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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060562722
• ISBN13: 9780060562724
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A Superb Book on a Lesser Known Figure

In mid-March, while nearing the end of the writing of my Master's Thesis on Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Outbreak of World War I, perusing the shelves at a local Borders, the spine of this book caught my eye. After reading the dust jacket, and thinking that perhaps this could be interesting - I had not studied the beginnings of chemical weaponry before - I decided to buy the book and proceeded to sit a Starbucks, sip a mocha, and read the first pages. ... I could barely put this book down, and wound up sitting at said Starbucks for nearly two hours, nearly missing a movie showing I had intended to see (it may have been "The Counterfeiters" - a great movie if one has not seen it yet). Still recovering from the last Potter book (and Pottermania), I found that I was reading this biography as eagerly as I was reading the Deathly Hallows during the twilight hours of July 22nd. Daniel Charles has written a fascinating study of Fritz Haber. I have noted that another reviewer has not written so kindly of this book and I am inclined to reading another account (for another perspective), but no matter. That reviewer and I can agree on one thing: in Charles' work, Haber devotes his life to becoming as German as any other German, to live for his duty to country, and ultimately, his country spits back at him, he suffers, and he dies, his own creations becoming the tools of his own betrayal. At the end of the day, the book is a morality story, and a tragic one at that. But that is what lends it its vitality as a biography - it is a story, and not just pictures of a man as viewed from afar, somewhere in the not too distant past. The other intriguing part is its relevance to the modern day - the book questions progress, scientific and technical progress at that, and what it specifically asks are questions of conscience - just because we can do something does not necessarily mean that we should. Perhaps in the fictional world, Tolkien (having lived through World War I, the same world as Haber) can be seen as asking very similar questions. "I shall be great and powerful, and all will love me and despair," says Galadriel to Frodo when he attempts to give her the ring of power. Haber was great and powerful, he commanded the respect of all who knew him, even if those men did not like him, but they despaired. Einstein, a close friend, despaired. Charles makes a claim about two-thirds of the way through that if Haber had not opened the beast of gas warfare, the war may have ended in 1915, instead of 1918, preventing the Bolshevik Revolution and crises that plagued Germany at its conclusion, preventing thus the rises of men like Stalin and Hitler. The underlying assumption here is that gas warfare had such an effect in the war, that had this phase not begun, the war could have ended earlier. I am unsure as to whether this was the case, as when the first gas attack at Ypres in April 1915 was conducted, the trenches in Europe had already been dug out. Furt

Barely known Giant that has Shaped the Modern World

It is often said the four people who had the most effect on the twentieth century were Einstein, Marx, Freud, and Darwin. Fritz Haber has to be close to number five. Mankind's food production, yield per acre, has always been limited to the amount of nitrogen that becomes "fixed" into the soil as nitrates. Historically crops were rotated; fields were alternately planted with nitrogen fixing plants to improve yields. In 1909, Fritz Haber's invention showed that man could fix nitrogen, and when teamed up with Carl Bosch, the process could yield ammonia on an industrial scale. Large quantities of nitrogen fertlizer and gunpowder was the result. Thus German manufacture of gunpowder extended Germany's resistance in World War I for years because of this crucial process. The Author shows the sad irony of war, ideology, and hate. Fritz Haber, a German Jew converted to Christianity to better blend in with the higher echelons of German industrialists as he became very wealthy. He Invented various gases used in gas attacks and one insecticide gas called Zyklon-B, which would be used in the death camps for the extermination of in-mates years later. A fun loving gregarious Nobel Prize winning industrialist that was a failure as a father and husband, also misread the significance of the Nazis coming to power in Germany. He could not comprehend being robbed on his possessions, business agreements, and professional positions and finally fleeing to Switzerland where he died a broken man in 1934. The book is well written and researched. The last few chapters after Haber's death are a nice touch to the book, It traces Fritz Haber's family after the war and some of the Haber-Bosch machinery used in World War I then again in WWII and finally to help the East German Government make ends meet as late as the 1980's.

A Superb Biography

I didn't know that Fritz Haber had done so much in his life - especially his invention of an efficient way to manufacture ammonia and fertilizer using nitrogen from the atmosphere; this won him a Nobel Prize. Nor did I know the details of his involvement with poison gas warfare. All of this and much more is fully discussed in this excellent, well-written biography. The author also provides the reader with a good glimpse of the evolving political, religious and cultural climate in which Fritz Haber lived. I found the book difficult to put down due to the engaging style in which it is written. Anyone interested in early twentieth century European history, chemistry and the life of a tragic figure who was central to both will find a great deal in this excellent book.

Fascinating, particularly since we have heard so much about chemical weapons.

I heard this book reviewed on NPR and had to have it. I am so glad that I bought it and will definitely keep it in my library. I have recommended it to others for its historical and human interest qualities. Do read it soon!

Good Biography, but Skip the Sermon

1905 is probably the most famous year in science. Numerous publications led the world of science into a new and better understanding of our world. The most famous today was of course Einstein. His seminal work led to the establishment of the Standard Model of the Universe. It was published in 1905. It also led to the Atomic Bomb which probably saved the lives of a million servicement, including two of my uncles. (Although I'm writing this on the anniversary of the Nagasaki bomb, and there is certainly a different view than mine being expressed in Japan.) Fritz Haber published seventeen different papers during 1904 and 1905. He was basically defining the science that we now know as Physical Chemistry. The Haber-Bosch process for taking nitrogen out of the air and making it into fertilizer is repsonsible for the food supplies that we have in the world today. While there may be starvation, without Haber there would be much, much more. The story of Fritz Haber is the story of a giant among scientists. This book tells his story. It tells it however with a negative tone that seems common today among left wing writers. "Had German politics taken a different turn, Fritz Haber might be considered a hero, and statues of him might stand in prominent places," Charles writes. "Instead, Haber became a tragic figure, trapped within the moral blinders of his time, unable to recognize the direction of history....Haber could not forsee the ultimate consequences of the path he chose; perhaps it isn't fair to expect that he should have. But those consequences - the fateful prolongation of a senseless war, the invention of new methods of dealing out death - stand as a warning to all who follow." Einstein left Germany, came to the US, and wrote the letter to Roosevelt about building the bomb. Haber remained a German patriot and did the best he could for his country. Perhaps Haber should have come here, would Charles think better of him? But he couldn't predict the future. Who could have possibly have predicted the Nazi's? I still rank the book quite high, a biography of Haber is long overdue, this one is well researched and well written. I just think that asking a scientist to predict social happenings and condemning him when he is wrong is asking a bit much. Even our philosophers and politicians who should be the best at this sort of thing don't do very well.