Zyklon B is a pesticide. Once exposed to air, Zyklon B releases cyanide; which kills people.
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Zyklon B is/was supplied in solid form but releases toxic hydrocyanic gas at above 25.5 degrees C (= 78F). If dropped into a sealed room with human beings tightly packed together it soon releases the gas.
Hydrogen cyanide or Zyklon B as it was called.
Zyklon B is (or was) a trademark for hydrocyanic acid, or prussic acid, which is Blausäure in German, hence the B.It was used as a poison gas in some Nazi extermination camps, mainly Auschwitz and Majdanek.
Zyklon B was developed by Fritz Haber, a German Jewish chemist and Nobel laureate. It was a cyanide based insecticide and used during the first world war for delousing, but was later used in the killing of thousands of Jews in gas chambers
At Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor and Treblinka - carbon monoxide. Hydrocyanic acid in a Zyklon B base - Auschwitz and Majdanek. All other camps used carbon monoxide. Zyklon-B, a cyanide compound developed for the purpose of inexpensively delousing clothes. It came in cans in the form of pellets. When the pellets came into contact with air, heat and water they gave off hydrogen cyanide gas. The designers of Zyklon-B had never anticipated its use on people.