Walter Heerdt

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Carl Balthasar Walter Heerdt (born March 9, 1888 in Frankfurt am Main ; † February 2, 1957 there ) was a German chemist . He is considered the inventor of Zyklon B .

Life

School time and studies

The son of a businessman attended the Wöhlerschule and then the Goethe-Gymnasium in his hometown. After graduating from high school , Heerdt first traveled to Scotland and England for four months before starting to study chemistry at the University of Munich in the autumn of 1906 . After passing the chemical association exam, he went to Giessen at the end of 1910 . In February 1911 he did his doctorate at the university there under Karl Elbs on the reduction of naphtholecarboxylic acids to aldehydes . Heerdt had already started working on his dissertation topic in the Munich laboratory of Hugo Weil (1863–1942), whom he saw as a teacher alongside Elbs.

Employment

Work for Degussa and TASCH

Heerdt then worked for the Deutsche Gold- und Silber-Scheideanstalt (Degussa), in whose American subsidiary Roessler & Hasslacher he was active in pest control between 1912 and 1916 . He worked with hydrogen cyanide ( hydrogen cyanide ), which was mainly used in the USA for disinfestation of felled trees. Back in Germany in 1917 he took over the management of the Technical Committee for Pest Control (TASCH), which Fritz Haber from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin had set up in cooperation with Degussa and which was affiliated with the Prussian War Ministry . The employees of TASCH carried out fumigation of grain silos, military installations and border crossings with hydrogen cyanide.

At the end of the First World War , Heerdt von Haber was appointed managing director of TASCH, which was affiliated to the Reich Ministry of Economics and remained in existence until March 31, 1919. From 1920, Heerdt's management also included the German Society for Pest Control (Degesch), initiated by Haber as a public corporation , which was founded in March 1919 with non-profit, public law status, was taken over by a company consortium in 1920 and finally bought and sold by Degussa in 1922 thus privatized. With Degesch, the methods of pest control with hydrogen cyanide, which TASCH had tested, should be made generally accessible. Essential research work continued to be carried out in Haber's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.

Development of the Zyklon B

Since gaseous hydrocyanic acid is both odorless and colorless and also deadly for humans, but is explosive in a liquid state and tends to decompose through polymerization , ways were sought to develop a non-volatile derivative with warning substances. First, by Ferdinand Flury and Albrecht Hase preparation developed (1882-1962) from cyan and chlorine compounds, the Degesch made in 1920 under the name Zyklon patented. However, this was costly to produce and was also forbidden under the provisions of the Versailles Treaty because components of the preparation were used as poisonous gases by the German army during World War I.

In 1922 Heerdt succeeded in soaking absorbent carrier materials, initially kieselguhr granulate, with hydrocyanic acid, which could then be pressed into cans. The production took place under primitive circumstances in a wooden horse stable with the help of working students. In 1923 and 1924, Heerdt, together with Bruno Tesch and other chemists, developed a modified warning substance that did not fall under the Allied ban on chemical weapons. In contrast from the previous formula, the chemist called the product Zyklon B . Degesch and Degussa registered various patents for the Zyklon B process. As part of an inventor's contract concluded in 1926, Heerdt received remuneration of 0.8 to 1.7% of the sold quantity of Zyklon B and a 10% stake in a license granted by Degesch to third parties. On December 27, 1926, the issued Reichspatentamt the Zyklon B patent, was specified in the Walter Heerdt as inventors, retroactive to June 22, 1922 to the Degesch (DRP 438 818). The Zyklon B was manufactured industrially in the Dessau sugar refinery and initially sold as a Zyklon . The name Zyklon B was internally to distinguish it from previous product cyclone A use.

Founder and managing director of HeLi (Heerdt-Lingler)

On August 24, 1925, Heerdt, who was not due to leave as managing director of Degesch until the end of 1925 , founded the Heerdt-Lingler (HeLi) company in Frankfurt am Main together with the businessman Johann Lingler , authorized signatory of Degesch . HeLi signed a contract with Degesch, which granted it, as a trading company, the monopoly for the sale and use of Degesch products southwest of the Elbe . Abroad, this also included Austria , Hungary , the Balkan countries , Poland , Holland and Egypt . The aim of this reorganization of Degesch, initiated by the board member of Degussa, Hermann Schlosser , was to reduce the business risk through decentralization. Another trading company was Tesch & Stabenow , which Bruno Tesch had founded in 1924 out of annoyance that only Heerdt had received an inventor contract for the Zyklon B. Heerdt was also a member of Degesch's eleven-member board.

The Zyklon B patent proved to be an economic success, although the greatest profits were made abroad until 1938. In their study on the history of Zyklon B , Jürgen Kalthoff and Martin Werner stated in 1998 that Zyklon B had become the leading fumigant in pest control. The historian Peter Hayes , on the other hand, pointed to serious competition from arsenic and sulfur compounds as well as preparations based on steam.

During the National Socialism

In 1931 Degesch had taken over 51% of the shares in HeLi, whose contract area outside Germany had been expanded at the same time. Heerdt remained the sole managing director of HeLi until mid-July 1941. At that time, his wife was arrested by the Gestapo because of a remark in an intercepted letter . Heerdt was in hospital with heart problems until the beginning of February 1942. In August 1941, the regional economic advisor of the NSDAP in Hessen-Nassau , Karl Eckardt , demanded that Degesch immediately recall Heerdt as managing director. Heerdt and his family are known for avoiding any “contact” with the party and for not using the “ German greeting ”. In a house search, incriminating material was found, so that Heerdt's summons or imprisonment can be expected. The Degussa director Hermann Schlosser refused to intercede for Heerdt, who submitted his resignation from his sick bed on August 21, 1941 and was replaced by Gerhard Peters . After he was released from the hospital, Heerdt was also arrested by the Gestapo. At Winifred Wagner's intervention with Heinrich Himmler , he and his wife were released in March 1942 with the condition that they leave Frankfurt.

Heerdt moved to Nussdorf am Attersee in Austria. The inventor's contract for the Zyklon B , which expired in 1943 , was not renewed. Starting in 1943, Heerdt received a monthly “employee remuneration” of 200  Reichsmarks from Degesch and a further 600 RM or 200 RM per month from HeLi as a “life insurance grant”. Heerdt's share of the business contributed 6,000 RM annually.

After the Second World War

After the end of the Second World War , Peters left the management of Degesch. Heerdt's political difficulties during National Socialism predestined him to head Degesch, and he was reappointed managing director of Degesch. He held this position until his death.

Publications

  • About the reduction of naphtholecarboxylic acids to aldehydes. Höfling, Munich, 1911 (also dissertation at the University of Gießen 1911).
  • The new methods and devices for the rehabilitation of vermin-infested homes. , SL a. 1923.

literature

  • Jürgen Kalthoff, Martin Werner: The dealers of the Zyklon B. Tesch & Stabenow: a company history between Hamburg and Auschwitz. VSA, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-87975-713-5 .
  • Peter Hayes: Degussa in the Third Reich. From cooperation to complicity. (translated by Anne Emmer), Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3-406-52204-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Peter Hayes: Degussa in the Third Reich. From cooperation to complicity. CH Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3-406-52204-8 , p. 284.
  2. ^ Hayes: Degussa in the Third Reich , p. 284f.
  3. ^ Hayes: Degussa in the Third Reich , p. 285.
  4. ↑ a b c Hayes: Degussa in the Third Reich , p. 285f.
  5. ↑ Jürgen Kalthoff and Martin Werner: The dealers of the Zyklon B. Tesch & Stabenow: a company history between Hamburg and Auschwitz. VSA, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-87975-713-5 , pp. 28-30.
  6. ↑ Kalthoff and Werner: The dealers of the Zyklon B. P. 56f.
  7. ↑ a b Kalthoff and Werner: The dealers of the Zyklon B. P. 58f.
  8. ↑ Patent DE438818 : Method for pest control. Registered on June 20, 1922 , published on December 27, 1926 , applicant: Degesch, inventor: Walter Heerdt. ; Kalthoff and Werner: The dealers of the Zyklon B. p. 234.
  9. ↑ Kalthoff and Werner: Die Händler des Zyklon B. P. 62f .; Hayes: Degussa in the Third Reich , p. 289.
  10. ↑ a b Hayes: Degussa in the Third Reich , p. 292.
  11. ^ Kalthoff and Werner: The dealers of the Zyklon B. P. 79.
  12. ↑ Kalthoff and Werner: The dealers of the Zyklon B. P. 82.
  13. ^ Kalthoff and Werner: The dealers of the Zyklon B. P. 112f.
  14. ↑ Kalthoff and Werner: The dealers of the Zyklon B. P. 113; Hayes: Degussa in the Third Reich , p. 350.
  15. ^ Kalthoff and Werner: Die Händler des Zyklon B , p. 216; Hayes: Degussa in the Third Reich , p. 312.
personal data
SURNAME Heerdt, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heerdt, Carl Balthasar Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH 2nd February 1957
Place of death Frankfurt am Main