Hitler authorises the use of chemical weapons as the Allies cross into Germany.

Hitler was personally against CW use but lets say when he learns the Allies have crossed into Germany in a fit of rage he authorises the use of CWs including nerve agents. I'm not sure who stepped first into Germany (WAllies or Soviets) but if it was the WAllies it happened in March of '45.

The Allies had no idea Germany had a nerve agent program. Though adequate for phosgene and mustard, their CW protections are completely inadequate in the face of nerve agents as it only consisted of a gas mask. Many troops had long abandoned their gas masks by this point making matters worse. The Allies also have no clue about treating nerve agent poisonings.

I anticipate the war in Europe lasts another six months with another half-million to a million WAllied casualties. The UK and US respond with their own chemical agents both tactically and strategically, and the UK goes Operation Vegetarian. The Allies rush in rubber chemical suits which hit the front in a month or two. The Soviets suffer just as badly.

In the end, the war in Europe ends in nuclear bombings. Given Hitler didn't give up until the end I suspect it will take a lot more bombs to force them to capitulate than it did the Japanese.

Whilst I think the German advances in the field would have been an ugly shock, as others have flagged the allied counter measures would have had some impact. I think the losses on either side would rise significantly, but the German civilian population might be the worst impacted.

The big problem Germany faces is that the Allies have far more delivery options available. The Allies might be delivering an inferior gas, but they kept the chemical weapons response ready to go, and had more artillery and aircraft available. The weaker parts of the German army would have probably been a bit lacking in protective kit, and with the fighting taking place in and around German cities the impact would have been horrendous.

Others here probably have a better recollection. I think if I remember correctly an army wants mainly persistent agents when on the defence, and dispersing agents on the attack. Was the German program well suited to fighting on their own soil?

Hitler might face another attempt by the military on his life if he attempted to use them, the downsides would be pretty obvious to the German military.
 
An Allied response in kind coupled with the aforementioned harsher treatment of Germany (or what was Germany) after the war.

I'd have to questions how many German officers and soldiers would be that gung-ho about doing this, however.

There supposedly was some talk by some about if they should use it as a last ditch move to delay the end in the East. In the West though the officers in question were already starting to brush up on their English.

I suspect any orders from Berlin to use in early 45 in the West would be treated a bit like Operation Nero orders to the Nazi high command in their bunker. In the East though is a different story.
 
Doesn't lengthen the war by more than 6-8 weeks, jacks up casualties all the way around, but German civilians, who lack even rudimentary protection and are cowering in below ground shelters almost every day/night, are devastated as the Allies drench the Reich with chemicals that are heavier than air and will go down INTO the shelters.

Germany recovered fairly quickly IOTL. That will not be case here, not with a few MILLION more blinded and/or immune compromised people to care for.

Actually the idea is so self destructive and foolish that it is right up Hitler's alley.

Not only the civilians but the Volkstorm will be pretty much incapacitated. I doubt that Germany in 1945 has the resources to distribute any protective equipment to what's essentially a large mob of militarized civilians.

Speaking of that I doubt is how well the Wehrmacht can function in a chemical environment. It's not just the use and employment of the weapons as mentioned up thread, but how well the depleted formations of the Heer are trained in their protective equipment and operating in a chemical environment. Even if the Germans have plenty of primitive MOPP suits and masks then their distribution network has already been effectively destroyed. This whole situation reeks of more danger to the Germans, both civilians and armed forces, than it would to the Allies.
 
Really? March 1945? Who was in Aachen in September 1944?

Precisely. In fact, by way of illustrating this point, the general court-martial of Private Edward Slovik on two counts of desertion was actually held in Roetgen, Germany, about nine miles southeast of Aachen on November 11, 1944.
 
Not only the civilians but the Volkstorm will be pretty much incapacitated. I doubt that Germany in 1945 has the resources to distribute any protective equipment to what's essentially a large mob of militarized civilians.

Speaking of that I doubt is how well the Wehrmacht can function in a chemical environment. It's not just the use and employment of the weapons as mentioned up thread, but how well the depleted formations of the Heer are trained in their protective equipment and operating in a chemical environment. Even if the Germans have plenty of primitive MOPP suits and masks then their distribution network has already been effectively destroyed. This whole situation reeks of more danger to the Germans, both civilians and armed forces, than it would to the Allies.

Thinking about it a logistics system that relies heavily on horses is also a real problem in a chemical environment, so it would not only be the Volkstorm that suffer terribly.
 
Thinking about it a logistics system that relies heavily on horses is also a real problem in a chemical environment, so it would not only be the Volkstorm that suffer terribly.

I hadn't even thought of that. Not that the Germans were ever heavily motorized, but all they had left by '45 were horses. Well, the casual disregard of logistics is very German, so maybe they would just go ahead and do it.
 

nbcman

Donor
Thinking about it a logistics system that relies heavily on horses is also a real problem in a chemical environment, so it would not only be the Volkstorm that suffer terribly.
The British response to a German chemical attack would have potentially been Operation Vegetarian which means that German cattle, horses and humans would be affected immediately and for years in the future. It would have been disastrous for Germany to initiate a Chem-Bio war in 1944/1945 even taking into consideration their monopoly on Nerve agents.
 
I think if I remember correctly an army wants mainly persistent agents when on the defence, and dispersing agents on the attack. Was the German program well suited to fighting on their own soil?

You remember correctly, and the nerve agents the Germans produced were all non-persistent. They might, indeed, try to use them for counterattacks, save that counterattacks by Germany in January 1945 or later will founder after at most two days of advance, regardless of the depth of said advance, because of logistics alone.

On the other hand, another way to use a persistent agent isn't just on the defense: it's on enemy cities. if attacked with gases, the Allies are sure to use gases on German cities, and that's why I reckoned, above, that Germany as a state ceases to function shortly thereafter. The vast majority of Allied bombs would carry mustard gas, which is very persistent.

Naturally, the Germans also had mustard gas and other less modern agents, and they would surely use them too. But again, as others have mentioned, it's a matter of pitting lower total payload against higher defensive readiness, on the one side, and immensely higher total payload against lower defensive readiness, on the other. This isn't limited to military targets, but includes gas attacks by V-Waffen against British cities; they are less vulnerable than German cities and would face a much smaller tonnage. The lesser vulnerability includes a more thorough distribution of gas masks and other stuff to civilians; a more limited reliance on horses; stronger infrastructures overall; less unhealthy population; better civil defense.

Hitler might face another attempt by the military on his life if he attempted to use them, the downsides would be pretty obvious to the German military.

I did not deal with this topic because it is essentially irrelevant. He might be alive in his bunker, or not. Once the girls at the teletypes and phone exchanges and the boys at the radio stations are dead, ailing, or refugees in the countryside, the overall chain of command will collapse, so Hitler will be there trying to issue orders and fialing to do so, more often than not to units that anyway do not exist as such any more. And even if at times he manages to get through and there is somebody on the phone at the other end, it remains to be seen whether that officer will obey.

Thinking about it a logistics system that relies heavily on horses is also a real problem in a chemical environment, so it would not only be the Volkstorm that suffer terribly.

Yes, there is a reason if I mentioned the horses of the infantry and Volksgrenadier divisions' artillery in post #19 above, and the horses that in German cities still distributed the food.
 
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CalBear

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Chemical warfare is only of any real use if you are the only side with them in the quiver. In that case they can be both tactically and strategically useful. The problem is that, in WW II, all the players were able to punch up literal tons of agents. The U.S., at the end of WW II disposed over 20,000 TONS of Lewisite (a REALLY nasty blistering and lung irritant that makes mustard gas look like pepper spray) alone by dumping it into deep ocean (6,000' of deeper) graves (out of a total CW stockpile of 143,000 tons in 1945, which was about 180% of the Reich total stock), while the UK had, at war's end, among other stocks, 6,500 filled 500 pound phosgene aerial bombs. The Soviets also have truly massive stocks of Lewisite, nitrogen mustard, sulfur mustard, and phosgene.

There have been reports that the U.S. had a well designed plan for retaliation against the Reich in case of German first use of CW (published in Der Spiegel in 1988). It called for a 15 day high intensity campaign from both England based 8th AF bombers and the Italian based 9th AF. The mission planners estimated German CIVILIAN casualties at 5.6 million dead, x2 long term/permanent medical casualties (about 25% of the Reich's pre war TOTAL population). IOTL actual German civilian casualties for the ENTIRE WAR due to enemy action was under 450k, so a two week campaign would have potentially killed TWELVE TIMES as many civilians as died at enemy hands in the Reich's entire war. So, for all the mutual destruction on the battlefield, the real disaster would have been on the home front.

Here is the only on-line copy of the article I can find. It is in German, but seems to match what I've discussed above.

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13531696.html

BTW: The U.S. was not a signatory to the 1925 CW treaty, so it could legally have the sort of stockpile mentioned above.
 
The British response to a German chemical attack would have potentially been Operation Vegetarian which means that German cattle, horses and humans would be affected immediately and for years in the future. It would have been disastrous for Germany to initiate a Chem-Bio war in 1944/1945 even taking into consideration their monopoly on Nerve agents.
I find that unlikely, at this late in the war destroying German agriculture is going to have obvious repercussions for Britain. Post war rationing was in some ways more strict in England than during the war, largely because of the need to feed the people of Europe, that is going to be an obvious issue for the British.

And spreading disease throughout Germany is bad because, well, Allied soldiers will be there in a couple months at most.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
The British response to a German chemical attack would have potentially been Operation Vegetarian which means that German cattle, horses and humans would be affected immediately and for years in the future. It would have been disastrous for Germany to initiate a Chem-Bio war in 1944/1945 even taking into consideration their monopoly on Nerve agents.
Operation Vegetarian is off the table after D-Day. The Allies aren't going to cover territory they intend on marching through with anthrax. But if the Germans were reckless enough to use chemical weapons in the Battle of Britain, then Operation Vegetarian would have been very probable.
 
Hitler wasn't so much against chemical weapons as he was wary of Allied retaliation, presuming you mean the first major Allied offensives into Germany rather than simply crossing into German territory (Jan '45 for the Soviets/March '45 for the WAllies) then the German ability to project any sort of large scale chemical attack is going to be minimal, whilst the potential for Allied retaliation will be massive.

Not to call you out, but do you have a source confirming this? Just asking.
 
Churchill had threatened to rain down all the C weapons on German cities - when Hitler as much as suggested to use chemical weapons against the Soviets.
 
Soldiers in WW1 dealt with mustard without chemical suits. I imagine it's not pleasant but it's not likely to kill you like nerve agents will.

Mustard was meant to incapacitate, not kill. Mustard was far most persistent, and required a lot of decontamination.
WWI era mustard shells still blister victims today in Belgium and France
 
Operation Vegetarian is off the table after D-Day. The Allies aren't going to cover territory they intend on marching through with anthrax. But if the Germans were reckless enough to use chemical weapons in the Battle of Britain, then Operation Vegetarian would have been very probable.

Consider this sequence:
- Germans use chemical weapons on the frontlines, therefore
- Allies use chemical weapons on the frontlines and on German cities, therefore
- Hitler has another fit and orders gas warheads on the V-Waffen on London, and one or two do reach the target, therefore
- Churchill orders to throw at the Germans everything.

As to the Allied soldiers having to enter an anthrax-infested Germany, yes, that's very inconvenient. Then again, Germany is millions of pools of mustard gas, which can last for months, and other persistent agents. Allied soldiers will spend all their time in the open in gas masks and protective clothing anyway, for a long time. It's a definitely different scenario than OTL postwar. Think more along the lines of Hubbard's first novel.

As to German agriculture and cattle farming being ruined - ok, that might be a point.
 
What about the possibility of German soldiers refusing to follow said order?

The OP (restricted just to the Soviet forces) plus this is exactly OTL, per my understanding. Hitler did break down enough to order the use of gas, I believe specifically nerve gas, against the Red Army forces.

And then the order disappeared somewhere on the way to execution.

Bottom line is, no one was a big fan of gas warfare against peer powers with ability to retaliate in kind. Military officers agreed that gas was disappointing stuff to use in combat and that they'd rather rely on conventional weapons.

Presumably if Hitler had given his order when the Reich was riding high, it would have been obeyed. In the last months of the regime however, with the total war mobilized economy tottering on the edge of total collapse and front line military commanders desperate for as much as they could get in the way of regular munitions, nobody wanted to divert any effort toward making nerve gas weapons instead of more standard issue explosive stuff.
 
A few things:
1. Using V-1 and V-2 to carry chemicals to the UK requires you have proper warheads. Most chemical agents are liquids, and they will slosh around in a warhead. This will have a tendency to right and truly screw up V-1s and V-2s which have no way to deal with being thrown off course by this (and they will be). Warheads to be used for chemicals on missiles require a good bit of development and the Germans had none. Furthermore the warhead must burst above the ground to aerosolize otherwise you get a large blob of liquid with minimal spread.
2. Using chemical weapons against troops equally well equipped as yours may give a temporary advantage but not much more. In particular German troops are no better equipped to deal with nerve gas (full body protection) than Allied troops, so they can't advance over a contaminated area even if all the defenders are dead - and by the way even if front line troops are out of play the artillery and air support will be able to deal German troops in the open (remember the Luftwaffe, not there in late 1944).
3. The Germans did not know the Allies did not have nerve gas, and they certainly knew the allies had a huge amount of other CW, and frankly could deliver as much to any city in Germany as they could carry. Not all of the German high command was totally insane...
 
You remember correctly, and the nerve agents the Germans produced were all non-persistent. They might, indeed, try to use them for counterattacks, save that counterattacks by Germany in January 1945 or later will founder after at most two days of advance, regardless of the depth of said advance, because of logistics alone.
It's worth noting that the first persistent nerve agent (VX) wasn't invented until after the war by ICI. Indeed, most of the discussion on this thread has been about Sarin - which the Germans only really had in lab quantities. The majority of their stocks were of Tabun, which is substantially less lethal than Sarin.
 
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