Editing Chemical warfare (section)

=== World War II ===
[[File:Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces in Battle of Shanghai 1937.jpg|thumb|left|[[Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces]] with gas masks and rubber gloves during a chemical attack near [[Zhabei District|Zhabei]] in the [[Battle of Shanghai]]]]
Although significant effort went into the development and stockpiling of chemical weapons in [[World War II]], they saw little battlefield use in the [[European theatre of World War II|European Theatre]]. Nazi Germany dedicated much research to the development of potent [[Nerve agent|nerve agents]],<ref>Corum, James S., ''The Roots of Blitzkrieg'', University Press of Kansas, 1992, pp. 106–107.</ref> but used them very sparingly, likely due to fears that the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] would retaliate with their own chemical weapons.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}} These fears were not unfounded: the Allies made comprehensive plans for defensive and retaliatory use of chemical weapons, and stockpiled large quantities.<ref name="PandH132135">[http://libcom.org/library/churchills-plans-drench-germany-poison-gas-anthrax-robert-harris-jeremy-paxman "Paxman and Harris"], Pakistan pp. 132–135.</ref><ref name="Borchers">Callum Borchers, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/11/sean-spicer-someone-as-despicable-as-hitler-didnt-even-sink-to-using-chemical-weapons/ Sean Spicer takes his questionable claims to a new level in Hitler-Assad comparison], ''The Washington Post'' (April 11, 2017).</ref> [[Empire of Japan|Japanese forces]], as part of the Axis, used chemical weapons more widely in the [[Pacific War|Pacific Theatre]] against Asian Allied enemies, as they also feared that using it on Western powers would result in retaliation.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}} Chemical weapons were frequently used against both the [[Kuomintang]] and [[People's Liberation Army]] troops in China.<ref>Yuki Tanaka, ''Poison Gas, the Story Japan Would Like to Forget,'' Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 1988, pp. 16–17</ref>

However, Nazi Germany extensively used poison gas against civilians, particularly Jews, in [[the Holocaust]]. Vast quantities of [[Zyklon B]] and [[carbon monoxide]] gas were used in the [[Extermination camp#Gassings|systematic extermination]] of some three million victims. This remains the deadliest use of poison gas in history.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=Holocaust Encyclopedia|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144|title=Nazi Camps|publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|access-date=19 April 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/NonJewishVictims.html|title=The Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims|last=Schwartz|first=Terese Pencak|publisher=Jewish Virtual Library|access-date=19 April 2020}}</ref><ref name="Coffey">Patrick Coffey, ''American Arsenal: A Century of Weapon Technology and Strategy'' (Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 152–154.</ref><ref name="Wirtz">James J. Wirtz, "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in ''Contemporary Security Studies'' (4th ed.), ed. Alan Collins, ''Contemporary Security Studies'' (Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 302.</ref>