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Fritz Haber, a German chemist of Jewish origin, is one of the most controversial Nobel laureates. By developing a method for the synthesis of ammonia, on the one hand, he made a milestone in the field of industrial chemistry, on the other – he became involved in the production of toxic combat gases and it was thanks to his research during World War II that the deadly Zyklon B was discovered. his wife was also about to take her own life.
- On December 10, 1918, Fritz Haber was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen. Thanks to this, he created a method for the production of artificial fertilizers, later called the Haber and Bosch method
- Haber’s research also had its dark side. After World War I, he used them for the needs of the German army, developing, inter alia, toxic combat gases used at the front
- Haber’s name is also associated with the production of a gas called Zyklon B, which was used by the Germans in gas chambers during World War II.
- More information can be found on the Onet homepage
Albert Einstein was to say of him shortly after his death: “It was a tragedy of a German Jew, a tragedy of despised love.” And although it is not known exactly what the famous physicist meant, it is easy to figure it out by following Haber’s biography. Sources write about him as a fanatical patriot, devoted to the Germans to such an extent that when undertaking scientific research, he left ethical issues aside, because he considered them to be of secondary importance. He assigned a similar place to his family. He also renounced his religion in favor of Protestantism.
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The scientific mission required sacrifices
His academic career meant a lot to him, he even treated it as a mission and duty towards his country, especially in the difficult times of world wars. Apparently, even for her sake, he changed his religion, he converted from Judaism to Protestantism, which in the light of his later achievements takes on a new meaning. He has many years of study at renowned institutions in Berlin, Zurich and Jena.
In 1894 he became an assistant to prof. Hans Bunt at the Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe. Soon thereafter, he obtained the position of professor of chemistry there. From 1911 to 1933 he was a professor at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie (now Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft).
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“He made bread from the air”, but … prolonged the First World War
In his research, he focused on the issues of electrochemistry and catalysis. In 1904, he began work on the equilibrium of ammonia formation from nitrogen and hydrogen atoms at high temperatures and high pressure. He managed to find answers to the questions that many scientists around the world were looking for at the time, and thanks to which he finally developed a method for the synthesis of ammonia. This discovery was of key importance in the production of artificial fertilizers, laying the foundations of this industry, which in turn played a significant role in the production of food for Europe, then overpopulated.
It was for this achievement that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1918. However, the common knowledge of how his discoveries were used during the war meant that «there have been many protests against the award for him. Meanwhile, the Nobel Committee concluded that, along with his involvement in the creation of weapons, Haber’s work on the ammonia synthesis process made him the man who made the greatest contribution to the welfare of mankind » – we read in the article on Scienceinschool.org.
Later it was said of him that he “made bread out of thin air”. Today, the world production of nitrogen fertilizers, produced by the Haber-Bosch method, reaches several hundred thousand tons per year, and in the first half of the XNUMXth century, Haber himself became a millionaire thanks to his research.
However, as life later showed, fame and money did not bring him happiness. The lofty plans for the development of science somewhat missed the reality in the context of how Haber’s achievements were used, moreover – for his undoubted blessing and support. «Although his work on nitrogen fixation has allowed us to produce more food than ever before, it is believed that Haber’s ammonia production process extended World War I by at least 18 months»- we read in an article published on the website Scienceinschool.org.pl.
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He personally supervised the use of the war gases
After the outbreak of World War I, ammonia replaced saltpetre imported from Chile for the production of explosives and ammunition. Therefore, Haber, commissioned by the German General Staff, started working on the use of chemicals for the army. He considered his work to be a mission for the country. Supposedly he was in the habit of telling his associates that fewer casualties would be lost if Germany’s enemies were to be defeated quickly.
Believing in the rightness of his words, he became one of the main organizers of the production and use of combat gases by the German army, including at Langemark and Ypres. He was to personally supervise a chemical attack and note symptoms in dying soldiers. At that time, there was a dramatic event in the life of the scientist – his wife Clara committed suicide by shooting herself with her husband’s service pistol. According to the sources, the cause of his own life was the controversial activity of Fritz. Clara Haber could not stand that her husband’s scientific work caused many people to die. She was also a chemist herself, but also a pacifist. She had repeatedly begged her husband to stop working on chemical weapons, and publicly denounced them as “a distortion of the ideals of science.”
However, Haber did not seem to take his wife’s doubts to heart, nor did he feel impressed by her death, for the day after the funeral he was to go to the front immediately to continue testing the deadly war gases.
Zyklon B was supposed to kill fleas and bedbugs
When, on September 3, 1941, in Auschwitz, the SS men gassed the first group of prisoners with the help of a cyclone, Fritz Haber had already died for several years. He died in Switzerland in 1933, where he left after being forced to leave Germany, despite having faithfully served both Germany and fascism. But before that happened, he was working on an effective insect control measure. This is what gas was at first, which later killed millions of people in gas chambers.
Scientists were looking for a means that would be easy to kill fleas, lice and bedbugs breeding in warehouses or in the holds of ocean-going ships. And it was discovered. Cyclone tablets contained toxic hydrogen cyanide. On exposure to air, they gradually released gas until it reached the appropriate concentration and could kill the pests. Cyclone B turned out to be successful and its production was hundreds of tons. Apparently, it was discovered by accident that the gas had a faster effect on people than on insects. Four kilograms of the cyclone were able to kill about 1000 people.
In the version for use in gas chambers, the cyclone has no warning odor. The production of this version was kept in the strictest of secrecy, but the truth was revealed anyway. Shortly after the war, Bruno Tesch was sentenced to death – a student of Fritz Haber, the producer of Zyklon B, and the head of a company producing gas in an odorless version. It has been proven that the company was aware of what the gas was for.
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