Sugar Lump Raises Scary Question

Was Germ Warfare Used During Wwi?

June 25, 1998|By WILLIAM J. BROAD The New York Times

It appeared to be a harmless lump of sugar, albeit a lump of sugar dating from World War I. But when scientists examined it they found living anthrax spores, apparently placed there 80 years ago by a Germany intent on disrupting the Allies' horse-and-reindeer-drawn supply lines across northern Norway.

Their analysis of the lump and its shadowy history, which they describe in the journal Nature, illuminates one of the few confirmed instances of the use of germ weapons in warfare.

The anthrax microbe is one of the most common agents of germ warfare and terrorism. It causes an infectious disease of wild and domesticated animals, and can also strike humans with an often fatal illness.

Historians have said Germany engaged in widespread germ warfare in World War I, especially against Allied horses, which were critical to many aspects of the war effort. But the evidence was usually sketchy, and Germany often denied the reports.

The new detective work, by four scientists from the British germ-defense unit and the Norwegian military, began when the curator of a police museum in Trondheim, Norway, found in an archive a bottle with two sugar lumps. A note translated, ``A piece of sugar containing anthrax bacilli, found in the luggage of Baron Otto Karl von Rosen, when he was apprehended in Karasjok in January 1917, suspected of espionage and sabotage.''

The curator inspected the lumps and found that each was pierced by a small hole. One hole contained a tiny sealed glass tube. Alarmed, he sent the exhibition to Norwegian defense authorities, whose scientists set in motion the detailed analysis.

First, in a cabinet that had been carefully sterilized, the glass tube was broken open and its contents cultured, the scientists report in Nature. With some delicate prompting, germs grew and multiplied. Their identification as Bacillus anthracis was confirmed by two separate methods, including one that amplifies and examines the molecular structure of an organism's genetic material, or DNA.

``It proved possible,'' the article said, ``to revive a few surviving organisms from the brink of extinction after they had been stored, without any special precautions.''

Anthrax spores are known to survive up to centuries.

One intriguing question, the scientists said, is what the baron, ``a Swedish-German-Finnish aristocrat,'' and his colleagues intended to do with the anthrax. Later, after the baron had been expelled to Sweden as a result of diplomatic pressure, a belated inspection of his baggage produced bottles of the deadly poison curare, microbial cultures and 19 sugar lumps.

It appears that the tested lump was the only surviving weapon in that small arsenal of germ warfare. The scientists say the baron's mysterious companions admitted that they had been organized by the Germans to sabotage war equipment.

And the germs? The scientists say Berlin had approved a microbial assault on reindeer used for sledging British arms across northern Norway. And local newspapers of the day were convinced that the deadly sugar cubes were also used to poison horses involved in war transport.

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