BBC - Science at War (1998) Part 1 Laboratory of War

Scientific breakthroughs in the practice of warfare world. The twentieth century witnessed the arrival of science as the most potent force a country could wield - in peace or at war. Of the enduring legacies from the two world wars that changed all aspects of life—from economics, to justice, to the nature of warfare itself—the scientific and technological legacies of World War II had a profound and permanent effect on life after 1945. Technologies developed during World War II for the purpose of winning the war found new uses as commercial products in the decades that followed the war's end. This series of six programs shows how scientific breakthroughs in the practice of warfare have shaped the age in which we live. Each episode examines a key area of science - from physics to engineering and the life sciences - and shows the impact they had both at the time and on later generations. Scientists and military planners explain the role they have played in the discoveries and the series features both archive and specially shot film.

Part 1 Laboratory of War

This is a documentary on the worldwide history of chemical and biological warfare and the scientists who developed these agents. The programme begins with the 1995 poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway which left 12 people dead and 5,000 in need of hospital treatment. The programme then goes back to the First World War and the development of chlorine by Fritz Haber. The use of gas went against German military tradition but as the war dragged on, scruples were set aside and Haber was enlisted to produce chlorine as a weapon. Britain followed suit and Porton Down was established in 1915 to assist the war effort. In 1916 Haber produced phosgene, which was used in Germany's las campaign. Soldiers were demoralised by gas, an enemy they could not fight. Haber went on to develop zyklon B which was used in the Nazi concentration camps. In 1936 Gerhard Schrader produced the nerve gas tabun, an accidental outcome of his organophosphate research. However, Britain's chemical weapons were equally well-developed and the mutual fear of retaliation saved Europe from chemical bombardment. During the Cold War, Soviet Russia and the West pile up huge stocks of nerve gas. These were destroyed in 1993 but Iraq used chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988.

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