The Nazi Murder Machine: 13 Portraits in Evil (6 page)

Tesch, Bruno

Born August 14, 1890, Bruno Emil Tesch studied chemistry at Berlin University. He founded the company Tesch and Stabenow, in Hamburg, with Paul Stabenow. Tesch and Stabenow was basically a pest-control company specializing in fumigating commercial properties – for example the cavernous warehouses in the Port of Hamburg.

While investigating how hydrogen cyanide might be used as one such fumigation agent, Tesch and two others discovered a way in which the gas could be manufactured (and sold) in solid form.

In 1925, Tesch and Stabenow received exclusive rights to distribute the insecticide crystals called ‘Zyklon B’ east of the Elbe River. Stabenow left the company he’d helped to create in 1927; in 1942 Tesch would assume full ownership.

Following the end of the war, it was claimed that memorandums had passed between Tesch and a senior
Wehrmacht
officer, concerning the viability of using Zyklon B to kill humans.

Zyklon B ‘insecticide crystals’
.

Arrested by the British occupation authorities on September 3, 1945, Tesch was subsequently released on October 1, 1945. The relief he must undoubtedly have felt was short-lived, however – for he was re-arrested on October 6.

Evidence against him had become damning: in particular, it was proved that Tesch had, in 1942, written a ‘travelogue’ detailing his knowledge of the killing of people by means of Zyklon-B.

He was tried by a British military tribunal in Hamburg, March 1 – 8, 1946. Found guilty, Tesch was executed by British hangman Albert Pierrepoint on May 16, 1946.