Conclusion

Summary

While 1945 clearly demarcates an important curtailment of Germany’s unique ties to chemical weapons, it certainly did not signify the nation’s final confrontation with harmful chemicals or even chemical weapons. The Germans remained within a broader “Chemical Modernity” into which the world had been increasingly plunged since the first industrial production of chemical gases. Indeed, in this longue durée formulation of a Chemical Modernity, it is important to note the extent to which Europeans struggled with environmental concerns such as industrial smoke abatement and arsenic dye poisoning in the nineteenth century.