[WW2] - Auschwitz

F. Flury and F. Zernik indicate that 200 ppm can be fatal within five to ten minutes, while 270 ppm are immediately fatal. These are not, of course, the results of experiments on human beings, but rather extrapolations, in which lower risk thresholds have been determined on the grounds of safety. This will be demonstrated in the following. To kill an average person with a body weight of 100 kg, the victim must therefore ingest approximately 100 mg hydrogen cyanide (1 mg per kilo body weight). The respiration of a human being at rest amounts to approximately 15 liters of air per minute.

With a hydrogen cyanide content of 0.02% (approximately 0.24 mg per liter) the victim must inhale approximately 416 liters of air before ingesting the fatal quantity of hydrogen cyanide. At 15 liters per minute, this will take about half an hour. A very strong person can survive even this period of time. By contrast, a sensitive person weighing 50 kg breathing at an accelerated rate as a result of physical effort or excitement will inhale 40 liters per minute, ingesting a fatal dose of 208 liters of air in five minutes. It is obvious from these calculations, that the data in safety instructions are always intended to protect smaller, weaker people from accidents under the most unfavorable circumstances. The data given in the literature as "immediately" or "rapidly fatal" doses are furthermore so indefinite as to be unable to satisfy our purposes. In addition, they only refer to the time when a victim has ingested a fatal dose, but not when death occurs, which can sometimes take a very long time.

"---Opinions differ as to the concentration of poison gas alleged to have been used in the presumed executions (see next chapter). The only indirect source available to us are the alleged execution times reported by the eyewitnesses, which in turn permit a crude estimate of the concentrations used. These reported execution times all allege a gassing time of only a few minutes.[465]

Assuming an execution time approximately corresponding to those in US execution gas chambers (ten minutes and more at 3,200 ppm HCN, see chapter 7.1.), a concentration of at least 3,000 ppm (3.6g/m3) would have had to have reached even the remotest corner of the chamber after only half this time (five minutes). With a free volume of 430 m3 in morgue 1 of crematoria II and III,[466] this corresponds to a quantity of hydrogen cyanide of approximately 1.5 kg released and spread out after five minutes. Since the carrier material only releases approximately 10% of its hydrogen cyanide content after five minutes (see chapter 7.2.), at least ten times that amount would have been required in order to kill in only a few minutes, i.e., this would mean the utilization of at least 15 kg of Zyklon B.[467] This, of course, only applies on the condition that the hydrogen cyanide released reached the victims immediately, which cannot be expected in large, overcrowded cellars. It must therefore be considered established that quantities of at least 20 kg of Zyklon B per gassing (ten 2 kg cans or twenty 1 kg cans) would probably have had to have been used for the gassing procedures described.

Let us state that the scenarios described by the witnesses would require a quick increase in the concentration of hydrogen cyanide everywhere in the chamber. At the same time, logically, there cannot have been a simultaneous drop in the hydrogen cyanide in the chamber-such as through the respiration of the victims. Such a loss in hydrogen cyanide would have had to have been overcompensated for through an even more rapid evaporation of fresh hydrogen cyanide, because the hydrogen cyanide concentration would have had to increase for rapid executions. After the end of respiration due to increasing numbers of dead victims, who died in a matter of minutes, this most important cause of a loss in hydrogen cyanide would have ceased to exist as a factor. But since Zyklon B continues to give off large amounts of hydrogen cyanide for many more minutes, it must be assumed that the hydrogen cyanide content in such chambers would continue to increase constantly, and very rapidly, during the first quarter hour at least. Since deadly concentrations (3,200 ppm) would have had to have been reached even in the remotest corner of the chamber even after a few minutes, this means that the hydrogen cyanide concentration inside the chamber after approximately one quarter hour would have exceeded 10,000 ppm and would have continued to rise thereafter-slowly, of course, but nevertheless constantly at all times.---"

Rudolf överskattar också den koncentrationen som krävs. Den kan vara mycket lägre än vid avrättningar i USA.

Rudolf har också blivit av med sin doktorstitel, tror jag?

In it, I describe the discussion launched by Fred A. Leuchter[130] about the issue of the formation and detectability of cyanide compounds of iron (marked by long-term chemical stability) produced by the poison gas Zyklon B, and if these compounds are to be expected and can be found in the gas chambers described in Auschwitz/Birkenau, Majdanek and Stutthof.

Rudolf överskattar också den koncentrationen som krävs. Den kan vara mycket lägre än vid avrättningar i USA.