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The Chemical Genie: WW2

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  • The Chemical Genie: WW2

    I have a few vague ideas, but I would like to hear what the members have to say... What kept the Chemical Genie in its bottle throughout WW2, particularly in the European war?

    I find it to be particularly interesting that photos of soldiers at the start of hostilities almost always included a mask, prominent in its pouch at the soldier's waist. Later photos rarely had any sort of gas mask as a normal accoutrement.

    We all know Hitler was enamored with exotic, special "vengeance" weapons such as the V1 and V2. There was an active atomic program that made little headway, but that was not due to lack of interest.

    In the final months, with the inevitable fall of the Reich becoming obvious to all, what kept the Germans from lashing out with chemical weapons? The simple fear of retaliation? Germany was already being razed. Did the Allies have modest stockpiles of chemical weapons keep pace with the advancing front in anticipation of the need to retaliate? Thanks for your thoughts.

  • #2
    My straight off the cuff answer would be

    A). German commanders likely knew from WWI what being gassed was like and had no desire to have it visited on them, or the civilian population
    B). They were too busy using it on non-combatants.
    You know JJ, Him could do it....

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    • #3
      First there was the fear of retaliation. The Allies (especially the Western Allies) had far superior means with which to deliver chemical weapons attacks on Germany. Second, I think Hitler's personal experiences may have shaped his policy toward them. He experienced them first hand in the trenches of WWI. He was blinded and hospitalized when the armistice was signed.

      I believe the Allies basically had what was used in World War I, while the Germans had superior stuff such as nerve agents and the like. The Germans believed that the Allies also possessed these weapons.

      Here's a good page I found on chemical weapons during WWII:
      [2.0] A History Of Chemical Warfare (2)
      "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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      • #4
        There is one more additional argument i´ve read on the web - chemical weapons would been deadly on horses, on which both Axis and some Allies were quite dependent.
        If i only was so smart yesterday as my wife is today

        Minding your own biz is great virtue, but situation awareness saves lives - Dok

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        • #5
          imho one thing often forgotten is that in WWI gas was used to break out of the stalemate and trenchfighting. WWII on the other hand was much more mobile with shifting frontlines most of the time. So there were far fewer chances to use gas succesful and the results would not justify the effort.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Tarek Morgen View Post
            imho one thing often forgotten is that in WWI gas was used to break out of the stalemate and trenchfighting. WWII on the other hand was much more mobile with shifting frontlines most of the time. So there were far fewer chances to use gas succesful and the results would not justify the effort.
            There's still civilian population centers, which are stationary. Otherwise you have a pretty good point.
            "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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            • #7
              but the Nazis also played the PR game and always tried to look as good as possible in the international press. (just think of the olympic games)

              Cilivan death by shootings, bombings, starvation etc can all be blamed on "normal spoils of war" but an all out chemical attack on a city cannot be kept under the radar and would threaten the relationship to the few remaining neutral trade partners Germany had left (and desperatly needed)

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              • #8
                Originally posted by BD1 View Post
                There is one more additional argument i´ve read on the web - chemical weapons would been deadly on horses, on which both Axis and some Allies were quite dependent.
                I think some people forget that. I used to have a book by Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, which was a really great resource on the economics of WWII. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union they had something like 650,000 motor vehicles (3000 different models) and twice that many horses. I'm sure the Russians used them even more, especially for actual cavalry.
                "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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                • #9
                  Gas was the WMD of the time. Not powerful or useful enough for MAD strategy, but certainly powerful enough, and demonstrably bad enough, for a stance of "you don't use yours, I won't use mine, but here, have some firebombing" to be the order of the day.

                  Look at the fiction of the interwar years - strategic bombing and gas are the bugaboos for the peaceniks and "alarmists", and the engineering miracles for the Utopists. It wasn't just Hitler who was afraid of what gas warfare would entail.

                  -dale

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by dalem View Post
                    Gas was the WMD of the time. Not powerful or useful enough for MAD strategy, but certainly powerful enough, and demonstrably bad enough, for a stance of "you don't use yours, I won't use mine, but here, have some firebombing" to be the order of the day.

                    Look at the fiction of the interwar years - strategic bombing and gas are the bugaboos for the peaceniks and "alarmists", and the engineering miracles for the Utopists. It wasn't just Hitler who was afraid of what gas warfare would entail.

                    -dale
                    If he'd loaded up V1s and V2s with nerve agents, and the Allies chose to retaliate in kind, it could have been one-sided assured destruction. After 1941, there was a huge mismatch in means of delivery.

                    BTW, in what theories/fictions were chemical weapons the "engineering miracles for the Utopists?" I'm not familiar with that kind of stuff, I'd like to learn more.
                    "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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                    • #11
                      the only example I could think of would be soma from brave new world

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                      • #12
                        In many cases the battlefronts were too fluid, as Tarek suggested.

                        But gas was actually much more useful on the tactical defensive than on the attack. On the defense, more liberal use can be made of persistent agents, especially mustard which can inflict disabling burns even on masked personnel. Mustard's a very good gas for contaminating assembly areas. The Germans used it very effectively this way 1917-18.

                        Of course, mustard could also be an effective weapon in strategic bombing. Contamination would not only add many civilian chemical burn casualties, but more importantly, it would considerably retard debris clearance and repair work. Even the precautions needed against gas would significantly reduce the efficiency of fire-fighting, UXB removal, etc.

                        But at almost every point in the war, there was either a state of mutual deterrence, or no particular advantage to gain from the use of chemical weapons.

                        Particularly telling is that when one side was winning the land battle, they also had air superiority. This means that at the very time when the defending side might have been most tempted to exploit the use of persistent blistering agents like mustard to hinder the enemy ground attack, those same defenders would face the prospect of their cities being bombed with the stuff by the superior enemy air force. Result: a sort of diagonal mutual deterrence usually prevailed during WWII.

                        BTW a very good book on all aspects of the chemical warfare of the period is an old 1930's text by Col. Prentiss of the US Army Chemical Warfare Service, Chemicals in War. It's well worth a read if you can find a copy.


                        Do note, however, that the effectiveness of many new types of warfare were overrated during the interwar period. For instance, Liddell-Hart, in Paris, or the Future of War, argued that the bombing of cities would result promptly in panic, riots, and civil disorder. But that's not what generally happened, from Madrid onward, when cities were bombed. Likewise, I think that gas would have made strategic bombing even worse, but I also think it would have been endured.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Ironduke View Post
                          If he'd loaded up V1s and V2s with nerve agents, and the Allies chose to retaliate in kind, it could have been one-sided assured destruction. After 1941, there was a huge mismatch in means of delivery.

                          BTW, in what theories/fictions were chemical weapons the "engineering miracles for the Utopists?" I'm not familiar with that kind of stuff, I'd like to learn more.
                          Oh, a ton of the short stories from the beginning of Golden Age of sci fi (late 30s early 40s) involve some form of chemical weapon being the lynchpin of fear or the fulcrum of a pax scientifica. Look at Wells' Things to Come, especially the movie version. There's at least one from the very edge of the Atomic Age where the author has strategic Uranium "dusting" from high altitude as the WMD. But it's really just another form of gas - invisible, terrifying, lethal, deliverable by long range bombing aeroplanes, and incapable of being defended against. And f course it was envisioned in the story as a way to enforce that pax, with the lone "hero" warning that if the Bad Guys got it first we're all f*cked. Can't remember the author, sorry.

                          But that's the time period you want to look through - the 30s.

                          -dale

                          p.s. Atkinson's "The Day of Battle", the second in his WWII series about the U.S. army in WWII, relates something I'd never heard of before - the destruction of a British ship in an Italian harbor that apparently everyone acknowledges now was carrying chemical stores, "just in case".
                          Last edited by dalem; 15 Oct 09,, 19:34.

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