Despite the Protocol on the Prohibition of the Use of Bacteriological Means in War, signed in Geneva on June 17, 1925, the development of various types of such weapons and methods of their use was actively pursued in a number of countries.
Anthrax island
With the outbreak of World War II, work on the creation of bacteriological weapons in different countries intensified sharply. In 1940, Great Britain began to implement its biological program in Porton Down (Scotland). A year later, in an atmosphere of complete secrecy, several British scientists landed on the small island of Gruynard, located not far from the coast of Scotland, who were engaged in research into the peculiarities of conducting bacteriological warfare. Shortly before their arrival, 60 sheep were brought to the island. On a low hill, the experimenters installed a special container, brought with them, containing a brown jelly-like substance filled with anthrax spores. The arrivals then donned protective suits and remotely detonated the container. The explosion scattered the brown jelly all over the island. The result of the experiment was stunning: all the experimental animals died. By the way, Gruinard Island still poses a real danger to life.
Already in 1942, the British army received a special aerial bomb containing 3 liters of suspension with anthrax pathogen spores. To defeat the cattle of the enemy, special feed briquettes containing anthrax bacteria were intended. By 1944, 5 million of them had already been manufactured.
British special services used various types of bacteriological weapons to sabotage the top leadership of Nazi Germany. The most famous special operation, called "Anthropoid" - the elimination of February 27, 1942, the deputy imperial protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich. For the sabotage, a hand-held anti-tank grenade was used, wrapped in special adhesive tape soaked in botulinum toxin. And although in the explosion Heydrich received minor shrapnel wounds, he almost immediately fell into a coma and, without regaining consciousness, died.
Mouse disease
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Soviet bacteriological weapons were used in 1942 against the 6th Army of General Paulus advancing on Stalingrad. In view of the close contact with the enemy, they decided to abandon the use of plague and anthrax strains, since the epidemic could strike at their own. Therefore, the choice fell on tularemia bacteria, which are carried by mice. The decision to use this pathogen was due to the fact that it was in the zone of the advancing German troops that a lot of unmilled grain remained in the fields.
Affected mice infected the bedding straw for German soldiers and officers, thus spreading the infection. Although the mortality rate in tularemia did not exceed 10%, the bacteriological attack nevertheless achieved success, incapacitating (albeit temporarily) a significant amount of enemy manpower. As a result, Paulus's troops were forced to temporarily interrupt the campaign to Stalingrad.
However, soon the disease spread across the front line, and already the Red Army hospitals began to fill with tularemia sick.
Typhoid concentration camp
In Germany, preparations for bacteriological warfare were also carried out on a very large scale. A network of bacteriological institutes and laboratories appeared, in particular, in Berlin and Dessau, where studies of the causative agents of typhus, plague, cholera, meningitis and other acute infectious diseases were carried out. In February 1943, the Institute of Bacteriology in Dessau completed an urgent order for the production of 20 million bottles of cholera bacteria.
For the same purpose, branches of German bacteriological institutions were established in the occupied territory of the USSR. For example, in Kiev, the Germans restored the activities of the Kiev Institute of Bacteriology, which carried out orders for the manufacture of plague and cholera bacteria.
The German military command has repeatedly carried out operations to spread typhus. For this purpose, typhoid patients were placed in special concentration camps together with healthy people. After the outbreak of the epidemic, prisoners' "escapes" were organized from these camps with the aim of spreading typhus among the local population, and through it in the troops of the Red Army.
Russians saved Europe from the plague
The Wehrmacht command began to pay great attention to the development of biological weapons after the defeat at Stalingrad. According to the testimony of the German general Walter Schreiber: “In July 1943, a secret conference was convened at the headquarters of the Wehrmacht, at which Hitler instructed Goering to start preparing for bacteriological warfare. Göring's deputy was Professor Blome, who took up practical guidance. Soon an institute was established near Poznan, where both bacteria (including plague bacilli) and plant pests were grown. The Institute was headed by Professor Blome. There was also equipment for conducting experiments on humans. " However, thanks to the rapid offensive of the Soviet army in the last months of the war, the German military command did not manage to massively apply their developments. Besides,it was the Russians who prevented Germany from organizing a desperate, but very formidable and dangerous in its consequences defense of Berlin with the help of bacteriological means prepared by Blome and his collaborators. As the same General Schreiber said: "The swift march of the Soviet army saved Europe and humanity from a terrible catastrophe."
With mosquitoes at the ready
In 1944, in Italy, the German command, in the strictest secrecy, carried out a large-scale operation using biological weapons against the advancing Anglo-American troops. At the beginning of the year, a vast area of 200,000 acres was flooded in the vicinity of Rome. Then it was seen as an attempt to delay in this way the advance of British troops to the Italian capital. But, as it turned out quite recently, the task was somewhat different. The fact is that this swampy area has been an active breeding ground for malaria mosquitoes for thousands of years. In the 1930s, after the draining of the swamps, the focus of the disease was eliminated, and the land was given over to agriculture. The German command decided to re-create an epidemic center of malaria here and use it against the advancing enemy forces.
They decided to use a special type of malaria mosquito as carriers of the pathogen. Under the leadership of a leading German expert on insects and biological warfare, Erich Martini, a special laboratory was created in the area, whose employees spread millions of larvae across the flooded area. At the same time, the Germans removed from the territory all supplies of the antimalarial drug quinine.
On the approaches to Rome, before the advancing British troops, vast fields filled with water were spread, where huge masses of malaria larvae lurked. However, Her Majesty's soldiers were ready for such a meeting. The command of the British Expeditionary Force made the appropriate conclusions after the not very successful landing in Sicily, when clouds of malaria mosquitoes attacked the soldiers, dressed in light tropical uniforms. This time, everyone was dressed much better, supplied with the necessary medicines and special repellents. In addition, the British managed to occupy Rome even before the onset of the malaria season - in June, and then moved on with an accelerated march. The epidemic that broke out soon struck the local population with all its might.
During the first week alone, hundreds of thousands of people fell ill with malaria in the vicinity of Rome. The number of patients was so huge that the authorities even stopped keeping records of the dead, after their number exceeded 50 thousand. It was only in 1950, when the flooded fields were again drained, that outbreaks of malaria in this area of Italy finally stopped.
Dmitry Makunin. Secrets of the XX century magazine