Degesch Blueprint from Zyklon-B Gassing Facility Stamped "Secret"

Authors

Object ID

2019.2.98

Object Name

Blueprint

Date

1942

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

Large blueprint, yellowed paper, purple-brown print of measured structural plans. Square in bottom right corner titled "DEGESCH, Frankfurt a. Main" and stamped with"geheim in red ink.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Degesch held the patent for Zyklon-B, initially developed for use as a pesticide but used in gas chambers in major extermination centers including Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. Bruno Tesch, instrumental in developing the canisters to package the hydrogen cyanide-based formula, sold the German army and SS on using Zyklon-B to murder humans. This blueprint seems to depict a gassing chamber circulation system for either delousing or the extermination of humans, with roof vents for dropping Zyklon-B pellets into the gas chamber room, and ventilation valves for expelling the gas after it was administered. Sonderkommandos, prisoners themselves, conducted the work of dragging the dead bodies from the gas chambers to nearby incinerators.

This blueprint, red-stamped “Geheim” (“Secret”), is dated around the time that Auschwitz-Birkenau was a fully functional extermination facility.

Dimensions

18 x 24"

Keywords

Degesch, Zyklon-B, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bruno Tesch

Subcollection

Concentration

Recommended Citation

"Degesch Blueprint from Zyklon-B Gassing Facility Stamped "Secret"" (1942). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2019.2.98.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1473