The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes12. German Civil DefenseTHE GERMANS INVESTED hundreds of millions of dollars in the preparation of air raid shelters.417 From the beginning, all German air raid shelters were designed to protect against poison gas as well as against bombs.418 As a result, special air raid shelter doors were developed, usually made of steel. The doors would feature a round peephole covered with a perforated steel plate to prevent breakage, the peephole meant to facilitate visual inspection without having to break the gas-tight seal by opening the door.419 Because the particular concern for poison gas, a number of other measures were adopted. Part of every municipal air raid crew was designated as a decontamination squad, whose uniforms and equipment would come in handy for other sanitation procedures, including corpse disposal.420 Because of the particular fear of mustards, municipal disinfection centers, bathhouses, and laundries, would all be adapted for decontaminating people and their belongings in the event of a gas attack.421 The Germans devised a number of different shelters, including an emphasis on above-ground air raid and anti-gas shelters that the Western Allies never matched.422 Every basement or Keller was also supposed to serve doubly as a gas-proof bomb shelter if needed.423 In one of the strange ironies of history, the allied bombing campaign, that killed perhaps 3/4 of a million German civilians, gassed and burned most of its victims.424 Most of the victims, trapped in the basement shelters of their buildings, could not escape the carbon monoxide generated by the bombs and fires, whose small molecular size was almost impossible to filter, and so were in effect gassed.425 Meanwhile, the tremendous heat from the fire-storms, which often exceeded 1,000 degrees Centigrade, would effectively cremate their bodies with dry heat.426 But in the aftermath of the war this destruction of the German people with gas and fire was completely overlooked in the allied prosecution of claims of gassing and burning made against them. Notes
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