German Corpse Factory

Common card · No. 444619

The German Corpse Factory or Kadaververwertungsanstalt (literally "Carcass-Utilization Factory"), also sometimes called the "German Corpse-Rendering Works" or "Tallow Factory" was a recurring work of atrocity propaganda among the Allies of World War I, describing the German Empire's supposed use of human corpses in fat rendering during World War I. In the postwar years, investigations in Britain and France revealed that these stories were false. According to a typical version of the story, the Kadaververwertungsanstalt was a special installation operated by the Germans in which, due to a scarcity of fat products amid the allied blockade, German battlefield corpses were rendered down for fat, which was then used to manufacture nitroglycerine, candles, lubricants, and even boot dubbin. It was supposedly operated behind the front lines by the DAVG — Deutsche Abfall-Verwertungs Gesellschaft ("German Waste Utilization Company"). Historian Piers Brendon has called it "the most appalling atrocity...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Leonard Raven-Hill, Public domain