Nazi Paraphernalia in Lab
Today’s guest post is by Fraser Parlane.
Many of you most likely deal with gas cylinders. Many of these cylinders have a small window, (or four squares) stamped next to the service dates (these are month, then year). As you can see, this particular bottle dates back to 1945. Of course, this is during WWII era. During the war, Nazi Germany stamped swastikas on their gas cylinders. You can still see that these cylinders came from german companies.
Allied forces “captured” substantial German assets after VE day and shipped them back to the US in mass quantities. As such, there are very many swastika cylinders still in use here. Most are not recognized because the swastika was covered with a box stamp that makes it look like four small boxes.
Update: Someone found a cylinder with a unaligned stamp on it.
Do you mean the tiny icon in the upper left? Isn’t that just a grid?
(Sorry, tough to tell at this magnification…any clearer pic, or historical background you could tell us?)
pretty skeptical of this. any real references (besides reddit).
The number in the first picture says 10-45, i.e. stamped after the end of the war in Europe by some five months (assuming these are dates of course). So why a swastika here?
Also, the refills/safety check dates(?) are followed by a + sign. So maybe the + in a box indictaes first fill and the + alone afterwards some sort of recheck date.
I agree with sam and am sceptical of this.
from ehs.ucsb.edu/units/labsfty/labrs/pdfs/Comp_gas_markings.pdf
“…… Of the remaining marks, the month and year numbers represent the date of manufacture, and retest date. A (+) sign indicates the cylinder may be 10% overcharged, and a star indicates a ten year test interval”….
no indication of meaning of + in a box, unless this indicates the manufacture date
the plus indicates ten year service for fixed gases
I love the show How It’s Made. It’s one of the shows I really miss now that I don’t have cable.
Here’s a segment on how gas cylinders are made. Awesome.
http://youtu.be/uehXEqm1mSM
Right after I read this I went to my lab to see if we had any and ALL of the cylinders had the same marking. Pretty neat..
This is a hoax, isn’t it?
People are finding them.
http://andresol.livejournal.com/80432.html
No, this is not a haox. I put my version of the story on this thread earlier today. I can supply pics of the unadulterated swastika cylinders and ones that have had the square overstamped. it is actually a rather interesting piece of history.
I worked for the Linde Div. of Union Carbide(UCC) from 1985-1999. As I understand it, UCC purchased the Von Linde Gas Company somewhere around the end of WWII. Initially, hundreds of thousands of our cylinders were stamped with the swastika and overtamped with a square stamp, to create the “Linde Windowpane” design. (an old cattle rustler’s trick!) most are actually stamped well, some are stamped a bit askew, some were never stamped at all. I can provide pictures of those unstamped versions if you would like. Eventually, the Linde company in Germany decided that UCC may have purched the company but NOT the Linde name. So, they took them to court and millions of dollars in layer fees later… Linde got their name back and UCC spun the “Linde Div.” off into what is now Praxair. I have long sought documentation for this story but to this day have come up empty. It would be nice to get the exact facts and the timeline to know what really happened.