Zyklon B

When many think of the Holocaust, the first that comes to mind is the use of gas chambers to kill millions of Jews and other groups the Nazi’s thought of as “subhuman.” However, not many know how this operation was conducted. Due to the Nazi’s ambitious goal of murdering millions of people, they needed fast way to kill a group of people in a cheap manner. This search led them to Zyklon B.
Zyklon B wasn’t used in the gas chambers at first--it was first used as an insecticide before World War 2. It was known to be poisonous but it hadn’t been used as a chemical weapon as of now. It had only been used to disinfect things such as machinery, clothing, warehouses, etc.

The Nazis first realized they needed something to kill Jews on a massive scale when they invaded Poland and Russia. They began their attempts to kill Jews on a mass scale in 1941 and their initial methods involved mass shootings. However, this was quickly proven as slow and ineffective. Moreover, this had a huge psychological toll on the soldiers forced to kill many innocent lives. This led to the search for a more effective way to kill humans on a large scale.

The Nazis decided to try out Zyklon B when faced with this question. They quickly found it useful and effective after testing it on a smaller scale during their attacks. They tried it on smaller chambers in Auschwitz and about 250 people inside died within minutes. They quickly scaled this in Auschwitz and other death camps and were able to kill millions in a matter of a few years.

The Nazis did a good job at hiding this as well. Even though people knew that Jews were being killed in these concentration camps, many people didn’t know how it happened, even the prisoners themselves. This is because the Nazis lured the prisoners into rooms under the presumption that they were going to take a shower (they even put fake showerheads) and when they closed the door, the released Zyklon B to kill them almost instantly.

Sources:
https://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-zyklon.htm
https://www.thoughtco.com/zyklon-b-gas-chamber-poison-1779688