Haber, Fritz

(1868–1934)

   German chemist and Nobel laureate, 1918. Haber developed a process for synthesizing ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen by combining them under pressure, using iron as a catalyst. The Haber process, as it was called, was adapted for industrial use, and earned for him the director-ship of the Kaiser Wilhelm Research Institute for chemistry in 1911. Haber’s discovery was invaluable to the German war effort; it is estimated that without it British naval activity would have caused Germany to run out of nitrogen and therefore explosive by 1916, thus bringing World War I to an early conclusion in a German surrender. During World War I, Haber, a chauvinistic German, worked in the field of gas warfare, and directed the first use of chlorine gas on the battlefield, in 1915. Despite the military implications of his ammonia process, it gained Haber the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918. After the war he worked on an unsuccessful scheme to isolate gold from seawater in order to help pay the indemnity imposed on Germany by the Allies. He once more made the Berlin institute a leading centre for physical chemistry, and was elected president of the German Chemical Society. His achievements and prestige did not save him from the attentions of the Nazi regime, despite his denial of the Jewish religion and his demonstrations of German patriotism. He was ordered to dismiss all Jews on his staff; he refused, resigned his post and fled to England. Already in poor health, he died in Switzerland.