Bruno Tesch

Bruno Emil Tesch (14 August 1890 – 16 May 1946) was a German chemist, entrepreneur, and war criminal. Together with Gerhard Peters and Walter Heerdt, he invented the insecticide Zyklon B. He was the owner of Tesch & Stabenow (called Testa), a pest control company he co-founded in 1924 with Paul Stabenow in Hamburg, Germany. During the Holocaust, Tesch sold vast quantities of Zyklon B, utilising his pesticide as a way to commit genocide. Over 1.1 million people (mainly Jews) were murdered by the Nazis using Zyklon B. A former employee of Tesch later said he was motivated not by ideology, but financial gain.

Early life and education

After passing his high school exams in 1910, Tesch studied mathematics and physics for a semester in 1910 at the University of Göttingen before studying chemistry at the University of Berlin. He received his doctorate in 1914 and volunteered for military service at the start of the First World War. After a war injury, Tesch was appointed by Fritz Haber to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry to develop "chemical weapons of war". After the war, he stayed there as Haber's personal assistant until March 1920. Tesch then took over the management of the Berlin branch of the German Society for Pest Control (Degesch) GmbH. Tesch joined the Nazi Party on 1 May 1933, albeit not as an active member. He became a supporting member of the SS the same year.

The patent was assigned to Degesch, "Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung mbH" (German Limited Company for Pest Control), a subsidiary of I.G. Farben, with Walter Heerdt being the only one of the inventors to receive patent rights, a portion of the proceeds from the manufacture and sale. Peters joined Degesch and became managing director during World War II. Degesch was designated by the German government to set the safety rules and standards for the use of Zyklon B, and was given the authority to authorise shipments from the manufacturer to the customer after the strict criteria were met.

Tesch & Stabenow manufactured neither Zyklon B nor any other chemicals. It was primarily a pest control company specialising in fumigation of commercial properties such as the warehouses and freighters in the Port of Hamburg. Zyklon B was produced by Dessauer Werke and Kaliwerke.

In 1925, Tesch & Stabenow—partly due to the largesse of Paul Haber of Degesch—received the exclusive rights to distribute the insecticide Zyklon B east of the Elbe River. In 1927, Stabenow departed from the firm. Tesch held a 45% share of the company, and Degesch held 55%. Tesch assumed sole ownership of the company in 1942.

During World War II, Tesch & Stabenow sold massive quantities of Zyklon B to the SS. The gas was sent to Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Neuengamme, Gross-Rosen, Majdanek, and Ravensbrück concentration camps. In these camps, the SS used the Zyklon B they had purchased to murder approximately 1.1 million people. The day after Tesch's arrest, Sehm accompanied the British to the firm building, only to find that registry had seemingly been destroyed in an air raid (it was later suspected that the registry had been intentionally destroyed).

During questioning, Tesch presented himself as a respectable businessman and chemist. He denied all suggestions and accusations that he had collaborated with the SS regarding the extermination of Jews. He said he never attended a conference discussing the subject, had not devised any methods for using Zyklon B other than fumigating the barracks, and had not known that the gas was being used to kill people. Tesch said he did not even know the gas was being sent to concentration camps.