Did Hitler use chemical weapons in WW2?
2017-04-13
The big news out of USA today is that White House press secretary Sean Spicer has said that Hitler did not use chemical weapons during WW2 and even though this is true many people are outraged because gas was used by the Germans to kill prisoners in concentration camps. The outraged are all rolling their eyes and asking if Sean Spicer knows history. Many are calling for Sean Spicer to lose his job as White House press secretary over his comments. In my opinion all of the outrage is utterly ridiculous because Sean Spicer obviously meant that Hitler did not use chemicals as weapons in warfare/combat, and apart from very minor use this is 100% correct. Hitler did not use chemical weapons in WW2.
A gas chamber is an apparatus used for executions or euthanasia - it is not a weapon in the context of Sean Spicers comments. Obviously Sean Spicer is aware of the fact that the Germans used gas to execute the prisoners of war that were in German concentration camps but what he meant by chemical weapons was weapons used in warfare/combat.
The reason Spicer brought up the fact that Hitler did not use chemical weapons in WW2 was because he was trying to make Syrian leader Assad seem more evil than Hitler for his alleged use of chemical weapons ( on his own people! ) to justify the illegal US military actions in Syria. Sean Spicer was not denying the holocaust or trying to downplay the suffering of Jews and others that were killed by gas in German concentration camps.
The outrage over Spicers comments is pedantry at best but at worst the outrage is a result of the robotic, automatistic thinking that so many have in relation to the holocaust. People have been taught that the holocaust is the most sacred event in all of human history and they know that they must be outraged if anyone says a wrong word about it.
So after hearing Spicers comments people ask themselves if he just denied the holocaust, or if his comments could be considered to be offensive to Jews and holocaust survivors in any way. They all know that to deny the holocaust is the worst thing in the world and that the right way to think is to be utterly outraged if anyone does.
Peoples brains tell them that yes, Hitler did use gas to kill people in concentration camps, and gas is a chemical. Even though they know that Sean Spicers comments do not deny the holocaust, and that he meant chemical weapons that are used in armed combat, they decide that it is probably best to be outraged anyway just to be on the safe side. Nobody wants to be caught out experiencing the wrong emotion - it is best to think correctly. So this programed and automatistic thinking explains all of the outrage over Spicers comments when it is clear that what he said was correct and there was nothing offensive about it. Hitler did not use chemical weapons in WW2. This is true.
This western hysteria over the use of chemical weapons in modern times is baffling to me because the allies used chemical weapons including mustard gas in WW1. World powers had agreed to an international treaty against poisonous weapons seven years before WW1 but both sides broke the agreement - first it was the French using tear gas against the Germans, and then the Germans responded with a large scale chlorine attack, which led to a chemical weapons arms race and chemical weapons becoming a significant feature of the war which is why the gas mask is such an enduring symbol of WW1.
It seems more than a bit hypocritical and inconvenient that the so-called 'greatest generation' used chemical weapons to help them defeat the Germans in WW1. Doesnt using chemical weapons make people evil? Is the so-called 'greatest generation' evil? Or is using chemical weapons only evil when it is the enemy using them?
The clever automaton historians may tell us that the so-called 'greatest generation' may be excused for their use of chemical weapons due to the fact that WW1 was a long time ago before we all became enlightened in relation to how very evil chemical weapons are but there was already an international treaty against the use of chemical weapons seven years before WW1. The clever automaton historians may roll their eyes and tell us that the so-called 'greatest generation' had to use chemical weapons because the Germans were using them - but it was the French that were the first to break the treaty when they used tear gas against the Germans weeks into the war. The clever automaton historians may shrug and tell us that WW1 is in the past anyway, but now we all really know that chemical weapons are evil. But if using chemicals is so very evil, even to execute or euthanize, then why is it still legal in three US states to execute prisoners in gas chambers?
Yes it was the Americans that first used gas chambers to execute people at the beginning of the 1920s. It wasnt the Germans that invented the gas chamber - it was Americans - and it is still legal to kill prisoners in gas chambers in three US states. Gas chambers. And what chemicals are the Americans putting in their lethal injections anyway? Is chemical injection and electric chair really any worse than being executed in a gas chamber?
USA is the only western nation that still has capital punishment and since the Europeans will no longer sell them the chemicals that they need to lethally inject prisoners that they want to execute the Americans are having to consider alternatives including firing squads and more gas chambers. The EU lethal injection export ban on lethal injection drugs has USA running out of the drugs fast and in places like Arkansas the drugs they have left are about to expire so they are executing eight prisoners in ten days later this month. Soon USA will be out of lethal injection drugs all together and many are suggesting that the best alternative to chemical injection is gas chambers.
Now if a gas chamber is a chemical weapon then USA is guilty of using chemical weapons because it is already still legal to use gas chambers as an execution method in three US states and we have many more considering a return to gas chambers due to the EU lethal injection drug export ban which has caused the USA to run out of the drugs they need for lethal injections. If a gas chamber is a chemical weapon then the USA is guilty of using chemical weapons. What do the clever automaton historians have to say about that? Is it only evil when so-called 'nazi' use gas chambers? Is a gas chamber only a chemical weapon when it is not USA (Arizona, Missouri, Wyoming) that is using them?
These clever outraged automatons can roll their eyes and ask if Sean Spicer knows history but how many of them really know history, especially history relating to the holocaust. The fact is that the Germans decided to use gas to kill prisoners because they were looking for a better method of mass murder than firing squad. To start with the Germans used to make large groups of prisoners dig their own mass grave and then they would have the prisoners stand on the edge of the mass grave and have a German firing squad shoot them all into the mass grave. The problem with this method was that it was not efficient and it was too traumatic for the German soldiers.
The man that was given the job of coming up with a more efficient and less traumatic way of mass murdering Jews and other prisoners of war was called Arthur Nebe. It was Nebe that first reported that there were too many Jews and other people that the Germans considered to be undesirables to kill with firing squads. The task of killing so many Jews, especially after Jewish women and children were included was just too great to accomplish by firing squad. In the same month that Nebe sent his report - August 1941 - Himmler attended one of these mass shootings and he after witnessing this brutal mass murder he vomited. It wasnt just Himmler that was traumatized by this mass murder but also many of the German soldiers that made up the firing squads. So for the sake of the mental health of the German soldiers Himmler asked Nebe to come up with a more convenient way of mass murdering all of the Jews.
Before deciding on gas Nebe experimented with other methods of mass murder including using explosives. Nebe had some mental patients but in a bunker and then he blew them up with explosives but on the first try not all of the mental patients were dead so they used more explosives but they ended up making a great mess with body parts ending up hanging from trees and what not. One of the reasons Nebe decided that gas was the way to go was because earlier in his career he had attended a party and after driving home drunk he fell asleep in his garage with his vehicles engine still running and he was almost killed by the carbon monoxide from the exhaust.
The Germans were already using carbon monoxide to euthanize mental patients before Nebe came up with his idea of using carbon monoxide from the engine exhaust for mass murder. Since vehicles were readily available and the exhaust could kill quickly and efficiently Nebe decided that gas was the best method of large scale execution in invaded lands. During his experiments with exhaust fumes Nebe first tried killing with passenger vehicles exhaust but found that it didnt work well enough and took too long so he used the exhaust of a truck and found that this method killed within 15 minutes. After the truck exhaust experiment Nebe was convinced and he had vehicles fitted with sealed cabins that would be filled with vehicle exhaust and these were the first German gas chambers. His idea for using gas was adopted which led to the gas chambers being built in concentration camps and the later move from carbon monoxide to Zyklon B.
So even though Hitler approved of the use of gas chambers it was not his personal idea. We all know that Hitler was the most evil man that ever lived but the fact is that it was Americans that invented gas chambers in 1921 long before any German thought to build them. Of course what the Germans did in murdering innocent Jewish men women and children in gas chambers is worse than executing criminals that have been found guilty of committing a serious crime but the issue that the outraged have with Sean Spicers comments is not that innocents were murdered by the Germans but that the Germans used chemical weapons by using gas chambers. By claiming that Hitler did use chemical weapons in WW2 because of the use of gas chambers the outraged are saying that modern USA is guilty of using chemical weapons because execution by gas chamber is still legal in the USA to this day.
So what do you think? Do you agree with these outraged historians that a gas chamber is a chemical weapon? Are the outraged correct that Hitler used chemical weapons in WW2 because of the Germans use of gas chambers? If a gas chamber is a chemical weapon then arent USA guilty of using chemical weapons due to the fact that execution by gas chamber is legal in USA?
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Gas chambers were used as a method of execution for condemned prisoners in the United States beginning in the 1920s and continue to be a legal execution method in three states.
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- wikipedia
- American gas chamber
References - wikipedia
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