THE RUDOLF REPORT

7. ZYKLON B FOR THE KILLING OF HUMAN BEINGSthe grounds of safety. This will be demonstrated in the following. Tokill an average person with a body weight of 100 kg, the victim musttherefore ingest approximately 100 mg hydrogen cyanide (1 mg perkilo body weight). The respiration of a human being at rest amounts toapproximately 15 liters of air per minute. 422 With a hydrogen cyanidecontent of 0.02% (approximately 0.24 mg per liter) the victim mustinhale approximately 416 liters of air before ingesting the fatal quantityof hydrogen cyanide. At 15 liters per minute, this will take about halfan hour. A very strong person can survive even this period of time. Bycontrast, a sensitive person weighing 50 kg breathing at an acceleratedrate as a result of physical effort or excitement will inhale 40 liters perminute, ingesting a fatal dose of 208 liters of air in five minutes. It isobvious from these calculations, that the data in safety instructions arealways intended to protect smaller, weaker people from accidents underthe most unfavorable circumstances. The data given in the literatureas “immediately” or “rapidly fatal” doses are furthermore so indefiniteas to be unable to satisfy our purposes. In addition, they onlyrefer to the time when a victim has ingested a fatal dose, but not whendeath occurs, which can sometimes take a very long time. 423The threshold values will be different if we require even thestrongest individual, out of all conceivable individual victims, to die injust a few minutes. 424 The concentrations necessary for this purposewill, by its very nature of the thing, be several times higher than thevalues indicated above. They could only be determined by a series ofexperiments, which is naturally impossible with human beings. Theonly data available to us are those gathered during executions with hydrogencyanide carried out in the United States. Leuchter speaks ofconcentrations of hydrogen cyanide used in executions in the USA inthe order of magnitude of 3,200 ppm. In these cases, death occurs after4 to 10 minutes, depending on the physical constitution of the victim.425 Press reports from the USA indicate that executions lastingfrom 10 to 17 minutes are the rule rather than the exception (see chapter1.1.).In relation to the quantities used, the US execution gas chamber in422 Robert F. Schmidt, Biomaschine Mensch, Piper, Munich 1979, p. 124.423 M. Daunderer, op. cit. (note 420), p. 15.424 Among toxicologists known as the lethal dose for 100% of all victims, LD 100 .425 F. A. Leuchter, Boston, FAX to H. Herrmann dated April, 20, 1992, as well as privatecommunication from Mr. Leuchter.193