Hell’s Cartel: IG Farben and the Making of Hitler's War Machine

Hell’s Cartel: IG Farben and the Making of Hitler's War Machine

Grim as it is fascinating, Roger Moorhouse recommends this exploration of the business leviathan that supplied Nazi armies across Europe

The story of the IG Farben chemical conglomerate is one with tremendous relevance for the present day.  Formed in 1925, from a merger of a number of familiar firms including Agfa, BASF and Bayer, it was the largest industrial concern in Europe, and soon found itself embroiled in Hitler’s ‘revolution’, emerging as one of the mainstays of the economy of the Third Reich.

The German war effort after 1939 is almost unthinkable without IG Farben. The Wehrmacht’s vehicles rode on its synthetic tyres, were powered by its synthetic fuels and fired shells filled with its explosives. More darkly, IG Farben developed an intimate relationship with the SS; consumed countless slave labourers in its plants; most infamously the Monowitz plant near Auschwitz, and in the process earned itself grim complicity in the Holocaust. Long before the phrase was coined, it was the original military-industrial complex.

Yet, when its 24 senior executives were arraigned for trial at Nuremberg in 1947, on charges of planning aggressive war and crimes against humanity, it seems that the political imperative of rebuilding Germany had replaced that of justice and retribution.  After the standard defence of ignorance or deflecting responsibility, only 13 of the defendants were convicted, and were sentenced to moderate terms of between 18 months and 8 years.  After brief periods of enforced contrition, most of them were then free to continue their lucrative careers as captains of industry.

Diarmuid Jeffreys’s book is a wonderful exploration of this sorry tale of the amorality of rampant capitalism, in the service of a wicked dictatorship. It is engagingly written, with admirable research in evidence, but also a degree of repressed anger.  Jeffreys concludes, for instance, that when IG Farben was finally wound up in 2003, its remaining assets were paid, not to organisations of former forced-labourers, but to the banks.

Hell's Cartel: IG Farben and the Making of Hitler's War Machine

Zyklon B labels- by Diarmuid Jeffreys

“A damning new history . . .Jeffreys brings a rare combination of forensic acumen and narrative flair.” —Chicago Tribune. At its peak in the 1930s, the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben was one of the most powerful corporations in the world. To this day, companies formerly part of the Farben cartel—the aspirin maker Bayer, the graphics supplier Agfa, the plastics giant BASF—continue to play key roles in the global market. IG Farben itself, however, is remembered mostly for its infamous connections to the Nazi Party and its complicity in the atrocities of the Holocaust. After the war, Farben’s leaders were tried for crimes that included mass murder and exploitation of slave labor.  In Hell’s Cartel, Diarmuid Jeffreys presents the first comprehensive account of IG Farben’s rise and fall, tracing the enterprise from its nineteenth-century origins, when the discovery of synthetic dyes gave rise to a vibrant new industry, through the upheavals of the Great War era, and on to the company’s fateful role in World War II. Named one of the best books of the year by Business Week, Hell’s Cartel sheds new light on the codependence of industry and the Third Reich, and offers a timely warning against the dangerous merger of politics and the pursuit of profit

Hell's Cartel: IG Farben and the Making of Hitler's War Machine

 By Diarmuid Jeffreys

http://www.whale.to/b/review4.html

Hitler's Chemists Chased Auschwitz Profits, Financed Mengele 
Review by James Pressley
Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- A sweet stench filled the site in occupied Poland where chemical maker I.G. Farbenindustrie AG was building a factory to feed Adolf Hitler's tanks and bombers with synthetic rubber and fuel.
Amid the hammering, barking dogs and screaming kapos, emaciated men unloaded cement bags at a trot, bent under iron girders, and died like animals. All around milled I.G. Farben men -- ``quiet men in impeccable civilian clothes,'' as one survivor recalled, ``picking their way through corpses they did not want to see, measuring timbers with bright yellow folding rules.''
This was Buna-Werke, a.k.a. I.G. Auschwitz, and the cloying smell came from the crematoriums at Birkenau. Buna-Werke was I.G. Farben's single biggest investment ever, the site where eight years of Nazi collaboration culminated in ``a carefully planned process of extermination through labor,'' as Diarmuid Jeffreys writes in his damning new history, ``Hell's Cartel: I.G. Farben and the Making of Hitler's War Machine.''

Jeffreys is a British journalist and television producer whose previous book, ``Aspirin,'' recounted how German chemical makers pioneered that painkiller. In ``Hell's Cartel,'' he draws on Nuremberg tribunal documents, corporate and state archives, memoirs and his own interviews with survivors to explore the dark side of I.G. Farben, which was once the world's fourth-largest industrial concern.

The leading lights of the German chemical makers that merged into I.G. Farben in 1925 had invented breakthrough drugs, succeeded in mass-producing fertilizer and won Nobel Prizes.

Chemical Weapons

They also had shown a disturbing willingness to put German nationalism -- and profits -- ahead of humanity: Fritz Haber, the scientist renowned for ``fixing'' nitrate, also engineered the first poison-gas attack in World War I.
Jeffreys brings a rare combination of forensic acumen and narrative flair to bear on the material. Tracing the story back to the 19th century, he exposes the historical logic, financial pressures and moral failings that would place sophisticated executives and scientists at the heart of Hitler's strategy of autarky and conquest. The real madness began in the 1920s, when I.G. Farben gambled its future on breakthrough technology: synthetic gasoline made from coal. The bet was predicated on research that concluded the world was running out of oil. The first Leuna gasoline went on sale in 1927. Barely three years later, massive oil reserves were discovered in Texas, then more in the Mideast. As the Great Depression drove down demand, Leuna's prospects looked grim.

Secret Luftwaffe

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, a new market emerged: Hermann Goering was building his illegal military air force, and the secret Luftwaffe needed stealth supplies of aviation fuel. By the end of 1933, the Reich agreed to buy all of the Leuna factory's output that couldn't be sold on the market, Jeffreys says. That same year, I.G. Farben donated more than 4.5 million Reich marks to Nazi Party funds, he says. The cooperation deepened as I.G. Farben bosses joined the Nazi Party, worked on government commissions, dismissed Jewish workers and executives. How central was the company to Hitler's war? Here's how Jeffreys describes the Luftwaffe's dependence on I.G. Farben products as Germany prepared to invade Poland: "The Heinkel and Junkers Stuka bombers that would launch attacks on Warsaw, Krakow, Lodz and Lublin were largely made from the I.G.'s light metals. Around 75 percent of their engines were produced from high-grade I.G. nickel, their fuselages from I.G. aluminum, their wings from I.G. magnesium.' 'The company supplied the fuel and oils. More than 90 percent of the phosphorous incendiaries they carried were made from I.G. Farben materials.

Financing Mengele

Later, at Auschwitz, the company financed the diabolical experiments of Josef Mengele and supplied the Zyklon B used in the gas chambers.
After the war, I.G. Farben was broken up and 23 of its executives were tried in Nuremberg. Most resorted to blanket denials of wrongdoing: They acted under orders, didn't dare oppose Hitler, and had no idea prisoners were being murdered.
Though 13 were found guilty of crimes including plunder, slavery and mass murder, the stiffest sentence was eight years in prison. By early 1951, all had been released on good behavior. They returned to boardrooms at German companies including I.G. Farben successors BASF AG, Bayer AG and Hoechst AG.
Some evil in Nazi Germany was born of cowardice, and some sprang from greed and ambition. Jeffreys leaves no doubt about which variety of malevolence motivated I.G. Farben.
"Hell's Cartel'' is from Bloomsbury in the U.K. and from Metropolitan in the U.S. (406 pages, 20 pounds, $32).
(James Pressley writes for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a931TWBEmRns&refer=muse 

IG Farben was a German chemical industry conglomerate, notorious for its role in the Holocaust. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (Syndicate [literally, "community of interests"] of dye-making corporations). The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major chemical companies that had been working together closely since World War I. During its heyday, IG Farben was the largest chemical company in the world and the fourth largest overall industrial concern, after General Motors, U.S. Steel, and Standard Oil of New Jersey.

Following the Nazi takeover of Germany, IG Farben became involved in numerous war crimes during World War II. Most notoriously, the firm's pro-Nazi leadership openly and knowingly collaborated with the Nazi government to produce the large quantities of Zyklon Bnecessary to gas to death millions of Jews and other "undesirables" at various extermination camps during the Holocaust. The firm ceased operating following the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, when the company was seized by the Allies; its assets were utterly liquidated in 1952, and many executives were imprisoned (and several executed) at the Nuremberg Trials for their roles in the atrocities.

Engulfed by lawsuits and universal condemnation after the war's end, the company itself no longer exists, as of November 2003. Before the company went defunct it was merely as an asset-less shell with the sole stated goal of continuing to do business so it may pay many millions of marks in reparations to the victims of its many crimes.

IG Farben was founded on December 25, 1925, as a merger of the following six companies: BASF, Bayer, Hoechst (including Cassella and Chemische Fabrik Kalle), Agfa, Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron, Chemische Fabrik vorm Weiler Ter Meer.

Predecessors of IG Farben

At the beginning of the 20th century, the German chemical industry dominated the world market for synthetic dyes. The three major firms BASF, Bayer and Hoechst produced several hundred different dyes, along with the five smaller firms Agfa, Cassella, Chemische Fabrik Kalle, Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron and Chemische Fabrik vorm. Weiler-ter Meer concentrated on high-quality specialty dyes. In 1913, these eight firms produced almost 90 percent of the world supply of dyestuffs and sold about 80 percent of their production abroad^. The three major firms had also integrated upstream into the production of essential raw materials, and they began to expand into other areas of chemistry such as pharmaceuticals, photographic film, agricultural chemicals and electrochemicals. Contrary to other industries, the founders and their families had little influence on the top-level decision-making of the leading German chemical firms, which was in the hands of professional salaried managers. Because of this unique situation, the economic historian Alfred Chandler called the German dye companies "the world's first truly managerial industrial enterprises".

With the world market for synthetic dyes and other chemical products dominated by the German industry, German firms competed vigorously for market shares. Although cartels were attempted, they lasted at most for a few years. Others argued for the formation of a profit pool or Interessen-Gemeinschaft (abbr. IG, lit. Community of interest). In contrast, the chairman of Bayer, Carl Duisberg, argued for a merger. During a trip to the United States in the spring of 1903 he had visited several of the large American trusts such as Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, International Paper and Alcoa. In 1904, after having returned to Germany he proposed a nationwide merger of the producers of dye and pharmaceuticals in a memorandum to Gustav von Brüning, the senior manager at Hoechst. Hoechst and several pharmaceutical firms refused to join. Instead, Hoechst and Cassella made an alliance based on mutual equity stakes in 1904. This prompted Duisberg and Heinrich von Brunck, chairman of BASF, to accelerate their negotiations. In October 1904, an Interessen-Gemeinschaft between Bayer, BASF and Agfa was formed, also known as the Dreibund or little IG. Profits of the three firms were pooled, with BASF and Bayer getting 43 percent and Agfa 14 percent of all profits. The two alliances were loosely connected with each other through an agreement between BASF and Hoechst to jointly exploit the patent on the Heumann-Pfleger indigo synthesis.

Within the Dreibund, Bayer and BASF concentrated on dye, whereas Agfa increasingly concentrated on photographic film. Although there was some cooperation between the technical staff in production and accounting, there was little cooperation between the firms in other areas. Neither were production or distribution facilities consolidated nor did the commercial staff cooperate. In 1908 Hoechst and Cassella acquired 88 percent of the shares of Chemische Fabrik Kalle. As Hoechst, Cassella and Kalle were connected by mutual equity shares and were located close to each other in the Frankfurt area, this allowed them to cooperate more successfully than the Dreibund, although they also did not rationalize or consolidate their production facilities.

Indigo production at BASF in 1890

Foundation of IG Farben

IG Farben was founded on December 25, 1925 as a merger of the following six companies: BASF (27.4 percent of equity capital), Bayer (27.4 percent), Hoechst including Cassella(27.4 percent), Fritz Albert Haas (27.4 percent), Agfa (9.0 percent), Chemische Fabrik Kalle and Chemische Fabrik vorm. (6.0 percent), Weiler Ter Meer (1.9 percent). In 1926, IG Farben had a market capitalization of 1.4 billion Reichsmark and a workforce of 100,000 people, of which 2.6 percent were university educated, 18.2 percent were salaried professionals and 79.2 percent were workers. BASF was the nominal survivor; all shares were exchanged for BASF shares.

Similar mergers took place in other countries. In the United Kingdom Brunner Mond, Nobel Industries, United Alkali Company and British Dyestuffs merged to form Imperial Chemical Industries in September 1926. In France Établissements Poulenc Frères and Société Chimique des Usines du Rhône merged to form Rhône-Poulenc in 1928.

The IG Farben Building, headquarters for the conglomerate in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, was completed in 1931.

In 1938, the I G Farban had 218,000 employees.

P. 328

The Trial of IG Farben Directors and Managers

The three directors considered to have a direct connection with Auschwitz were found guilty: Otto Ambrose, Butefish and Durrfeld, as well as two other adjudged guilty by inference; Fritz ter Meer, because it was that Otto Ambrose must have talked to him about the use of slave labour, and Carl Krauch, because he had asked Goring to send him concentration camp inmates. All the other defendants were acquitted without a word of censure or disapproval, including Hermann Schmitz, who had scrutinised the contracts with the SS and sanctioned the subsequent actions of his subordinates; Christian Scheider, August von Knieriem and Freidrich Jaekne, who between them had visited the site on many occassions; William Mann, who had sent cheques to pay for Mr Mengele's experiments on twins, etc and all the other directors, who had received the company's construction reports, approved the huge expenditure and heard the rumours about gassings but did nothing.

In the afternoon Judge Shake passed sentence on those adjudged guilty:

Otto Ambrose: eight years' imprisonment for slavery and mass Murder;

Walter Durrfeld: eight years' imprisonment for slavery and mass Murder;

Fritz ter Meer: seven years' imprisonment for plunder and spoliation, slavery and mass murder;

Neinrich Butefisch: six years' imprisonment for slavery and mass murder;

Carl Kraunch: six years' imprisonment for slavery and mass murder;

George von Schnitzler: five years' imprisonment for plunder and spoliation;

Hermann Schmitz: four years' imprisonment for plunder and spoliation;

Max Ilgner: three years' imprisonment for plunder and spoliation;

Paul Haefliger: Two years' imprisonment for plunder and spoliation;

Ernst Burgin: two years' imprisonment for plunder and spoliation;

Friedrich Jaehne: eighteen months' years' imprisonment for plunder and spoliation;

Hans Kugler: eighteen months' years' imprisonment for plunder and spoliation;

All the rest of the IG Farben defendants were set free, including: Heinrich Gatteneau, who had chattered about synthetic oil with Hitler and helped finesse IG Farben's first  connections with the Nazis; August von Knieriem, who had provided the legal justification for the takeover of other people's companies and somehow never noticed the stench op burning bodies at Auschwitz, Fritz Gajewski, who had informed on his old friend to the Gastapo; Carl Wurster, Heinrich Horlein and Wilhelm Mann, who had been on the board of the company that produced Zuklon B, but who apparently never thought to ask why it had suddenly become so profitable.

When the chief judge has finished speaking, Judge Hebert, the former Louisiana dean, announced that he dissented from the majority verdict of Shake and Morris on numerous points. Supported by the alternate judge, Clarence Merrell, he tried to persuade the other two to give him time to file his dissenting opinion so that it might be published alongside the verdicts. To his considerable dismay, they had denied him this opportunity, but he now made plain his intention to file it later..

For much of the day the prosecution had been sitting in stunned silence, appalled and shocked bu the narrow spread of the guilty verdicts and the modest sentences.'Light enough to please a chicken thief,; muttered prosecutor Dubois. Telford Taylor, whose extraordinary opening speech should have set the scene for a prosecutorial triumph, was speechless. Had he been able to persuade the authorities in Washington to let him have some experienced federal judges many of the defendants might now have been starting life sentences, or on their way to the gallows. Instead, once their ti,e in custody had been taken into account, it was likely that some of the convicted would be released in a few months. So he sat with his colleagues and watched as men they knew to be guilty walked free and others, involved in one of history;s greatest acts of mass murder, were led away to begin sentences so modest they might have been given to a driver who had irresponsibly hit a pedestrian. It was a bitter blow..to Telford Taylor, the prosecutor in charge of prosecuting the directors and managers of IG Farben for horrendous war crimes ...

Out side the court, Taylor was restrained, yes he was disappointed he told reporters, but many important issues had been raised during the IG Farben TRial and that could only be good for the future of Germany .. in the trial of Alfred Krupp in court room down the Hall, Justice Daly castigated the principle defendant, Alfred Krupp, for his grotesque exploitation and  mistreatment of slave labour. To gasps from the arms manufacturer's supporters, Justice Daly sentences Alfred Krupp to 12 years in prison and then ordered that Alfred Krupp's vast personal wealth be forfeited.

This was little balm to the IG Farben prosecutors. Dubois had left the court in a fury, declaring, "I'll write a book about this if it's the last thing I do." .. a few days later Dubois and Duke Minskoff joined the IG Farben trial judges aboard the General Patrick, a former army transport ship, for the eight day passage back to the United States. The atmosphere was frosty and the conversation over dinner constrained. But one night Judge Hebert came to DuBois's cabin. Slowly, and with great effort, he managed to let slip a few words of comfort: "When I first read the indictment, it was difficult to believe that all of this had happened. By the time we reached the end, I felt that practically every sentence of the indictment had been proved many times over.'

P. 340

Some years later DuBois would write his his book and recall his painful journey home:

I still feel the anger today that I felt many times during and since that trip. I was reliably informed that, even before the trial started, one of the judges had expressed the view that he didn't believe it was ever intended that industrialists be brought to account for preparing and waging an aggressive war... Why had Judges Shake and Morris reacted as they did?.......

Nowhere was there any evidence that IG Farben feared Russia enough to stop producing strategic goods for that country .. Yet the two judges accepted the fiction that IG Farben was the simple prototype of 'Western capitalism'.

But Judge Paul Hebert was from different stock. Five months after the verdicts he sent his dissenting opinion to the official trial proceedings. It was a coruscating attack on the prejudices and failings of his fellow judges, who had misread the evidence in almost every respect:

". The record of IG Farben Industries, during the period under examination in the lengthy trial, has been shown to be an ugly record which went far beyond the activities of normal business. From a maze of  statistical and detailed information in the record emerges a picture of gigantic proportions depicting feverish activity by Farben to rearm Germany in disregard of economic considerations and in a warlike atmosphere of emergency and crisis .. There is nothing in the record to suggest that IG Farben ever withheld any energy or initiative to help Hitler in his plans to build a Germany that would be strong enough military to master the world .. "

About Auschwitz, he wrote:

"..Utilisation of slave labour in Farben was approved as a matter of corporate policy. To permit the corporate instrumentality to be used as cloak to insulate the principal corporate officers who authorised this course of action is, in my opinion, without any sound precedent under the most elementary concepts of criminal law. Just as Fritz ter Meer was the superior of Otto Ambros, the Vorstand was the superior of both, and there is no reason to conclude that the knowledge possessed by Ambros and ter Meer was not fully reported to and discussed in the Vorstand.There is indeed strong positive evidence that was done.

..... The conditions at Auschwitz were so horrible that it is utterly incredible to conclude that they were unknown to the defendants, the principal corporate directors, where responsible for IG Farben's connection to the project .... The extreme cold, the inadequacy of the food, the rigorous nature of the work, the cruel treatment of the workers by their supervisors combine to present a picture of horror which, I am convinced, has not been at all overdrawn by the prosecution and which is fully sustained by the evidence ... The defendants, members of the Vorstand, cannot, in, my opinion, avoid sharing a large part of the guilt for numberless crimes against humanity..."

Regrettably, Judge Paul Hebert's opinion were of only historical interest. The handful of convicted IG Farben directors had already begun their brief stay in the relative comfort of Landsberg prison, while the acquitted had been set free to pick up the pieces. Indeed, it seems only one question now remained outstanding. What did the future hold for IG Farben itself?

Page.343

Although general Eisenhower had recommended IG Farben's dissolution in late 1954, the cartel's final breakup was temporarily postponed because the Allies disagreed about exactly how it should be carried out and occupation officials were more immediately concerned with getting the battered German economy back on its feet. The exigencies of the Cold War delayed things still further, and IG Farben's factories were left to struggle on, under close Allied supervision, until 1949. But in June of that year, when a civilian Western High Commission replaced the four-nation military administration, former shareholders were able to persuade the new authorities that the assets and stock of the old IG Farben should be transferred to three large successor companies. This is 1951, after a further transitional period for legal agreements to be drawn up, Bayer, Hoechst and BASF were reborn, along with six smaller firms, including Agfa, Kalle, Cassella and Huls. By the mid-1950's, when German chemical production had once again reached the level of 1936, the six smaller companies had been reabsorbed by the three largest. By mid-1970's the big three were back among the thirty largest corporations in the world, having played a decisive role in the 'economic miracle' that defined the Federal Republic of Germany in the third quarter of the twentieth century. Each one of them was more profitable than  IG Farben had ever been. It was as though the IG Farben years had been a mere blip in their history. Todat that success story continues, Bayer, whose global headquarters are still at Leverkusen, is now one of the world's top ten pharmaceutical and chemical companies and still its largest producer of aspirin, the product that played such a pivotal role in Carl Duisberg's accretion of commercial power in the years before the Interessen Gemeinschaft and World War I, In 1999 Bayer was able to win back the rights to its trade name in America. The BASF Group is now the world's largest chemical company, the truly multinational giant that Carl Bosch hoped IG Farben would eventually become. After a long foray into pharmaceuticals and other consumer products, it sold its drugs division for almost $7 billion to Abbott Laboratories in Illinois in 2000. BASF has since reverted to its core businesses, in which petrochemicals, gas, plastics and agrochemicals still feature importantly. With 160 subsidiaries and 87,000 employees, BASF's annual turnover today is in excess of 36 billion euros. Ironically, the synthetic fuel process that Bossh was so desperately keen to develop on the early 1930's is now coming back into fashion.

Otto Ambrose actually smiled slightly as he received his sentence, although his smile might have been of relief, as under other judges in a different court he could have been facing the gallows..

Krauch was released at the end of 1950 after serving less than two years of his sentence.By the end of the first week in February 1951, all the IG Farben prisoners had followed him out to freedom.

 John McCloy, the new US High Commissioner, had drastically shortened the sentences of 74 of the 104 men convicted by the various subsequent proceedings at Nuremberg, issuing commutations for ten of those sentenced to death. Although he would later insist that these decisions were based purely on legal grounds and parole broad recommendations, it is hard to escape the conclusion  that there was a political imperative involved, too. At the time, America's reputation in Europe was taking a battering because of Communist successes in Korea, while the confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union in Germany was reaching a new intensity.

ans so the IG Farben defendants were st free on the grounds of good behaviour. None of them appeared much worse for the wear or in the least bit repentant. As Fritz ter Meer walked out of the prison gates he told reporters'

' now they have Korea on their hands, the Americans are a lot more friendly.'

The freed men adjusted quickly to life outside, with most of those still of working age, eventually finding board positions back in German industry. Karl Krauch joined the board of Huls, on of the IG Farben successor businesses.

Herman Schmitz joined the board of Berlin West, a major German Bank, and served as charman of the board of Rheimi Steel before retirement.

Carl Wurster became chairman of the board of BASF and a director of several other companies.. he also received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Service Cross of the new Federal Republic.

Heinrich Butefish, the former honorary SS Obersturbahnfuhrer, became a member of the boards of Ruhr-Chemie and other firms, in 1964 he also received the Distinguished Service Cross of the new Federal Republic., but it was witdrawn after sixteen days of violent protests across Germany.

Friedrich Jaehne, who had been convicted of spoilation and pluner, became chairman of the new Hoecst; he, too, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross of the new Federal Republic.

Fritz Gajewski, yet another recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, became chairman of the boards of Dynamit Nobel AG, Genschow & Co., and the Chemie-Verwaltungs AG, as well as a board member of two other firms.

Heinrich Horlein, the Nobel Prize-winner, went back to Leverkusen and joined the baord of the new Bayer AG, as eventually did Wilhelm Mann.

Max Ilgner announced he wanted to devore his life to God, or at least that was that he told Churtis Shake when he needed Allied permission for his wife and children to move to Sweden in 1948.  Shake wrote on his behalf, ' He is a man of fine intellect and capacity. I think it is only  charitable to view his convicton in the light of conditions that existed in Germany during the Nazi regime

  In 1955 Fritz ter Meer was made chairman  for Bayer (a Rothschilds company, Bayer being the former name of the Rothschild family) a position he held for 8 years

The judges in a civil action made against IG Farben in Liquidation

they sated in their judgement in favour of Wollheim who was suing for damages:

' The fundamental principles of equality, justice and humanity must have been known to all civilised persons,and the IG Farben corporation cannot evade its responsibility any more than can an individual.. They much have known of the selections for it was their human duty to know the condition of their employees. Their alleged total lack of knowledge merely confirms their lack of interest in the lives of the Jewish prisoners for whom they had a duty of care, at least during the time the inmates were in their power. There was a duty to do whatever they could to protect the life, body and health of the plaintiff - which they failed to carry out. For that failure, which was at least negligent, the company is liable...I firmly believe that his past experience will fit him to do constructive work toward making the world a safer and better place to live.' Ilgner's  dallaince with religion did nit last loing; he later became a political lobbyist.

Otto Ambrose, whose curriculum vitae included responcibility for the location, planning and running IG Farben Auschwitz, the creation of Nazi Germany's secret chemical weapons programme, a Knights Crosss from Adolph Hitler and a conviction for slavery and mass murder, went on to have a glittering career as chairman or member of the boards of Chemie Grunenthal, Pintsch Bamag AG, Knoll AG, Telefunken GmbH, Berliner Handelsgesellschaft, Suddeutsche Kalkstickstoffwerke and numerous other businesses. Otto Amrose also becmae a consultant to the US chemical and asbestos firm W.R. Grace and an 'adviser' on chemical matters to the German government in Bonn.

Fritz ter Meer , whose commanding presence dominate the dock at Nuremberg and who was the only man to be convicted on tweo counts, follwoed Horoein and Mann bak to Leverkusen. After a bried interval he was elected to the board Bayer AG and in 1955 Fritz ter Meer was made chairman  for Bayer (a Rothschilds company, Bayer being the former name of the Rothschild family) a post he held for next 8 years. He was chairman of  Th. Goldschmidt AG, deputy chairman of the Commmmerzbank association and a board member of Waggonfabrik Uerdingen AG, the Dusseldorfer Waggonfabrick AG and United Indistrial Enterprises. Fritz ter Meer, too, became adviser to the German Government on synthetic fuel supplies.

The other men sought more modest appointments back with their old emplyers or left the industry altogether. George von Schnitzler, for example, was occasionally featured in the society pages of some of the glossier European magazines, but seems to have stayed away from most of his former colleagues.

Christian Scheider, meanwhile, seems to have made a good living as a consultant to European chemical businesses, passing on his knowledge of high-pressure chemistry to anyone who was interested.

But wherever they ended up, none of t he IG Farben defendants appear to have suffered either physically or financially from their experiences at Nuremberg or at Lansberg. Nor, apart from von Schnitzler, who had at least made something of confession to American investigators, did any of the IG Farben defendants ever express a public word of appology.

On 6th February 1959, the members of IG Farben's wartime Vorstand gathered in Ludwigshafen for a glittering reunion dinner hosted by BASF's Carl Wurster - the last such event to be held. Given the inclement weather, their advanced years and the distances that some of them had to travel, it was a good turnout: Krauch, Fitz ter Meer, Gajewski, Ambrose, Ilgner, Schneider, Butefisch, Kuhne, Jaehne and Wilhelm Mann. Many brought their wives and Carl Bosch's widow had been invited  in honour of her husband.

Wurster sat at the head of the table, as befited his position as chairman of the fastest growing company in new Germany, and dispensed wine and comradeship and good cheer throughout the evening.

Auschitz - The Nazis & The Final Solution by Laurence Rees 

Auschitz - The Nazis & The Final Solution

by Laurence Rees

'..fired by an intellectual honesty that the subject badly needs'  ...Antony Beevor

Published by BCC Books

BBC Worldwide Ltd

Woodlands

80 Wood Lane

London W12 OTT

Page 59

.. the selected inmates were taken to the cellars of Black 11 and locked in a cell where they were left to starve to death. It was a slow and agonizing process...

 Roman Trojanowski learnt that one person he knew was reduced to eating his own shows after more than a week without food...."

The Holocast- A New History by Doris Bergen

Published first 2003

by History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestshiere, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

"..The Holocuast was an event of global proportions, involving perpetrators, victims, bystanders, beneficiaries and rescuers from all over Europe and elsewhere in the world. Any effort to grasp it in it entirety must begin with recognition of that massive scope...."

"..This book attempts to address the enormity of the Holocaust by situating it is context of the Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. War and conquest delivered into Nazi German hands the Jews of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe - Poland, Ukraine, Belorussia, Hungry, Yugoslavia, Greece and elsewhere - as well as the smaller Jewish Populations of the west, for example those of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Approximately ninety-five percent of the Jews killed between 1939 and 1945 lived outside Germany's pre-war borders. At the same time, war - in particular the Nazi war of annihilation to Germany's east - exponentially increased the numbers and kinds of victims, as brutal programmed of persecution, expulsion and murder, bloated on carnage, demanded and created even more enemies. Mass killings of non-Jews were also part of the Nazi German war effort, a war launched for the related goals of race and space: so-called racial purification and territorial expansion. War provided killers with both a cover and an excuse for murder; in wartime, killing was normalised and extreme, even genocidal measures could be justified with familiar arguments about the need to defend the fatherland. Without war the Holocaust would not - and could not - have happened..."

"....Since the 1960's. the term 'Holocaust', form the Greek for 'a burned offering', has been used to refer to the murder of approximately six million Jews by Nazi Germans and their collaborators during the Second World War. Sometimes the Hebrew word SHOAH - catastrophe - is used as a synonym. There is no doubt that hatred of Jews  continued the centre of Nazi ideology. Hitler and his associated preached what the scholar Saul Freidlander calls 'redemptive antisemitism': the belief that Jews were the root of all evil and the Germany could be saved from collapse only by total removal of Jews and Jewish influence. Jews were the mail target of Nazi genocide; against the Jews Hitler's Germany mobilised all its resources; bureaucratic, military, legal, scientific, economic and intellectual...."

",, Nevertheless, it was not Jews but the mentality and physically disabled who became targets of the first large-scale, systematic, killings in Nazi Germany, under the euphemistically labelled 'Euthanasia Programme' . This programme, like the assault on European Gypsies (Roma), shared with the genocide of the Jews personal, methods of killing and goals of so-called racial purification. At the same time, Nazi Germany persecuted, incarcerated and killed millions of Salvic people - Polish Gentiles, especially members of the intelligensia; Soviet prisoners of war, and other - and attacked communists, homosexual men, Jehovah's Witnesses, Afro-Germans and other people considered unwanted in the 'new European order'. Whether or not one considered members of any or all of these groups to belong under the label 'victims of the Holocaust', their fates were entwined in significant ways with that of the Jews targeted and murdered in the Nazi quest for race and space. This book seeks to identify and explore connections between and among victim groups, not in the interest of establishing some kind of hierarchy of suffering, but with the hope of coming to understand how state-sponsored programmes of violence and atrocity function and of offering a least a glimpse into how they are experienced by those who suffer their ravages..."

"..This history is complex and I have tried to present it honestly and as fully as possible in a brief survey. O do not promise that this book will resolve the big questions that might be on your mind: Why did such horrible things happen?

What are human beings that they can inflict such agony on other people?..."

"... This book addresses some more modest yet important questions regarding the history of Nazism, the Second World War and the Holocaust?

Who was involved and in what ways? 

What motivated those people to behave as they did? How - through what process - did large numbers of people, some of them 'ordinary', some less so, become murderers of large numbers of other people?

How did the targets of attack respond and what strategies did they develop in their quest to survive?..."

". in order for a house to burn down, three things are required. the timber must be dry and combustible; there needs to be a spark that ignites it; and external conditions have to be favourable- not damp, perhaps some wind. Hitler's Nazi Germany provided the spark that set off the destruction we now call the Holocaust and the Second World War..."

Commandant of Auschwitz -Rudolf Hoess- introduced by Primo Levi

First Published by Wiedenfeld & Nicholson in 1959

Further published by Phoenix Press, a division of Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin's Lane, London, WC2H 9EA

"...This autobiography was written is a Polish prison, and for the following facts concerning Rudolf Hoess and the writing of it I am principally indebted to Dr Martin Broszat, who wrote the introduction to the German edition..."..."...Rudolf Hoess was arrested by the British Military Police near Flensburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, on 11th March, 1966. Rudolf Hoess was interrogated by Field Security on 13th and 14th March, 1966. Later that month he was handed over to the Americans and taken to Nuremburg, where he was again interrogated in April, 1946. in connection with the trial of Kaltenbrunner, the so-called 'Pohl Trial' ad the 'IG Farben Trial'. During the period 9th to 16th April, 1946 Rudolf Hoess had several conversations with the American prison psychiatrist. Dr Gilbert. On 25th May, 1946, Rudolf Hoess was handed over to the Polish authorities and removed to Cracow and later to Warsaw to await trial. The trial did not take place until the following March, 1947.Rudolf Hoess was condemned to death, and executed in April, 1947. What Rudolf Hoess wrote in prison, the greater part of which is translated and reproduced here, falls into two parts. There is his autobiography, which constitutes pages 29 to 181 and which in its entirety so far as it is legible...Rudolf Hoess's diary is handwritten and a careful comparison of the handwriting with other documents known to have been written by Rudolf Hoess, both before and after his arrest, proves its authenticity beyond a shadow of doubt..."

Introduction

"....Usually when you agree to write the introduction to a book, you do so because you truly care about the book, it's readability, it's got a high literary quality, so that you like or at lease admire the author. This book, however, is the extreme opposite. It's filled with evil, and this evil is narrated with a disturbing bureaucratic obtuseness; it has no literary quality, and reading it is agony. Furthermore, despite Rudolf Hoess's efforts at defending himself, the author comes across as what he is: a coarse, stupid, arrogant, long-winded scoundrel, who sometimes blatantly lies. Yet this autobiography of the Commondant of Auschwitz is one of the most instructive books ever published because it very accurately describes the course of human life that was exemplary in its own way. In a climate different from the one he happened to grown up in, Rudolf Hoess would quite likely have wound up as some sort of drab functionary, committed to discipline and dedicated to order - at most a careerist with modest ambition. Instead, Rudolf Hoess evolved, step by step, into one of the greatest (in the sense that Rudolf Hoess became most famous for his most horrendous brutal and vicious crimes) criminals in history...."

".... survivors of Nazi concentration camps are often asked a symptomatic question, especially by the young people:

Who were the people 'on the other side' and what were they like?

Is it possible that all of them were micked, that no glint of humanity every shone in their eyes?

This question is thoroughly answered by Rudolf Hoess's book, which shows how readily evil can replace good, besieging it and finally submerging it - yet allowing it to persist in tiny, grotesque islets: an orderly family life, love of nature, Victorian morality. ..."

".... Precisely because the author is uneducated, eh cannot be suspected of deliberately perpetuating a colossal falsification of history: he would have been incapable of that. Rudolf Hoess's pages teem with mechanical rehashes of Nazi rhetoric, white lies and black lies, attempts at self-justification, at embellishment. Yet there are all so ingenious and transparent that the most unprepared reader will have no trouble seeing through all these things - they stick out from the texture of the narrative like flies in milk...on the whole, the book is substantially truthful: it is the autobiography of a man who was not a monster and who never became one even at the height of his career in Auschwitz, when at his orders thousands of innocent people were murdered daily...what I mean is that we can believe him when he claims that he never enjoyed inflicting paid or killing, he was no sadist, he had nothing of the satanist. By contrast, satanic features can be found in Rudolf Hoess's portrait of his peer and friend, Adolf Eichmann; however, Eichmann was far more intelligent that Rudolf Hoess, and we are left with the impression that Rudolf Hoess took some of Eichmann's bragging at face value, even though it doesn't hold up to a serious analysis...Rudolf Hoess may have been one of the worst criminal of all time. But his makeup was not dissimilar from that of any citizen of any country. His guilt, which was not inscribed in his genes or in his German birth, lay entirely in the fact that he was unable to resist the pressure exerted on him by a violent environment even before Hitler's takeover..."

A Small Town near Auschwitz --Ordinary Nazi's and the Holocuast... by Mary Fulbrook

Published by Oxford University Press

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP

"..This book explores the overlapping stories of individuals and groups in the Lankreis or county of Bedzin, an area annexed by the German Reich following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. In particular, it focusses on the role of the principle civilian administrator of chief executive of the county, the Landrat, and the experiences of the tens of thousands of Jews in the area for which he held responsibility - an area a mere 25 miles from Auschwitz. This book also confronts the ambiguous legacies, memories, and representations of this past with the historical realities, as far as these can be reconstructed, on the basis of a wide array of sources.....this is a story neither of a committed 'perpetrator', nor of someone engaged in active resistance; it may perhaps therefore contribute, equally significantly, to our knowledge of some of the reasons who so many who help themselves to be 'decent' people went along with the Nazi regime for so long, and what some of the ultimately murderous consequences of their behaviour actually were, however horrific this may have appeared in retrospective. It is relatively rare to be able to lay contemporary sources alongside later self-representations in quite such detail. There are, however, some things that can be known, and other that cannot.  I am sure that, as in other areas and even where the facts are incontrovertible, the interpretations and conclusions i reach will be contested; but this is inevitable in history, and particularly so in relation to a topic so contentious, and so significant as the Holocaust....."

Auschwitz and the Allies

by Martin Gilbert ….

 “ Adolf Hitler had written and spoken against the Jews without respite, from the end of the Fist World War until the beginning of the Second World War. In his book Mien Kampf and in his speeches, Adolf Hitler had portrayed the Jew as a parasite, a bacillus and a vampire, bleeding all nations to death and corruptingn all that was noble and healthy in 1Aryan’ and German life. In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler planed the defeat of Germany in the First World War on the ‘marxist leaders’, and Adolf Hitler argued that if, …..at the beginning of the war, or even during the war …. ‘twelve or fifteen thousand of these Jews who were corrupting the nation had been forced to submit to poison gas’, then the millions of deaths at the front ‘would not have been in vain’. Indeed, Hitler added, ‘if twelve thousand of these malefactors had been eliminated in proper time probably the lives of a million decent men, who would have be of value to Germany in the future, might have been saved’…Immediately on coming to power in 1933, Hitler’s laws began to deprive German Jews systematically of all their rights of citizenship…..Threats against the Jews were the stock-in-trade of Nazism….And on 30^th January 1939, six years after the Nazis had come to power, Hitler declared publicly that in the event of war, ‘the result will not be the bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe..’…on the 16^th December, 1939 The Times published an article which included the headline: A Stony Road To Extermination ….. This article told of the establishment inside German-occupied Poland of a special ‘remainder State’, which was to be set aside  ‘as a Jewish reserve’….the Germans intended to deport more than one million Jews into this ‘concentration area’ from every country under German rule ….in addition, nearly one and a half million Jews from Poland itself would be uprooted from their homes, and sent to this special area. It was ‘clear’, The Times added, that the aim of the scheme was to set up ‘a place for gradual extermination, and not what the Germans would describe as a ‘Lebensraum’ or ‘living space’…. The Soviet Government published details of hundreds of atrocities that had been committed against Russian civilians as the German armies advanced across Russia between June and December, 1941….These details were set out on 6^th January 1942, in a note signed by the Soviet Foreign Ministyer, Vyacheslav Molotov, one of the signatories, scarcely two years earlier, of the notorious Nazi-Soviet pact…. The Molotov note of January the 6^th, 1942 gave a stark town-by-town account of what it described a ‘abnormal violence, outrage and massacre’. ….’A large number of Jews, including women and children of all ages, was gathered in the Jewish cemetery of Kiev. Before they were shot, all were striped naked and beaten, the first persons selected for shooting were forced to lie face down at the bottom of a ditch And were shot with automatic rifles. Then the Germans threw a little earth over them. The next group awaiting execution was forced to lie on top of them, and shot, and so on…’.. A further paragraph of the Molotov note gave details of the work of the ‘mass murders’ of the killing squads in the Ukraine. ‘…These bloody executions’ the note pointed out, ‘were especially directed against unarmed and defenceless Jewish working people’, and it went on to give the number killed….which included women and children, all of whome were robbed and stripped naked before execution….The Molotov note was made public in the Soviet city of Kuibyshev on the 7^th January, 1942, when it was handed to all foreign diplomats in the city…Jewish leaders in Britain and Palestine knew that the British Cabinet had decided, shortly after the outbreak if the Second World War, to refuse refugee status to anyone reaching British territory form enemy territory…clearly most of the refugees came from enemy territory: they had only become refugees in order to escape from a life of persecution in Nazi-dominated Europe .. But it was this fact which made them unacceptable to the British authorities… On 6^th March 1942 Dr Wiezmann wrote to Lord Cranborne and stated …that the ‘survival of the Jews nationally’ defended upon the victory of the Allied because, as Wiezman went on to explain, ‘in the matter of exterminating the Jews, Hitler is as good as his word’….. within three months of the opening of Chelmno death camps in December 1942, three similar camps were set up in different parts of German-occupied Poland, the sole purpose of which was to murder those who entered them, and to do so with a few hours at most of their arrival. These camps, at Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor and Chelmno itself, began to receive trainloads of Jews from all over Europe during the spring of 1942, and in less than a year, more than two million Jews had been murdered, in conditions of the utmost brutality, secrecy and deception…. Those Jews who were forced into the cattle trucks, and those who watched them go were told that the trains were going to work camps ‘in the east’…The Jews of Poland were to be ‘resettled’ in a more distant land. Greater Germany, and the General Government of Poland, were to made ‘Jew free’. But, the Nazi, added, there was room enough elsewhere. If they resisted, they would be shot…..The Nazi promises seemed pausable enough. All over Europe, labour camps had indeed been built to serve the needs of Germany; camps and ghettoes in which clothes factories, armament factories, and machine tool factories made use of Jewish slave labour to help to help the German war machine. Conditions were harsh, and rations meager; many died of starvation, or of deliberate brutality by German guards; but it was possible to survive. And it was to some such camps, so the Nazi’s promised, that these deportations of 1942 were bound. The deportation trains had, however, only on destination, a death camp ‘somewhere in the east’….the fact that the Germans had been murdering Jews in Europe, was well known to the Allies .. Since the outbreak of the Second World War Germans brutality had received wide publicity .. but none of the Allies yet knew that these killings were part of a deliberate plan to murder every Jew in Europe…the Wannsee Conference, and the setting up of the eastern death camps, had been closely guarded secrets …. the deliberate attempt to destroy systematically all of Europe’s Jews was unsuspected in the spring and early summer of 1942……the very period during which it was at its most intense, and during which hundreds of thousands of Jews were being gassed every day at Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor and Treblinka…..”

“..the report of April 18^th 1942 was written by a Pole, a non-Jew and amember of the Polish underground, who had just reached Britain after spending eleven consecutive months in Poland, from November 1941 to December 1942. For the largest part of this time he had been in Warsaw, where he had made contact with the Polish underground, which had sent him to the town of Auschwitz, adjacent to the camp, in order to find out what was ‘going on’ in camp itself. He had information ‘from people who were freed’. According to his account, ‘masses of Jews’were brought to Auschwitz from countries beyond Poland, and were ‘exterminated en masses’. His report went on to state that when he had left Auschwitz at the end of September 119452, ‘at least’ 60,000 of ther 95,000 registered prisoners had been murdered, and he went on to decsrobe what he had ascertained to be the metjods of killing, on the basis ‘of information which I collected on the spot’. He described four such methods:

(a)    Gas Chambers, the victims were undresses and put into those chambers where they suppocated.

(b)   Electric Chambers, these chambers had metal walls, the victims were brought om amd then hogh tention electic current was introduced.

(c)    The so-called Hammerluft system. This is a hammer of ait. Those were special chambers were the hammer fell from the ceiling and by means of a special installation, victims found death under air pressure.

(d)   Shooting. This was used as a collective form of punishment, in cases of subordination, thus killing every tenth.

Accordng to report, the first three methods were those ‘used most frequently’. During the gassing ‘Gastapo men stood in a position which enabled them to watch in gas masks the death of ther masses of victims’. After the killing, thre corpses were taken outside the camp, and were put into huge pits covered in lime. ‘The burning of ther victioms by means of electic ovens’, the report stated, ‘ was seldom applied’. This was because ‘in such ovens only about 250 people cpild be bunt within 24 hours’.

“..The first Jews of the Warsaw uprising was published in the Western press on April 22. Irs source was a United Press dispatch for neutral Sweden, reporting an appeal over ‘secret Polish radio’ on the night of April 21^st 1942. The appeal, as heard in Sweden, said: ….’…The last 25,000 in the Warsaw ghetto have been condemned to execution. Warsaw again is echoing to musketry volleys. The people are murdered. Women and chidren defend themselves with their naked arms. Save us….’

“…At the Parliamentary Debate on May 19th 1942 in Britain ….what mattered, Eleanor Rathborne insisted, was ‘of caring enough and giving your whole time and thought to doing the thing…(finding a way to save any murdered murder of millions of Jews in Nazi controlled Europe)’. Miss Rathborne asked….’.. if Great Britain has in the hands of the Consuks some hundreds of unnamed visa available gpt Palestine or Great Britain or some camp under their cintriol in North Africa or elsewhere, if the United Statews has another block of such visas and any other friendly country also has a block of such visas…’

Miss Rathborne went on the speak of how the Unites States visa procedure ‘has been even more difficult and slow than our own,’ and she assded, bitterly, ‘If the blood of those who have perished unnecessarily during this wat were to flow down Whitehall, the flood would rise so jigh that it would drown everyone within those gloomy buildings which house our rulers’. How many more, as asked, ‘who might bwe saved will perish’ if the problem were approached in the spirit of the Bermuda Conference, an she ened:..’the deaths of which we are thinking to-day…’, are so utterly useless, sqlalid and unspeakably cruel. They serve no purpose, except to gratify one man’s lust for cruelty, for wrecking vengeance on the weak when he cannot reach the strong….Only victory will put an end to it all.But in the meantime let no one say: ‘We are not responsible.’ We are responsible if a single man, worman or child perishes whome we could and should have saved.Too many lives, too much time has been lost already.Do not lose any more….’ .... The debate continued with futher criticism of the Britsh Government, and much sympathy for the Jews. A Labout MP, John Mack, pointed out tot his fellow MP’s that the Jews were unlike others who were suffering, in that ‘they have no Government to speak for them, they have no consul and no flag. Thye have no ststus in any land and they are not likely to have a place at any future peace conference’. John Mack added: ‘Our hearts go out to them because of their hopeless plight.’

“..On the morning of December 13^th 1943 the American Secrtary of State, Cordell Hull, sent for the British Ambassador in Washington, Lord Halifax, to tell him, as Halifax reported later that same day to Anthony Eden, ‘of increasing pressure under which United States Government were form Jews’, Cordell Hull’feared’, as Halifax phrased it, ‘that unless he could find means of steadying position, thye might run into trouble over it, and jewish extremists would get control’, Cordell Hull wanted ot be able to tell the ‘four million’ Jews in America that the United Sattes Government was following the Palestinw problem ‘with close and costant attention’, but did not want to say anything ‘embarrassinf’ to Eden and the Bristish Government. Halifax promised to let him have Eden’s comments on the proposed statement in the next few days, explsining to Eden that Hull was ‘anxious to forestall what he expects to be “a Jewish blast”…’”…

“… It as noy only in Washington, but also in London, that pressure had begun to mount, particularily with regard to British policy towards Jewish refugees. On December 1943 this subject was raised in the House of Commons by that persistant campaigner, Eleanor Rathbone. It was exactky a year before, Eleanor Rathbone recalled, that Eden had disclosed ‘the horrible truths about the cruelties being perpetuated on innumerable Jewish victims on no other ground than their race’. Ever since then, Eleanor Rathbone. Said, ‘the atrocities have continued, and they are continuing day by day’. The number of victims had risen frpm hundreds of thousands to millions. In polland alone ‘it is estimated that between 1,500,000 (one million and five hundred thousand) and 2,000,000 (two million) Jews have been massacred, starved or worked to death by unspeakably sadistic measures’. Every week brought news in the Press ‘of the dreadful truck loads of victims that are going across Europe to the murder camps of Poland, from one European country after another, from France and from Holland, most recentky from Greece. Government had promised ‘punishment for the war criminals’, Miss Eleanor Rathbone noted. But that, she said ‘will not restore the dead to life’. A year ago the practical British public has asked, ‘What can be done for rescue before it is too late?’ But the result of the Burmuda conference, Eleanor Rathbone argued, was ‘pitiably little’. It was essential, Eleanor Rathbone said, to convince the Germans that the question of refugees was one ‘about which we care passionately,so much so that if they continue with their massacres and cruelties it may affaect their future position and our treatment, after victory, of their people’. As for the satellite States, Eleanor Rathbone argued, they were becoming ‘increasingly aware of the danger of further outraging world opinion and may yield to pressure where formerly they hardened their hearts’. Eleanor Rathbone then spoke bitterly of the British Government’s earlier policy twowards Jewish immigration:

‘…..If it had not been for the restrictions placed on immigration to Palestine in pre-war years, even before the Palestinian White Paper, imposed partly for economic reasons and partly to please the Arabs, tens of thousands of men, women and children who no lie in bloody graves would long ago have been among their kindred in Palestine. That is something I shall never forget, and I hope the House will never forget it either….”

There were ‘many others’, Eleanor Rathbone declared, ‘who like me think of this terrible question day and night. It is on our consciences all the time. We are not satified that the utmost has been done for recure’.

Eleanor Rathbone went on to appeal top the British Government to agree to take responcibility, ‘not for unlimited numbers’ of refugees, but for a proportion of those accepted by the neutral States, ‘and so make it possible for the neutral States to offer further large numbers.’ Eleanor Rathbone’s speech eanded with a direct appeal to Eden, and through him every member of the Cabinet: ‘..Let them no be content with urging the neutral States to take larger numbers in. Let them say plainly what we are prepared to do ourselves and to ask our Dominions and the United States what they are prepared to do. If the Government do that it will have the support of every section of opinion in the country worth consideration. Do not let them be deterred by the mean jealousies and selfish fears of a mere handful of contemptible people who have been influenced bu anti-Sematic or by anti-foreigner propaganda …. Our people and the people of the United States are both generous-hearted and ddeply humane peoples. Do not let us forget, too, that both these peoples are, professedly at least, Christian peoples. Then let them remember the example of Chaucer’s priest of whom it was said, ‘Christ’s law ansd that of his apostles twelve he taught, But first he followed it himself.’ During her speech pf December 14, 1943, Eleanor Rathbone had strongly critizised the existing official attitude towards the refugee question. ‘Neither we nor the United States, ‘she said, ‘have shown a shining example to theworld in this matter.’ Unknown to Eleanor Rathbone, an example of her complaint was taking place as she spoke….eight months before Riegnerin Geneva put forward a possible rescue scheme in a telegram dated the 14^th April, 1943 to his superiors in New York for much needed money to help Jews escape from being sent to German Death Camps and for clothing, especially for children and orphans ‘who should be transferred to Palestine’..it becam,e clear than once the scheme was accepted, and dollar transfered to a blocked Swiss bank account, as many as 70,000 Rumanian Jews would be allowed to leave Rumania for Plaestine…. But the USA State Depeartment sill hesitated and delayed, so much so that on the 22^nd July, 1943 Stephen Wise went direct to Roosevelt, to explain the scheme personally ot the President…. Roosevelt rang the Sectretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr., and told him: ‘..Henry, this is a very fair proposal which Stephen makes about ransoming Jews out of Poland and Hungary…’. Even with Rossevelt’s support, however, could not persuade the USA State Department to look favourably on the scheme for another five months, to the distress of the World Jewish Congress. Then, on Dece,ber 15^th, 1943, just as the United States Treasury was about to issue Riegner with the necessary authorization, the British Ministry of Economic Warfaire informed the United States Embassy in London that:  ‘..The British Foreign Office is concerned with the difficulties of disposing of any considerable number of Jews should they be rescued form enemy-occupied territory… Thye forsee that it is likely to prove almost if not impossible to deal with anything like the number of 70,000 refugees whose rescue is envisaged by the Riegner plan. For this reason they are reluctant to agree to any approval being expressed even of the preliminary financial arrangements…’

In reply, the British Ambassador in Washington, Lord Halifax, warned the British Foreign Office that American Jewry, ‘Zionist or non-Zionist’, would regard sich a decision as ‘inhumane’, and on December 21^st, 1943, the American Legation in Berne authorized Riegner to proceed with the Scheme, the blockade regulations ‘notwithstanding’.  However, the opinion of the British Foreign Office was unchanged. .. concerns included  ‘the meeting of the requirements of the British Colonial Office in relation ot practical politics and Arab wishes…’ … ‘…Henherson’s colleague, A.W.G. Randall noted on December 24^th, 1943: ‘…. Once we open the door to adult male Jews to be taken out of enemy territory, a quite unmanageable flood may result (Hitler may facilitate it!).’

It was not the sudden ‘unmanageable flood’, however, but the painfully slow, small trickle that continued to absorb the energies of the Jewish Agency form day to day. On December 1oth, one of their Instanbul representatives, Dr Joseph Goldin, reported to Jerusalem that eight Jews had reached Istanbul, form Hungary, four holders of ‘ancient’ Palestine visas, and two relatives, a wife and a child, of Palestinian residents; and form Bulgaria, two ‘veteran Zionists’….Further evidence of the scale of the slaughter of Warsaw Jewry reached the Allies, and western Jewry, on December 15^th, 1943, with the opening of the second Soviet trial of German war criminals, at Kharkov, one of the largest Soviet cities to be liberated from German Rule.    During the Kharkov trial a twenty-four-year-old SS Lieutenant, Hans Ritz, was questioned about the use of gas vans in Kharkov. On first hearing the words ‘gas vans’ mentioned in Kharkov, Ritz told the prosecutor, ‘I remembered the vehicle form my stay in Warsaw, when I witnessed the evacuation in it of the unreliable sections of the Warsaw population.’ While is Warsaw, Rutz added, ‘..I got to know that part of the Warsaw population were evactuated by railway and another part were loaded into the “Gas vans” and exterminated.’ Hans Rtiz also gave evidence of the mass shoorting, in sandpits and stone quarries, of tens of thousands of people in the Soviet cities of Krasnodar,Vitebsk and Tagabrog. During the shooting of some three hundred people at a village near Kharkov, Rutz recalled, a woman, trying to save her child, ‘covered it with her body. But this did not help her, because the bullet went through her and the child’.

To help fool the world that Auschwitz was not a death camp, a further 2,491 Jews were brought from Theresienstadt, not be be gassed, but out in the special family camp and told to send post card to relatives to saythey were being looked after and not murdered… but in the mean time many other new arivals from Poland, Paris and Holland,Theresienstadt and Stutthof concentration campt, near Danzigat Auschwitz were sent straight to the gas chambers ot be executed alonf with ‘during December, 1943, sick women were taken out of the women’s barracks, and sent to the gas chambers, the monthly total being recorded at 4,247…

As 1943 came to an end, and 1944 began, the storied of German atrocities were still not fully believed….a Hungarian Jewisg refugee, Arthur Koestler, then working as a journalist and lecturer in Britain. ‘At present’, he wrote in an article which was puyblished in the NEW York Times Magazine in January 1944, ‘we have the mania of trying to tell you about the killing, by hot steam, mass-electocution and live burial, of the total Jewish population in Europe. So far three million Jewish people have died(beinf executed in various cruel and inhumane ways). It is the greatest mass-killing in recrded history’ and it goes on daily, hourly, as regularlt as the ticking of your watch.’ Koestler’s own ‘emotion and bitterness arose, he wrote, because he had on his desk in fornt of him photographs of the killings; photographs which had neen suggles out of Poland. ‘People died to smuggle them out’. He commented, and added caustically, ‘they thought it was worth while’.

On March 15, the truth about Auschwityz was ‘revealed’ yet again. But once again the revelation passed entirely noticed in the west, either among the Allied or Jewish leadership. The cource was the Polish underground, and the details wwere published in Istanbul in a cyclostyled newspaper issued by the Polish Consulated General in Instanbul. According to theis newspaper, some 850,000 Jews had been gassed at Auschwityz between the summer fo 1942 and the autum fo 1943, among them 60,00 from Greece, 60,00 from France, Begium and Holland, and 50,000 from  Slovakia, Bohemia and Moravia. In addition, the newspaper noted, some 15,000 Jews from the Polish cities of Bedzin and Sosnowiec had also been gassed in Auschwityz during the summer of 1943.  These figures were far larger than any that had yet been poublished in the west for people gassed at Auschwityz.

In June 1943 Vrba was transferred to become one of the registrars ub the Qurantine Camp at Birkenau, from ‘Canada’ at situation in the Auschwityz Main Camp where he witnessed train after train of new Arrivals of Jews fro mainly gassing with a few being sent to work camp, … with many arriving dead on arrival. …From his office Vrba also witnessed the construction of a new railway siding inside Birkenau itself. Work on this siding, or ‘ramp’, had begun on 15^th January, 1944. ‘The purpose of this ramp’, Vrba recalled ‘was no secret in Birkenau, the SS were talking about “Hungarian Salami” and”a million units..”…

 “ Finally ….. on May 14, 1943 the  British and American leaders took an important step in this direction, when their highest planning group, the Combined Chiefs of Staff, approved ‘Operation Pointblank’, a joint Anglo-American bomber offensive against Germany, aimed at the very cources of Germany military power…

It is noted that Koala Bear’s father, who was a Cornel in the Intelligence and a Squadron Leader for the Australian Airforce during the Second World War was invited by the American Airforce to help command ‘Operation Pointblank’. Koala Bear asked a friend who had the most highest access to wartime Airforce Files, stated that when he checked out Koala Bear’s wartime record with the Australian and USA Airforces, these two years Koala Bear’s father spent with the American Airforce during the last two years of the Second World War was so top secret that no one was, even with the highest security clearance, was allowed to access Koala Bear’s father’s files during these two years.

The objectives of Operation Pointblank were set out as ‘the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened’, at which point it would be possible ‘to permit initiation of final combined operations on the Continent’; that is, the opening of a second front in western Europe, and the military defeat of the German control of Europe by armies advancing simultaneously from east and west into Germany itself. Operation Pointblank was to continue the principle Anglo-American war effort in the air for more than twelve months, and was imtended to reach its maximum force by March 1944, when the United States Air Force alone would be contributing more than 3,500 bombers. The Operation Pointblank was intended to destroy six German war making systems; submarine construction yards and bases, the German aircraft industry, ball-bearing production, natural and synthetic oil production and storage, synthetic rubber and tyre productions, and the manufacture and assembley of military transport venicles…If Opertion Pointblank was to succeed, a second front could be opened during the summer of 1944. But by the time the liberation came, who could tell how many Jews, or rather how few Jews, would still be alive to celebrate the Allied victory? And what form would their celebration take when, even by May 1943, so many millioms of Jews were already dead, the Warsaw ghetto uprising crushed, and Polish Jewry, the largest single Jewish community of pre-war Europe. Already almost entirely destroyed….

“..Churchill’s draft declaration in October 1943…”

‘…. Let those who have hitherto not umbrused their hands with innocent blood beware lest they join the ranks of the guilty, for most assuredly the three allied powers will pursure them to the uttermost ends of the earth, and will deliver them to their accusers in order that justice may be done….’

Page 161…’ Hitler Murdered Three Million Jews in Europe’

“..Hitler has murdered or destroyed by planned starvation, pegroms, forced labour, and deportations (to death camps), more than 3,000,000 (three million) of Europe’s Jews, according to a statement od the Institute of Jewish Affairs published in the United States…” … part of the news item that appeared in a smmal article with a small sized headline at the bottom of the front page of the Sunday newspaper, the People, 17^th October 1943. The main headline in the biggest type size on top of the front page was  ‘GERMANS PULLING OUT OF VOLTURNO’.

By itself was an impressive headline, but it appeared a sone of the smallest items of the day in the very botton of the corner of the front page .. Meanwhile, news of the eatward deportations continued to reach the west. On November 5^th 1943, Gerhart Riengner telegraphed form Geneva, both to the Czechoslovak Government in London, and to his own World Jewish Congress colleagues there: ‘Transports out of Theresienstadt have recently shown a marked increase. Btween July 15^th and September 30^th  1943,  6,800 Czech Jews – among others – were deported from Theresienstadt to Birenau. There were put aboard the deportation trains under cover of mounted machine-guns ready for firing. As far as the Geneva Listening-post was concerned, the fate of these Czech Jews, once they reached Auschwitz-Birenau, was unknown…

Inside Auschwitz, itself, even those sent to the camp continued to be ‘selected’ for the gas chanbers: on November 19^th 1943 a slection was made in the women’s camp, and 384 Jewesses friven away to their deaths. Two of the womed, Bina Braud and Rosa Thieberger, managed to jump of out of the lorry in which they were being driven through the camp to the gas chambers. They tried to hide among the other inmates, but were captured and shot…On November 3^rd November 1943, the SS instituted what they called a ‘harvest festival’ at Majdenek, killing 18,000 priosoners in a single day, and a further 34,000 within the next few weeks. On November th 1943, several hundred jews in the concentration camp at Riga were deported to Auschwitz  and gassed…

Zyklon B (German pronunciation: [tsykloːn ˈbeː];

also spelled Cyclon B or Cyclone B) was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide invented in the early 1920s. The product was infamous for its use by Nazi Germany to murder an estimated 1.2 million people, including approximately 960,000 Jews, in gas chambers ofextermination camps during the Holocaust. This number represents a portion of the estimated 11 million people killed by the Nazi regime.

Zyklon B consisted of hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid), a stabilizer, a warningodorant (ethyl bromoacetate), and one of several adsorbents. Zyklon A was a previously produced liquid pesticide, which released hydrogen cyanide in achemical reaction with water. After the invention of Zyklon B, Zyklon A production was stopped.

One of the co-inventors of Zyklon B, the chemist and businessman Bruno Tesch, was executed by the British in 1946 for his role in the Holocaust.

From 1929 onwards the United States used Zyklon B to disinfect the freight trains and clothes of Mexican immigrants entering the U.S. Farm Securities Administration photographer Marion Post Wolcott recorded the use of cyanide gas and Zyklon B by the Public Health Service at the New Orleans Quarantine Station during the 1930s.

In early 1942, Zyklon B had emerged as the preferred extermination tool of the Nazi regime for both the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek extermination camps during the Holocaust. The chemical claimed the lives of roughly 1.2 million people in these camps. Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz, said that the use of Zyklon-B came about on the initiative of one of his subordinates, Captain Karl Fritzsch, who used the substance to kill some Russian POWs in late August 1941. The experiment was repeated on more Russian POWs, with Höss watching, in September. The emergence of Zyklon-B as the preferred chemical was a multistranded process.

Bayer AG (/ˈbaɪər/; German pronunciation: [ˈbaɪ̯ɐ]) is a German chemical andpharmaceutical company founded in Barmen (today a part of Wuppertal), Germany in 1863. It is headquartered in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and well known for its original brand of aspirin. Bayer marketed the illegal drug heroin in 1895 and invented the OTC drug aspirinin 1897. The company was 150 years old on 1 August 2013.

As part of the reparations after World War I, Bayer assets, including the rights to its name and trademarks, were confiscated in the United States, Canada, and several other countries. In the United States and Canada, Bayer's assets and trademarks were acquired by Sterling Drug, a predecessor of Sterling Winthrop.

The Bayer company then became part of IG Farben, a German chemical company conglomerate. During World War II, the IG Farben used slave labor in factories attached to large slave labor camps, notably I.G. Auschwitz,^[3] and the sub-camps of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. IG Farben owned 42.5% of the company that manufactured Zyklon B,^[5]a chemical used in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and other extermination camps. After World War II, the Allies broke up IG Farben and Bayer reappeared as an individual business. The Bayer executive Fritz ter Meer, sentenced to seven years in prison during the IG Farben Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, was made head of the supervisory board of Bayer in 1956, after his release.

The Rothschild’s original family name was Bayer/Bauer

Bayer and the Rothschild family, the spread of HIV

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg-52mHIjhs You may or may not be aware that the Bayer's are really the globalist banker family called the Rothschilds. Anonymity is crucial for these elite families who control the governments, the food, pharmaceutical and medical industries, and the mainstream entertainment and news media (they OWN AP and Reuters) to make it seem like those who are connected by incestuous interbreeding and business networks are actually unrelated, such as the Rockefeller, Rothschilds, Oppenheimers, Schiff's, etc. Throughout history they have been able to hide behind their networks and front men to play down the amount of power, control and wealth they truly have. Almost all of the great industrialists and bankers in the new world order were set up by the Rothschilds as was the U.S. Federal Reserve,allowing them to print money out of thin air and then charge the public interest for said money, effectively, yet covertly STEALING our labor. There are several descendants of Rothschild that do not bare the name, such as Rockefellers and Astors via intermarrying and through bastard children and bloodline dilution, as well as descendants from the original German family of Bauers who aren’t researched because the focus is always on the Rothschild dynasty. The name Bayer can be traced back to Bauer, and as you know, Bayer is one of the world’s largest Pharmaceutical companies. Some even claim Hitler was a Rothschild bastard. Whether the name change was a deliberate deception or simply a fresh start for these satanic bankster criminals, the name "Rothschild" meaning Red Shield, is now synonymous with the global banking conspiracy, and the control and corruption of the food, water and medical industry is but one arm of this gigantic beast system.

Bayer is responsible for the spread of Hepatitus C namely genotype 1.

They spread the disease from Blood donation banks which they are the chief owners of plasma donation centers operating under various names. People getting and giving the blood during the 80's were exposed to contaminated blood with the disease which is a silent killer. It was spread in blood banks just like aids was from Bayer during the early 80's to the early 90's.

They get shut down only to open another blood bank with another name.
Now they have tests for donors so it's not as easy to catch it. Blood banks GAVE hep C to donors too with their contaminated donation procedure at that time, as there were nogloves worn, use of the same needle was regular practice, and co-mingling of blood in the back rooms where they separated the plasma from the blood and then put the blood back into your veins. More people have Hep C than HIV. It's an epidemic. HIV and HEP C were spread viciously through this contaminated method during that time.

Bayer and it's subsidies are at fault. Has anyone been successful in suing them for giving them diseases? They made billions off of this blood. They shipped it to Canada's hemopheliacs and infected all of them. Have they ever paid for this? It's a form of eugenics. All people who gave blood in the 80's should get a hep c test. It's a slow killer. End result is a gruesome death from liver disease.

http://www.dailypaul.com/236489/bayer-and-the-rothschild-family-the-spread-of-hiv

http://healthwyze.org/index.php/component/content/article/244-the-history-of-opium-and-the-history-of-how-the-pharmaceutical-industry-intentionally-created-drug-addictions.html

Opium has been used medicinally and recreationally for centuries.  Fifteenth century China doctors used opium for medicine, with some using it recreationally.  It was the first effective antidepressant, sedative, and pain reliever.  However, opium addictions only began in the eighteenth century, when the British began to monopolize the sale of opium.  It is no coincidence that when the British, with their chemical industry, began selling opium that these chemically altered opiums began creating addictions.  Completely natural, unadulterated plants are not addictive until they have been "refined" and concentrated.  As a result of what the British did, opium eventually became illegal under Chinese law, but the sale from the British continued.

In 1839, the Emperor, Tao Kwang, ordered his minister Lin Tse-hsu to deal with the opium problem.  Lin requested help from Queen Victoria, but was ignored.  As a result, the Emperor confiscated 20,000 barrels of opium and detained some foreign traders, many of whom were British.  The Chinese believed that because their ceramics and silk technologies were superior to their British counterparts that their naval ships would also be.  They were wrong.  The British retaliated to this interference with their drug ("medical") trade by attacking the port-city of Canton.

This was the beginning of what would become known as the 'First Opium War'.  It was launched by the biggest, richest drug cartel that the world has ever known; the British Empire.  When the Chinese were defeated, they had no choice but to sign the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842.  They were required to allow the trade of opium, to make large payments to the British, and even to open five new ports to the foreign drug ("medical") trade.  They were also forced to give Hong Kong to Britain.  Opium was, technically, still an illegal substance in China, but the Chinese were forced to accept British imports.

In 1856, the Second Opium War began and ended, with the Chinese being defeated once more.  As a result, they were forced to sign the Treaty of Tientsin, and the sale of opium was legalized.  The British claimed that the Chinese people had a "right" to this "harmless luxury", without regard to its own government.  Opium imports increased to unprecedented levels.  By the end of the nineteenth century, an estimated quarter of the male population of China was addicted to the enhanced opium.

In the United States, many of the early Americans cultivated their own opium.  Thomas Jefferson cultivated opium at his garden in Monticello.  This fact is generally covered-up by modern historians, who have the politically correct belief that all drugs are bad, even in their harmless natural state, and that prohibition is the only option of a healthy society.

Morphine was first isolated from opium in 1805 by German pharmacist, Wilhelm Sertürner.  It was named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.  When opium products are taken orally, they are known to cause stomach and digestive disturbances, so the invention of the hypodermic needle in the mid-nineteenth century allowed direct injection of morphine.  The poor could not afford to inject drugs, so morphine was used daily by the elite classes, and the cost of opium fell.  It was also used extensively on wounded soldiers in the U.S. Civil War.  Incredibly, the pharmaceutical companies not only promoted morphine as being non-addictive, but to also cure opium addictions.  Missionaries in the early twentieth century handed out "Jesus Opium" pills in order to assist with addictions.  The active ingredient was morphine.  Of course, this only created greater addictions, which conveniently helped the chemical industry more.

In the mid-nineteenth Century, Chinese immigrants had appeared in the United States in large numbers to help build railways and work with California mines.  Opium use had become a part of their culture, and opium, along with the Chinese, were demonized as being destructive to the youth.  Dr. John Witherspoon, who would later become president of the American Medical Association (AMA), told allopaths to search for a cure for opium addictions, and a morphine alternative.  The alternative was to be non-addictive.

In 1874, an English pharmacist, C. R. Alder Wright had boiled morphine and acetic acid together, producing diacetylmorphine.  Diacetylmorphine was synthesized and marketed commercially by the German pharmaceutical giant, Bayer.  In 1898, Bayer launched the best-selling drug-brand of all time, Heroin.

Epilogue

When will we learn from history what to expect from these people and their "helpful" chemical "improvements" upon nature?  You will see this identical pattern for all other illegal narcotics, like for instance, cocaine.  They created all of the addictive drug monsters, and they got the results that they wanted.  In fact, you can technically still get a doctor's prescription for cocaine, and even get it filled at certain pharmacies.  Will the public ever see the pattern?

The reason why diseases are never cured with modern medicine is because curing is not as profitable as creating life-long drug addicts.  This is why all the diseases are "chronic" now, and why the "medicines" seem only to perpetuate the diseases that they are supposedly meant to "treat" (but never ever cure).  The system is broken by design to keep us dependent.  Why do you think they "treat" cancer with extreme carcinogens like radiation?  Radiation must be one of the most safe and effective health benefiting treatments, because they just cannot find that elusive cure, right?

The biggest difference between your doctor and the local drug dealer is that the drug dealer is considerably more honest about how he earns his money.

http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/auschwitz/auschwitz-faq-06.html

"In short, this industry used very powerful gases to exterminate rodents and insects in enclosed spaces; that it should now have become involved in an operation to kill off Jews by the hundreds of thousands is not mere accident." (Hilberg, Commandant, 567)

Two German firms, Tesch/Stabenow and Degesch, produced Cyclone B gas after they acquired the patent from Farben. Tesch supplied two tons a month, and Degesch three quarters of a ton. The firms that produced the gas already had extensive experience in fumigation.

"In short, this industry used very powerful gases to exterminate rodents and insects in enclosed spaces; that it should now have become involved in an operation to kill off Jews by the hundreds of thousands is not mere accident." (Hilberg, Commandant, 567)

After the war the directors of the firms insisted that they had sold their products for fumigation purposes and did not know they were being used on humans. But the prosecutors found letters from Tesch not only offering to supply the gas crystals but also advising how to use the ventilating and heating equipment. Hoess testified that the Tesch directors could not help but know of the use for their product because they sold him enough to annihilate two million people. Two Tesch partners were sentenced to death in 1946 and hanged. The director of Degesch recieved five years in prison." (Feig) (See also Breitman, 203-204, for a discussion of the early involvement of Heerdt-Lingler)

From the statement of Hans Stark, registrar of new arrivals, Auschwitz (Klee, 255):

At another, later gassing -- also in autumn 1941 -- Grabner* ordered me to pour Zyklon B into the opening because only one medical orderly had shown up. During a gassing Zyklon B had to be poured through both openings of the gas-chamber room at the same time. This gassing was also a transport of 200-250 Jews, once again men, women and children. As the Zyklon B -- as already mentioned -- was in granular form, it trickled down over the people as it was being poured in.

They then started to cry out terribly for they now knew what was happening to them. I did not look through the opening because it had to be closed as soon as the Zyklon B had been poured in. After a few minutes there was silence. After some time had passed, it may have been ten to fifteen minutes, the gas chamber was opened. The dead lay higgledy-piggedly all over the place. It was a dreadful sight.

* Maximillian Grabner, Head of Political Department, Auschwitz

Zyklon-B is a powerful insecticide which serves as a carrier for the gas Hydrocyanic acid, or HCN. It usually comes in the shape of small pellets or disks. (See Breitman, 203, for more detail about the early use of the gas at Auschwitz) HCN is the cause of death following the application of Zyklon-B. While interacting with iron and concrete, it creates Hydrocyanic compounds, which Leuchter admitted were found in the ruins of the gas chamber in Krematoria II. His finding was confirmed by findings of the Polish government.

HCN is extremely poisonous to humans. It is used in execution gas chambers in the US; the first was built in Arizona in 1920.

• Holocaust denial often includes the claim that Germany in the 1940's could not handle the "technical difficulties" inherent in using HCN for execution.

As noted above, these "difficulties" were easily solved in 1920. Moreover, the Germans had a lot of experience with HCN, as it was extensively used for delousing.

There were two types of gas chambers in Auschwitz: those used for delousing clothes ("delousing gas chambers") and those used for killing people on a massive scale ("extermination gas chambers"). The delousing gas chambers were a standard feature, and were left intact by the SS (the extermination gas chambers were dynamited in an effort to conceal criminal traces).

• Holocaust denial asserts that because more Hydrocyanic compounds were found in the delousing chambers in Auschwitz than in the ruins of the extermination gas chambers, mass murder using the gas could not have taken took place within, because the reverse would be true.

HCN is much more effective on warm-blooded animals, including humans, than it is on insects. The exposure period (to HCN) is much greater in delousing operations than in homicidal gassings. This means that a much lower concentration is necessary to kill people than to get rid of lice, etc. In delousing, concentrations of up to 16,000 ppm (parts per million) are sometimes used, and exposure time can be up to 72 hours; while 300 ppm will kill people in fifteen minutes or so.

Therefore, the HCN in the extermination chambers hardly had time to form compounds on the walls. While some claim that the gas would need a lot of time to kill, because it would have to spread all over the chamber, it simply is not true; the gas chambers were not that large (those in Krematoria II and III were about 210 square meters), and the Zyklon-B was dropped from four openings (still visible in the ruins of the gas chambers). Since the concentration used was higher than the lethal one, death was very swift.

Furthermore, the delousing chambers are intact while the extermination chambers were blown up (a .GIF picture of the one of Krema II is available). Therefore, their walls have been exposed to the elements for the last 50 years. The ruins of the gas chamber of Krema II are covered with about 3 feet of water during certain periods of the year; HCN compounds easily dissolve in these surroundings. Nonetheless, so much gassing took place that some of the compound remained.

Summarizing, the walls of the extermination gas chambers were in contact with HCN for a much shorter time then those of the delousing chambers, and for the last 45 years were exposed to surroundings which dissolve the compounds, while the delousing rooms were not. Therefore it is obvious that less traces of compounds would remain in them.

This fact - that all, or most, of the compounds would vanish during 45 years of exposure - is clearly stated in the report written by the experts of theCracow Institute of Forensic Research. (Also see The Leuchter FAQ)

• Holocaust deniers once claimed that the gas chamber in Krema I was left intact, and therefore its walls were not exposed to the elements.

But - as they admit themselves - the gas chamber of Krema I was used only for a short time, and than it was changed to an air-raid shelter. After the liberation of the camp, it was reconstructed to its original shape. This, and the fact that "only" about 10,000 people were murdered inside it (compared to 350,000 and 400,000 in Kremas II and III) explain why relatively small amounts of cyanide compounds remain. As for Kremas IV and V, they were completely destroyed by the SS before the Soviets liberated the camp.

Finally, cyanide compounds were found on the ventilation grills of the extermination chambers, proving beyond doubt that gassing did take place inside them.

• The claim that it would have been impossible to use the gas chambers for killing, because they were too close to the furnaces, and the gas would explode, is often found in Holocaust denial literature, and is one of the assertions of the Leuchter report..

The concentration of HCN necessary to cause death is nearly 200 times lower than that which causes explosion. Although the SS used a concentration higher than the lethal one, it was far below that causing explosion.

As a reference, one can look at "The Merck Index" and the "CRC handbook of Chemistry and Physics", or consult any manual dealing with toxicity and flammability of chemicals. For HCN, a concentration of 300 ppm (parts per million) kills humans within a few minutes, while the minimal concentration that can result in an explosion is 56,000 ppm.

• Another common claim is that it takes 20 hours to air a room which has been disinfected with Zyklon-B, and therefore the eyewitness accounts giving a time of 20-30 minutes from when the gassing started to when the bodies where carried out is impossible, because the people carrying out the bodies would perish.

If one disinfects a building in ordinary commercial use, it should not be reentered within 20 hours. That figure, however, has no meaning in relation to the extermination chambers, because they were forcibly ventilated. Fifteen minutes were enough to replace the air. When ventilation was not used, the Sonderkommando (prisoners used as forced labor) who took the bodies out had gas masks on.

The Germans had plenty of experience with gas, especially HCN, which was widely used for delousing. They knew how to work with it without getting hurt. It is absurd to use the 20 hour figure in this context, which does not assume forced ventilation and takes a huge safety factor into account. The SS didn't care much for the safety of the Sonderkommando who had to enter the gas chambers to take the corpses out. Furthermore, what makes ventilation difficult and lengthy is the presence of rugs, furniture, curtains, etc. Needless to say, these were not present in the gas chambers - there was just bare concrete, making ventilation fast and efficient. If the "20 hours ventilation period" above was true, this would mean that the corpses of people executed using cyanide gas in US gas chambers would remain tied to the chair 20 hours after they were killed...

• Another common claim is that the "alleged" extermination chambers are actually morgues, and that Zyklon-B was used in them as a disinfectant.

This claim stems from the fact that Hydrocyanic compounds were found on the ventilation grills of the gas chambers in Krematoria II and III (the chemical analysis was carried out by Dr. Jan Robel of the Cracow Forensic Institute in December 1945, and was part of the evidence in the trial of Auschwitz commander Höss). This proves that gassing did take place in that chamber. Zyklon-B cannot kill anaerobic bacteria - it kills only aerobic organisms. That means it would be useless for disinfecting corpses.

In closing, consider the testimony of SS private Hoeblinger: (Langbein)

I was detailed to the transport service and I drove the Sanka [abbreviation for Sanitatskraftwagen/medical truck] which was to carry the prisoners....

Then we drove to the gas chambers. The medical orderlies climbed a ladder, they had gas masks up there, and emptied the cans. I was able to observe the prisoners while they were undressing. It always proceeded quitely and without them suspecting anything. It happened very quickly.

Note Pvt. Hoeblinger's mention of gas masks - some Holocaust deniers insist that the SS-men dropping the gas would be killed by it, which leads one to speculate about their reading ability. Finally, the undeniable evidence that the SS ordered Degesch to remove the indicator odor, mandated under German law, which was added to the Zyklon B in order to provide a warning to human beings that the lethal stuff was nearby. I believe this demonstrated clear criminal intent - the SS would hardly have removed the indicator odor if they had intended, as the denial set insists, to use the gas only on insects and corpses... (See farben.001. for more information about this demand from the SS. Borkin, 123)

Recommended reading:

• Barrington,J.H., ed. The Zyklon B Trial: Trial of Bruno Tesch and Two Others. London, 1948, and Borkin (see Work Cited).
• Harmon, Brian. Technical Aspects of the Holocaust: Cyanide, Zyklon-B, and Mass Murder. (See camps/auschwitz cyanide.001), 1994
• United Nations War Crimes Commission. Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals. Vol. 1, London, 1947. See pp. 93-104

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-zyklon.htm

The History Place- Holocaust Timeline

A stockpile of Zyklon-B poison gas pellets found at Majdanek death camp in 1944. Below: Close-up of the containers and a gas mask found at Majdanek.

The containers above hold Zyklon-B pellets (hydrocyanic acid) that vaporize when exposed to air. Originally intended for commercial use as a disinfectant and an insecticide, the Nazis discovered through experimentation the gas could be used to kill humans.

The brand of Zyklon-B used by the Nazis contained substances which gave the pellets a blue appearance and left blue stains inside gas chambers which can still be seen today in chambers that were left intact.

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.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Zyklon.html

Gassing Victims in the Holocaust – Zyklon-B

Zyklon B was used in Germany before and during the Second World War for disinfection and pest extermination in ships, buildings and machinery. In the Auschwitz concentration camp as well, it was used exclusively for sanitation and pest control until the summer of 1941. After the end of August 1941, Zyklon was used in the camp, first experimentally and then routinely, as an agent of mass annihilation. Zyklon B consisted of diatomite, in the form of granules the size of fine peas, saturated with prussic acid. In view of its volatility and the associated risk of accidental poisoning, it was supplied to the camp in sealed metal canisters. The Zyklon used at Auschwitz concentration camp was produced by a firm called Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung mbH), with headquarters in Frankfurt am Main and forming a part of IG Farbenidustrie AG.

The following is a scientific breakdown of Zyklon-B: Hydrogen cyanide HCN, prussic acid, is a chemical compound in the form of a powerfully poisonous, volatile colorless liquid with the odor of bitter almonds. Prussic acid is considered a battlefield poison agent. Its action depends on the restraint of cellular respiration as a result of neutralizing the respiratory enzymes. Prussic acid passes through the mucous membranes and the skin, but principally through the lungs, into the blood. It blocks the process by which oxygen is released from red blood corpuscles and the result is a sort of internal asphyxiation. This is accompanied by symptoms of injury to the respiratory system, combined with a feeling of fear, dizziness and vomiting.

http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007714

AT THE KILLING CENTERS

After deportation trains arrived at the killing centers, guards ordered the deportees to get out and form a line. The victims then went through a selection process. Men were separated from women and children. A Nazi, usually an SS physician, looked quickly at each person to decide if he or she was healthy and strong enough for forced labor. This SS officer then pointed to the left or the right; victims did not know that individuals were being selected to live or die. Babies and young children, pregnant women, the elderly, the handicapped, and the sick had little chance of surviving this first selection.

Those who had been selected to die were led to gas chambers. In order to prevent panic, camp guards told the victims that they were going to take showers to rid themselves of lice. The guards instructed them to turn over all their valuables and to undress. Then they were driven naked into the "showers." A guard closed and locked the steel door. In some killing centers, carbon monoxide was piped into the chamber. In others, camp guards threw "Zyklon B" pellets down an air shaft. Zyklon B was a highly poisonous insecticide also used to kill rats and insects.

Usually within minutes after entering the gas chambers, everyone inside was dead from lack of oxygen. Under guard, prisoners were forced to haul the corpses to a nearby room, where they removed hair, gold teeth, and fillings. The bodies were burned in ovens in the crematoria or buried in mass graves.

Many people profited from the pillage of corpses. Camp guards stole some of the gold. The rest was melted down and deposited in an SS bank account. Private business firms bought and used the hair to make many products, including ship rope and mattresses.

KEY DATES

OCTOBER 1939 
GERMANS BEGIN KILLING OF THE IMPAIRED 
The systematic killing begins of those Germans whom the Nazis deem "unworthy of life." Groups of "consultants" visit hospitals and nursing homes and decide who is to die. Selected patients are sent to one of six gassing installations established as part of the "Euthanasia" Program: Bernburg, Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hadamar, Hartheim, and Sonnenstein. These patients are killed in gas chambers using carbon monoxide gas. The experts who participated in the "Euthanasia" Program are later instrumental in establishing and operating the extermination camps.

DECEMBER 8, 1941
FIRST KILLING CENTER BEGINS OPERATION 
The Chelmno extermination camp begins operation. The Nazis later establish five other such camps: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau (part of the Auschwitz complex), and Majdanek. Victims at Chelmno are killed in gas vans (hermetically sealed trucks with engine exhaust diverted to the interior compartment). The Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka camps use carbon monoxide gas generated by stationary engines attached to gas chambers. Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the killing centers, has four large gas chambers using Zyklon B (crystalline hydrogen cyanide) as the killing agent. The gas chambers at Majdanek use both carbon monoxide and Zyklon B. Millions of Jews are killed in the gas chambers in the extermination camps as part of the "Final Solution."

JUNE 22, 1944
FIRST GASSING AT RAVENSBRUECK CONCENTRATION CAMP 
The first documented gassing at the women's camp at Ravensbrueck occurs. The gas chambers at Ravensbrueck and at other camps that were not designed specifically as killing centers -- including Stutthof, Mauthausen, and Sachsenhausen -- are relatively small. These gas chambers were constructed to kill those prisoners the Nazis deemed "unfit" for work. Most of these camps used Zyklon B in their gas chambers.

A column of prisoners arrives at the Belzec extermination camp. Belzec, Poland, ca. 1942.

— Instytut Pamieci Narodowej

Aerial photograph showing the gas chambers and crematoria 2 and 3 at the Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II) killing center Auschwitz, Poland, August 25, 1944.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/zyklon.shtml

Zyklon B

Question:

i am a senior in high school and i have to do a massive project to graduate. i love the 40s and i enjoy learning more about the Holocaust and how a man would want to destroy a pouplution of millions just for his own hate. to my question now: i would like to know what is Zyklon-B made of. i am trying to find all of its properties and what its make up is. my Chemistry teacher does not know what it is made of. i need the information of its chemical make up and then she and i will look up the rest.

Richard J. Green answers:

Zyklon-B was hydrogen cyanide (HCN) impregnated in a porous solid support one of which was called Erco (a gypsum material), with a few other additives for stabilization and warning.

See the articles below for more information:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/chemistry/

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/chemistry/not-the-science/

Best,

Rich Green

Another Question:

I'm Finnish historian and I'm preparing my dissertation about the World War I related issues. I'm studied in some extent war gasses. One of the bes source books, "The War Gases" by Mario Sartori (translated form the Second Enlarged Italian Edition by L. W. Marrison) Second edition. J.& A. Churchill 1940 knows the Zyklon A and Zyklon B.

What Dr. Sartori wrote about those gases when he dicussed halogenated esters of organic acids is worth of noting: "Because of its [methyl chloroformate] strongly irritant properties, it has been used in insecticidal preparations: 'Zyklon A," which is a mixture of 90% of methyl cyanoformate and 10% of methyl chloroformate, and 'Zyklon B,' a mixture of liquid hydrocyanic acid and irritant chlorinated and brominated compounds." (Sartori, War Gases. p. 104)

The source of Dr. Sartori was German "Frickhinger, Gase in der Schädlingsbekämpfung, Berlin 1933, 27.

It is possible that those irritant compounds were halogenated esters. If so, the use of Zyklon B against human beings would have added a horrible torture in the final agony of the victims. Some halogenated esters are insupportabale in concentrations as small as 50 mg in a cubic meter of air. Accounts concerning the dead of the victims of chambers support my suspect that the gas had much stronger irritant efect than pure hydrocyanic acid. The vapor pressure of hydrocyanic acid is weak. It takes relatively long time to form a lethal concentration. That fact made hydrocyanic acid unsuitable as war gas in the World War I. When used in the gas chabers with irritant compounds those irritant agencies presumably evaporate first and cause a horrible pain to the victims before the HCN killed them.

I haven't been able to find the Frickhingers book. I suppose that the details of those irritant compounds can be found there.

If my hypothesis is correct the use of Zyklon B in Holocaust was even more brutal crime than we have understood. Please tell me that I'm wrong.

Harry W. Mazal OBE answers:

Thank you for your very interesting query.

I am one of the persons in the Holocaust History Project that responds to questions like yours. It is possible that you will receive other answers from my colleagues. You will have seen the various articles on our web-page, particularly

Blausäure zur Schädlingsbekämpfung ,

and

Die Einsatzfähigkeit der Blausäure-Durchgasung bei tiefen Temperaturen

and

Nochmals: Die Einsatzfähigkeit der Blausäure-Durchgasung bei tiefen Temperaturen

If so, I would first refer you to:

AUSCHWITZ: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers
Jean Claude Pressac, 
c. 1989, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation (New York) 
Library of Congress Catalogue Card No. 89-81305

Page 17:

KL Auschwitz was supplied with Zyclon-B mainly by a firm called TESTA, and abbreviation for the Tesch und Stabenow Internationale Gesellschaft fuer Scaedlingsbekaempfung / international pest control company domiciled at Messberghoff, Hamburg 1. This company had the monopoly for distributing Zyclon-B in the eastern territories of the Reich (in fact to the east of the Elbe). But the Auschwitz SS, having at the same time to combat epidemics and carry out the 'special treatment' of Jews sometimes turned directly to Degesch (located in 1939-45 at 43, Schauminkai or 9, Weissfrauenstrasse, Franfurt am Main, then at 70, Kaserstrasse, Friedberg/ Hessen) to obtain quantities sufficient for their needs. For this reason a five ton truck with a trailer ran back and forth between Auschwitz and the factory producing Zyclon-B, the DESSAUER WERKE fuer Zucker - und Chemische Industrie, AG, 40, Askanische Strasse, Dessau (about 50 kilometers north of Leipzig). The 'reserve stocks' of the PMO have cans of Zyclon-B from both sources: Testa and Degesch (Dessauer Werke). Zyclon-B without a warning agent (ohne Warnstoff) or without irritant (ohne Reizstoff) was delivered by the Dessauer Werke as from August 1942. This was because of a LACK of the warning agent generally used, a bromoacetic ester. The Degesch laboratory people, who had remained at Frankfurt, would have liked to replace it by a chlorinated carbon xide [? HWM] ester (methyl chloroformiate) with a suffocating effect, but the Friedberg management decided to produce Zyclon-B with no warning agent.

 the same book, page 201:

Letter addressed to the staff and SS of the camp by its Commandant, Rudolf Hoess:

"Auschwitz, 12 August 1942

Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Kommandantur

Special Order

A case of indisposition with slight symptoms of poisoning by hydrocyanic acid gas which occurred today makes it necessary to warn all those participating in the gassings and all other SS members that in particular on opening rooms used for gassing SS not wearing masks must wait at least five hours and keep a distance of at least 15 metres from the chamber. In addition, particular attention should be paid to the wind direc- tion.

The gas being used at present contains less odorous warning agent and is therefore especially dangerous.

The SS garrison doctor declines all responsibility for any accident that should occur in the case when these directives have not been complied with by SS members.

Signed: Hoess
SS Lieutenant-Colonel and Commandant"

[Cc list deleted for brevity - HWM]

Pressac apparently believed that the warning agents were removed from the Zyklon-B because of a scarcity of the material. This does not make good sense to me as there were any number of other compounds that could have been used for that purpose. I believe that Hoess wished to spare his his S.S. staff the distress of seeing men, women and children suffer a horrible agony. Until Zyklon-B was obtained without the warning agent, the victims must have suffered greatly before succumbing to the hydrogen cyanide. The spectacle of victims dying a horrible death affected the S.S. guards. Without the agent, the victims would die quickly, suffer little, and not affect the minds of the S.S. guards.

There are other views. From:

The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben Joseph Borkin
c. 1978, The Free Press (New York)
ISBN 0-02-904630-0

Page 123

There was still another episode that gave the officials of Degesch more than a hint of the dread purpose to which their Zyklon B was being put by the S.S. When manufactured as a pesticide Zyklon B contained a special odor or indicator to warn human beings of its lethal presence. The inclusion of such a warning odor was required by German Law. When the S.S. demanded that the new large order of Zyklon B omit the indicator, no one familiar with the workings of the S.S. could have failed to realize the purpose behind the strange request. The Degesch executives at first were unwilling to comply. But compassion was not behind their refusal. What troubled them was the fact that the S.S. request endangered Degesch's monopoly position. The patent on Zyklon B had long ago expired. However Degesch retained its monopoly by a patent on the warning odor. To remove the indicator was bad business, opening up the possibility of unwelcome competition [FN50). The S.S. made short shrift of this objection and the company removed the warning odor. Now the doomed wouldn't even know it was Degesch's Zyklon B.

"[FN50] NI-1210, memorandum from Dr. Heinrich to Mr. Amend, dated June 21, 1944."

I hope that this information assists you in writing your dissertation. If you need more information please do not hesitate to ask us for assistance.

Yours sincerely,

Harry W. Mazal OBE

Response from questioner:

Dear Mr. Mazal

Thank you for your help. It seems propable to me that in the first phase of using gas chambers with original Zyklon B the gas contained ethyl bromoacetate. The limit of insupportability of this chemical is 40 mg per cubic meter of air and the concentration of 10 mg per cubic meter of air provokes irritation of eyes.

The physiology of this chemical was widely studied during and after the WWI, because it was used in gas shells. It was colorless and hard to detect. This type of chemicals were used, because they penetrated through gas masks and made the soldears to tear their gas masks off. In combination of more toxic war gases, like the phosgene, the irritants made the defence against gases harder.

It is easy to understand that SS preferred not to use original Zyklon B with irritants and warning agents.

I'm thankfull for your kind help. Here in Finland we don't have very detailed knowledge about the Holocaust. More detailed books are hard to find. It is not a part of our history because the Finns were not involved in it. Luckily this doesn't mean ignorance, and our schools teach the subject in a objective way. There have been no serious attempts of denying the Holocaust here. Thank's again. I wish you good luck.

Question:

I believe Rich Green forwarded my enquiry regarding the chronology of Zyklon B production to you a few weeks ago, and as I haven't heard anything yet I am contacting you to see if any progress has been made, or if it is worth posting the enquiry in full again.

Harry Mazal OBE responds:

I am one of the persons in the Holocaust History Project who responds to questions from our readers. I apologize for the slowness in my response but I have been extremely busy for the past few weeks.

The best source for obtaining information on Zyklon-B is in the United Kingdom. The Zykon-B Trial was held under the auspices of the British Military Court in Hamburg, much in the same way as the Belsen Trial, and over a dozen others:

Vol. I: The "Peleus" Trial*
Vol. II: The Belsen Trial*
Vol. III: The Gozawa Trial*
Vol. IV: The Hadamar Trial*
Vol. V: The Natzweiler Trial*
Vol. VI: Trial of von Falkenhorst*
Vol. VII: The Velpke Baby Home Trial*
Vol. VIII: The "Zyklon B" Trial
Vol. IX The Double Tenth Trial*
Vol. X: The Dulag Luft Trial*
Vol. XI: The Justice Trial
Vol. XII: Trial of Field Marshall Kesselring
Vol. XIII: The Stalag Luft Trial
Vol. XIV: The Trial of Arthur Grieser
Vol. XV: The Doctor's Trial

* Copies in my library.

Although I have sought to purchase the other books, and especially the Zyklon-B Trial, I have not had any success. I have been told that these books were contracted out (Zyklon-B to J. Harcourt Barrington) but never published.

This is most unfortunate because the trials were all extremely well documented and would have answered many of the questions which you (and many others) raise.

The original papers, documents in evidence, and interrogatories must be held by some branch of HM's Government. You might try to obtain this information from the British Library. If you do find it please share it with us!

I do have several volumes of the Law Reports of War Criminals: Selected and Prepared by the United Nations War Crimes Commission Volume 1 of which fortunately has a multi-page excerpt of the famous trial against Bruno Tesch, Karl Weinbacher, and Dr. Joachim Drosihn.

You may view this excerpt in its totality by visiting my personal web site:

http://www.mazal.org

and clicking on the Zyklon B Case link in "What's New on this Site."

Other books that might be of use to you are:

Nazi Mass Murder: A Documentary History of the Use of Poison Gas*
Edited by Eugen Kogon et al. 
Translated by Mary Scott and Carolyn-Lloyd Morris
c. 1993, Yale University Press
ISBN 0-300-05441-6

I.G. Farben*
Richard Sasuly
c. 1947, Boni & Gaer (New York) 

*
Josiah E. Dubois, Jr. 
c. 1952, Beacon Press (Boston) 
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 52-7872

The Crime and Punishment of I. G. Farben
Joseph Borkin
c. 1978, The Free Press (New York) 
ISBN 0-02-904630-0

and, of course, the voluminous and seminal:

Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10
Volume VII* & VIII*: "The Farben Case"
United States Government Printing Office 
(1953), Washington D.C. 

A large number of the documents offered in evidence and the testimonies of the witnesses refer to manufacturing processes including those for 'poison gas.'

Could you please explain more fully what you wish to do with this information?

I will continue to seek out more books on the subject. In the meantime these few recommendations ought to be of some assistance.

Yours sincerely,

Harry W. Mazal OBE

Question:

Dear Sir: My father survived the camps, his parents and sisters were not so lucky. I am writing about zyklon-B and dual-use precursors to chemical weapons. I would like to know (and obtain a reference) for whether the executives of Degesch or Tesch&Stabenow or IG Farben knew what their product was used for.

Gord McFee Responds:

I am one of the volunteers who answers these questions. Others of my colleagues may also answer.

The short answer to your question, at least according to the courts and the proof, is that that they knew what their product was intended for. According to remember.com,

Two German firms, Tesch/Stabenow and Degesch, produced Zyklon B gas after they acquired the patent from Farben. Tesch supplied two tons a month, and Degesch three quarters of a ton. The firms that produced the gas already had extensive experience in fumigation. "In short, this industry used very powerful gases to exterminate rodents and insects in enclosed spaces; that it should now have become involved in an operation to kill off Jews by the hundreds of thousands is not mere accident."(Hilberg, Commandant, 567) After the war the directors of the firms insisted that they had sold their products for fumigation purposes and did not know they were being used on humans. But the prosecutors found letters from Tesch not only offering to supply the gas crystals but also advising how to use the ventilating and heating equipment. Hoess testified that the Tesch directors could not help but know of the use for their product because they sold him enough to annihilate two million people. Two Tesch partners were sentenced to death in 1946 and hanged. The director of Degesch received five years in prison. (Feig)

My colleague Harry W Mazal, OBE has addressed this question in our question and answer service at:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/tesch-peters.shtml

and his personal site links to the Zyklon-B trial at:

http://www.mazal.org/archive/Zyklon-B%20Trial/

See the verdict at:

http://www.mazal.org/archive/Zyklon-B%20Trial/Zyklon-102.htm

In short, the firms knew what the Zyklon-B was being used for.

I hope this is helpful.

--

Best regards

Gord McFee

Question:

1. Zyklon-B works most effectively when it is heated or warmed up and spread out in a large area where air can reach it, which causes the release of the cyanide. How can Zyklon-B still work so quickly (with 20 minutes) on thousands of people when it is not heated up, and it is placed in the gas chambers via wire-mesh containors, which slows the amount of Zyklon-B to be released to a bare minimum in the gas chamber? Wouldn't this have taken longer than just 20 minutes to kill all the inhabitants?

Jamie McCarthy Responds:

Zyklon-B outgasses most quickly when it is warm, but it outgasses quickly enough when it is cold. The short answer to your question is "no," twenty minutes would have sufficed to kill everyone in the room even if it was quite cold. The "bare minimum" you refer to is deadly enough to kill a human being in a few breaths.

The long answer is explained in great detail in two essays by our member Dr. Richard Green (one of which I co-authored). Please see:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/chemistry/

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/chemistry/not-the-science/

In particular, in that second essay, scroll down to the line of argumentation that begins "How fast could a lethal concentration be reached?" We address exactly this point.

Question:

2. The wire-mesh could be easily damaged when it is lowered into the chambers by the victims, but how come there is a lack of damage to these items? Had these itemes been damaged, withdrawing the Zyklon-B would be hazardous and slow as the chamber would not be ready until it would be fully ventilated and clean.

Jamie McCarthy Responds:

The thinner wire mesh baskets which held the HCN were lowered down within thicker wire mesh columns:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/intro-columns/

The columns or "wire pillars" (which provided no structural support for the room, only protection for the lowered basket) were described as having their outer layer of mesh made from 3 mm (1/8") diameter wire. It is unlikely that the victims inside could do much to damage even that outer layer.

Keep in mind that as soon as they realized poison was being lowered in, the people nearest to the wire columns died within a few seconds. Getting *to* the source of the poison, in order to futilely cause a little easily-repaired damage to a wire column, would surely not be the immediate objective of the rest of the people in the room.

It is easy for Holocaust-deniers to construct hypothetical scenarios, but one must take into account what people would actually do: crowded naked into a concrete basement, locked in and helpless, confused, yet led to believe that nothing would happen to them. When they realized the truth, they had moments to live. This is not a scenario which would produce even a minimally successful rebellion. The Nazis had made sure of that.

Question:

3. Why were the gas chambers kept to cool temperatures when Zyklon-B is better in warm areas?

Jamie McCarthy Responds:

What is "better" is irrelevant; as long as the killing operation proceeded well enough, it sufficed. Keep in mind that the difficult part of murdering 1000 people was not the gassing, which took roughly 20 minutes at most. It was the incineration of the corpses which followed which took hours. For detailed information on this, see:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/body-disposal/

"Optimizing" the killing operation by making the gassing a few minutes faster would have been a waste of time and resources. If it took 30 minutes instead of 20, nobody would have cared. It just would not have mattered.

But -- you can probably think of answers to this question if you phrase it differently. Why were the gas chambers underground, where it was cool? For one thing, that made it impossible for the victims to push down the walls or otherwise cause significant damage to the room. For another, it hid the operation more effectively from the sight and hearing of the rest of the camp. And from Allied overflights that might have been looking for evidence of mass murder, perhaps (that is just speculation).

Finally, your question supposes that the temperature was a problem in the summer, when underground was cooler. Please note that in the winter, the only time when Holocaust-deniers express concern about the ambient temperature and the outgassing rate of Zyklon-B, it was warmer underground.

So isn't underground exactly where such a room would have been constructed?

Question:

4. After the 20 minute period passed, what was done with the Zyklon-B that was not fully complete outgassing the cyanide? Was it reused? Was it buried? Has a dump with Zyklon-B been found in the death camps? Who had the job of carrying away the used Zyklon-B?

Jamie McCarthy Responds:

I would assume it was dumped on the ground and allowed to outgas, but nobody really knows. The SS men on the roof, still wearing gas masks, would probably have simply hauled up the baskets, dumped the still-potent Zyklon on the ground or into a bucket, and walked away.

A few hours later, when it was completely spent, it could have been dealt with. Perhaps after the cremation of the corpses was finished, or while it was still going on. The Zyklon could have been left where it was, ground to dust under someone's heel, shoveled into a pit or the ditch a few dozen yards away, or any number of other disposal methods. Most likely, it was just dumped into the ashes that remained of the victims, and however they were disposed of, the Zyklon was as well -- as farm fertilizer, or dumped into the nearby river.

Bone fragments of the victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau litter the ground in places. But no dump full of Zyklon has been found, that I know of. (Auschwitz was the only camp which used Zyklon in a large number of homicidal gassings.)

Question:

5. Why use Zyklon-B in such a primitive fashion in the gas chambers, when it was introduced more suitable for HCN in the delousing chambers?

Jamie McCarthy Responds:

I disagree that the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau were "primitive"; they are the most effective mass murder installations yet built by human beings. The gas chamber of Krema II is the single room on the planet where the most human beings have ever died. I am not sure what you think was "primitive" about the gassing operation and subsequent cremation. It seems to me quite the opposite, an assembly line of death. Was it primitive because it did not use lasers?

I am not entirely sure what you are getting at regarding the delousing chambers. The same poison was used (but obviously there was no need for the wire mesh pillars, the doors with peepholes protected by wire mesh, etc.)

Question:

6. Why use Zyklon-B in gas chambers instead of diesel exhaust chambers at Treblinka, which were supposedly more capable than Zyklon-B?

Jamie McCarthy Responds:

Zyklon was a better killer than engine exhaust, actually; it was probably a fair bit faster, and HCN is unquestionably a deadlier poison than anything in engine exhaust.

But again, I must question the relevancy of this question. The mass murder program in Nazi Germany evolved over time. Some methods of killing, at different times and places, were more capable than others. Since different methods were being tried, and different allocations of resources were more or less important at different places and stages of the war, it would not be at all surprising to find that, measured scientifically in retrospect, killing efficiency would go up and down.

But in this case, the engine-exhaust chambers of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka -- apparently some were diesel and some were not -- were followed the next year by the Zyklon chambers of Auschwitz, which were indeed more effective on a number of levels. If you find this surprising, I do not understand why.

And I repeat myself, but please note that questions about the "capability" of the poison gas are largely irrelevant, since the bottleneck of the operation was the disposal of the corpses.

Question:

I love the holocaust-history.org website. I also am not a Holocaust denier, I just do not have the sources or knowledge to reply to these denier questions.

Jamie McCarthy Responds:

Thank you. If you have followup questions, please feel free to write us again.

Poison Gas- Question:

For school, I am doing a chemistry project which involves the chemistry of the Holocaust. In this project, we will have to have information about chemical substance used in the Holocaust, chemical formulas... so on. We need, for the project, an outside source (involving and interview of some kind). I was wondering if there was anyone who knew about this somewhat extensively that I could interview, by email (or instant messenger) with a few questions. Thank you very much, if you could please contact me as soon as possible, with the contact information of the source I could use. I appreciate it very much.

Harry W. Mazal OBE Responds:

We are not a homework service therefore our responses to questions from our readers are usually of a general nature. We tend to respond to questions in the order that they are received which is usually not fast enough for those seeking out information for homework or school projects.

When you ask about chemical substances used in the Holocaust and formulas you do not state whether you are referring to chemicals used to murder people or chemicals used in medical experiments. I will presume that you are interested in the former.

You might first want to read the essays written by my colleague, Dr. Richard Green, that appear on our site:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/chemistry/

and

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/chemistry/not-the-science/

Chemicals, primarily hydrogen cyanide ( HCN ) and carbon monoxide ( CO) were used in the gas chambers to murder Jews and other people:

III. Gas Chambers

The following are the major death camps in Poland and the gases employed by the Nazis to murder innocent victims:

1. Treblinka: Carbon monoxide emanating from internal combustion engines, in purpose-built gas chambers.

2.- Belzec: Carbon monoxide emanating from internal combustion engines, in purpose-built gas chambers.

3.- Sobibor.- Carbon monoxide emanating from internal combustion engines, in purpose-built gas chambers.

4.- Auschwitz (including Birkenau) Hydrogen cyanide in the form of Zyklon-B, a commercial preparation of hydrogen cyanide, in purpose-built gas chambers.

5.- Majdanek: Hydrogen cyanide in the form of Zyklon-B, a commercial preparation, and carbon monoxide from commercial high-pressure cylinders, in purpose-built gas chambers.

Other camps and locations in Poland that occasionally used gases for murdering people were:

.- Chelmno: Carbon monoxide emanating from internal combustion engines, in mobile vehicles known as "gas vans."

7.- Natzweiler-Struthof: Hydrogen cyanide produced on site by mixing Sodium cyanide with an acid. This took place in an adapted chamber to kill Jews for a "skeleton collection.":

http://www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/01/NMT01-T738.htm

Gassing with carbon monoxide of insane, feeble-minded, and crippled people also took place in various camps and mental institutions in Germany as part of the so-called "Euthanasia Program". Many of the victims, particularly children, were killed by lethal injection.

http://www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/01/NMT01-T794.htm

I hope that this information is of some use to you.

Harry W. Mazal OBE

Related Links:

• Diesel Gassing
• Zyklon B
• Dachau gas chamber

http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/diesel-gassing.shtml

Diesel Gassing

Question:

I notice that the Holocaust History Project has an excellent collection of materials on Auschwitz, including specific material relating to aspects of Holocaust denial, tackling the arguments of Holocaust denial on its own (pseudo-scientific) terms as well as on other levels. I read the recent essay on Treblinka with some interest and I found this an interesting and insightful addition. However, denial in this regard focuses primarily on gassings with (diesel) engine exhaust supposedly being "impossible" or "absurd" in the respective circumstances described by the relevant witnesses. Although the Web site presents some excellent material I cannot see anything which specifically addresses this aspect of Holocaust denial which concentrates on the feasibility of using diesel engine exhaust in Aktion Reinhard and in gas vans. I make this point only because it is clear that this is a key component of their "arguments" as I have encountered them on the Web (although it was not an issue in the Irving-Lipstadt/Penguin libel case). Are there any plans to respond to this common assertion with scientifically researched essays, and historically based ones dealing with the enormity and convergence of existing historical evidence, in the same way as there have been with respect to Auschwitz?

Harry W. Mazal OBE Responds:

This question has been brought up again and again by Holocaust deniers. Our colleague, Dr. Daniel Keren, produced a brief article some years ago that addresses the question in considerable detail:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/~dkeren/diesel/

Holocaust deniers tend to shy away from documented, technical responses such as the one prepared by Dr. Keren. His response deals only with the use of Diesel engines for gassing victims. The vans and most of the gas chambers - except for Auschwitz - employed gasoline engines that produce masses of highly poisonous carbon monoxide.

Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz explains that he switched over to Zyklon-B after noting that the exhaust gas methods used in other camps were not very efficient. This admission is found on page 2 of his affidavit of April 5, 1946.

http://www.mazal.org/HOESS/IMT33-I277.htm

We have published a new essay on Treblinka that you might find useful:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/Treblinka/

Please feel free to seek further information from our organization. You may send your questions simultaneously to our Question and Answer group consisting of many dedicated Holocaust scholars by visiting our site at:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/

or directly to me or Dr. Mathis.

Yours sincerely,

Harry W. Mazal OBE

http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/dachau-gas-chamber.shtml

The Dachau Gas Chamber- Question

Dear Team

My compliments on a very informative site.

I have a question about the gas chambers at Dachau.

During a tour of Dachau in 1998 our tour guide told us that no one was = gassed there and that the gassing cubicles were built to give an indication of what they would have been like if they had been there. He was a middle aged gentleman who seemed very knowledgable about all facets of the camp.

I would be very interested in hearing your views on this.

Best regards

Harry W. Mazal OBE answers:

Thank you for your recent query.

I am one of the persons at the Holocaust History Project who responds to questions from our readers. It is possible that you will receive other answers from my colleagues.

It is not known for certain if either the homicidal gas chamber in Dachau and/or the four smaller ones designed for fumigating clothes were ever used. I have spent a considerable amount of time both in Dachau and in researching the subject, all of which resulted in my essay on the subject:

"The Dachau Gas Chambers" which you may view on our web-page at:

http://holocaust-history.org/dachau-gas-chambers/

In this essay which is heavily illustrated I come to the following conclusion:

[...] Neither the reports by the U.S. Army, Father Hess nor Sack prove conclusively that the homicidal chamber was used to kill people. Until further evidence is discovered, historians will have to conform themselves with the knowledge that it was technically possible to have murdered human beings with poison gas in that room, and that the room, some 16x16x12ft high, was designed for the exclusive purpose of carrying out such a grim task. [...]

Yours sincerely,

Harry W. Mazal OBE

Question:

Dear Sir or Madam,First let me commend you for putting together a much needed resource to combat with confidence holocaust denial.However an essay on your site written on Dachau gas chambers maintains that some of the gas chambers were used for homicidal purposes

http://www.holocaust-history.org/dachau-gas-chambers/

I read Shermer's "Denying History" which states that Dachau did not usehomicidal gas chambers at all, and that mainstream historians agree onthis. The book is mainstream and the author works with the SimonWiesenthal Center.What is the final verdict?

Thank you again for your services and in advance for your reply,

Harry W. Mazal OBE Responds:

Thank you very much for your recent e-mail concerning the Dachau Gas Chambers.

I am one of the persons that responds to questions from our readers.It is possible that you will receive other responses from my colleagues.

By coincidence I am also the author of the essay on the gas chambersin Dachau.

It is quite probable that you have not read my paper in its entirety, as the verylast paragraph clearly states:

"Neither the reports by the U.S. Army, Father Hess nor Sack prove conclusively that the homicidal chamber was used to kill people. Until further evidence is discovered, historians will have to conform themselves with the knowledge that it was technically possible to have murdered human beings with poison gas in that room, and that the room, some 16x16x12ft high, was designed for the exclusive purpose of carrying out such a grim task. [...]"

I refer in the paper to several instances where the gas chamber ‘might’ have been used experimentally. The most provocative one is a letter by written by Dr. Sigmund Rascher to Reichsführer Himmler. Rascher fell out of favor with Himmler towards theend of the war and was incarcerated, ironically enough, in Dachau. Before he was executed in 1945, he also made several interesting statements about the use of the homicidal chamber which I invite you to read in my paper.

Harry W. Mazal OBE

Whether she's emerging from the sea in a Bond movie or taking a jog along the sand with her daughter, Halle Berry never fails to look beach-beautiful.

 

 

 

Ex-EastEnders star Lacey Turner showed off her gorgeous figure in a spotty blue bikini as she enjoyed the pool at the upmarket Mondrian Hotel in Miami, where she stayed with her boyfriend, Matt.

Located on the fashionable West Avenue, the Mondrian is a modern hotel just minutes from the centre of South Beach, and offers beautiful views over the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/09/a-1317050722.jpg - Lacey Turner in Florida Turner in Florida

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole Richie in Mexico

• Nicole Richie shows off newly curvaceous figure as she holidays with DJ Sam Ronson and rocker Juliette Lewis in Los Cabos, Mexico, in September.

 

Nicole Richie shows off newly curvaceous figure as she holidays with DJ Sam Ronson and rocker Juliette Lewis in Los Cabos, Mexico, in September.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/09/a-1317051589.jpg - Nicole Richie in Mexico

 

 

 

 

Kelly Brook had a Bond girl moment  as she emerged from the ocean in a gold-accented purple swimsuit while on holiday in Mykonos, Greece, in June 2011. The actress/model was enjoying a romantic holiday with her rugby-playing boyfriend Thom Evans, where they were snapped lazing on the beach, splashing in the sea, and taking pics for their holiday album.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/06/brook1-1308744247-1309453956.jpg"Kelly Brook in Mykonos

• Lacey Turner in Florida

  Ex-EastEnders star Lacey Turner showed off her gorgeous figure in a spotty blue bikini as she enjoyed the pool at the upmarket Mondrian Hotel in Miami, where she stayed with her boyfriend, Matt.
  Located on the fashionable West Avenue, the Mondrian is a modern hotel just minutes from the centre of South Beach, and offers beautiful views over the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay.

Anne Hathaway in Capri

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/08/anne-sized.jpg Anne Hathaway in Capri

Anne Hathaway went retro fifties on a romantic summer holiday to the Italian island of Capri with her jewellery designer beau Adam Shulman.

The pair enjoyed exclusive use of fashion mogul Valentino Garavani's yacht.

The Prime Minister enjoyed a two-week holiday at a £10,000 a week villa in Tuscany in August. The pair were snapped enjoying a coffee at the Dolcenero cafe in the town of Montevarchi.

http://travel.aol.co.uk/2011/07/06/ten-glorious-places-to-visit-in-tuscany/">Tuscany</a>;

While Victoria Beckham was resting at home with new baby daughter Harper Seven in July, David Beckham took the opportunity to treat Brooklyn to a surfing lesson at the beach in Malibu - and got some snaps for the family album while he was at it.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/08/becks-sized.jpg"David Beckham in Malibu

She's well known for her strict exercise regimes and diets, and Gwyneth Paltrow's years of 'good behaviour' have obviously paid off as she showcased a stunning bikini body in Sardinia in July 2011. The actress enjoyed a family holiday in Italy with her children Moses, five and Apple, seven, and her godfather, legendary director Steven Spielberg. They all stayed on his £200 million luxury yacht, and were spotted leaping off the back and playing on inflatables in the water.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/08/gwyneth-final.jpg -Gwyneth Paltrow in Sardinia

<p> She's well known for her strict exercise regimes and diets, and Gwyneth Paltrow's years of 'good behaviour' have obviously paid off as she showcased a stunning bikini

She may have been at the height of her supermodel fame in the 90s, but Helena Christensen still looked the part as she went swimming in a bikini in Ischia in July 2011. The model-turned-photographer was on holiday in Italy for the Ischia Global Festival, which the likes of Karolina Kurkova, Gerard Butler and Leonardo DiCaprio also attended.http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/08/helena-stand-sized.jpg"Helena Christensen in Ischia

 

Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding showed off her slim figure - and newly-lightened locks - in a strapless snakeskin bikini teamed with a funky-chunky cuff in Ibiza in July 2011. Sarah enjoyed a holiday on the party island with her DJ partner Tom Crane.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/08/sarah-sized.jpg Sarah Harding in Ibiza

 

Kelly Brook visited Italy for the Ischia Global Film and Music Festival in July 2011. The 31-year-old actress/model was looking glamorous in a printed fifities-style Jasper Conran prom dress and plimsoles, teamed with a rather posh Louis Vuitton handbag. She readily settled into the glamorous lifestyle by enjoying a trip on a yacht, before munching a holiday ice-cream and shopping for local souvenirs.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/08/kelly-sized.jpg Kelly Brook in Ischia

 

Former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger enjoyed a scenic bike ride in Salzburg with friends on a June 2011 holiday his home country, Austria. Over 170 kilometres of attractive cycle paths with 900 signs, 23 scenic bicycle routes through the city, 5,500 parking spaces and self-service stations offering free tools, bike stands, lubricating oil and compressed air for emergencies make Salzburg Austria's number one cycle city.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/08/arnie1.jpg -Arnold Schwarzenegger in Austria

 

<

 

New mum Abbey Clancy certainly knows how to relax on holiday. Pictured here enjoying the balmy weather in sunny Sardinia (June 2011), Abbey was taking a pre-wedding break with fiance Peter Crouch and their  baby daughter Sophia . The couple are staying at the four-star Sheraton Porto Cervo Hotel, which boasts its own private beach on the exclusive Costa Smerelda

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/06/abbeyclancey1-1.jpg"Abbey Clancey in Sardinia

 

Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is pictured here enjoying a family holiday in the south of France (June 2011). Geri looked happy and relaxed as she lazed on a private yacht with boyfriend Henry Beckwith and five year old daughter Bluebell. The yellow polka dot bikini she's wearing here is part of her own collection from high street store Next.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/06/geribauergriffinonline.com-1.jpg -Geri Halliwell in the south of France

 

Adriana de Moura looked pretty in pink as she frolicked and sunbathed on Miami's South Beach (March 2011). It's clear the Brazillian star takes care of herself, and she's not just a pretty face. The Brazililan star claims to speaks five languages, she's a full time mum and a respected art curator.

Why Miami? For glitz, glamour and nightlife, Miami is the place to be. Perfect for all socialites in need of a tan

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/adriana-1301057606-1303905987.jpg"Adriana de Moura in Miami

 

Gwen Stefani showed off her wash-board abs as she soaked up the sun on luxury yacht Luna in St Jean Cap Ferrat, Cote d'Azur in May 2011. Why here? A more pertinent question might be: why not? Its stunning scenery, high-end boutiques and fabulous restaurants are a honeypot for the rich and famous.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/05/gwen1-1306339276.jpg"Gwen Stefani in Cannes

 

Here's Naomi Campbell looking cool and relaxed in Miami Florida. The supermodel was spotted having a long lunch with Russian businessman Vladislav Doroni in March 2011.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/05/naomicambell1.jpg"Naomi Campbell in Florida

 

American singer Taylor Swift certainly knows how to let her hair down. She's pictured here on a holiday in the paradise archipelago of the Bahamas in February 2011. What's so special about the Bahamas? This place could go under the word 'paradise' in the dictionary: think miles of talcum powder sand, the world's third largest barrier reef, not to mention some of the world's friendliest people...

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/tylr768a.jpg"Taylor Swift in The Bahamas

 

Aah, aren't they sweet? This pic of the tennis star cuddling up with his wife Lilly on a sunbed was taken when they took a family holiday in Miami (spring 2011) with their son Amadeus.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/05/borisbecker1.jpg -Boris Becker in Florida

 

 

Former party girl Zoe Ball looks quite the yummy mummy in Miami, Florida as she takes son Woody for a spin on a jet ski. Miami beach is a particularly popular holiday destination for families, with its spectacular beachfront hotels. And it's great for watersports lovers, too.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/zoe-ball-son-miami-holiday-011711.jpg -Zoe Ball in Miami

 

French model Noémie Lenoir relaxed in Florida in March 2011. Noémi, who appeared to be taking a solo holiday, laughed and joked with pool attendants and appeared relaxed happy and healthy again after a tumultuous year. The former M&S lingerie model hit the headlines a while ago after a suicide attempt following her split with footballer Claude Makélélé, the father of her six year old son. But all that now seems a lifetime ago. Like many celebs, she has picked Miami as the place to chill out and soak up some sun. And who can blame her? Florida is a perfect place to go for an easy winter getaway...

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/07/noemie-lenoir-030311.jpg -Noémi Lenoir soaks up the Florida sunshine

 

 

Cat Deeley is pictured here taking a break from a hectic schedule to top up her tan in Capo, Mexico. She has been presenting So You Think You Can Dance Stateside, spending much of her time jetting between LA and London, so she was grabbing the chance to chill.
What's so good about Mexcio?  Cat picked a great spot: from the archaeology of the Mayan ruins to Cancun's famous beaches and nightlife, Mexico - land of amazing food and tequila - is the perfect place for letting your hair down.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/cat-deeley-mexico-holiday-011711.jpg"Cat Deeley in Mexico

 

 

 

Courteney Cox looks relaxed as she sits on the beach in Hawaii, taking a break from shooting scenes for her new TV comedy, Cougar Town. The star jetted off to Oahu with her co-star Brian Van Holt (with whom she is rumoured to be having a new relationship). Why Hawaii? Beaches, parties, nightlife... go here for some hedonistic fun!

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/courteneynew-cox-hawaii.jpg -Courteney Cox in Hawaii

 

 

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/denise-richards-hawaii-holiday-011711.jpg -Denise Richards in Hawaii

It looks as if love is in the air for model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and her British beau Jason Statham spend time chillaxing St Bart's on holiday. What's so special about St Barts?  A hit with A-listers and VIPs, this island is known as the pearl of the Caribbean. Expect to spot iguanas, luxury yachts, exclusive designer boutiques and  a Hollywood starlet or three...

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/jason-statham-rosie-huntington-st-bart-holiday-011711.jpg"Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Jason Statham in St Bart's

 

 

Former Sporty Spice Melanie Chisholm was spotted taking to the water with daughter Scarlet, nearly two years old, while on holiday in Barbados. Mel was taking a break with partner Thomas Starr before she started work on her fifth solo album. 

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/melanie-chisholm-barbados-holiday-011711.jpg"Melanie Chisholm and Thomas Starr in Barbados

 

 

American model and actress Olivia Palermo seems to be having the time of her life in St Barts as she gets a lift along the the beach from her boyfriend Johannes Huebl.Known as the millionaire's playground, St Bart's has everything to offer for a romantic holiday, from chic luxury accommodation, gourmet cuisine, crystal clear tropical waters and endless sandy beaches. A hit with honeymooners, you can drive round the entire island in 90 minutes.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/olivia-palermo-johannes-huebl-st-barts-holiday-011711.jpg - Olivia Palermo in St Bart's

 

 

 

 

Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding and DJ Tom Crane are pictured here arriving home from a romantic holiday in the Maldives, during which they got engaged. Tom popped the question on New Year's Eve then took to Twitter to tell his followers: 'I feel like the luckiest man in the world!!!'.
What's so special about the Maldives? This chain of 1,200 mostly uninhabited islands in the Indian ocean offers a tropical paradise for beach lovers. For more, see fab review of the W Hotel Maldives, where Kate Moss was spotted!

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/sarah-harding-maldives-holiday-011711.jpg"Sarah Harding in the Maldives with Tom Crane

 

 

 

 

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/serenawilliamsgetty1-1303905949.jpg"Serena Williams in Miami

 

Jeremy Clarkson and his wife of 18 years, Frances, put on a united front  as they had fun in the sun on a Barbados beach amid rumours he is having an alleged affair. The Top Gear presenter and his wife, who is also his manager, were seen hitting the jet skis and a speedboat as they enjoyed the high life in the Caribbean paradise.
Why Barbados? If you love to be active, this is your perfect destination. Watersports lovers beware: you'll never want to leave...

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/jez1-1303906002.jpg"Jeremy Clarkson in Barbados

 

 

Charlotte Church was being unusually bashful as she soaked up the sun poolside in LA. The singer and TV host was spotted relaxing at the Beverly Hills Hotel, but covered up her monochrome bikini with a loose grey vest top. The singer was on holiday with her children, daughter Ruby Megan, three, and two-year-old son Dexter Lloyd, who she shares with her former partner Welsh rugby international Gavin Henson. The 25-year-old was on mummy duty at the pool, armed with children's floats and a Spider-Man toy.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/04/char1-1301576113-1303905975.jpg -Charlotte Church in Beverley Hills

 

Coleen Rooney showed off an array of different bikinis on her June 2011 holiday to Barbados.

Her cornflower-blue two-piece was particularly pretty and just happened to match her son Kai's beachwear, too.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2011/08/col-sized.jpg -Coleen Rooney

 

 

 

 

Presenter and model Abbey Crouch showed off her streamline figure at the swanky Le Royal Meridien Beach hotel in Dubai, where she enjoyed some family time with hubby Peter and 15-month-old daughter Sophia. Yummy mummy alert!

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2012/06/abbey2.jpg -Abbey Crouch in Dubai

 

 

 

 

Denise jetted off to the Grosvenor House Hotel in Dubai for a girly weekend. Looks like she still has her infamous 90s figure in tact! Just how does she do it??

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2012/06/vanouten.jpg"Denise Van Outen in Dubai

 

 

 

 

And they call her 'The Body' because... Ah yes, here's why. Elle turned heads when she went for a surf in Byron Bay back in December 2011.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2012/06/elle-macpherson.jpg"Elle MacPherson in Australia

 

 

 

LeAnne Rimes took to the beach and flaunted her new super-streamline figure back in August 2011.

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2012/06/leanne.jpg"LeAnne Rimes in Malibu

 

 

 

 

 

Gwyneth Paltrow showed off the benefits of a strict diet while on holiday in Porto Cervo, Sardinia. 

http://www.blogcdn.com/travel.aol.co.uk/media/2012/06/gwyneth-paltrow.jpg"Gwyneth Paltrow in Italy

 

• David and Samantha Cameron

  The Prime Minister enjoyed a two-week holiday at a £10,000 a week villa in Tuscany in August. The pair were snapped enjoying a coffee at the Dolcenero cafe in the town of Montevarchi.

• David Beckham in Malibu

  While Victoria Beckham was resting at home with new baby daughter Harper Seven in July, David Beckham took the opportunity to treat Brooklyn to a surfing lesson at the beach in Malibu - and got some snaps for the family album while he was at it.

• Gwyneth Paltrow in Sardinia

  She's well known for her strict exercise regimes and diets, and Gwyneth Paltrow's years of 'good behaviour' have obviously paid off as she showcased a stunning bikini body in Sardinia in July 2011. The actress enjoyed a family holiday in Italy with her children Moses, five and Apple, seven, and her godfather, legendary director Steven Spielberg. They all stayed on his £200 million luxury yacht, and were spotted leaping off the back and playing on inflatables in the water.

• Helena Christensen in Ischia

  She may have been at the height of her supermodel fame in the 90s, but Helena Christensen still looked the part as she went swimming in a bikini in Ischia in July 2011. The model-turned-photographer was on holiday in Italy for the Ischia Global Festival, which the likes of Karolina Kurkova, Gerard Butler and Leonardo DiCaprio also attended.

• Sarah Harding in Ibiza

  Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding showed off her slim figure - and newly-lightened locks - in a strapless snakeskin bikini teamed with a funky-chunky cuff in Ibiza in July 2011. Sarah enjoyed a holiday on the party island with her DJ partner Tom Crane.

• Kelly Brook in Ischia

  Kelly Brook visited Italy for the Ischia Global Film and Music Festival in July 2011. The 31-year-old actress/model was looking glamorous in a printed fifities-style Jasper Conran prom dress and plimsoles, teamed with a rather posh Louis Vuitton handbag. She readily settled into the glamorous lifestyle by enjoying a trip on a yacht, before munching a holiday ice-cream and shopping for local souvenirs.

• Arnold Schwarzenegger in Austria

  Former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger enjoyed a scenic bike ride in Salzburg with friends on a June 2011 holiday his home country, Austria. Over 170 kilometres of attractive cycle paths with 900 signs, 23 scenic bicycle routes through the city, 5,500 parking spaces and self-service stations offering free tools, bike stands, lubricating oil and compressed air for emergencies make Salzburg Austria's number one cycle city.

• Abbey Clancey in Sardinia

  New mum Abbey Clancy certainly knows how to relax on holiday. Pictured here enjoying the balmy weather in sunny Sardinia (June 2011), Abbey was taking a pre-wedding break with fiance Peter Crouch and their  baby daughter Sophia . The couple are staying at the four-star Sheraton Porto Cervo Hotel, which boasts its own private beach on the exclusive Costa Smerelda.

• Geri Halliwell in the south of France

  Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is pictured here enjoying a family holiday in the south of France (June 2011). Geri looked happy and relaxed as she lazed on a private yacht with boyfriend Henry Beckwith and five year old daughter Bluebell. The yellow polka dot bikini she's wearing here is part of her own collection from high street store Next.

• Adriana de Moura in Miami

  Adriana de Moura looked pretty in pink as she frolicked and sunbathed on Miami's South Beach (March 2011). It's clear the Brazillian star takes care of herself, and she's not just a pretty face. The Brazililan star claims to speaks five languages, she's a full time mum and a respected art curator.
  Why Miami? For glitz, glamour and nightlife, Miami is the place to be. Perfect for all socialites in need of a tan

• Gwen Stefani in Cannes

  Gwen Stefani showed off her wash-board abs as she soaked up the sun on luxury yacht Luna in St Jean Cap Ferrat, Cote d'Azur in May 2011. Why here? A more pertinent question might be: why not? Its stunning scenery, high-end boutiques and fabulous restaurants are a honeypot for the rich and famous.

• Naomi Campbell in Florida

  Here's Naomi Campbell looking cool and relaxed in Miami Florida. The supermodel was spotted having a long lunch with Russian businessman Vladislav Doroni in March 2011.

• Taylor Swift in The Bahamas

  American singer Taylor Swift certainly knows how to let her hair down. She's pictured here on a holiday in the paradise archipelago of the Bahamas in February 2011. What's so special about the Bahamas? This place could go under the word 'paradise' in the dictionary: think miles of talcum powder sand, the world's third largest barrier reef, not to mention some of the world's friendliest people...

• Boris Becker in Florida

  Aah, aren't they sweet? This pic of the tennis star cuddling up with his wife Lilly on a sunbed was taken when they took a family holiday in Miami (spring 2011) with their son Amadeus.

• Zoe Ball in Miami

  Former party girl Zoe Ball looks quite the yummy mummy in Miami, Florida as she takes son Woody for a spin on a jet ski. Miami beach is a particularly popular holiday destination for families, with its spectacular beachfront hotels. And it's great for watersports lovers, too.

• Noémi Lenoir soaks up the Florida sunshine

  French model Noémie Lenoir relaxed in Florida in March 2011. Noémi, who appeared to be taking a solo holiday, laughed and joked with pool attendants and appeared relaxed happy and healthy again after a tumultuous year. The former M&S lingerie model hit the headlines a while ago after a suicide attempt following her split with footballer Claude Makélélé, the father of her six year old son. But all that now seems a lifetime ago. Like many celebs, she has picked Miami as the place to chill out and soak up some sun. And who can blame her? Florida is a perfect place to go for an easy winter getaway...

• Cat Deeley in Mexico

  Cat Deeley is pictured here taking a break from a hectic schedule to top up her tan in Capo, Mexico. She has been presenting So You Think You Can Dance Stateside, spending much of her time jetting between LA and London, so she was grabbing the chance to chill.
  What's so good about Mexcio?  Cat picked a great spot: from the archaeology of the Mayan ruins to Cancun's famous beaches and nightlife, Mexico - land of amazing food and tequila - is the perfect place for letting your hair down.

• Courteney Cox in Hawaii

  Courteney Cox looks relaxed as she sits on the beach in Hawaii, taking a break from shooting scenes for her new TV comedy, Cougar Town. The star jetted off to Oahu with her co-star Brian Van Holt (with whom she is rumoured to be having a new relationship). Why Hawaii? Beaches, parties, nightlife... go here for some hedonistic fun!

• Denise Richards in Hawaii

  Actress and Bond Girl Denise Richards rocks the beach babe look in Hawaii. The former wife of Charlie Sheen is pictured here making a splash. She was on holiday with her two daughters and her father but the absence of her new man, musician Nikki Sixx, led to tabloid rumours that the pair had split...
  Why here? This Pacific Ocean paradise offers year-round sunshine and arguably some of the best surfing in the world.

• Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Jason Statham in St Bart's

  It looks as if love is in the air for model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and her British beau Jason Statham spend time chillaxing St Bart's on holiday. What's so special about St Barts?  A hit with A-listers and VIPs, this island is known as the pearl of the Caribbean. Expect to spot iguanas, luxury yachts, exclusive designer boutiques and  a Hollywood starlet or three...

• Melanie Chisholm and Thomas Starr in Barbados

  Former Sporty Spice Melanie Chisholm was spotted taking to the water with daughter Scarlet, nearly two years old, while on holiday in Barbados. Mel was taking a break with partner Thomas Starr before she started work on her fifth solo album. 

• Olivia Palermo in St Bart's

  American model and actress Olivia Palermo seems to be having the time of her life in St Barts as she gets a lift along the the beach from her boyfriend Johannes Huebl.Known as the millionaire's playground, St Bart's has everything to offer for a romantic holiday, from chic luxury accommodation, gourmet cuisine, crystal clear tropical waters and endless sandy beaches. A hit with honeymooners, you can drive round the entire island in 90 minutes.

• Sarah Harding in the Maldives with Tom Crane

  Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding and DJ Tom Crane are pictured here arriving home from a romantic holiday in the Maldives, during which they got engaged. Tom popped the question on New Year's Eve then took to Twitter to tell his followers: 'I feel like the luckiest man in the world!!!'.
  What's so special about the Maldives? This chain of 1,200 mostly uninhabited islands in the Indian ocean offers a tropical paradise for beach lovers. For more, see fab review of the W Hotel Maldives, where Kate Moss was spotted!

• Serena Williams in Miami

  Tennis champ Serena Williams, who is pictured here recovering from injury earlier this year, appeared to be back to her old self as she took a holiday with friends in Miami, Florida. The 29-year-old tennis player has been sidelined from her sport since claiming her 13th Grand Slam title at Wimbledon last July.
  Why Miami? It's the perfect place to visit with your mates: go there for sun, fun and some serious downtime.

• Jeremy Clarkson in Barbados

  Jeremy Clarkson and his wife of 18 years, Frances, put on a united front  as they had fun in the sun on a Barbados beach amid rumours he is having an alleged affair. The Top Gear presenter and his wife, who is also his manager, were seen hitting the jet skis and a speedboat as they enjoyed the high life in the Caribbean paradise.
  Why Barbados? If you love to be active, this is your perfect destination. Watersports lovers beware: you'll never want to leave...

• Charlotte Church in Beverley Hills

  Charlotte Church was being unusually bashful as she soaked up the sun poolside in LA. The singer and TV host was spotted relaxing at the Beverly Hills Hotel, but covered up her monochrome bikini with a loose grey vest top. The singer was on holiday with her children, daughter Ruby Megan, three, and two-year-old son Dexter Lloyd, who she shares with her former partner Welsh rugby international Gavin Henson. The 25-year-old was on mummy duty at the pool, armed with children's floats and a Spider-Man toy.
  

• Coleen Rooney

  Coleen Rooney showed off an array of different bikinis on her June 2011 holiday to Barbados. Her cornflower-blue two-piece was particularly pretty and just happened to match her son Kai's beachwear, too.

• Abbey Crouch in Dubai

  Presenter and model Abbey Crouch showed off her streamline figure at the swanky Le Royal Meridien Beach hotel in Dubai, where she enjoyed some family time with hubby Peter and 15-month-old daughter Sophia. Yummy mummy alert!

• Denise Van Outen in Dubai

  Denise jetted off to the Grosvenor House Hotel in Dubai for a girly weekend. Looks like she still has her infamous 90s figure in tact! Just how does she do it??

• Elle MacPherson in Australia

  And they call her 'The Body' because... Ah yes, here's why. Elle turned heads when she went for a surf in Byron Bay back in December 2011.

• LeAnne Rimes in Malibu

  LeAnne Rimes took to the beach and flaunted her new super-streamline figure back in August 2011.

• Gwyneth Paltrow in Italy

  Gwyneth Paltrow showed off the benefits of a strict diet while on holiday in Porto Cervo, Sardinia. 

• Halle Berry in Malibu

  Whether she's emerging from the sea in a Bond movie or taking a jog along the sand with her daughter, Halle Berry never fails to look beach-beautiful.

• Kelly Brook in Mykonos

  Kelly Brook had a Bond girl moment  as she emerged from the ocean in a gold-accented purple swimsuit while on holiday in Mykonos, Greece, in June 2011. The actress/model was enjoying a romantic holiday with her rugby-playing boyfriend Thom Evans, where they were snapped lazing on the beach, splashing in the sea, and taking pics for their holiday album.