Use of chemical weapons in the Rif War

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The use of chemical weapons in the Rif War (1921–1926) by the Spaniards against the Rif Kabyls was the first operation in which mustard gas bombs were dropped from airplanes.

production

In 1921, after the defeat in the Battle of Annual , the Spanish military began negotiations with the head of warfare agents recycling in Munsterlager-Breloh in northern Germany , Dr. Hugo Stoltzenberg .

The delivery of preliminary products and the construction of a chemical weapons filling plant in Melilla with 200 employees was decided on June 10, 1922. By 1923, 500 to 600 tons of phosgene and Clark were supplied to the Spanish military from Germany . According to the Versailles Treaty , the German Reich was prohibited from producing, researching and distributing gas warfare agents. Stoltzenberg contributed to the development of a new gas bomb for the Air Force.

On December 20, 1923, the scientist and former Lieutenant Franz Stoltzenberg signed a contract as a private individual on behalf of the Reichswehr to set up a production plant for mustard gas (Lost; Spanish gas mostaza ) and phosgene gas in the Cerros de la Marañosa in a nature reserve in southern Madrid, whose This treaty and the handling of poison gas were prohibited by German authorities and contradicted the terms of the Treaty of Versailles . Therefore the private citizen Stoltzenberg had to step in. At the production site, the name has now been changed from Fabrica Nacional de Productos Químicos de Alfonso XIII to Instituto Tecnológico de La Marañosa (ITM).

ostracism

In 1925, following suggestions from the Polish delegation under Kazimierz Sosnkowski , the use of mustard gas was banned by the Geneva Protocol , “Protocol on the prohibition of the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or similar gases and bacteriological agents in war”.

commitment

Hugo Stoltzenberg developed a contamination strategy for the Moroccan War, which was mainly based on the use of mustard gas in the hinterland. This concept was based on the fact that people staying in villages, holding markets and working in the fields became deadly with the gas attacks. The population should be forced to surrender with undifferentiated terror . If the mustard gas hit people, without special protective clothing, it led to painful, difficult-to-heal and, in the majority of cases, fatal wounds. The mustard gas also stuck to food permanently; if these were consumed, this led to destruction and ulcers on the digestive organs, which almost always resulted in an agonizing death.

From October 1921, the Spanish artillery fired shells containing asphyxiating agents. At the battle of Tizi Azza , which began on July 15, 1923, the Spanish army used mustard gas for the first time. From June 1924 mustard gas bombs were dropped from the air. At the end of 1924, after the loss of Chichaouen , the Spanish Air Force used gases on a large scale and with high efficiency. At the end of 1924, the Spaniards withdrew behind a line named after the then High Commissioner of Spanish Morocco , Miguel Primo de Rivera , and used gas unchecked, which inevitably also hit Spanish prisoners of war, which is why the possession and use of these substances in Spanish Morocco was kept secret.

"I have always been reluctant to use asphyxiating gases against indigenous peoples, but after what they have done and their deceptive and false behavior, I have used it with real pleasure."

- Telegram sent by Dámaso Berenguer Fusté, the High Commissioner for Spanish Morocco , to the Minister of War on August 12, 1921.

The use of poison gas helped France and Spain to defeat Abd el-Krim and his supporters in the Rif War (1921–1926) .

During the landing operation at Al-Hoceima in 1926 , the Spanish troops under Miguel Primo de Rivera used mustard gas on a massive scale. A study by Rudibert Kunz and Rolf-Dieter Müller found that 10,000 containers with over 500 tons of poison gas had been dropped over northern Morocco in two years.

consequences

To the present day, 60% of the patients at the cancer center in Rabat come from the area where chemical weapons are deployed around Al-Hoceima.

Work-up

literature

  • Rudibert Kunz, Rolf-Dieter Müller: Poison gas against Abd el Krim : Germany, Spain and the gas war in Spanish-Morocco 1922–1927 : Rombach, Freiburg 1990, ISBN 3-7930-0196-2
  • Mimoun Charqi: Armes chimiques de destruction massive sur le Rif: Histoire, effets, droits, préjudices et réparations. Éditions Amazigh, Rabat 2014.

Further: The Spanish army tried to keep the operation secret. In his autobiography La vida y yo 1974, the Spanish military pilot Pedro Tonda Bueno reported on the use of poison gas and the subsequent poisoning of the fields on the Rif. The Spanish air force officer Ignacio Hidalgo Cisneros also mentioned some poison gas deployments in his memoirs of change of course .

support group

The Asociación de Víctimas del Gas Tóxico (AVGT) (Association for the Defense of Poison Gas Victims) invited international experts to a conference in Alhucemas on the use of poison gas and the long-term consequences in March 2002. However, like another conference on the same subject in April 2001, this conference was banned by the Moroccan government.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ España y sus bombas tóxicas sobre Marruecos . In: El Mundo , July 5, 2008.
  2. ↑ The first time - experimental field Africa . In: Spiegel spiegel special, history 2/2007.
  3. ↑ a b Gas mostaza sobre el Rif . In: El Mundo , March 18, 2001.
  4. ^ A b Dirk Sasse: French, British and Germans in the Rif War 1921–1926 .
  5. ↑ a b c German gassed, Moroccan forgotten taz January 26, 2002.
  6. ↑ Rudibert Kunz: Con ayuda del más dañino de todos los gases : The gas war against the Rif Kabyle in Spanish Morocco . In: Genocide and War Crimes in the First Half of the 20th Century , 2004 Yearbook on the History and Effects of the Holocaust. Ed .: Fritz Bauer Institute. campus, Frankfurt / M. 2004.
  7. ↑ La Marañosa: El Peligro Nbq (Nuclear, Biológico Y Químico) En Un Espacio Natural Protegido .
  8. ↑ Rudibert Kunz, Rolf-Dieter Müller: Poison gas against Abd el Krim : Germany, Spain and the gas war in Spanish-Morocco 1922–1927 . Rombach, 1990.
  9. ^ Hidalgo de Cisneros Ignacio: Change of course . Military publishing house of the GDR, Berlin 1973. Published in Spanish as Cambio de Rumbo .