Hamstersss Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Yeah, what the title says. What did Hitler have to lose in the later war by not deploying poison gas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Shaw Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Originally posted by Elijah Meeks: Yeah, what the title says. What did Hitler have to lose in the later war by not deploying poison gas?QUICK LADS, THE BRICK! Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
White Phosphorus Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Well he got gassed in WWI, he probably didn't want his troops to experience the same fate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrold Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Mostly the threat of overwhelming retaliation without much material gain. Perhaps being gassed in WWI had some effect as well. BDH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Axe_ Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Check out this link. I don't think a definitive answer is out there although I was intrigued by Churchill's stance on the use of gas. Oh, and hi Mom, before this gets moved. Cheers, Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1stCav Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 I read a huge biography on Hitler by Joachim C. Fest...Hitler despised the use of chemical weapons b/c like someone in this post said, he was exposed to chemical weapons in the first war. He apparently thought it was a despicable and unhonorable way of fighting a war. Strange idea considering this is the same man who slaughtered millions of people because he was a crappy, unsuccessful painter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamstersss Posted November 19, 2002 Author Share Posted November 19, 2002 I can just imagine the happy humanitarian Hitler sitting back and saying, "Oh, those slavic lads don't deserve the kind of inhuman horror that is poison gas, hold back, my well-funded scientists". They had superior chemical weapons, and it seemed militarily irrational not to use them. Great site, Axe. As to this thread being off-topic, well, I think it has more to do with the fact that BTS included the SturmTiger, so I no longer have a cause celebre to champion... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 A very good question. One probably more suited for the General Forum, but a good question nonetheless. . . Personally, I don't think there is one simple answer to this question. Experiences of some of the leaders in WWII (including Hitler) to Gas in the First World War probably did play a part. Hitler was absolutely nuts and probably the most evil individual to live in the 20th century, but he did have a wierd awareness of morality and justice that sometimes came into play. It is also worth nothing that poison gas was nowhere near as successful a weapon in WWI as popular myth would have us believe. After some inital surprise successes, gas attacks were of only marginal success. The countermeasurs are pretty easily implemented, and it's only useful when the weather and wind conditions are right. The problem with poison gas is that it's not a very selective weapon - if your assaulting troops reach the objective and the poison gas is still around, it's going to affect them just as much as it did the defending troops. It also blows wherever the wind happens to send it, which is only occasionally predictable Gas probably could have been used very effectively against civilian targets in WWII if dropped from airplanes. Using poison gas against cities was a line that no one seemed willing to cross, though. In any event, Britain and the US found the late war 'firestorm' attacks effective enough at wiping out German cities, and the Nazis seem to have found plenty of use for poison gas in the concentration camps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScouseJedi Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Thank you for the link. A guy my father employed was in Tarento when the John Harvey was sunk and told my dad some information - very little as it was all hushed up. With this link I can make my Dads day - thanks a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
icedog42 Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Didn't the Italians use gas against the Ethiopians? I know that this is prior to Sept '39 but I feel that Mussolini's exploits in north africa are related to the war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franko Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 He DID use gas: against those people unable to defend themselves (e.g., Auschwitz). That was very, well, Hitler-like. Frank Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Steiner Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 It is puzzling why Hitler did not at least use gas against the Russians, being as they never signed the Geneva convention. Every other conceivable barbarity was visited by each side upon the other there. Having developed sarin nerve gas, which gas masks of the time could not keep out, it would seem a natural, especially once Germany was on the ropes, with total destruction staring them in the face... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commissar Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Originally posted by Sgt. Steiner: It is puzzling why Hitler did not at least use gas against the Russians, being as they never signed the Geneva convention. Every other conceivable barbarity was visited by each side upon the other there. Having developed sarin nerve gas, which gas masks of the time could not keep out, it would seem a natural, especially once Germany was on the ropes, with total destruction staring them in the face...Hmm...maybe Hitler was at least a decent enough guy to watch out for his own people. I bet Stalin would have just loved to be given such an excuse to ship the German population to Siberia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eden Smallwood Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 I feel a little silly saying this, what with all the SuperGrogTomes people mention here, but I read a little work of pulp-quasi-fiction centering on H's sarin development... It was pulp fiction, all right, but the author, allegedly, tried to make it "fit" a bunch of historical facts, which he tells you about in the epilogue... _Shwarze Kreuze_ , by I forget, if I even spelled it right- German for "White Cross", right? Like their biohazard symbol or something was it... Eden Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robohn Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 One of the main reasons we do not use gas today as a weapon, is that it is not very reliable. Wind and weather have a greater effect on its use than standard HE filling. Most of the bombing against cities was aimed at destroying war producing industry, not getting a body count. Unfortunately, the CEP for a bomb in World War II was about 5 miles...a lot of other stuff got whacked around those industrial targets. Gas is also more dangerous to work with, and transport. Delivering it effectively can also be more complicated. I'm not sure what gas costs compared to HE, but I sure the transport and handling are more expensive.... Robohn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quintus Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 A hard one to call this ... Personally, I think that, quite apart from personal revulsion for gas on Hitler's part, there was a general fear of gas weapons as the agents of a global apocalypse around in the 1930's. A good example of this can be found in H.G. Welles' "Things to Come". When Germany was winning the war, she didn't need gas and when she began to lose it, the fear of retaliation in kind probably played it's part. I cannot imagine Air Marshall Arthur Harris shying away from implementing any order to drop mustard gas in with the high explosive during the area bombing campaign had Germany used chemicals first. What was his quote ...? "The blood of a dozen Hamburgs are not worth the bones of one single British Grenedier" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strontium Dog Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 As Franko pointed out, Hitler most certainly did use gas in WWII (cyanide). The thing about gas is it doesn't work too well in the open air. To be effective it needs to have a low LD50 (lethal dose) and be relatively heavy and hence not too easily dispersed. In WWI everyone was sitting in trenches so lobbing a heavier than air gas (e.g. chlorine) into a trench was reasonably effective. The gas moved down and through the trenches and bunkers and anyone who tried to get above it got shot. However, as has also already been mentioned it was also difficult to control. A lot of friendly gassing occurred in WWI. The gas was released (literally from a big cylinder in some cases) and wafted off towards the enemy only for the wind to change and suddenly there were lots of 'friendly fire' casualties to deal with. I also don't think the gases availbale in WWII were toxic enough to be used effectively in a non-trench warfare scenario. That has all changed now of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quintus Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 >I also don't think the gases availbale in WWII >were toxic enough to be used effectively in a >non-trench warfare scenario. That has all >changed now of course I think the organo-phosphorus based agents developed by Germany were plenty good enough : Sarin, Tabun, Tobun. There was enough gas in German hands to wipe out London at least once and the V2 did have a chemical warhead designed for it, although never used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laxx Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 this is definitely off-topic. an observation, so far in the last 12 years, only iraq and russia gassed people, and limited to its own countryfolks. ironic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KNac Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Imagine that Hitlers decide to use gas, and further developing of V-2 missiles armed with chemical warheads. What would have happened in early war against british? And later in the war? Or even the use of it in Normandy, inmediatly before the invasion? It would have been disasterful for the allies. One have to wonder that it could have been even worse with the usage of chemical weapons. And as others said, Germany had already developed highly letal gas (sarin, tabun, etc). [ November 19, 2002, 06:33 AM: Message edited by: KNac ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Da Beginna Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Originally posted by Robohn: Most of the bombing against cities was aimed at destroying war producing industry, not getting a body count. RobohnThat is definetly NOT true. Don't believe all the old propaganda. The gas troops were always keeped in the rear. They were ready to strike but were - fortunately - not released... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strontium Dog Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Originally posted by Quintus: I think the organo-phosphorus based agents developed by Germany were plenty good enough : Sarin, Tabun, Tobun. There was enough gas in German hands to wipe out London at least once and the V2 did have a chemical warhead designed for it, although never used.Hi Quintus I hadn't actually realised that the Germans invented these in WW2. As you say they are certainly nasty enough to have been used effectively. It does beggar the question as to why the Germans didn't use them doesn't it? Perhaps it was just down to Hitler's somewhat schizophrenic personal 'morals'? I've just been looking around the net trying to find out a bit more about why they weren't used and it seems that there was a reluctance to renounce the Geneva convention (although presumably only in a selective way) amongst the German military staff. According to Albert Speer (at Nuremberg), Goebbels tried to promote the use of gas after the Dresden raid but was apparently not sufficiently influential (taking anything Speer said with a pinch of salt of course). Perhaps they weren't all bad after all? Although saying that its still difficult to see why these gases weren't used towards the end of the war when the German position was desperate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wamphyri Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Some very good post in responce to this question. And I don't realy have much to add to this topic but I remember seeing a history channel show on this exact same topic and decided to add what wasn't said already. Movement, someone mentioned in an earlier post about the trenchs in ww1, in ww2 the battles were always moving(not all obviously) so by the time you get gas setup and deployed your enemies aren't were they should be. The show also mentioned about a few time that gas was used during ww2. The one I remember was a battle that happened in Italy. The italians were defending a city were the advance had to come through a valley due to mountains. They had setup a trench like barricade and had been fighting behind it for a long time and had been very succesful in holding the germans off. The germans deployed gas against this trench killin the defenders. (perhaps a grog could help me with this story .. I don't remember the specifics and my info here could be wrong) wamphyri Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGoodale Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 I have ALWAYS wondered why myself!! Good question! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Axe_ Posted November 19, 2002 Share Posted November 19, 2002 Originally posted by Quintus: [QB]When Germany was winning the war, she didn't need gas and when she began to lose it, the fear of retaliation in kind probably played it's part. [QB]I think we have a winner. Quintus presents the most logical explanation. Remember, apart from Hitler's insitence on defending the Reich at all costs, you did have people like Heinrici and Speer who took the German population into account.(Refusing to destroy bridges in Berlin because of the extra suffering it would bring to the populace since they carried water and electricity.) Taken from this link: "He was a very professional military man who had a reputation for being a master of defensive tactics. On 20 March 1945, Heinrici succeeded Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler as Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Weichsel [Vistula] on the Eastern Front. On the 17 April 1945, Heinrici was made responsible for the defence of Berlin, but Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, the Chief of the Armed Forces High Command, personally relieved him of his command on 29th April because he ordered a withdrawal despite Hitler’s wishes to the contrary. Keitel later recalled the incident in his memoirs: “…Colonel-General Heinrici telephoned me…announcing that in view of the continued worsening of the situation…he had ordered his Army Group to resume its retreat. I told him that his attitude — for which there was no valid justification whatsoever — was flagrant disobedience. He countered that in that case he would no longer accept responsibility for the command of his troops, for whom he claimed he alone was responsible. I replied that in my view he was no longer suitable to command an Army Group, and that he was to consider himself dismissed: he was to relinquish his command to the senior army commander [21st Army], General [Kurt] von Tippelskirch.” It could also be that Hitler, Himmler and Goebells were still delusional that they could force a split in the Allies and work out a separate peace with the Western Allies for a combined war against the Russians. Right at the end, Himmler made overatures through secret channels behind Hitler's back. The use of gas on the Allies would have meant all bets were off. Cheers, Jason [ November 19, 2002, 09:57 AM: Message edited by: Axe2121 ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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