Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare

by Daniel Charles

FRITZ HABER -- a Nobel laureate in chemistry, a friend of Albert Einstein, a German Jew and World War I hero -- may be the most important scientist you have never heard of. The Haber-Bosch process, which he invented at the turn of the twentieth century, revolutionized agriculture by converting nitrogen to fertilizer in quantities massive enough to feed the world. The invention has become an essential pillar for life on earth; some two billion people on our planet could not survive without it. Yet this same process supplied the German military with explosives during World War I, and Haber orchestrated Germany's use of an entirely new weapon -- poison gas. Eventually, Haber's efforts led to Zyklon B, the gas later used to kill millions -- including Haber's own relatives -- in Nazi concentration camps. Haber is the patron saint of guns and butter, a scientist whose discoveries transformed the way we produce food and fight wars. His legacy is filled with contradictions, as was his personality. For some, he was a benefactor of humanity and devoted friend. For others, he was a war criminal, possessed by raw ambition. An intellectual gunslinger, enamored of technical progress and driven by patriotic devotion to Germany, he was instrumental in the scientific work that inadvertently supported the Nazi cause; a Jew and a German patriot, he was at once an enabler of the Nazi regime and its victim. Master Mind is a thought-provoking biography of this controversial scientist, a modern Faust who personifies the paradox of science, its ability to create and to destroy. It offers a complete chronicle of his tumultuous and ultimately tragic life, from his childhood and rise to prominence in the heady days of the German Empire to his disgrace and exile at the hands of the Nazis; from early decades as the hero who eliminated the threat of starvation to his lingering legacy as a villain whose work led to the demise of millions.

Genres: Biography, Science, History, Nonfiction, War, Chemistry, Biography Memoir

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

"During peace time a scientist belongs to the World, but during war time he belongs to his country." - Fritz Haber

„At the end, he was forced to experience all the bitterness of being abandoned by the people of his circle, a circle that mattered very much to him, even though he recognized its dubious acts of violence. … It was the tragedy of the German Jew: the tragedy of unrequited love.“ - Albert Einstein

The story of the life of and around nobel laureate Fritz Haber touched and saddened me deeply. There is so much pain, and at points I found the bitter turns of history very hard to bear. The man behind the Haber-Bosch process can be, according to Charles, reasonbly held responsible for dragging out Germany's loss in WW1 by years through working out the industrial production of nitrate for the production of nitroglycerin. His institute invented the precursor of Zyklon B. And he is considered to be the father of chemical warfare.

It was easy for me to connect to Haber's patriotism as a strong desire to serve his country and being in a good standing in it. His life is deeply woven into the overwhelmingly tragic German history. Just one example that hit me really hard.

"The women who filled the most of the room [of his commemoration], were the wives of the scientists who'd been ordered to stay away. Their presence was a muted protest, evidence of both timidity and integrity. [...]
Planck moved to the podium. Outwardly, he appeared calm. Privately, he worried that Nazi thugs might yet appear to disrupt the meeting. As the last notes of a haunting string quartet by Franz Schubert faded away, Max Planck raised his arm.
'Heil Hitler!'"

This is just too bitter. There were so many good people, yet it all turned so unbearably sour. I couldn‘t do the book justice, I enjoyed it like no other book in quite some time.

Some other parts that stuck with me:

- Born jewish (in 1868), he left his religion for Christianity, apparently for the sake of a culturally more united Germany. Especially later in life, he still suffered from anti-semitism.
- When Max Planck and another leading German scientist confronted Hitler with the "scientific self-mutilation" of the Holocaust, he is told to at the first occasion fall into a fit of rage or basically say "Well, then we'll have to make due with no scientific progress for 100 years"
- on the replacability of the Haber-Bosch process
○ the fixation of nitrogen from the air was prominent on the to-do list of chemicists, e.g. an internatiolly shared speech by William Crookes from the Association for the Advancement of Science apparently put it on the map for many scientists
○ at least one chemical company in Germany was also working on an alternative way of fixing nitrogen (which would prove unsuccessful later)
○ from my very naive understanding, the Haber-Bosch process does not seem very complicated and its invention did not involve deep understanding but mindless(?) tinkering for example with different materials for the catalyst
- Haber seemed to have been very disorganized, he was an unimpressive student („he called himself a ‚lousy product’, interested in much but capable of little“... I can relate to that)
Haber had very unhappy relationships. He spend a lot of time with research and little time with his family and his wife, and they suffered from it. :/

[Pink · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this and felt like I learned quite a lot about Fritz Haber's life, beyond the bare facts that I already knew. I think it's a great example of how complex people can be, neither good nor evil, but products of their time, surroundings and upbringing. This was overall very well written, engaging and quick to get through. There were some digressions from the main story, such as when Daniel Charles talks about crop fertilisers (a subject he has written about elsewhere) but on the whole I thought this was a good biography, well worth a read.

[Broken Lifeboat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but not great biography on the father of chemical fertilizer and chemical warfare, Fritz Haber.

Haber is a little remembered scientist who is responsible for inventing chemical ammonia processes which allowed the world to grow food on increasingly overtaxed soil, without which billions would starve. Haber's unrequited love and loyalty to Germany also led him to weaponize chemicals which he helped to introduce to WWI battlefields with devastating consequences.

I learned some interesting facts about this contemporary of Einstein and Planck but the book had too many of the author's research experience.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had been wanting to read about Fritz Haber for some time. When I was reading a lot about the Holocaust, and the science involved in it...of course, Haber's name came up, since a gas he had a lot to do with 'creating' was used in the gas chambers of the Reich to kill the Jews, the disabled, and anyone else the Nazis didn't like. That alone was enough to make me not like the man. Then I saw something on television recently about his work during World War I, and how he created the chlorine and mustard gases which poisoned so many young men in the trenches. The documentary talked about his first wife committing suicide when he refused to stop working on these chemicals. She couldn't live with what he was doing. So that really colored my perception of him.

This book was a good one for me to read. It gave a more balanced view of a very flawed man and scientist. Even though I still see him as a person who made many really bad lapses in judgement, I also saw things from his standpoint as a Jew who was trying to make it in a world that was prejudiced against people like him in science. He wanted so badly to not only fit in, but excel in his chosen field. This often got in the way of his distinguishing between right and wrong in certain situations. His lack of religious background (a non-practicing Jew who converted to Christianity simply because he thought it would help him advance), and his reliance on science also made his decisions different from even his loved ones. He definitely did not see a difference between using poison gases and the use of guns on the battlefield. Haber had a hard time seeing the gray areas or the lines that should not be crossed...even in science. This made him very different from other scientists like Einstein, who had moral qualms about gas and other uses for sciences that could be used against other human beings.

By the end of the book, when the author covered the end of Haber's life, when Haber was traveling from place to place, because he lost his home in Germany and his Institute...I ended up feeling sorry for Haber. He had placed his beliefs in the wrong things, and he couldn't change. It ended up hurting him and his family.

The only complaint I have about the book, is one other reviewers brought up. Charles, the author, obviously has very strong feelings about the use of new technology (which the use of gas during war was new in WWI), and he inserted some information and a bit of a lecture when he discussed this part of Haber's life. It wasn't that I disagreed with him...it was that what he wrote did not apply to this biography at least at that point. Maybe he could have inserted a separate end chapter on what could be learned from Haber's experiences. But this was in the middle of the book, and you spent a lot of time reading that wasn't on Haber's life. It made the reading of the book somewhat awkward.

[Colleen Earle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have many strong feelings about the historical figure that is Fritz Haber. Admittedly, I have read this biography as the first step in a lengthy research project that will consume about a third of my time in the coming months. I was spurred to study this often forgotten scientist after hearing the rumour that this book does not put much stock in that Haber's wife, Clara Immerwahr, the first women to receive a doctorate in chemistry from the university of Breslau, committed suicide because of Fritz's efforts during World War One to create a variety of poisonous gases, which is a very compelling story.

This biography is beautifully written. I highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in chemistry at the turn of the century, or the condition of German science and the German people during the First World War.

Fritz Habar is considered a war criminal in some circles and just a good scientist in others. Today in our more modern age can stand to learn much from the ethical conundrum that Fritz found himself in as a scientist for the majority of his adult life.

[Charmaine Gantt]

Wow! What an amazing and frightening story! A German Jewish scientist who would use his expertise in chemistry to create fertilizer to enable crop production to support the burgeoning world population and would also develop the use of chemical weapons to destroy enemy populations in WWI. The dichotomy between his scientific discoveries is not lost on his first wife: She kills herself after watching chlorine gas successfully used on enemy soldiers in 1915.

[Esme · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard of Fritz Haber on an episode of the NPR show “Radio Lab.” Haber was German and Jewish by heritage. He created a fertilizer that has allowed the population of the world to feed and sustain itself. Then he went on to be an enthusiastic developer and advocate of gas warfare in WWI. As a postscript, he helped to create Zyklon, as insecticide that was later repurposed by the Nazis for mass extermination. The show also mentioned how Haber’s wife and his son both committed suicide, inferring it was in shame and protest of Haber’s actions.

The dichotomy intrigued me. Then I read “Pandora’s Lab” by Dr. Paul Offit a book which presented the unintended good/bad consequences of scientific advancement. Fritz Haber was once again prominently mentioned. I figured I really needed to read an entire book about Haber since the fullness of a person’s life and motivations can’t be fully examined in a chapter or a few minutes of a podcast.

So glad that I took the time to learn more. What is known about Haber is pieced together with surviving correspondence and old interviews with people who knew him. While he was Jewish by heritage, his birth family wasn’t observant, and he converted to Protestantism, more than likely due to rampant anti-Semitism, and the desire to further his career rather than out of any real religious feeling.

Who I yearned to know more about was Haber’s first wife Clara. She is a figure that gets short shrift. She, by sheer force of will put herself through university and got the same education as her husband with many more roadblocks because of her gender. Then that great intellect was married off and fell into homemaking and motherhood. She was described as depressed. No kidding! I bet she was depressed, frustrated, and furious. One anecdote included about her from a house guest, reports that they found her one morning either eating or having tea with her servants, and they were stunned to find her doing so. (Scandalous!)

Much is made of Haber’s medical problems later in life, as well as his nerves earlier in his life. A connection is never made, however, to the fact that to create his fertilizer he used a process with uranium. I think it is highly probable that Haber’s early demise and health problems were a result of his handling of uranium, which at the turn of the century was certainly not understood as well as it is now.

I’m so glad I took the time with this book. I learned so much. It reaffirmed that people are multi-faceted, capable of great good and great evil. The early chapters are a bit challenging to wade through, since I know next to nothing about German history prior to WWI. It struck me as well researched, and historical gaps were admitted, since sometimes the sources to confirm a rumor or report simply don’t exist anymore. I trusted the author judgment about the credibility of his sources.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A straightforward story of a man who seems to have been pretty unexceptional himself... except for the extraordinary things he did. The title gives you a clue to just two of them. He led development of Germany's WWI poison gas programme, and it has been suggested his wife killed herself as a reaction (though Charles is not convinced). If that wasn't enough, he was friends with Einstein, helped Germany's military have adequate explosives through Britain's blockade in WWI, was a jew who designed the insecticide eventually misused to kill millions of his fellow jews including friends and relatives, and made it possible for cheap fertilizer to spread across the world feeding billions.

Having read the book I have to say I don't feel any closer to understanding his contradictions. It was rather dryly written for the most part though with some interesting scientific digressions. But it's still the story of a fascinating life... and the price I paid for the Amazon Kindle edition of the book was absurdly low.

[Caleb Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative but fairly broad in scope. It is interesting to read about the lead up to WWI and the stage being set for WWII. It doesn't touch on much of the moral implications of chemical warfare, which I feel is a missed opportunity.

[William Whalen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well done biography. Haber comes off as almost a mad scientist ala Frankenstein figure. His relationships with women was as bad as his morale choices. Not a great book but still well worth reading.

[Helia Behrouzfar]

Read as part of my personal challenge to learn about Nobel winners.
Great history lesson for me, through the life of one man.
I see his ambition, his efforts, and his gains.
Well-written book. Delivered what it sought to.

[Nicholas Maulucci · Rating 2 out of 5]

A couple of highlights, but overall - boring.

[David Becker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating subject whose inner life remains something of a frustrating enigma.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fritz Haber was a man of his time coming to maturity as industrialization was sweeping the old world, and science was astonishing the masses and lighting the imagination of philosophers. He was rabidly patriotic, his love of country and desire to be her servant was his most consistent personality trait. He was born into an age where class and culture was stratified, and coming from a Jewish background many of the paths he desired were blocked to him, but he had boundless confidence in himself and the quickness of his mind.
He became a giant among the scientific giants of his time and counted as friends the men he worked with: Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Max Planck, James Franck, Max Van Laue, Lisa Meitner and Otto Hahn and the industrialists of the day. He would be best known for finding a way to get nitrogen out of the air into a usable form of nitrate requited for all explosives, and HNO3 the essence of chemical fertilizer that would allow the soil to produce enough food to feed the growing population of the world.
This came about when Germany made a decision to go to war in 1914, with a mere six months worth of ammunitions, and no natural resource of nitrate. Haber had already with Carl Bosch found a way to extract nitrate from the air in small quantities. The scientists understood the implications of the munitions shortage before the military did and Walter Rathenau leader of the electric company AEG demanded that a war material committee be started much to the dismay of the military. This allowed Rathhenau to point out to the Kaiser that if the war lasted longer than Germany had hoped that they would have no means of producing munitions. Hurried meetings were set up with Bosch of BASF, Bayer's Carl Duisberg and coal magnate Hugo Simmes with Fritz Haber as the administer to bring their process up to industrial scale and within months the BASF had a factory in Oppau was producing 25 tons of ammonia a day. Without this amazing feat of industry Germany's war would have ended within a few months.
The stalemate of trench warfare was taxing Germany's resources so as the war ground on at at ghastly human price, Haber gathered "gas troops" which would include three other future Nobel Laureates: James Franck, Gustav Hertz and Otto Hahn to produce toxic gas to be used as a weapon. They all looked on it as a means to bring a victorious end to the war and found it no more distasteful means of killing than the slow death of a soldier grieviously wounded bu artillery slowly bleeding to death. They gathered a force of 500 gas troops who would bring stainless steel canisters of chlorine gas under high pressure to the battle to be released at Ypres to kill and drive the French out of their trenches allowing the Germans to advance. his precipitated a gas war on all sides, soon England France and America would be using gas as a weapon. Haber developed mustard gas which would not dissipate as quickly and would hug close to the ground settling at the base of trenches and shell holes. Soon the Allies had mustard gas as a weapon. Haber also developed an insecticide that allowed fumigation of buildings, barracks, trains, POW camps and granaries that would control body lice and the moths that reeked havoc on grains.
Haber along with the banker Koppel had organized the first military industrial complex marrying science with industry to the military creating the Kaiser Willheim II Institutes in physical chemistry and physics to create ever more powerful weapons and their industrial production. Little did Haber realize that while he was finally made an Officer in the Army a long held dream, and Director of an Institute that the Germany he loved post war would devolve into chaos and bring about Nazism that would strip every Institute and university of every Jew, strip them of their citizenship and eventually use his insecticide ZylonB to gas his extended family and millions and millions of Jews and enemies of the State.
"Science", Oliver Sachs stated "has the capacity to nourish life and destroy it." This text brings to life a time that would allow a good number of his colleagues to bring to the world nuclear weapons, and in the future the very nitrates that allow humanity to obtain the food yield to survive, to see its run-off destroy water sources and leave dead zones at the base of rivers that extended into the seas.

[Tnb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prior to stumbling on this book while fooling on the internet, I had not heard of Fritz Haber. I have studied both biology and chemistry, but I had little appreciation of the crucial role nitrogen plays in life. In fact, it was only a year or so ago when I visited the birthplace of George Carver Washington that I did finally appreciate the importance of nitrogen. This despite the fact that I grew up surrounded by ammonia from a nearby plant! Education has been very inpractical for me. I continue to feel betrayed by the educational system that I went through.

Back to the book.

I enjoyed this biography. I found it very well written. I also learned a lot about the pre-WWI years in Europe, WWI and in principle, I learned a lot about Germany and the quest for national identity. As a fifth grader, the word nation was defined for me as a group of people who occupy the same territory, speak the same language, have the same traditions, and history. Not a definition that holds today, and hardly did it ever hold. Besides the historical points which were accompanied by commentaries/perspectives of living contemporaries, features which unfortuately are lacking in many history textbooks, the book to me shined with four more elements.

1. Success requires proper timing and luck, neither of which are predictable. However, one can increase his chances for striking at both if one is well connected. Networking, spreading your web of knowns is valuable now and has been valuable back then. In other words, it is an art, a skill that is important and should be taught. Just like Donald Trump's dad gave Donald a $1MM small loan and catapulted him into business, Fritz's dad introduced him to industry via his connections. Parents matter even if you do not particularly like them.

2. Success means sacrifice. Health, family, other. You cannot be all at all. And there is nothing wrong with refocusing on different areas of success at different points in time, as long as you have thought about the long term impact of the areas which you have chosen to sacrifice, so that one day these choices do not become regrets.

3. Even if you are successful you cannot control the macro world. You might strike it rich, deliberately or by luck, but the overall well being of the world will sooner or later catch up to you, and you may die poor and unknown.

4. People under/overexaggerate importance of events, people and things. My history class in high school left me believing that the greatest invention in WWI was the poinsonous gas. It was probably the tank. Interpreation of history is not history. History is set and done, a fact frozen in time. The interpretation, however, is not. It is vivid, and it is never right and never wrong. History should be digested with caution. History is a bit like pseudo science: a long-running, well-intentioned and accepted infomertial, but which is about as useless as the next weight-loss pill or cutting edge-weight-loss program. In another words, not a bad thing to know about it. Much better if you know who wrote what you are reading, and what that person's goal was-what they want you to believe and why.

I would gladly recommend this book to friends

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clear and concise story of Fritz Haber, which shows great insight into the man behind the research. Several major milestones of chemistry are explained in fantastic context, along with the history of German and world wide science. The moral implications explored are very interesting, from the environmental effects of too much fertiliser, to the introduction of chemical weapons. Highly recommend to history and science buffs alike.

[Ankit Goyal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely enthralling tale of a super brain caught on the wrong side of the fence . The story shakes us from our present day technological obsession with all things electronic and high tech throwing us back to a forgotten but hugely wide reaching technological breakthrough , nitrogen fertilizers . And the irony of the human condition is easy to see when the same techniques cause so much life loss . All in all a very percepient peek into the Nazi science machine and its eventual downfall.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fair representation of a terribly flawed human being. It is easy to look at Haber's life, and the choices he made as the indication of a lost moral compass some way along the way, but it's much more than, stretched over decades where much was changing. He was a brillaint man in a time where brilliance was used in insidiuos ways. Good book.

[Vikas Datta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again a very compelling lesson of the power - for good or bad - scientists have come to wield in the modern world and also a lesson that retribution follows eventually in the account of this near-Faustian figure...

[Steve Danford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story of a deeply flawed human being and the two great wars of the twentieth century. Well worth reading for anyone interested in science and the ends to which it can be used, both good and perverted.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Firstly this would make a great movie. Haber's life has so many ups and downs along with morality tales, war, birth, death , suicide.
I think that many people reading this are chemists. I would have liked to see a few equations and more details of the procedures.

[Venugopal · Rating 3 out of 5]

When your own invention used to kill your own people............

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book 5 years ago and I still think about it all the time. Fascinating.