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Fritz Haber (December 9th 1868 with Breslau - January 29th 1934 with Basle) was a German chemist . His/her father, who made the trade of paintings and chemicals and had lost his wife three weeks after the birth of Fritz, held it for " responsable" of this death, which involved later on tensions between the father and the son. Before beginning its academic career, Fritz Haber makes a commercial formation and works in the company of his/her father like to the federal polytechnic school of Zurich with Georg Lunge. Of 1886 with 1891, it studies with the Université of Heidelberg under the direction of Robert Bunsen, then with the university of Berlin in the group of A.W. Hoffmann, and finally at the technical training school of Charlottenburg with Carl Liebermann. In 1893, it gives up the Judaism to convert with Protestantism.

During the period of 1894 with 1911 with Karlsruhe, it develops in company of Carl Bosch, a process of formation Catalytique of the Ammoniaque starting from Hydrogène and of Azote, that BASF will adopt in 1910. It becomes rich and influential, in 1914, it is one of the signatories of the Manifeste of the 93, also entitled " Call of the German Intellectuals with the Nations civilisées" : this document published in Germany in the Scientific magazine on October 4th, 1914 reaction to the German fold at the time of the Battle of the Marne supported the warlike policy of Reich and its Kaiser.

During the First World War, it works actively with the development of chemical weapons and the use of the Chlore like Poison gas (" dérivantes" waves;) receives the agreement of the German staff. The first German offensive with chlorine (Ypres, April 22nd, 1915) is successful but does not manage to obtain the decisive opening for primarily strategic reasons. The first wife of Fritz Haber, Clara, also chemist of formation, rejects this diverting of science and gives herself death a few days after this first attack. That will not prevent Haber from continuing its tests but will be worth to him to be condemned for crime against humanity (non-observance of the convention of $the Hague). Haber, Nobel Prize of Chemistry in 1918 (for the synthesis of ammonia) takes refuge some time in Switzerland, the Constante of Haber always indicates the minimal amount of Gaz fatal to the man, a Berliner institute always bears its name (Fritz-Haber-Institute DER Max-Planck-Gesellschaft) like another to Karlsruhe and the research center in molecular dynamics of the Hebraic University of Jerusalem, Fritz Haber Center for Molecular Dynamics Research (http://www.fh.huji.ac.il)…

Member of the board of trustees of the group militaro-industrialist IG Farben as of his creation in 1925, Haber was also active in research on the reactions of Combustion, on the separation of the Or of the Sea water, on the effect Adsorption, and in electrochemistry. Most of its work took place of 1911 with 1933 at the Institute of Physique and electrochemistry of Berlin-Dahlem. It was also interested in the Pesticide S and developed the Zyklon B, product which will be employed years later in the gas chambers of the death camps Nazi S. In 1932, it was still prize winner of the Médaille Rumford!

Haber being Jewish according to the ideology of the new Masters of Germany, the laws Nazi be obliged it to take its retirement after the promulgation of the Lois anti-semites and to emigrate in 1934, despite everything its good and faithful services. It had obtained a station in Cambridge but died the same year at the time of its passage to Basle.

References

  • David Vandermeulen, Fritz Haber , Delcourt, coll “Mirages”, Paris, 2005 -
  • Arkan Simaan, “the paradox of science: Fritz Haber”, rationalist Books , 579, November-December 2005.
  • Arkan Simaan, “Fritz Haber, chemist with double face”, Science and pseudo-sciences , 269, October 2005.

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