Zyklon B (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Zyklon B was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide infamous for its use by Nazi Germany against human beings in gas chambers of extermination camps during the Holocaust.It consisted of hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid, Blausure in German, hence B), a stabilizer, and a warning odorant that was impregnated onto various substrates, typically small absorbent pellets, fibre discs, or diatomaceous earth. Zyklon B was stored in airtight containers; when exposed to air, the material released gaseous hydrogen cyanide (HCN).Zyklon B was originally developed during the 1920s as an insecticide by Dr. Walter Heerdt, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Elektrochemistry at Berlin-Dahlem, whose director at that time was Dr. Fritz Haber, a world-renowned chemist and recipient of the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of the method for the organic synthesis of ammonia (see Haber Process).