The Story of Fritz Haber

Morris Herbert Goran. The Story of Fritz Haber. Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 1967. Source for Ostwald and the pail of facts and for legends about Haber. Goran interviewed many first-hand witnesses but unfortunately did not discriminate among gossip, legend, and fact. 

Goran, Morris, The Story of Fritz Haber, University of Oklahoma Press, 1967. 

Fig. 3-2. Fritz Haber (1867-1934) received the 1918 Nobel prize for solving the heretofore intractable problem of making atmospheric nitrogen available for use in myriad industrial chemical processes, including making fertilizer and explosives. He became interested in toxic gas as a weapon of war early in World War I. Along with Walther Nernst, Haber was responsible for the German chemical warfare program and directed the initial German attack on Ypres. He was also a strong advocate of chemical warfare after World War I. Reprinted with permission from Goran M. The Story of Fritz Haber. Norman, Okla University of Oklahoma Press 1957.

Goodchild, Peter. 1980. J. Robert Oppenheimer Shatterer of Worlds. Houghton Mifflin. Goodrich, H. B., et al. 1951. The origins of U. S. scientists. Scient c American. July. Goran, Morris. 1967. The Story of Fritz Haber. University of Oklahoma Press. Goudsmit, Samuel A. 1947. Alsos. Henry Schuman. 

On a lighter note, there is an amusing anecdote told by the author Morris Goran (The Story of Fritz Haber, 1967). It seems that... 

No solidly documented explanations for these events survive. What s left are the stories that Fritz Haber told his friends many years later—and Haber was a notorious teller of tales, the more entertaining the better. 

The Chinese story is the piece of Fritz Haber s legacy that fertilizer companies celebrate, a tale of salvation through technology. But it s not the whole nitrogen story, nor the only instructive one. 

The story at MIT is engrossingly told and massively documented by John W. Servos, The Industrial Relations of Science Chemical Engineering at MIT, 1900-1939, Isis 71, 531-549 (1980). As Servos tells it, the story was a prelude to the changeover of MIT presidents in 1930 and to subsequent Depression pressures. But there had also been a national debate see A Symposium upon Co-operation in Industrial Research, Trans. Amer. Electrochem. Soc. 29, 25-58 (1916), in which W. H. Walker and W. R. Whitney inter alia took part and The Universities and the Industries, J. Ind. Eng. Chem. 8, 59-65 (1916), which quotes Richard C. Maclaurin, president of MIT, Henry P. Talbot, professor of chemistry at MIT, W. H. Walker, and A. D. Little. Fritz Haber s role in the unleashing of war gas is remarked by Peter H. Spitz, Petrochemicals The Rise of an Industry [7], p. 28 and sources listed on p. 61. 

While Siegfried Haber acted as patriarch and domestic despot, Fritz became the court jester. Stories of him in this role abound. Once, when his sisters were six, four, and two years old, their... 

No one at the time seems to have suspected any deeper meaning in this story. But more recently, the historian Fritz Stern has suggested that it reads as an allegory of baptism. Stern s personal history is intimately entwined with Fritz Haber s—Stern is Haber s godson, and Fritz Haber was a mentor to his parents. Baptism is also an immersion in water, Stern wrote, and it did aid Haber s climb up the academic ladder. So when Haber told this story, did... 

I owe the greatest debt of appreciation and gratitude, however, to the three people who have shared the joys, hopes, and anxieties of this venture over the last two years, who ve made room in their lives for my moods and my mess Brigid, my peerless wife, and our children, MoUy and Nora. Brigid first pointed me toward Fritz Haber s story four years ago, and her support and encouragement, always clearheaded and unsentimental, saw... 

In the other version of this story, Fritz shipped a large quantity of lime chloride to prospective buyers in Russia who then refused to accept it. And you see, gentlemen, Haber would say after telling this tale, that s the reason I can t stand the Russians In both versions, Siegfried Haber threw his son out of the business in a fury at the financial loss. 

Home life, of course, meant Clara. Fonda knew her only from dinner parties at the Haber home, a quiet figure in the background tending to her young son Hermann while Fritz entertained the guests with an endless series of stories, jokes, and rhymes composed on the spot. But Fonda knew her reputation It was said that Haber was under continuous nagging from his wife and that he was disturbed by it. ... 

---