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

History of Chemical WarfareabSoviet army also captured factories producing tabunand sarin, in addition to extensive documentation onthe agents’ research and manufacture. 20,103,109 The Sovietsreassembled one of the German factories in Russia,resuming production of tabun and sarin by 1946.Eisenhower’s decision not to enter Berlin beforethe Soviet army seemed costly in terms of the Germanfacilities and intelligence captured by the Soviet Union;however, the Allies capture of the majority of Germanscientists may have been a larger prize. The organizedcapture and detainment of German military scientistsat Kransberg Castle was known as Operation Dustbin.Notable captured Germans included most of thechemists and technicians from Dynhernfurth, HeinrichHorlein, Gerhard Ehlers, Wilhelm Kleinhans, Wernervon Braun, Albert Speer, Richard Kuhn, Walter Hirsch,Otto Ambros, and Gerhard Schrader. The Allies alsocaptured coveted documents relating to the large-scalemanufacture of nerve agents. Just prior to the fall ofFalkenhagen, its director hid thousands of documentsconcerning Dyhernfurth, laboratory notebooks, andtechnical reports related to nerve agent production,which were later discovered by Allied intelligence.The British also obtained critical documents relatedto the tabun and sarin pilot plants at Raubkammerfrom German scientists there and later shipped thedisassembled plants to Porton Down. 103Evidence of Gas Use in GermanyFig. 2-35. Decontamination of weaponized nerve agents afterWorld War II. The sequence depicts a Green Ring 3 tabunfilledaerial bomb about to be vented, drained, and decontaminated.May 1946. (a) Team members pour a mixture ofsodium hydroxide and bleach into a pit. (b) The pit that willcontain the fully decontaminated tabun as it drains from thebomb. Photograph: Courtesy of Chemical and BiologicalDefense Command Historical Research and Response Team,Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.tion about tabun. 20,103 Other captured German chemistsalso revealed the existence of the antidote, atropine.Kuhn, who had discovered soman, was taken intocustody when American troops arrived in Heidelberg.After initially denying any involvement in militaryresearch, 103 Kuhn told interrogators that all documentsconcerning soman were buried in an abandoned mineshaft east of Berlin. The Soviet army entered Berlin beforethe Americans and the documents were recoveredby Soviet Colonel VA Kargin, who took them back to theKarpov Institute in Moscow. 20,103 Capturing the prizedsoman documents in Berlin was a major coup. TheAlthough gas was not used on the battlefields ofWorld War II, HCN gas (trade name Zyklon B), developedby Fritz Haber, was used in Nazi concentrationcamps first for delousing to control typhus and laterfor killing prisoners during the Holocaust. (The firstgenerationcyanide insecticide, known as Zyklon A,contained methyl cyanoformate as the active agent.)Upon exposure to air, the substrates in Zyklon B elaboratedvapors of HCN. In Nazi gas chambers, Zyklon Bfacilities were disguised as shower and decontaminationrooms. In 1941 experiments with Zyklon B wereperformed in Auschwitz I as well as other camps suchas Dachau, the longest running concentration camp.Zyklon B was provided by the German companiesDegesch and Testa, under license from patent holder IGFarbenindustrie. 103 After the war, two directors of Teschwere tried by a British military court and executed fortheir part in supplying the chemical.German Plans for GasBoth sides in the war had active plans to use chemicalweapons in the event that the other side usedthem first. The Soviet chemical arsenal was seriously51