War of Nerves Page 3

  The German press hailed Haber’s military innovation, but elsewhere in Europe the use of chlorine at Ypres provoked outrage and condemnation. The Allies claimed that the April 22 attack had killed 5,000 troops—a number grossly inflated for propaganda purposes—and branded it a flagrant violation of international law. Germany defended its actions in legalistic terms, arguing that the Hague gas-projectile declaration had banned the use of specialized chemical shells but not the release of poison gases from cylinders.

  Although Haber’s contribution to the German war effort enhanced his fame, it had tragic consequences for his personal life. His wife, Clara, was a talented chemist in her own right, having been the first woman to earn a doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of Breslau in 1900. But she had been denied a scientific career and forced into the traditional role of wife and mother, making her deeply unhappy and resentful. On May 1, 1915, a few days after Haber’s return to Berlin from the Belgian front, Clara confronted her husband over the gas attack at Ypres. A passionate antimilitarist, she was horrified by his development of chemical weapons, which she considered a grotesque perversion of science. Haber responded angrily, and a bitter argument ensued. Late that night, overcome with despair, Clara shot herself through the heart with her husband’s army pistol.

  AFTER YPRES, THE military stalemate of trench warfare continued, but now the taboo against the use of poison gas had been broken. Seeking to avenge the German attacks, the British established special gas companies under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Foulkes. On the evening of September 24, 1915, his men emplaced 5,500 cylinders of chlorine along a 25-mile front around the Belgian town of Loos. At 5:20 the next morning, the British released a mixture of chlorine gas and smoke from artificial smoke candles over the German lines for about forty minutes before commencing an infantry assault. The wind shifted unexpectedly, however, blowing the toxic cloud back toward the attackers and inflicting more British casualties than German ones. Because of the difficulty of controlling the poison gas released from cylinders, the British began using crude mortars called Livens projectors to deliver canisters filled with chlorine, reducing the warning of an attack to a few seconds. In 1916, both sides resorted to heavy artillery to deliver specialized chemical shells. By then, the legal constraints in the Hague gas-projectile declaration had been completely swept aside by “military necessity.”

  As the war ground on, the combatants developed defenses against chemical attack. The initial protective measures were improvised and ineffective. After the first German releases of chlorine, Allied troops were given motorcycle googles and cotton pads that they were told to soak in urine, which partially neutralized chlorine, and hold over the mouth and nose until they had escaped the poisonous cloud. A slightly improved method involved the use of handkerchiefs or flannel socks dampened with a solution of bicarbonate of soda. Later, troops were issued crude gas masks and small box respirators, in which air was filtered through a canister filled with charcoal and soda lime. Even so, soldiers who failed to don their masks in time were condemned to a cruel death, as the British poet Wilfred Owen vividly described in his classic poem “Dulce et Decorum Est”:

  Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,

  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

  But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

  And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

  Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

  As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

  In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

  He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

  The development of improved chemical defenses was offset by the introduction of new poison gases of ever greater potency. In December 1915, the Germans fired shells containing phosgene, a gas used in the dye industry that was eighteen times more toxic than chlorine. Phosgene had a distinctive odor of new-mown hay, which soldiers quickly learned to recognize, but because it was less irritating than chlorine and caused severe lung damage only after a delay of a few hours, troops could unwittingly inhale a lethal dose before donning their gas masks. The French retaliated with phosgene in February 1916.

  Soon after the United States intervened in Europe in April 1917, the American Expeditionary Force, led by General John J. Pershing, confronted the horrors of gas warfare. Totally unprepared for this new threat, U.S. soldiers had to be issued gas masks by their British and French allies. At Pershing’s request, General Amos Fries organized the First Gas Regiment, which developed defenses against German chemical attacks and conducted offensive gas, smoke, and incendiary operations on the western front. Once the element of surprise had been lost and both sides were equipped with effective respirators, the number of chemical casualties declined sharply and battlefield deaths from chlorine or phosgene became relatively rare. Unprotected noncombatants were not as fortunate, however. Although civilians were not deliberately targeted by chemical attacks, the wind could carry the toxic clouds as far as twenty miles behind the front lines, killing and injuring humans, livestock, and wildlife alike.

  IN AN EFFORT to circumvent the Allied use of protective masks and respirators, Haber and his colleagues developed a new chemical warfare agent that attacked the skin as well as the lungs. Called “mustard” because of its sharp, garlicky odor, it was an oily liquid (first synthesized in 1860) that was readily absorbed through the skin, giving rise after several hours to severe chemical burns and blisters. In July 1917, once again at Ypres, the Germans began firing mustard-filled shells containing an explosive burster charge that shattered the liquid agent into a fine mist that was colorless or light yellow. Like phosgene, the effects of mustard were insidious: symptoms developed only after a delay of three to twenty-four hours (with a mean of ten to twelve hours), so that troops often did not realize that they had been exposed to the agent until it was too late.

  The first symptom of mustard exposure was that it caused areas of bare skin, such as the hands and neck, and sweaty regions, such as the groin and buttocks, to turn crimson and begin to itch and burn. A day later, the reddish patches turned into massive blisters a few inches across, filled with a watery fluid produced by the destruction of tissue. The weight of the fluid separated the skin from the underlying flesh, causing excruciating pain. When the blisters burst or were deliberately punctured to ease the torment, they could easily become infected, creating large suppurating wounds that required lengthy medical treatment. Although the inhalation of mustard vapor was relatively uncommon, it caused severe inflammation of the lungs and a slow, agonizing death by asphyxiation. Mustard soon became the most dreaded of chemical weapons and was dubbed “the king of the war gases.” Not only was it highly persistent, clinging to clothing and equipment and contaminating the battlefield for days or even weeks, but its ability to penetrate the skin forced troops to augment their respirators with cumbersome oilskin capes, goggles, and leather or rubber garments. This protective gear could be worn only for short periods, however, because it caused heat stress and seriously impaired fighting efficiency.

  Seeking the capability to retaliate with chemical weapons, the U.S. War Department launched a crash effort to develop phosgene, mustard, and other agents by employing large teams of chemists at the American University Experiment Station and the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. The Ordnance Department also built manufacturing and filling plants for mustard and phosgene at a military reservation on Gunpowder Neck, a secluded, wooded peninsula jutting into Chesapeake Bay some twenty miles northeast of Baltimore, Maryland. In May 1918, the laboratory at American University was closed and moved to Gunpowder Reservation, which was renamed Edgewood Arsenal and soon reported to the newly established Chemical Warfare Service, headed by General Fries. Within several months of the United States’ intervention in Europe, about 10 percent of all U.S. artillery shells had chemical fills.

  The Allies began to retaliate with mustard in June 1918. One of the German gas casualti
es was an obscure lance corporal by the name of Adolf Hitler, who served in the trenches as a messenger during the last major German offensive in the summer and fall of 1918. On the night of October 13–14, he was trapped on a hill near Werwick, just south of Ypres, by an artillery barrage that lasted for several hours and included the use of mustard-filled shells. Around midnight his eyes began to smart, and at seven the next morning he delivered his last message, staggering through the trenches as his vision dimmed. A few hours later, he recounted in Mein Kampf, “my eyes were transformed into glowing coals and the world had grown dark around me.” Temporarily blinded, Hitler was evacuated to a military hospital in Pasewalk, near the city of Stettin in the eastern German province of Pomerania. He was still there, recovering from his eye injury, when the war ended with Germany’s capitulation and the armistice of November 11, 1918. Although Hitler later recovered fully, he retained a deeply traumatic memory of the experience.

  By the time the Great War came to an end, the major combatants had employed more than 124,000 metric tons of 21 different toxic agents, delivered primarily by some 66 million artillery shells. Chemical weapons had inflicted roughly one million casualties on all sides, of which an estimated 90,000 had been fatal, and many of the survivors had been left blind or chronically disabled. The Russian forces on the eastern front had suffered the greatest number of chemical casualties—approximately 425,000, of which about 56,000 were fatal—because of their lack of training and protective equipment. The American Expeditionary Force was also disproportionately affected. Chemical weapons accounted for 26.8 percent of the roughly 272,000 U.S. injuries and deaths, although only 2 percent of the chemical casualties were fatal.

  IN 1919, IN the aftermath of the war, General Fries launched a public relations campaign to prevent the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) from being disbanded. He and a colleague published a book in which they argued:

  [C]hemical warfare is an agency that must not only be reckoned with by every civilized nation in the future, but is one which civilized nations should not hesitate to use. When properly safe-guarded with masks and other safety devices, it gives to the most scientific and most ingenious people a great advantage over the less scientific and less ingenious. Then why should the United States or any other highly civilized country consider giving up chemical warfare? . . . It is just as sportsman-like to fight with chemical warfare materials as it is to fight with machine guns.

  General Fries cultivated the support of chemical manufacturers, trade associations, and the American Chemical Society, and he gave speeches, wrote articles, and lobbied Congress to preserve the Chemical Warfare Service. The fruit of his tireless efforts was the National Defense Act of 1920, which made the CWS a specialized branch of the Army with its own mission and staffing level—although not a guaranteed budget. When the permanent service was activated on July 1, 1920, Fries became its first peacetime chief, and he remained in that position until his retirement in 1929.

  Meanwhile, the horror and indiscriminate nature of gas warfare during the Great War inspired the international community to attempt to ban or control it. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles prohibited Germany from using toxic chemicals in war and from manufacturing or importing asphyxiating or poisonous gases and liquids. In 1921–22, representatives of the five major allied powers (Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States) met in Washington, D.C., for a Conference on the Limitation of Armament. These states negotiated and signed a Treaty Relating to the Use of Submarines and Noxious Gases in Warfare, which outlawed “the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous and other gases and all analogous liquids, materials or devices.” Although the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, French objections to the provisions on submarines prevented the agreement from entering into force.

  The next opportunity to control chemical warfare arose in 1925 at the Conference for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and in Implements of War, convened by the League of Nations in Geneva. Although the United States proposed banning all trade in chemical weapons, other countries objected that such a ban would discriminate against states that did not manufacture chemical arms. Instead, the contracting parties agreed to outlaw the use in war of chemical (and bacteriological) weapons, but not their production and stockpiling. On June 17, 1925, the League of Nations adopted a treaty to this effect called the Protocol on the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, better known as the Geneva Protocol.

  Although the White House supported the Geneva Protocol and sought its ratification by the Senate, in 1926 General Fries organized a coalition of veterans’ groups, chemical manufacturers, and the American Chemical Society to lobby vigorously against the treaty. As a result, the Geneva Protocol remained bottled up in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was never released for a vote on the Senate floor. (Indeed, the United States would not ratify the treaty for another fifty years.) Over the next decade, however, the Geneva Protocol was ratified by some forty countries, including all of the great powers except Japan and the United States, establishing an important international legal norm against chemical and biological warfare.

  Meanwhile, Germany was secretly pursuing a clandestine military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, including the restoration of a chemical warfare capability. Because World War I had left Germany humiliated and the Soviet Union isolated and weak, it was not surprising that the two countries would decide to collaborate in rebuilding their respective armed forces. Under the Rapallo Treaty of April 1922, the Reichswehr and the Red Army negotiated a military cooperation agreement that called for the establishment of German military bases on Soviet soil and the conduct of joint military exercises. Covert elements of the accord included research and development on armor, aviation, and chemical warfare.

  In 1928, the Red Army and the German Reichswehr launched a top-secret program of chemical weapons development and testing at a site west of Volsk, in the Samara region of Russia. Code-named “Tomka,” the proving ground was situated on a flat plain near the Volga River, surrounded by low mountain ranges. For the next five years, twenty-nine Germans (six chemists and engineers, plus pilots, mechanics, and laborers) worked alongside a larger number of Soviet staff, conducting open-air trials of mustard gas and other chemical agents in six-month campaigns, from May to October. In 1932, however, the Reichswehr decided that this would be their final cooperative venture with the Red Army. Not only was the joint testing program too expensive, but most of the activities carried out in Soviet Russia could now be done in Germany. In addition, after the appointment of Adolf Hitler, the leader of the National Socialist Workers Party, as chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, relations with Moscow rapidly soured. In September 1933, the German staff left Tomka for good and shipped their chemical testing equipment back into the Reich.

  WITH HITLER’S RISE to power, Fritz Haber’s life took another sad turn. Despite the distinction of winning the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (awarded in 1919) for the synthesis of ammonia, his work on chemical weapons had caused him to be shunned by the foreign scientific community. Now he faced a similar fate at the hands of his own countrymen. The Nazi regime moved quickly to purge Jews from the universities, and all Jewish scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute were forced to resign. Because Haber was a prominent figure and a war veteran, he was not immediately threatened, but he soon realized that he could not escape his ethnic heritage and would have to emigrate. Rejection and exile from the country he loved deeply left him a broken man. He accepted a position at the University of Cambridge, but the damp English climate depressed him and he developed a serious illness. He was en route to Switzerland to convalesce when he died suddenly in Basel on January 29, 1934, at the age of sixty-five.

  Haber had argued that chemical warfare was more humane than blast or flame and would serve to shorten wars and save lives. Although the terrible suffering of gas victims had proved him wrong, some military stra
tegists believed that chemical weapons had been tactically effective on the battlefield and might prove decisive in future conflicts. Accordingly, many countries that signed and ratified the Geneva Protocol reserved the right to use chemical weapons against states that were not among the contracting parties, or to retaliate in kind if an enemy used chemical weapons first. Once governments had claimed the option of retaliation, they found it necessary to continue research and development on chemical warfare agents and, in many cases, to produce and stockpile them as a deterrent, increasing the likelihood that the weapons would someday be used.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IG FARBEN

  WEARING A STAINED white coat that hung below his knees, Dr. Gerhard Schrader surveyed the insecticide development laboratory, where his team of industrial chemists was performing the modern alchemy of organic synthesis. Sitting at benches with their hands inserted into fume hoods, they mixed and processed solutions in gleaming assemblies of blown glass. Their silent work was accompanied by the hiss of boiling water and the hum of exhaust fans venting noxious gases into the winter air.

  The date was December 23, 1936. On the wall facing the laboratory benches was a large framed photograph of German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in heroic profile. The row of dusty windows looked out on the snow-covered brick buildings and fuming smokestacks of the Interessengemeinschaft (IG) Farben chemical complex in Leverkusen, north of Cologne. IG Farben was the world’s largest corporation, having been created in 1925 from the merger of Germany’s six largest chemical concerns, including BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, and Agfa. Headquartered in Frankfurt, it had a net worth of $2.5 billion, a workforce of about 200,000, and scores of research and production facilities across the Reich that were involved in every branch of industrial chemistry, from nitrogen fertilizers, gasoline, mineral oils, and dyestuffs to pharmaceuticals, photographic chemicals, and artificial fibers.