Why Did Hitler Not Use Biologicals In 1945 ??

No doubt the Nazi's had biologicals, why didn't Hitler use them, when he realized he was doomed ?

He destroyed even his own country with the scorched earth policy, seems reasonable that he would have used them on the world, in a fit of rage !!

Not sure why his did not use them !

Research and deployment of chemical and biological weapons, IIRC, was taken over from the Heer by the SS late in 1944. Himmler and most of the senior echelons of the SS were negotiating with the Allies towards the end, so Hitler's power to deploy what weapons existed was fairly limited.

Actually he didn't. Your are thinking of the USSR.

Worr, out

To read Albert Speer's books, not everyone was following Hitler's orders at the end. Speer supposedly countermanded urban destruction in several cities.

all the best

Hi,

Well, when Hitler stated in 1942 after the battle for Russia was lost, that the war was over, one would have thought that he would have prepared the ultimate destructive weapon on humanity 'Biologicals'...he was certainly capable of it !!

DEar Gunny Bunny,

'No doubt the Nazi's had biologicals, why didn't Hitler use them, when he realized he was doomed?'

'Himmler and most of the senior echelons of the SS were negotiating with the Allies towards the end, so Hitler's power to deploy what weapons existed was fairly limited.'

1) Using them when he was doomed wouldn't change anything. Earlier in the war it might have helped.

2) Biologicals are not very useful battlefield weapons. There were tests done (most notably by the Japanese) and they came to the conclusion that they were not always worth the effort. You could use them to kill massive numbers of people, but your own troops are equally at risk. Deploying biologicals takes time and effort and they are not guaranteed to work, especially when delivered with battlefield weapons. Chemical weapons are more effective in some cases, but given the experiences of WWI, they are not wonder weapons and did not achieve more or better results than other weapons. It did cause nasty casualties, but it never helped break the stalemate.

3) The allies would have retalliated with their own NBC arsenals and stepped up firebombings and terror campaigns against the German people. A lot of high ranking officials realized that using such means might mean the end of Germany as a country.

4) Hitler was gassed himself and probably felt it was not a 'proper' weapon.

5) Most sides were concerned about letting that genie back out of the bottle again and were just waiting for the other side to attack first. This kind of Mexican standoff kept WWII from degenerating into something even worse.

hitler deluded him self that they were going to win up until march '45 . the allies had better delivery systems [the 8th air force ,bomber command]. it wouldn't have paid .

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This is definitely true, the effects are too unpredictable and too late to be useful on a battelfield.

weapons.

Actually in terms of casualties caused by tons of shell fired the better CW agents (especially mustard gas) were clearly superior to HE shell. The use of CW was limited in WWI only by the production capacity of the chemical industry, the percentage of shell filled with chemical continuously increased, and Germany was planning to make the majority of shells chemical for 1919 at the end of the war.

Right. The two most effective agents - mustard gas and phosgene were both delayed action agents, of little use in breaking a line in battle. And the most effective of the two, mustard gas, tended to actually enhance the stability of the trench lines.

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the end of Germany as a country.

Even Hitler was disuaded by the advice from IG Farben experts that the capacity of the allies to deliver cehicals by air was vast. ...

When on side was winning handily they had no incentive to complicate the battle scene by resorting to chemicals, on the other hand, when one was apparently going down to defeat they had rather different discentives to initiate use. The Soviets never had effective capacity to wage it either

The structure and distribution of power within the NSDAP and Nazi governmental machinery was exceptionally complex. While Hitler did retain considerable residual 'gatekeeper' power (as witness his dismissal of both Goering and Himmler in the last week of the war), he was increasingly marginalized and isolated as the war progressed. In particular, his court - Bormann, Lammers and Frick - and the principal lieutenants - Himmler, Speer, Goering etc - very often concealed information from Hitler for their own reasons.

Look at how widespread was the knowledge of a military coup in the offing in 1944 - Himmler and many of the senior SS leaders knew all about it and may have been a tacit party to it. But Hitler knew nothing.