Let’s Explore and DISCUSS Strange, Obscure, Interesting Stuff
The amazing story of a dichotomous man who saved the planet, but who also played an indirect role in the death of millions of people. Followed by our Good vs. Evil Quiz.
Who Is Fritz Haber?
I first heard the following story on NPR’s Radiolab (“The Bad Show”) several years ago, but I’ve never forgotten it. It’s about science and innovation, but it’s also about warfare, death, ambition, patriotism, and most prominently the dualistic nature of man.
In its totality, the story asks the question, can any man be labeled “good” or “evil,” or are we all a baffling mixture of the two? And if it’s only the totally good who deserve our admiration, just how many figures of history do we have to cancel out?
Let me put this as succinctly as I can – you probably owe your very existence to Fritz Haber. Quite possibly, everyone you know owes their very existence to Fritz Haber.
Given that, you’d think there’d be pigeon-shit-covered statues of the man all over the place. You’d think that at least one out of every ten kids in the world would have gone to a Fritz Haber Elementary School, but no, hardly anybody outside of a few scientists has ever heard of him.
The only way he’s acknowledged today at all is by the chemical process that bears his name, the one he invented that made it possible for earth to support its 7.7 billion people.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though. While Haber ultimately saved millions or even billions of lives and won the Nobel Prize, he was also directly responsible for horrible, inhumane deaths and played a role in the nightmarish murder of millions of others.
That kind of thing understandably leaves statue makers and elementary school namers conflicted – hence the dearth of monuments or reminders of any kind about Fritz Haber.
So who was Fritz Haber and what exactly did he do?
Making Bread From Air
The story begins in Germany during the first few years of the 20th century where Fritz Haber was a professor of chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe. In some of his pictures, he looks a lot like Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movie, albeit with a scrub-brush moustache and a pair of those funky pince-nez glasses that lack earpieces and clip directly onto the nose.
While Haber was Jewish (but later converted to Lutheranism for career purposes), this was a period of time before the meteoric rise of anti-Semitism in Germany and there were no restrictions on what a Jewish man wanted to do or accomplish. Haber was also a fierce patriot committed to solving Germany’s grim math problem: A population of about 50 million with only enough food to feed 30 million.
What his country – along with most of the countries in the world – was lacking was fertilizer, specifically nitrogen. The main source of it was bird shit and bat shit, known more formally as guano and it was to the world back then what oil is to the world today.
But it was hard to find enough guano to grow the food they needed. The logistics were nightmarish. Most of it came from islands off Peru that were lousy with seagulls, but the seagulls couldn’t keep up; supplies of guano were nearing depletion.
Consequently, finding alternate sources of nitrogen was a big priority, made all the more frustrating because the element was so damn abundant but simultaneously inaccessible. While it makes up about 80% of the air we breathe, every nitrogen atom is triple-bonded to another nitrogen atom to form molecular nitrogen, N2. That triple bond is really strong and hard to break.
But Haber figures it out. He forces large amounts of air into an iron tank and exposes it to high temperature and high pressure, which crowbars the nitrogen bonds apart, thereby allowing it to bond with hydrogen. What results is a steady drip of ammonia, which is what you need to make ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
The Haber Process
The Haber Process, as he names it, makes “bread from air.” It changes everything. It allows countries to feed their burgeoning populations. It allows the population of the world to grow from approximately 1.5 billion to the current 7.7 billion.
The process is still used today and it’s responsible for producing roughly 50% of the nitrogen in your body. You can also make an argument that had it not been invented when it was, it could have canceled out a good portion of your ancestry. Without sufficient food, your great-great-great grandfather or grandmother could have died before they had a chance to procreate, thus throwing a troublesome monkey wrench into your cosmic journey.
Existential arguments aside, Fritz Haber goes on to win the Nobel Prize in 1918. It’s extremely controversial, though, because, by that time he’s also considered to be an unrepentant war criminal of the worst kind.
From Savior of the World to War Criminal
After inventing the process that bears his name, Haber, quite predictably, becomes a hero in the eyes of the world, but particularly among his countrymen. He gets promoted and is given the reins to a scientific institute in Berlin. He starts getting invited to parties and events. He meets with cabinet members and even the Emperor.
But then, World War I starts. Haber, being patriotic, signs up immediately. He also offers his superiors a pretty significant by-the-way, something like, “By the way, you know the energy it takes to separate the nitrogen bonds to make ammonia? Well, when the nitrogen atoms are brought back together again, they release all that energy. Kaboom!”
In other words, he lets them know that the Haber Process can be used to create bombs. That gets him a bunch of atta-boys from Command, but that’s not what gets him labeled a war criminal. No, not by a long shot.
Haber had been thinking about solving a particular problem that was endemic to the war: trench warfare. Soldiers from opposite sides would dig long, well-fortified trenches that were protected from small arms fire and artillery. Because the soldiers were so well protected, nothing much happened.
The two sides would sit there for days or weeks cultivating their trench mouth and various fungal infections while waiting for some sort of headway, but shy of a suicide rush across open battlefield, progress stalled.
Ammonia Gas Attack
Haber, however, wants to grease the wheel. He wants to drive the enemy out of their trenches with poison gas. At first, the generals were skeptical. They considered it to be cheating; you know, unsportsmanlike.
Haber poo-poos them. He organizes soldiers into gas units, takes command of them, and ushers them to the front, which happens to be near a small town in France called Ypres. It’s close to 6:00 PM on April 22nd, 1915, and Haber, wearing his pince-nez glasses, a fur coat, and chomping on a cigar, commands his gas units to open the valves of close to 6,000 tanks that contain 150 tons of chlorine gas.
A 15-foot-tall, greenish wall wafts towards the British, French, and Canadian troops at a rate of about a yard a second. As it moves across the landscape, leaves wither. The grass turns a metallic grey. Birds fall out of the sky.
As soon as it hits the Allied side, the soldiers start to convulse. Their throats start burning and the alveoli in their lungs begin bursting. The inflammatory reaction is fierce and quick.
Lungs begin to fill with fluid and phlegm. Yellow mucus pours out of the soldiers’ mouths and their skin turns blue. They are, in effect, drowning – not from water but a fiery combination of chlorine, mucus, and spittle. Hundreds die.
Haber is delighted with his success. The initially reluctant Commanders, the ones who thought gas warfare was unsportsmanlike, promoted him to the rank of Captain. However, not everyone was happy with him.
Death in the Garden
After his great “victory,” Haber goes home for a few days where he’s greeted by his wife, Clara Immerwahr. Clara was a bit of an anomaly as she was also a chemist, one of the few women in Germany at the time to be awarded a PhD. She was also a women’s rights activist and a pacifist.
Predictably, she’s appalled by what her husband has done. She tells him that he’s morally bankrupt; that he can’t keep doing this. Haber, probably still giddy from his perceived successes, ignores her. It’s even said he threw a dinner party for himself where he divulged to his wife and friends that he’s leaving the very next morning to direct more gas attacks.
Later, after the guests leave, Fritz and Clara have an explosive argument, but Haber is undeterred. He takes some sleeping pills and goes to bed. Clara, in turn, takes Haber’s service revolver, walks outside to the garden, and shoots herself in the chest to protest his actions. The couple’s 12-year-old son, Herman, finds her there, just as her last breaths are leaving her.
No one knows the specifics of what happened immediately afterward or even whether he felt any remorse at all. We do know, however, that he left for the front the next day to continue his monstrous mission, leaving his young son alone with his dead mother.
A Terrible, Terrible Irony
While chlorine gas only accounted for about 1% of the deaths in World War I (it was introduced too late to take full advantage of it), its “psyops,” or fear factor, was considerable – the Allies were constantly afraid of being gassed.
Nevertheless, Germany of course lost the war, agreeing during the surrender negotiations to pay huge war reparations, a fact that Haber took personally. He tried to invent a process through which he could extract gold from seawater so he could single-handedly pay off Germany’s debts.
I don’t need to tell you that he failed, but that personal disappointment paled in comparison to what happened in 1933 when Hitler achieved power. One of Hitler’s first acts was to declare that Jews weren’t allowed in the civil service. Haber was exempt, though, because he served in WWI, but 75% of the people who worked for him were Jewish and had to be dismissed.
Haber resigns in protest. He leaves Germany for England where he flounders, a man without a country. His health begins failing and in 1934, on the way to a sanatorium in Switzerland, his heart gives out and he dies.
That’s not the end of the story, though. Something strange, terrible, and ironic happens soon after Haber’s death. If this were a cinematic Citizen Kane-ish take on Haber’s life, the camera would pan to another one of Haber’s inventions on a dusty shelf, another nitrogen compound that his institute developed during WWI.
It was an insecticide, one that was given a particular smell to warn people not to inadvertently breathe it. Haber’s institute named it Zyklon. A few years later, when the Nazis took over, they dusted off Haber’s insecticide and repurposed it. They removed the warning scent and gave it a new name: Zyklon B.
The scentless gas was then used to kill Jews in gas vans or in stationary gas chambers. Along with the millions of Jews who died from Haber’s gas were no doubt extended members of his family and many of his friends.
How Do We Judge Fritz Haber?
Haber, while saving millions of lives and making the lives of billions of others possible, deliberately invented a method to kill thousands of others and inadvertently invented a chemical that killed millions of his fellow Jews. He also exhibited breathtaking callousness towards his wife and son.
How then, should we judge him? Was he a hero or a terrible war criminal? A good person or an evil schmuck?
Obviously, the use of one of his inventions by the Nazis to kill his fellow Jews was inadvertent and most arbiters of morality would give him a pass on that, but did the overall good he accomplished outweigh the overall bad?
Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the hosts of the Radiolab segment where I first heard the story of Fritz Haber, had differing opinions. Abumrad thought that if you looked at the “grand calculus” of people Haber helped or fed versus people he killed, Haber comes off as being a “little good.”
Krulwich can’t get over the “pushing of gas into the lungs” of other beings and walking away from his dead wife and his traumatized son, but ultimately, both hosts reluctantly agree that they could/should divorce the man from his deeds and that the world was better with him than without him.
Me? I don’t look at him as good or evil. To take the measure of a man, you have to look at his motivations, and Haber didn’t have a devil on one shoulder and a better angel on the other, both vying for his attention. From what I see, everything Haber did was a bid for fame, or more accurately, something fame provides, which is approval.
Quite simply, he wanted to be admired, accepted, and respected. He didn’t have the requisite self worth needed to become an evolved, actualized human being, so he needed others to verify his worth. Developing fertilizer to feed the masses earned him approval, but the emotionally evolved rationale for developing it should have been a desire to ease the suffering of mankind.
But we can guess that the easing of suffering probably wasn’t his primary motivation, not when he was so eager to wage chemical warfare and not when he was so unresponsive to the horror his actions inflicted on his wife and son.
Waging chemical warfare earned him approval; not developing it would have earned his wife’s approval, but the approval of one person, even one who presumably loved him, was a meager meal. He needed a feast.
Regardless, I’m tired of debating whether any historical figure or current personality is good or evil, whether their works or achievements should be dismissed because their “grand calculus” didn’t measure up.
If we don’t separate the achievements or works of men and their perceived morality, very few of us, aside from traditional paragons of virtue like Jesus, Gautama Buddha, or Lao Tzu would pass muster.
How many of history’s icons will bear up to our scrutiny if we start digging around? How many literary works, pieces of art, or accomplishments in general will have to be flushed down the judgmental toilet if the moral math doesn’t add up?
I’ll appreciate Haber’s “bread making” discovery without weighing it against his other actions. Likewise, I’ll continue to respect other various great accomplishments throughout history and continue to read books, listen to songs or comedy routines, or, in general, appreciate the art of people whose moral compasses occasionally pointed south.
THE GOOD VS. EVIL QUIZ
1. Which famous author who wrote books with a strong moral message and great sentimentality tried to get his wife of 22 years, mother of his 10 children, committed to an insane asylum because she’d “lost many of her good looks”?
- Charles Dickens
- Ernest Hemingway
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Answer
Charles Dickens
Photo From Wikipedia
Yep, the author of “The Christmas Carol” and other heart-warming books tried to get his wife, Catherine, forcibly consigned to an institution so he could pursue another, younger woman.
Someone should have reminded Dickens of the passage from “The Christmas Carol” where the spirit of Marley, describing the chain of moral failings he had forged in life, says to Scrooge, “Or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy as long as this, seven Christmas-eves ago. You have labored on it since. It is a ponderous chain!”
2. This world leader was the first in modern history to ban the use of animals in testing.
- Pol Pot
- Adolph Hitler
- Benito Mussolini
Answer
Adolph Hitler
Photo From Wikipedia
Surprised, huh? Yeah, the Nazis, under Hitler, instituted the Animal Protection Act, which made it illegal to mistreat or handle animals in any way that could harm them. The force-feeding of fowl was banned, as was the use of dogs in hunting. Special laws regarding the humane killing of lobsters in restaurants were instituted, and animals in circuses and zoos were provided protection. People who neglected their pets could be arrested and fined.
3. This American politician publicly advocated that black people be sent back to Africa.
- Abraham Lincoln
- Ronald Reagan
- George Wallace
Answer
Abraham Lincoln
Photo From Wikipedia
While it’s quite likely that George Wallace said or thought that black people should be sent back to Africa, the correct answer here is Lincoln. During a speech in 1854 in Peoria, Illinois, he said his first instinct was to “free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia (the African state founded in 1821).”
Later, in 1862, during a delegation of freed black men and women at the White House, Lincoln explained that given the differences between the two races and the hostile attitudes of white people towards black people, it would be “better for us both, therefore, to be separated.”
Then, during a debate with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln said the following: “I will say then that I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.” He went on to say that he didn’t agree with blacks having the vote, to serve on juries, to hold office, or intermarry with whites.
Luckily, he evolved over the next few years.
4. Despite taking a public vow of chastity and making his followers promise the same thing – even the married ones – this spiritual leader regularly slept naked with one or more young women:
- Howie Mandel
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Pope Benedict XVI
Answer
Mahatma Gandhi
Photo From Wikipedia
Gandhi claims he didn’t have relations with them, but he did enjoy sleeping naked with young women who, it must be assumed, were also naked.
He also enjoyed frequent naked massages. Things got so bad that his personal secretary, R.P. Parasuram wrote him a stern letter: “I object to your having massage done by girls…Those people who know that you are naked during massage time say you could at least put a cover over it.” Gandhi’s response was that Parasuram was at liberty to leave.
5. Which great scientist deserves to be ranked among the world’s most misogynistic men?
- Bill Nye, the Science Guy
- Robert Oppenheimer
- Albert Einstein
Answer
Albert Einstein
Photo From Wikipedia
Things weren’t going well for Einstein and his wife of 11 years, Mileva Maric. In what must be the most pathetic effort of any man in history to “patch things up,” Einstein gave Mileva a list of rules to follow. Among them were the following:
- You will make sure:
- That my clothes and laundry are kept in good order.
- That I will receive my three meals regularly in my room.
- That my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is left for my use only.
- You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons. Specifically, you will forgo:
- My sitting at home with you.
- My going out or traveling with you.
- You will obey the following points in your relationship with me:
- You will not expect any intimacy from me, nor will you approach me in any way.
- You will stop talking to me if I request it.
- You will leave my bedroom or study immediately without protest if I request it.
Sorry girls, no calling dibs on this catch because he’s dead!
6. This revered and oft-quoted leader was, despite his frequent talk about heroism and valor, a notorious racist and white supremacist who advocated eugenics:
- Howie Mandel
- Winston Churchill
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Answer
Winston Churchill
Photo From Wikipedia
Churchill may have helped save the free world from fascism, but he did it for white people. He considered himself and Britain as being the winners in social Darwinian hierarchy. He advocated the use of chemical weapons against “uncivilized tribes,” referring to the Kurds and Afghans.
He did not feel that any wrongs had been done against the Red Indians of America. He was quoted as saying, “…a higher-grade race, a more worldly-wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”
Additionally, he played a role in the deaths of approximately 3 million people in India. They were in the midst of a famine and despite that, forced to continue to export 70,000 tons of rice to England during the first half of 1943. He had another 170,000 tons of Australian rice, intended for India, diverted to Europe where it could be stockpiled for possible future use. His rationale? “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”
7. The German chemist Fritz Haber is best known for:
- Inventing the mustard gas that was used in WWI.
- Introducing Kaiser Wilhelm to Dubstep.
- Developing the procedure by which ammonia could be synthesized from hydrogen and nitrogen.
