Fritz Haber facts for kids
Fritz Haber (December 9, 1868 – January 29, 1934) was a German chemist. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918. This was for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process. This process makes ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen gases. Ammonia is very important for making fertilisers and explosives.
It's thought that about one-third of the world's food production uses ammonia from the Haber–Bosch process. This helps feed nearly half of the world's population. Haber also worked with Max Born to create the Born–Haber cycle. This helps understand the energy in ionic solids.
Haber was a strong German patriot. He is also known as the "father of chemical warfare". He worked on developing and using chlorine and other poisonous gases during World War I. He first suggested using chlorine gas as a weapon. This was to break the stalemate in the trenches during the Second Battle of Ypres. Later, his work was used to create Zyklon B. This gas was used in gas chambers during the Holocaust.
After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Haber was forced to leave his jobs. This was because he was Jewish. He was already not well. He traveled to different countries. Chaim Weizmann invited him to lead the Sieff Research Institute (now the Weizmann Institute) in Rehovot, Mandatory Palestine. Haber accepted, but he died from heart failure during his journey. He passed away in a hotel in Basel, Switzerland, on January 29, 1934, at age 65.
Many people consider Haber one of the most important scientists ever. Some even call him the greatest industrial chemist in history.
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Early Life and Learning Journeys
Haber was born in Breslau, which was then part of Prussia. Today, it is Wrocław, Poland. He came from a well-off Jewish family. His great-grandfather was a wool dealer. In 1812, a Prussian law allowed Jewish families like the Habers to become respected citizens. This helped them succeed in business, politics, and law.
Fritz was the son of Siegfried and Paula Haber. His parents were cousins. Paula died three weeks after Fritz was born. His father, Siegfried, was very sad. Fritz was raised by his aunts. When Fritz was about six, his father remarried Hedwig Hamburger. Siegfried and Hedwig had three daughters. Fritz's relationship with his father was difficult. But he was close to his stepmother and half-sisters.
The Haber family had become part of German society. Fritz went to schools open to Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish students. He identified strongly as German, less so as Jewish.
In September 1886, Fritz finished high school. His father wanted him to work in the family dye business. But Fritz got permission to study chemistry. He studied at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. He also studied at Heidelberg University and the Technical University of Berlin.
In 1889, Haber joined the military for one year. After that, he returned to his studies. He worked with Carl Liebermann and studied organic chemistry. In 1891, he earned his doctorate degree.
After getting his degree, Haber worked at his father's business. But they often disagreed. He took apprenticeships at different chemical companies. These experiences made him want to learn more about industrial processes. He convinced his father to let him study at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He returned to his father's company again, but they still clashed. His father finally told him to go back to university.
Starting a Science Career
Haber then looked for a job in academics. He worked as an assistant at the University of Jena from 1892 to 1894. During this time, he changed his religion from Judaism to Lutheranism. This might have been to help his career.
He then moved to the University of Karlsruhe. There, he became an assistant to Hans Bunte. Bunte suggested Haber study how hydrocarbons break down with heat. Haber's careful work showed that carbon-carbon bonds are stronger in some compounds than others. This became his important research paper.
Haber became a private lecturer at Karlsruhe. He taught about dye technology. He also continued to study how gases burn. In 1896, he traveled to learn about new dye technologies. In 1897, he learned about electrochemistry. His 1898 book on electrochemistry gained a lot of attention.
In 1898, Haber became an associate professor. He worked on many different topics at Karlsruhe. He explained how textiles are printed. He also explained autoxidation (how things react with oxygen). He showed that Faraday's laws apply to crystalline salts. This helped create the glass electrode for measuring electrical potentials. His work on electrochemical reduction is still important today. He also studied how metals resist corrosion.
In 1905, he published another important book, Thermodynamics of technical gas-reactions. This book was praised for its accuracy. In 1906, Haber became a full professor of physical chemistry at Karlsruhe.
Winning the Nobel Prize
While at the University of Karlsruhe (1894-1911), Haber and his assistant Robert Le Rossignol invented the Haber–Bosch process. This process uses a catalytic method to create ammonia. It uses hydrogen and nitrogen from the air under high heat and pressure. This discovery was based on Le Châtelier's principle. This principle says that a system will try to lessen any changes made to it.
To make ammonia on a large scale, Haber worked with industry. He partnered with Carl Bosch at BASF. They successfully made the process work for commercial production of ammonia. The Haber–Bosch process was a huge step in industrial chemistry. Before this, nitrogen-based products like fertilisers came from limited natural sources. Now, they could be made from easily available nitrogen in the air.
Being able to produce so much nitrogen-based fertilizer helped farms grow much more food. This process now supports half of the world's population.
The new way of making ammonia also had a big economic impact. Chile used to be a main exporter of natural deposits like sodium nitrate. After the Haber process, Chile's nitrate production dropped a lot.
Today, the world produces over 100 million tons of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer each year. The Haber–Bosch process is essential for feeding half of the world's people.
Haber received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. He actually got the award in 1919. In his speech, he said that nature's ways of using nitrogen are still more advanced than what humans know.
Haber also researched combustion reactions and how to separate gold from seawater. He studied adsorption and electrochemistry. Much of his work from 1911 to 1933 was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin. In 1953, this institute was renamed after him.
World War I Contributions
Haber was very excited about World War I. He was one of 93 German thinkers who signed a statement supporting the war in 1914. Haber played a big part in developing chemical warfare during the war. This was despite international rules against using such weapons. He was made a captain and led the Chemistry Section in the Ministry of War.
Haber led teams that developed chlorine gas and other deadly gases for trench warfare. He was there when the German military first used gas at the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium in 1915. His team included over 150 scientists. Haber also helped create gas masks to protect against these weapons.
Gas warfare in World War I was a battle of chemists. Haber was against French Nobel laureate chemist Victor Grignard. Haber once said, "during peace time a scientist belongs to the World, but during war time he belongs to his country." This shows the tough choices chemists faced then.
Haber was a very patriotic German. He was proud of his service in World War I and received awards. The Kaiser even made him a captain.
Haber studied how poison gas affected people. He found that a small amount of gas for a long time could have the same deadly effect as a lot of gas for a short time. He created a simple math rule for this, known as Haber's rule.
Haber defended gas warfare. He said that death was death, no matter how it happened. He argued that gas weapons were not more cruel than bullets.
Many people criticized Haber for his role in chemical weapons. This included his friend Albert Einstein.
Between the World Wars
From 1919 to 1923, Haber continued to be involved in Germany's secret chemical weapons development. He worked with Hugo Stoltzenberg. He also helped Spain and Russia develop chemical gases.
In the 1920s, scientists at Haber's institute developed cyanide gas called Zyklon A. This was used as an insecticide to kill pests, especially in grain storage.
Haber spent years trying to find a way to get gold from seawater. He published many papers on this. But after much research, he found that there was much less gold in seawater than thought. So, it was not worth trying to get it out.
By 1931, Haber was worried about the rise of National Socialism (Nazis) in Germany. He worried about his Jewish friends and family. Under a new Nazi law in 1933, Jewish scientists were targeted. Haber was shocked because he had converted to Christianity and served Germany in WWI. He thought he was a German patriot.
He was ordered to fire all Jewish staff. Haber tried to delay this to help them find new jobs. On April 30, 1933, Haber resigned from his roles. He said that even though he might be allowed to stay as a converted Jew, he no longer wanted to.
Haber and his son Hermann urged Haber's children to leave Germany. His second wife, Charlotte, and their children moved to the United Kingdom around 1933 or 1934. After the war, Charlotte's children became British citizens.
Family Life
Haber met Clara Immerwahr in 1889. Clara was the first woman to earn a PhD in chemistry at the University of Breslau. She converted from Judaism to Christianity in 1897. They married on August 3, 1901. Their son, Hermann, was born in 1902.
Clara was a supporter of women's rights. Some say she was also a pacifist. She was smart and a perfectionist. She became more and more sad after her marriage and stopping her career. On May 2, 1915, after an argument with Haber, Clara died in their garden.
Clara was first buried in Berlin. Later, at Haber's request, her remains were moved to Basel. She is buried next to him there.
Haber married his second wife, Charlotte Nathan, in Berlin in 1917. Charlotte also converted from Judaism to Christianity before marrying Haber. They had two children, Eva-Charlotte and Ludwig Fritz. But they also had problems and divorced in 1927.
Haber and Clara's son, Hermann Haber, lived in France. During World War II, he and his family escaped to the United States. Hermann died in 1946. His daughter, Claire, also a chemist, died in 1949.
Haber's other son, Ludwig Fritz Haber (1921–2004), became a British economist. He wrote a book about chemical warfare in World War I.
His daughter Eva lived in Kenya for many years. She returned to England in the 1950s and died in 2015.
Sadly, several of Haber's relatives died in Nazi concentration camps. This included his half-sister Frieda's daughter, Hilde Glücksmann, and her family.
Final Days
Haber left Germany in August 1933. He stayed briefly in Paris, Spain, and Switzerland. He was very sick during these travels. He suffered from angina, a type of chest pain.
Some scientists in England, who had been his rivals in WWI, helped him leave Germany. They invited him to Cambridge, England. Haber lived and worked there for a few months. But some scientists, like Ernest Rutherford, were not forgiving of his role in poison gas warfare. Rutherford refused to shake his hand.
In 1933, Chaim Weizmann offered Haber a job in Rehovot, in Mandatory Palestine. Haber accepted. He left for the Middle East in January 1934 with his half-sister, Else. But his health was too poor. On January 29, 1934, at age 65, he died of heart failure in a hotel in Basel.
Following Haber's wishes, his son Hermann arranged for him to be cremated and buried in Basel. Clara's remains were also moved and buried next to him in 1937. Albert Einstein, his long-time friend, said that Haber's life was "the tragedy of the German Jew – the tragedy of the unrequited love."
His Legacy and Impact
Haber gave his large private library to the Sieff Institute. It was named the Fritz Haber Library in 1936. Hermann Haber helped move the library and spoke at its opening. It is still a private collection at the Weizmann Institute.
In 1981, the Minerva foundation and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem created the Fritz Haber Research Center for Molecular Dynamics. This center helps German and Israeli scientists work together.
The institute most connected to his work, the former Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, was renamed the Fritz Haber Institute in 1953. It is now part of the Max Planck Society.
Awards and Recognitions
- Foreign Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1914)
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1918)
- Bunsen Medal of the Bunsen Society of Berlin, with Carl Bosch (1918)
- President of the German Chemical Society (1923)
- Wilhelm Exner Medal, 1929
- Honorary Member, Société Chimique de France (1931)
- Honorary Member, Chemical Society of England (1931)
- Honorary Member, Society of Chemical Industry, London, (1931)
- Rumford Medal, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1932)
- Elected a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (1932)
- Honorary Member, USSR Academy of Sciences (1932)
- Board of Directors, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, 1929–1933; Vice-President, 1931
- Goethe-Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft (Goethe Medal for Art and Science) from the President of Germany
Stories and Plays About Him
- A play called Einstein's Gift (2003) by Vern Thiessen tells a fictional story of Haber's life. It focuses on his friendship with Albert Einstein. The play shows Haber as a sad figure who tries to escape his Jewish background and the moral issues of his science.
- BBC Radio 4 has broadcast two plays about Fritz Haber's life.
- The play The Greater Good (2008) explored his work on chemical warfare in World War I. It also showed the stress it put on his wife Clara.
- A short film called Haber (2008) showed Fritz Haber's choice to start the gas warfare program. It also showed his relationship with his wife.
- In 2008, Haber was played by Anton Lesser in Einstein and Eddington.
- In 2012, Radiolab had a segment about Haber. It covered the Haber Process, the Second Battle of Ypres, his link to Zyklon A, and his wife's death.
- In 2013, the BBC World Service had a radio program about him. It asked, "Why has one of the world's most important scientists been forgotten?".
- His life and his relationship with the Einsteins are a big part of the novel A Reunion of Ghosts by Judith Claire Mitchell.
- Haber's life and his friendship with Albert Einstein were shown in the TV series Genius in 2017.
- In September 2022, the Swedish metal band Sabaton released a song called "Father." It talks about Haber's mixed legacy. He helped develop chemical warfare, but his Haber-Bosch process was vital for farming.
Images for kids
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Fritz Haber, around 1919
