The poisonous gas infamously used in Nazi concentration camps to kill around one million people was invented in Germany, but in the 1920s before the Nazi party came to power. Its predecessor, Zyklon (Cyclone) A, was a pesticide that released hydrogen cyanide upon exposure to water and heat. However, its similarity to a poisonous gas used by the Germans in World War I led to it being banned. In 1922, German chemical company Degesch found a way to package Zyklon into cannisters, adding to it a warning irritant that would prevent people from inhaling it. The resulting product was Zyklon B, which was used to delouse clothing and disinfect areas such as ships, trucks, and other cargo vessels. It was a big help to U.S. immigration authorities, who in the 1930s used it to delouse Mexican immigrants to combat the spread of typhus. Years later, the director of Degesch, Dr. Gerhard Friedrich Peters, was approached by SS senior officer Kurt Gerstein, who said that the German army needed Zyklon B - minus the warning additives - to assist in the killing of its enemies. Peters complied, and the rest is one of the darkest episodes in human history. Zyklon B's active - and lethal - ingredient, hydrogen cyanide was used even earlier still, as a way of fumigating citrus groves in California in the 1880s. The fact that hydrogen cyanide dispersed so quickly meant that it worked particularly effectively in contained areas, to the extent that tents were pitched in areas that were undergoing fumigation. This rapid dispersal is a big part of what eventually attracted the Nazis to the chemical.
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
