Bruno Tesch

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Bruno Emil Tesch (14 August 1890 – 16 May 1946) was a German chemist, entrepreneur, and war criminal. Together with Gerhard Peters and Walter Heerdt, he invented the insecticide Zyklon B. He was the owner of Tesch & Stabenow (called Testa), a pest control company he co-founded in 1924 with Paul Stabenow in Hamburg, Germany. During the Holocaust, Tesch sold vast quantities of Zyklon B, utilising his pesticide as a way to commit genocide. Over 1.1 million people (mainly Jews) were murdered by the Nazis using Zyklon B. A former employee of Tesch later said he was motivated not by ideology, but financial gain. Following the end of World War II, he was arrested by British occupation authorities, tried as a war criminal, and executed. Tesch and his deputy executive, Karl Weinbacher, were the only businessmen to be executed for their role in Nazi war crimes in Western Europe.

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