unconventional warfare in russia?

[zukkov]

i was just wondering whether the germans and/or russians ever used any chemical or other weapons of mass destruction during the war. hitler certainly had no respect for any eastern europeans, especially russians. did the idea never occur to him, or was he afraid of retaliation by stalin? for a man that supposedly didn't have an ounce of humanity in his bones, he did manage to keep the war fought with conventional weapons(other than the v1/v2 rockets, and they were loaded with conventional warheads). would that have been true had the allies not gained air superiority i wonder?

[Michael Dorosh]

I can only imagine that the refusal to use chemical weapons was one for propaganda purposes; the Germans always wanted to hold the moral high ground, as did their enemies. The Katyn Massacre was a Godsend to them, as they could use it as "proof" of the kinds of people they were fighting. Even when they were gassing and shooting millions of people, there was a very business like feeling among many, as if what they were doing was truly the right thing to do. That is the frightening part - these people were convinced they were doing good in the world.

Poison gas would have been another story. Apparently Zyklon B or a shot to the head is 'humane'. Don't forget Germany was a signatory to the Geneva Convention etc. - I don't know if the Convention forbade mustard gas etc. or not.

There was also the more conventional line of thought that if they were to start using chemical weapons, the enemy would also. No one wanted to be the first - whether for propaganda purposes or out of a real desire to fight "humanely" I can't say, likely the former with a small dose of the latter.

Of course, Germany spent so much money on various arms races - the U-Boat technology race, the radar/counter-radar race, the tank/anti-tank race - to get involved financially in an escalating war of gas and anti-gas techniques and weapons would have been an additional burden as well.

Nuclear weapons would have been another story, I think.

[ July 18, 2002, 08:58 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[dizee]

yeah...i just read summin about wodka being used upon the russians in ww2.

it occoured during the kursk/belgorod aftermath, as the german armys had to cunduct a rather difficult withdrawl.

>> The 5th guards Tank Army(cmd Rotmistov) ran into the german Army Group South supply dump at fesky northwest of Kharkov crammed with 2 month´ supply of everything neccessary to support two armies for three month.That included liquour.the german quatermaster threw open the dumps to any german unit that had transportation.Whitin two days it had been cleaned out except for the wodka.None was touched: with french cognag, spanish port and italian chianti to choose from, who would want wodka?.It was then that the 5th Guards Tank Army overan Feski-and did not move for three days.When the russians had drunk the last carboy dry and recovered from their hangouvers, they discovered that SS Panzer Division Winking had reinforced the german defence and occupied the high ground in front of them. <<

evil...

[Firefly]

I've seen no mention of the use of of poison gas in any theatre of what is conventionally viewed as WW2 i.e. 1939-1945 (although the Italians used poison gas in Abbysinia in the mid-30's and the RAF used it against nationalist rebels in Iraq).

I think the main reason being that the participants followed a 'no first use' policy.

Hitler was a former WW1 infantryman and could have shared the disgust that most WW1 infantrymen had for the use of mustard gas. I believe it was banned by international accord, but international accords didn't seem to have much effect on other German behaviour in the East.

[Gaylord Focker]

The Allies were going to make an attempt to use poison Gas in Italy, or so the evidence pointed when Stukas dive bombed some ships off the coast of Italy, i Beleive during operation Anzio.

An allied ship was hit with a bomb and onboard it was loaded with chemical weapons.

[RobVarak]

--Deleted. Don't feed the trolls.--

[ July 18, 2002, 12:48 PM: Message edited by: RobVarak ]

[Gaylord Focker]

Originally posted by RobVarak:

Correct me if i'm wrong, i don't see how eye rolling answers any questions. I can't locate the info so if someone else does that would be great.

I just remember reading about that awhile ago. I'm sure my details are off, perhaps it was Operation Husky?

[PiggDogg]

Gaylord,

I think that the German bomber induced Allied gas release was in the Italian port of Bridisium after Salerno, but before Anzio. I do not think that the gas presence was for any particular operation.

The gas was there as a deterence to 'retaliate' against the Germans if the Germans used gas first. It was not an Allied attempt to 'use' gas as a first strike.

Fortunately, Hitler had been gassed when he was a ground pounder during WWI. Because of his bad experience, he did not initiate battle front gas use during WWII.

Cheers, Richard

[ July 18, 2002, 11:09 AM: Message edited by: PiggDogg ]

[Renaud]

folks:

I just want to confirm PiggDogg's statement about the mustard gas incident in the mediterranean. I recently read an article published in American Heritage (the history magazine) concerning this.

The ships loaded with mustard gas indeed were not there as part of a planned gas attack by the allies. All European theatre combatants stockpiled chemical weapons, but none used them on the battlefield as far as I know. The german air raid was masterfully executed and caught the overconfident allies completely unawares. The germans did not know about the ship loaded to the gills with mustard gas bombs, they just happened to hit it. The resulting mustard gas bomb chain explosions devastated the port. The casualties were horrendous. The catastrophe remains a little-known incident because allied propoganda put the lid down tight on the news getting out through the controlled news media (which was all media at that time). I don't think it was declassified until years after war's end.

Ren

[RobVarak]

--Deleted. Don't feed the trolls.--

[ July 18, 2002, 12:49 PM: Message edited by: RobVarak ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Edited cause we all have bad days.

[ July 18, 2002, 06:44 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[RobVarak]

Mr. Dorosh,

Watch the name-calling, please. I don't think it was appropriate. That being said, I'm editing my prior posts. I shouldn't have fed the troll to begin with.

[DevilDog]

In his book "Crusade in Europe" General Eisenhower goes into detail concerning the German bombing of the ship loaded with gas off the coast of Italy. It was there as a deterant to the Germans and ready for retaliation if needed.

While the event was somewhat embarrasing to the Western Allies (and would have resulted in serious Allied casualties if the wind hadn't been blowing out to sea) the event did reinforce the Allied doctrine of retaliation. Hitler knew they had it and were ready to use it. That's why he never used it himself except on defenseless civilians.

[zukkov]

what about the russians? did they have gas as well? i suppose even if they didn't, hitler would have feared that if he used it in russia, the western allies would still retaliate...

[Andrew H.]

As a weapon, gas - even the nerve gasses developed by the Germans - is not an ueberwaffe. Gas can affect your own troops, and the wind direction has a lot to do with the effectiveness of a particular gas attack. As a terror weapon, however, especially when used against civilians, it is very powerful. Given that the allies were prepared to retaliate for the use of gas, and that they could bomb Germany at will by 1944, the use of gas by the germans would probably have been counterproductive.

Despite the weaknesses that gas has as a military weapon, it occurs to me that it would probably be very effective if used against beachheads, which are, of course, smallish areas with a high concentration of troops. If gas had been used at, say, Anzio, it may have been terribly effective.

Of course, there's still the retaliatory danger.

[Olle Petersson]

Hmm, weapons of mass destruction in WW2...

In the very widest sense one could claim that the ancient Russian scorched earth strategy is a form of biological weapon, with the intent to starve the enemy.

Incendiary bombs are also just within the definition.

These were heavily used by the Allies against Dresden and some other German cities.

And then of course we have the nukes used by USA.

It seems like it's worthwhile to use NBC weapons... :eek:

You win, and therefore won't be prosecuted.

Cheers

Olle

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by zukkov:

i was just wondering whether the germans and/or russians ever used any chemical or other weapons of mass destruction during the war. [snips]

Unfortunately, this thread seems to have degenerated into a trollathon with unexpected speed (Olle, surely you can troll better than that?).

If I may attempt a serious answer to the question of CBW in WW2 --

To the best of my knowledge, the only major power to use BW on any scale was Japan, and that against the Chinese. Unit 731 also used war gas -- mustard, I believe -- to murder Allied POWs, including Russians. The only attested Japanese use of CW in combat that I know of was the use of frangible gas grenades (filled with HC, I believe) used against British tanks in Burma. This is reported in Louis Allen's "Burma: The Longest War".

The Germans fielded a couple af anti-tank weapons that might cause raised eyebrows to someone familiar with the 1925 Geneva gas protocol. The first was the armour-piercing bullet for the PzB 39 anti-tank rifle, which contained a small pellet of tear-gas. By the letter of the protocol, this might be held to be permissible because the tear-gas effect is not the main effect of the weapon. The second were the BK 1 and BK 2 anti-tank grenades, described in Wolfgang Fleisher's "Panzerfaust"; the nature of the contents is not mentioned, but they "developed a strong and biting fog in the air" and "caused not only smoke but irritation". If anyone has any further information on these, I'd be interested in knowing exactly what the irritant agent was. Again, it can be clained that the Geneva gas protocol is not violated, as irritation is a secondary effect to obscuration.

Post-war British thinking is that CW includes flame weapons, but this was not a position adopted by anyone during the war.

The USA was not a signatory of the Geneva gas protocol during WW2, and IIRC did not sign it until the 1970s.

All the best,

John.

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

The second were the BK 1 and BK 2 anti-tank grenades, described in Wolfgang Fleisher's "Panzerfaust"; the nature of the contents is not mentioned, but they "developed a strong and biting fog in the air" and "caused not only smoke but irritation". If anyone has any further information on these, I'd be interested in knowing exactly what the irritant agent was.

John,

from the Panzerfaust site, page 9, subsection Blendkörper:

(quote)

A closely related weapon family to the Nebelhandgranaten were the Blendkörper ("blinding devices"), although the latter were intended as a

designated AT weapon. Introduced in 1943, the first model Blendkörper 1 H or BK 1H weighed 370g and was a little unwieldy at a diameter

of 6cm and a length of 15cm. Therefore, after 225,200 BK 1H production was switched over to the second model, the BK 2H. This was a

glass bottle with a length of 12.8cm. It contained 290g of a mixture of calcium chloride / titan tetrachloride / siliciumterachloride which were

separated from each other with by a disc. The whole device weighed 400g.

The idea behind the Blendkörper was that when thrown, the explosion blinded the crews of enemy tanks. Then, the ensuing smoke cloud with

irritant was to make the crew exit their vehicle. Despite appearing to be a bizarre weapon, the Blendkörper were rather common in use.

5,142,800 of the BK 2H were produced and practically all were used up until the end of the war.

(end quote)

as regards this thread's topic, I think the soviets classified the german tactic of filling russian underground structures / fortifications with explosvie gas and then detonate it as use of a chemical weapon and consequently court-martialed and executed whomever german they found responsible of having anything to do with it (this is from memory and I do not know much of that so take that with caution).

as regards incidents with casualties due to NBC weapons, there are four cases known that were not manufacturing accidents (of which several happened everywhere).

1) Sept. 8th 1939, three german soldiers were killed by fragmentation and sixteen were affected by leaking poisonous gas when during the clearing of an obstaclenear Jaslo in Poland a mine detonated and damaged a container that was reported to have contained a Lost-like substance (Lost is a poison gas).

2) Sept. 11th 1939 three german soldiers were affected by poisonous gas when they opened a suspiciously marked container near Ostrowiec in Poland.

3) Dec. 3rd 1943, the famous incident where the US freighter John Harvey, loaded with 60 tons of mustard gas, was hit by Luftwaffe bombers (which were conducting a regular attack against the ships in the harbor and sunk a total of 19 ships; they did not know of the poison gas aboard one of the ships).

4) April 8th 1945 american fighter-bombers attacked the train station in Lossa (east germany). the rail cars of a train there contained the munitions from a nearby ammo depot that was being relocated. due to the attack, several containers with Tabun (a poisonous gas) were damaged. The exact number of casualties attributable to the leaking poison gas are not known.

[ July 18, 2002, 07:35 PM: Message edited by: M Hofbauer ]

[Michael Dorosh]

John, it will interest you to know that the Canadian Army still has a ban on flame weapons.

[Eric Young]

In my research on German nebelwerfers I found a passage about the Russians protesting their use in the early stages of the war in the east. They thought the rockets used some form of compressed gas as an explosive which they termed gas warfare. That's all I remember off the top of my head about that.

All army's of World War II were prepared for gas warfare. The Japanese were the only people to use such things. They dropped bombs filled with plague ridden fleas into Chinese held areas as a form of biological weapon. The black plague still florishes in these areas today.

E

[Frunze]

Originally posted by zukkov:

what about the russians? did they have gas as well? i suppose even if they didn't, hitler would have feared that if he used it in russia, the western allies would still retaliate...

The USSR did have gas. Fear of other states' possible retaliation didn't help the Ethiopians gassed by the Italians, or the Iraqis gassed by the British, or the Chinese infected by Japanese biological weapons.

"The Italians, Hungarians, Japanese, French, English, Russians, and Americans, as well as the Germans, all perfected mustard, phosgene, and similar agents during World War II. Although never used in the conflict, these nations amassed such huge quantities of chemical munitions that their disposal presented a practical problem, one that would be virtually insurmountable in today’s more environmentally conscious world. In those more naive times, however, the munitions simply found their way to the bottoms of almost all the world’s oceans in the holds of expendable ships."

Federation of American Scientists

Also biological weapons:

"Many of the WWII belligerents developed BW programs, either in the interwar period, or in the case of probably the most significant program of all, that of the United States, during WWII itself.[1] Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia all developed BW programs. Italy, France and Germany did not advance to the stage of fielding military biological warfare units, or of initiating a BW warfare training program."

....

"Only Japan used BW, in China, beginning in the mid-1930s.[6] Delivery mechanisms varied, but included aerial bombs and vectors. Agents included plague, typhoid, cholera, anthrax and other traditional pathogens. The instances of use were apparently widespread. The number of deaths resulting from individual attacks is disputed, but appears to have been low. (Estimates vary drastically: from a thousand to over 222,000, but there appears to be no available documentation. The Japanese also used captives for experimental purposes, and estimates of the number of people killed in this fashion range between 5,000 and 10,000.) What is most important is that the effort again had absolutely no identifiable military consequences."

Another Federation of American Scientists page

[John Kettler]

From what I've read, some German generals wanted to

use gas (nerve agents Tabun and Sarin, I think)) to break the deadlock at Stalingrad, but Hitler nixed the idea. His WWI gassing was probably a factor, but the real reason appears to have been the massive vulnerability of the largely horse transport based German force to gas attack, especially mustard. Few people realize that Russia not only had by far the largest chemical stockpiles of the period, but was well practiced in using everything from chemical pots, mines and shells all the way up through aerial spray delivery, having conducted numerous live agent field exercises.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Gaylord Focker]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Edited cause we all have bad days.

No worries, we all have them, hope your day improves! I'd challenge you to a Pbem game but i don't want to make your day any worse with a crushing defeat of your inept forces. Hehe

[Michael Emrys]

The idea of the Allies using poison gas in the later stages of the war is somewhat intriguing. Imagine the 8th. Air Force or Bomber command saturating an area in the rear of an army the Allies wished to attack. This would not be likely to disperse far enough to effect your own troops, but could paralyze the logistic and command zone, making a breakthrough that much easier.

At that stage of the war, it would have been difficult for the Germans to reply in kind. But I can think of two reasons why that would not be the course taken. The first is that the likelihood of causing causing civilian casualties in the area gassed would be unacceptable, doubly so if the civilians were not of an enemy nationality. Secondly, I don't think the leaders of the Allied forces felt such measures were needed to win the war. They were right.

Michael