German Research.—The Germans relied upon two main and very strong centres for research. They have already been indicated as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, under the direction of Professor Haber, and the enormous research organisations of the I.G. There are various references to internal gas organisation in captured documents. It appears that they received their final form late in 1917. A great gas school (Heeres-Gaschule) was instituted in Berlin where there were also central depots for anti-gas inspection and material. Rather earlier than this the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute was definitely appointed as the official research centre. The War Ministry had a chemical section named A.10, which dealt with gas questions. It is rumoured, and there is strong reason to believe, that the I.G. was largely staffed by officers of the Reserve before the war. Whatever their pre-war associations, if any, with the War Ministry, hostilities must have found them keenly alive to the possibilities of their unique research and organic chemical producing facilities. It is inconceivable that this military personnel should not have greatly assisted the I.G. in its operations, inventions and general assistance for the army.

It appears that the subdivision of work left the, direction of chemical research in Berlin, possibly at the above Institute, while the bulk of the work of preparing the new compounds, and developing manufacturing processes for approved substances, occurred in the laboratories of the I.G.

Leverkusen.—We know, for example, that a very large number of substances was produced at Leverkusen and samples forwarded to Berlin, of which only a few were finally approved for production. The physiological work and field tests were certainly associated with the Berlin organisation, but it is not clear how much of this work occurred within the I.G. An Allied mission to Leverkusen reported as follows:—"It was emphatically stated that no means of testing the products were resorted to beyond inhala-tion and testing the effect of the substances on the staff, but this statement must be accepted with reserve." This is particularly so as we know that large numbers of respirator-drums had been made in this factory, and that a gas school existed at Leverkusen in 1915.

A member of another Allied mission was informed by one of the staff at Leverkusen that the authorities there were well aware of the difficulties in chemical warfare, apart from production, for they had some experience in the designing and testing of chemical shell. It maybe that the German Government relied upon the I.G. for such work in the early stages of the chemical war, pending the development of official organisation. When we remember, however, that at Leverkusen alone there was a staff of 1500 technical and commercial specialists, apart from thousands of workpeople, before the war, and that the latter were increased by 1500 during the war, we find it difficult to place a limit on the services which might have been rendered by this research centre alone. The opinion of the members of the Hartley Commission[1] was, that much thought and attention had been given to chemical warfare by the chemists of the Company.

[1] A post-armistice inter-allied mission of experts, to the Rhine chemical factories, March, 1919.

Hochst.—A great volume of chemical warfare research occurred also at Hochst. "The admission was made that the research department of the factory was continuously employed during the war on the preparation of substances suitable for chemical warfare, many hundreds being prepared and sent to Berlin for examination. The firm employed 300 academically trained chemists in peace time, but during the war many more were engaged, partly for research and partly because all shell filling was carried out under the supervision of trained chemists."

Ludwigshafen.—The most influential branch of the I.G. was, undoubtedly, the Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik. It might have been expected, as they shared largely in production, that a considerable amount of chemical warfare research would occur at these works, but this was emphatically denied to Allied missions. It may be, however, that as the nitrogen fixation enterprise was developed there, requiring a large amount of technical development and control, this was considered a sufficient contribution to the general cause.

Early Formulation of Policy.—In examining what signs we have of the organisation and policy underlying chemical warfare research and production in Germany, we are struck by the fact that all the substances used with such dire effect against us during the war must have been approved for production by the Government at a relatively early date. The following table, assembled from information supplied by the German factories, brings this point out very clearly.

First Use
War Chemical. Factory. Production Began. in the Field,
Diphosgene Hochst Sept., 1916 Summer, 1915
(Green Cross) Leverkusen June, 1915
Mustard Gas Leverkusen Spring, 1917 July, 1917
(Yellow Cross)
Diphenyl- Hochst May, 1917 July, 1917
chlorarsine
(Blue Cross)
Diphenyl- A.G.F.A. ? Feb., 1918 June, 1911
cyanarsine
(Blue Cross)
Ethyl-dichlor- Hochst Aug., 1917 March, 1918
arsine
(Blue Cross)

We have chosen the later products to establish the point, for it is self-evident for the earlier products, some of which were made before the war.