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September 27, 2009

World War Two Observation: Nazis Eschewed Bioweapons

Per an earlier entry in which I mentioned I would be dropping observations over here on World War II and its lead-up as derived from various research projects, here's another one.

Observation 2. Odd Factoid: For whatever reason, Hitler prohibited Nazi Germany from developing offensive biological weapons.

No one is exactly sure why that I ever came across. Certainly the Nazi dictator had no moral compunctions about death and destruction. He used chemical poisons to kill Jews and others slated for extermination. His medical machine experimented on people with less shame than on rats. And exposing concentration camp inmates to death by rampant infection (e.g. typhus) was par for the course.

Perhaps Hitler knew that biological weapons were and are highly inefficient. Perhaps he feared that the Allies had better systems for delivery and development and that they might use them in retaliation, not by employing bioweapons' in their less effective uses as people-killers, but as pathogens to economically ruin essential crops and beasts of burden. (The German army relied a lot on literal horse power.)

There were some attempts at defensive development, mostly to protect animals. And Himmler or somebody tried to evade orders and experiment with a tentative program. But nothing much came of it. But on the whole it is one of those unexplained mysteries of the mad.

Posted by Matthew Hogan at September 27, 2009 03:26 PM
Filed Under: Egghead Stuff , Rants- General , World War 2


Comments

On a related note though, the Japanese experimented extensively (including "field" experiments over wide civilian swathes of territory) with bio-weapons in China. Maybe elsewhere too, but at least in China.

Posted by: Jamal at November 1, 2009 08:16 PM

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