The chemical formula for Sarin gas was forwarded to the Chemical warfare division of the German army at a Berlin-Spandau office during June 1939. Pilot plants were built at Spandau, Münster Lager, on Lüneberg heath, and pilot manufacture of Sarin was carried out in Building 144 in Dyernfurth. The chemical formula for Sarin gas was forwarded to the Chemical warfare division of the German army at a Berlin-Spandau office during June 1939. Pilot plants were built at Spandau, Münster Lager, on Lüneberg heath, and pilot manufacture of Sarin was carried out in Building 144 in Dyernfurth. Sarin is known to vapourise 36 times more rapidly than Tabun, is 26 times more deadly than cyanide, and all it takes is 0.01 mg for every 1 kg of body mass for it to be fatal for a human. Nerve agents were developed in pre-World War II Germany. Germany had stockpiles of nerve agent munitions during World War II (WWII), but did not use them for reasons that are still unclear. In the closing days of the war, the U.S. and its allies discovered these stockpiles, developed the agents, and manufactured nerve agent munitions. The U.S. chemical agent stockpile contains the nerve agents GB and VX.
In 1935, Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia. Ignoring the Geneva Protocol, which it signed seven years earlier, Italy used chemical weapons with devastating effect. Most effective was mustard gas dropped in bombs or sprayed from airplanes. Also effective was the mustard agent in powdered form, which was spread on the ground.
The Japanese invasion of China featured both chemical and biological attacks. The Japanese reportedly attacked Chinese troops with mustard gas and another blistering agent called Lewisite (named for its U.S. inventor, Captain W. Lee Lewis, who called it "the stuff beside which mustard gas becomes a sissy's scent"). In attacking the Chinese, Japan also spread cholera, dysentery, typhoid, plague, and anthrax.
Germany used a cyanide-based gas to massacre Jewish civilians in concentration camps.