarI. Furthermore, Hitler ordered the output from thenerve agent factories to increase in 1943, despite thelimited availability of material required to synthesizethe agents. Hitler dedicated extensive resources tofilling shells with nerve agents for his army and airforce.Others speculate that the German high commandmistakenly believed the Allies had developed thenerve agents simultaneously and feared Allied retaliationas the Axis retreated. Albert Speer, the chiefarchitect in Nazi Germany and minister of armamentin Hitler’s cabinet, and Otto Ambros were called toHitler’s eastern front headquarters in May 1943 andagain in 1944 to discuss the use of gas. Ambros andSpeer argued against gas. Ambros believed that theAllies could produce more traditional chemical agentsthan Germany. When later addressing the NuremburgWar Crimes Tribunal, Ambros said that he warnedHitler about using nerve agents. 107 Ambros’s affidavitregarding his conversation with Hitler stated that theformulas for tabun and sarin were already known bythe Allies because the nature of nerve agents had beendisclosed in technical journals dating back to 1902. Hesaid, “I have justified reasons to assume that tabun, too,is known abroad. I know that tabun was publicized asearly as 1902, that Sarin was patented, and that thesesubstances appeared in patents.” 107(p1044)Ambros was aware that the Americans knew thebasic precursor compounds in the years prior to thewar but had not appeared to continue work in thefield. The Germans may have speculated this was anattempt at censorship and a further indication that theUnited States had developed an arsenal equal to thatof Germany. Ambros argued that assumption causedGermany to shelve nerve agents, a costly decision inlight of Allied knowledge regarding nerve agents atthe time. In reality, scientists at Edgewood Arsenal andPorton Down (Edgewood’s British counterpart) didnot know about either agent nor about the Germanantidote, atropine. It is unknown whether Ambros wastelling the truth about his meeting with Hitler, but it isnow known that tabun was kept secret until 1951 andsarin was never patented.In his Nuremburg testimony, Speer pointed to PaulJoseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, andRobert Ley, a former chemist and head of the GermanLabor Front, as the main proponents of gas. MartinBormann, head of the Nazi party chancellery andHitler’s private secretary, and Hermann Ochsner, commandinggeneral of all German chemical troops, wereother prominent figures who advocated the instigationof chemical warfare against the Allies. When Speer wasquestioned about proposals to use poison gas warfare,he responded:49