ABSTRACT
The answer to Himmler’s problem of how to expedite the Final Solution was found in the expertise of Criminal Police Inspector Christian Wirths. Since the abandonment of the so-called euthanasia killings in Germany, Wirths had been at loose ends. He had been responsible for the installation of the ostensible bathhouses in which handicapped Germans had been asphyxiated by carbon monoxide. Himmler commissioned him to oversee the construction of gas chambers in the killing centers in Poland. But the Wirths method of pumping carbon monoxide gas from fixed diesel engines was prone to frequent failures. A vermin-killing poison, hydrogen cyanide, patented by IG Farben and known as Zyklon B, emitted far more effective fumes. The blue crystals killed more quickly and were easily dispensed from the roof into openings in the ceilings of the deadly shower rooms. Thus, minimal contact between the killers and their victims promised to reduce the trauma experienced by the members of the Totenkopfverbaende, the special Death’s Head units of the Einzsatzgruppen and other SS members assigned to concentration camp duties. 2
