Margulies brothers

The money came first. Sometime during 1903 or 1904, Haber got a letter from the Margulies brothers of Vienna, managers and part owners of the Austrian Chemical Works. The industrialists had detected intriguing traces of ammonia in their chemical... 

It s a mystery why the Margulies brothers turned to Fritz Haber. They may have known his father, Siegfried, who traveled widely in Austria s eastern territories and had many business contacts there. If so, one senses in Fritz s initially unhelpful responses the recalcitrance of a son who still regarded his father s guidance as a yoke to be thrown off. 

Twice, Haber brushed them off. But the Margulies brothers offered to pay him well, and Haber relented. 

Haber informed the Margulies brothers of his disappointing findings, published them in a scientific journal, and went on to other things. And that might have been the end of the matter, had it not been for the antagonism between Fritz Haber and Walther Nernst. 

Haber s work on ammonia synthesis began during the summer of 1904 not because of any planned, determined effort to solve an elusive task, but because of an unexpected request from the Osterreichische Chemische Werke in Vienna, a company set up by the brothers O. and R. Margulies. Haber did not immediately take up the offer he advised the brothers to take what was at that time the easiest route and recover by-product ammonia from coking. As he knew something about Ostwald s earlier work on the problem (but not about his unsuccessful deal with BASF and about the withdrawal of Ostwald s 1900 patent application), he wrote to him hoping that he would cooperate with the Margulies brothers. 

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