The Final Solution, a sad euphemism for the systematic annihilation of Jewish prisoners, posed a problem for the Nazis. After starting their death machinery in February 1942, the high command opened a debate to discern the most appropriate way to wipe them out en masse. Figures such as Rudolf Höss, the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, maintained that this practice was very harmful to the morale of his men. And he was right, since in other centers such as Sachsenhausen it had been shown that the murder of prisoners ended up affecting the military on a psychological level. The first solution that the Nazis tried to carry out was to kill the prisoners using carbon monoxide. The same substance that was already used to murder the mentally and physically handicapped in the ‘Adult Euthanasia Program’. At first the idea was to use this gas in showers, but shortly after they realized that, if they managed to invent a system that would allow murders near the crematorium ovens built in some of the concentration camps, everything would be much simpler. This is how death trucks were born. Vehicles that prisoners boarded and that, through a duct, transmitted this lethal substance from the engine to the rear. Strange trucks: Mobile gas trucks had originally been created during the search for more effective ways to eradicate the Jews. of the Soviet Union. However, before deploying these vehicles in the occupied East, in the autumn of 1941, the Criminal Technical Institute had tested them inside Germany,” says Nikolaus Wachsmann in ‘KL. History of Nazi concentration camps’. The first tests carried out with these vehicles were carried out in Sachsenhausen, where prisoners were ordered to board them already naked. “Then the truck started and, when it stopped in front of the Sachsenhausen crematorium, all the prisoners inside had died and their bodies were dyed pink by the effect of the gases,” the expert adds. Related News He served on both sides standard Yes The “ghost ship” that was lost in WWII and has just appeared Israel VianaIn the end, the SS doctors decided to bet on prussic acid or Zyklon-B. A gas designed to clean large buildings or factories of insects that was characterized by smelling like bitter almonds and marzipan and that, as explained in the trial against a former SS guard by forensic doctor Sven Anders, from the University of Hamburg-Eppendorf, was lighter than air: “It penetrated the lungs by inhalation and blocked cellular respiration.” Once breathed, it attacked the heart and brain. «The symptoms began with a burning sensation in the chest similar to that which can be caused by spasmodic pain and to that which occurs in epileptic seizures. Death from cardiac arrest occurred in a matter of seconds. “It was one of the fastest-acting poisons,” added the doctor. The substance, always according to Anders, caused “extreme pain, violent convulsions and a heart attack in a matter of seconds.” That, in the best of cases, since a minor inhalation could cause death to last half an hour. «Lower intoxication led to a blockage of blood in the lungs and caused breathing difficulties. We commonly speak of water in the lungs, breathing would then be deeper and stronger, because the body then craves oxygen. “It would be agony,” added the expert. Its use was much simpler than that of carbon monoxide since, as Wachsmann points out in his work, the soldiers only had to throw the glass balls in which it was pressed into a sealed room. . Nothing to do with the cumbersome carbon monoxide trucks that were so advocated in Sachsenhausen. After learning about the cruel benefits of Zyklon-B, the Auschwitz authorities decided to carry out a field test to check its effectiveness in the middle of World War II. Final tests This took place in August 1941, when SS soldiers executed a small group of Soviet prisoners. “The action was supervised by the camp chief, Karl Fritzsch, a veteran SS agent who later claimed to his colleagues that he was the inventor of the Auschwitz gas chambers,” adds the expert. The exercise was carried out in block 11 of the field. The one in which brutal punishments were meted out to prisoners. After this first test, Höss decided to do a new, much larger test. In this case, he selected a group of 600 Russians who had arrived at Auschwitz, in Wachsmann’s words, “probably on September 5″ from the Neuhammer prison camp in Lower Silesia. . They were Soviet prisoners of war identified by the Gestapo as ‘commissars’,” reveals the expert. All of them were taken during the night to block 11, where they ran into dozens of other unfortunate people. When they were forced down the stairs, the Soviets saw another 250 lying on the floor, invalids from the infirmary who had been chosen to die with them. The slaughter was rapid. With lightning speed, the German soldiers boarded up the door and windows, then threw Zyklon-B glass into the barracks. When they opened this hell again, the landscape was Dantesque. This is how inmate Adam Zacharski, a witness to the events, explained it: “The scene was really horrifying, because you could see that those people had scratched and bit each other in a fit of madness before dying; many had their uniforms torn… Although I had already gotten used to seeing some macabre scenes in the field, at the sight of all those murdered men I became dizzy and began to vomit uncontrollably. “This unknown evidence was admitted during the Trials of Nuremberg by Höss. Although his testimony is dangerous, since the officer wanted to put the blame on Karl Fritzsch: «In the autumn of 1941, in accordance with a special secret directive, Russian politicians, commissars and special political officials were transferred by the Gestapo from prison camps of war, to the nearest concentration camps for liquidation. During an inspection parade, my second, SS Captain Fritzsch, on his own initiative, used gas to destroy these Russian prisoners of war. He packed the Russians into individual cells in the basement and, using gas masks, threw Zyklon-B into the cells, causing their immediate death. Related News Standard Si Antonio Scurati: “When I hear a political speech I pay attention whether he is appealing to my fear or my hope» Rosalía Sánchez | Correspondent in Berlin standard Yes Second World War The secret hatred of the Third Reich to the most lethal tankman in its own army Manuel P. VillatoroIn this way the first stone of the Holocaust was laid. A pillar made from blood and gas. «The Nazis were looking for more efficient forms of extermination. In September 1941, experiments with Zyklon-B (previously used for fumigation) were carried out at the Auschwitz camp in which some 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 sick people were gassed. Its granules turned into a deadly gas upon contact with air. It was proven to be the fastest gassing method and was selected as a means of carrying out massacres at Auschwitz,” explains the digital version of the ‘US Holocaust Memorial Museum’. Höss, for his part, claimed to be proud of the event in his memoirs: ” That left me calmer because we could all avoid bloodbaths.
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