The trial of three employees of the Degesch firm, a chemical-manufacturing corporation, opened before a German court here this week. The defendants are accused of having knowingly supplied the Gestapo with large quantities of Cyclon-B gas for the extermination of at least 300,000 concentration camp inmates, most of whom were Jews. The defendants are Dr. Gerhard Peters, formerly manager of the plant, and Bans Ulrich Kaufmann and Karl Amend, executives in the factory.
The prosecution charges that the manufacture of the gas, originally used to exterminate rodents and disease-bearing insects, was changed by Gestapo order. In 1942 Dr. Peters was told to change the specifications of the gas to remove from it an irritant intended to guard against accidental poisoning, which was causing severeagonies to prisoners who were experimentally killed with it. After wards, the prosecution declares, the gas without the warning irritant was shipped only to concentration camps.
At today’s session, Dr. Peters denied knowledge of the general use of Cyclon B in concentration camps, asserting that he was informed that it was to be used on special criminals only. Kaufmann placed all the blame on Peters, asserting that when he expressed doubts to Peters as to the Gestapo’s use of the gas Peters told him to “let it go.”
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