The Triumph and Tragedy of Fritz Haber
A brilliant German chemist- Fritz Haber personifies how science can be used for both life-saving good and horrifying evil
Science has the power to create life and also take it away. Nothing better summarises this theory than the work of a chemist born in Breslau in 1868. Described as ambitious but also vulnerable, Haber studied his science in Berlin, and within a newly unified Germany thanks to Kaiser Wilhelm II, Haber benefited from an ambitious new age.
As the interest and advances in science increased with the 20th century appearing on the horizon, another concept did the same: anti-semitism. A Jewish man, Haber sensed the increasing levels of animosity towards his religion and people. So much so that he converted to Christianity, but the years to come would have a significant impact on Haber nevertheless.
Haber’s work was brilliant, and work on synthesizing ammonia for fertilizer from nitrogen and hydrogen enabled food crops to grow faster and stronger. In 1909 replacing a laborious method, Haber’s work with engineer Carl Bosch, the pair created a new process that could easily create large amounts of fertilizer.
This led to a significant increase in crop yield, providing more food for people around the world in a remarkable scientific breakthrough. Five years later, however, Haber would offer his skills to his nation for war. Keen to show his patriotism, Haber experimented with using chlorine gas as a weapon and in April 1915 at Ypres, it was used for the first time.
Haber was promoted to a captain in the German Army for this success but whilst he was celebrating in Berlin his wife Clara Immerwahr, also a chemist, committed suicide. Clara had grown frustrated by being left to care for their son alone, but also the direction Haber’s work had taken.
The inter-war years saw Haber remarried and also awarded the Nobel Prize for his work with ammonia. There was no rest for him, however, and Haber was continuously worried about being arrested for war crimes due to his work developing poison gas. The 1920s became the 1930s, and racial hatred in Haber’s homeland intensified.
Jewish people had been singled out as a reason for Germany’s defeat in the First World War and after Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933, Germany became highly dangerous for Jews. Haber’s reputation as a patriot no longer provided him protection, and it is reported that on one occasion Haber went to visit a university and a porter said to him ‘The Jew Haber is not allowed here’. This devastated Haber and following his resignation, he died of a heart attack the following year.
The tragedy of Haber would sadly go on for years after his death. His research into developing pesticide gases in the 1920s, and it was this would prove to be the darkest of his legacies. This research in laboratories he ran led to the development of Zyklon B, the horrifying gas used to murder millions- including some of Haber’s relatives- in Nazi concentration camps.
The legacy of Fritz Haber is one of triumph and tragedy. Known to some as ‘the monster who fed the world’, Haber’s work saved millions of lives but led to the deaths of millions more. He tried to take a patriotic stance for a nation that would resent him just a few years later, and perhaps the only small comfort is that Haber didn’t live long enough to see his research turned into a method of mass slaughter.
Regardless of this, Haber will go down in history as one of the most significant scientific figures, for the biggest contradicting reasons imaginable.
