Hitler was a bad guy.
Talk about stating the obvious. We can call Hitler many things. Fanatic. Megalomaniac. Warmonger. War criminal. Mass murderer. No one fits the bill like the Führer.
And yet, there was one rather obvious crime that this world-class criminal refused to commit. And I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out why. My students ask me the question every single semester, and after 25 years of college teaching, I have to confess that still don’t have a really satisfactory answer.
Why didn’t Hitler use poison gas in World War II?
This post originally appeared on World War II magazine’s Front and Center blog; click here to read the rest of this post and find more blog entries on the Second World War by Rob Citino.
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Marc Laplante said:
One reason that has been put forward was that Hitler was exposed to gas in the Great War. He knew its use would result in his own people being subject to it. He maintained hopes for victory until the literal very end, due to his delusions of an anticipated implosion of the Allies unity.
Until the use of the atomic bomb, gas was the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, and it too almost ensured “Mutual Assured Destruction”.
December 15th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Stephen Newman said:
There was the Gneva Convention. Although sometimes the Germans ignored it they mainly wanted to be seen as ‘gentlemen’ fighting and abiding to the rules of war. Lesons were also learned that the wind can change after the bomb is thrown. He also disagreed with his generals and thy mmight have or have not have wnated to use it.
December 15th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
LtCol said:
Because the other side could strike back in great force. Poison gas was available by the Allies in WWII and could be used at anytime (I remember a cargo ship in Naples carrying PG and sinking at one point) Hitler was big on war crimes against people who could not fight back but less so than people who could.
December 15th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Jarhead0331 said:
MAybe my history is fuzzy, but I thought Hitler did use poison gas…he used it to murder millions of Jewish civilians.
December 15th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Barton said:
Content analysis. DDT disappeared in US scientific literature 1942 – 1945. The Germans assumed (incorrectly) that the USA or UK had nerve gas (Sarin, early organophospate was something Germany made in WW2 and even used it as an insecticide in 1944). The Germans may have feared we would use the “new” gas – nerve agents. Read this in a book called Higher Killing about biological and chemical weapons.
December 18th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Bobby Delco said:
Damn I can’t believe only one person realized this. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the article…..Kudos!!
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:28 am
Bobby Delco said:
That he used it on the Jews and others in the camps that is.
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 am