66 Facts About Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber's work was later used, without his direct involvement, to develop the Zyklon B pesticide used for the killing of more than 1 million Jews in gas chambers in the greater context of the Holocaust.

Fritz Haber accepted the offer but died of heart failure mid-journey in a Basel, Switzerland hotel on 29 January 1934, aged 65.

Fritz Haber was born in Breslau, Kingdom of Prussia, into a well-off Jewish family.

An important Prussian edict of 13 March 1812 determined that Jews and their families, including Pinkus Fritz Haber, were "to be treated as local citizens and citizens of Prussia".

Under such regulations, members of the Fritz Haber family were able to establish themselves in respected positions in business, politics, and law.

Fritz Haber was the son of Siegfried and Paula Fritz Haber, who were first cousins who married in spite of considerable opposition from their families.

Fritz Haber's father Siegfried was a well-known merchant in the town, who had founded his own business in dye pigments, paints and pharmaceuticals.

Paula experienced a difficult pregnancy and died three weeks after Fritz Haber's birth, leaving Siegfried devastated and Fritz Haber in the care of various aunts.

When Fritz Haber was about six years old, Siegfried remarried to Hedwig Hamburger.

Fritz Haber attended primary school at the Johanneum School, a "simultaneous school" open equally to Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish students.

Fritz Haber's family supported the Jewish community and continued to observe many Jewish traditions, but were not strongly associated with the synagogue.

Fritz Haber successfully passed his examinations at the St Elizabeth High School in Breslau in September 1886.

Fritz Haber was disappointed by his initial winter semester in Berlin, and arranged to attend the Heidelberg University for the summer semester of 1887, where he studied under Robert Bunsen.

Fritz Haber then returned to Berlin, to the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg.

Fritz Haber had received a PhD in chemistry by this time, but his father required him to take handwriting courses and become a salesman to learn more about the company.

Fritz Haber urged his father to transfer from natural to synthetic dyes, but his father refused.

Fritz Haber then sought an academic appointment, first working as an independent assistant to Ludwig Knorr at the University of Jena between 1892 and 1894.

Bunte suggested that Fritz Haber examine the thermal decomposition of hydrocarbons.

Fritz Haber was appointed a Privatdozent in Bunte's institute, taking on teaching duties related to the area of dye technology, and continuing to work on the combustion of gases.

In 1897 Fritz Haber made a similar trip to learn about developments in electrochemistry.

Fritz Haber had been interested in the area for some time, and had worked with another privatdozent, Hans Luggin, who gave theoretical lectures in electrochemistry and physical chemistry.

Fritz Haber collaborated with others in the area as well, including Georg Bredig, a student and later an assistant of Wilhelm Ostwald in Leipzig.

Bunte and Engler supported an application for further authorization of Fritz Haber's teaching activities, and on 6 December 1898, Fritz Haber was invested with the title of Extraordinarius and an associate professorship, by order of the Grand Duke Friedrich von Baden.

Fritz Haber worked in a variety of areas while at Karlsruhe, making significant contributions in several areas.

Discussions with Carl Engler prompted Fritz Haber to explain autoxidation in electrochemical terms, differentiating between dry and wet autoxidation.

Fritz Haber studied the passivity of non-rare metals and the effects of electric current on corrosion of metals.

Fritz Haber was awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work.

Fritz Haber was active in the research on combustion reactions, the separation of gold from sea water, adsorption effects, electrochemistry, and free radical research.

Fritz Haber is sometimes credited, incorrectly, with first synthesizing MDMA.

Fritz Haber greeted World War I with enthusiasm, joining 92 other German intellectuals in signing the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three in October 1914.

Fritz Haber played a major role in the development of the non-ballistic use of chemical warfare in World War I, in spite of the proscription of their use in shells by the Hague Convention of 1907.

Fritz Haber was promoted to the rank of captain and made head of the Chemistry Section in the Ministry of War soon after the war began.

Fritz Haber helped to develop gas masks with adsorbent filters which could protect against such weapons.

Fritz Haber actively recruited physicists, chemists, and other scientists to be transferred to the unit.

In 1914 and 1915, before the Second Battle of Ypres, Fritz Haber's unit investigated reports that the French had deployed Turpinite, a supposed chemical weapon, against German soldiers.

Gas warfare in World War I was, in a sense, the war of the chemists, with Fritz Haber pitted against French Nobel laureate chemist Victor Grignard.

Fritz Haber was a patriotic German who was proud of his service during World War I, for which he was decorated.

Fritz Haber was even given the rank of captain by the Kaiser, which Haber had been denied 25 years earlier during his compulsory military service.

Fritz Haber formulated a simple mathematical relationship between the gas concentration and the necessary exposure time.

Fritz Haber received much criticism for his involvement in the development of chemical weapons in pre-World War II Germany, both from contemporaries, especially Albert Einstein, and from modern-day scientists.

From 1919 to 1923 Fritz Haber continued to be involved in Germany's secret development of chemical weapons, working with Hugo Stoltzenberg, and helping both Spain and Russia in the development of chemical gases.

Fritz Haber was asked to manage the fund, and was invited by Hoshi to Japan in 1924.

Fritz Haber offered a number of chemical licences to Hoshi's company, but the offers were refused.

Fritz Haber said that although as a converted Jew he might be legally entitled to remain in his position, he no longer wished to do so.

Fritz Haber met Clara Immerwahr in Breslau in 1889, while he was serving his required year in the military.

Fritz Haber converted from Judaism to Christianity in 1897, several years before she and Haber became engaged.

On 2 May 1915, following an argument with Fritz Haber, Clara died of suicide in their garden by shooting herself in the heart with his service revolver.

Fritz Haber did not die immediately, and was found by her 12-year-old son, Hermann, who had heard the shot.

Fritz Haber left within days for the Eastern Front to oversee gas release against the Russian Army.

Fritz Haber married his second wife, Charlotte Nathan, on 25 October 1917 in Berlin.

When out travelling, Fritz Haber was staying at the Adlon Hotel which was near the Deutscher Klub.

At this establishment, Fritz Haber met Nathan, who was one of the secretaries and sparked his interest with her accomplishments despite not having extensive experience or education.

Fritz Haber died in 2015, leaving three children, five grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Several members of Fritz Haber's extended family died in Nazi concentration camps, including his half-sister Frieda's daughter, Hilde Glucksmann, her husband, and their two children.

Fritz Haber left Dahlem in August 1933, staying briefly in Paris, Spain, and Switzerland.

Fritz Haber was in extremely poor health during these travels.

Brigadier Harold Hartley, Sir William Jackson Pope and Frederick G Donnan arranged for Haber to be officially invited to Cambridge, England.

Fritz Haber accepted, and left for the Middle East in January 1934, travelling with his half-sister, Else Haber Freyhahn.

Hermann Fritz Haber helped to move the library and gave a speech at the dedication.

Fritz Haber found a way of making nitrogen compounds from the air.

Fritz Haber's process enabled Germany to produce vast quantities of armaments.

Fritz Haber made German agriculture independent of Chilean saltpetre during the Great War.

Fritz Haber received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, yet there were moves to strip him of the award because of his work on gas warfare.

Fritz Haber pointed out, rightly, that most of Nobel's money had come from armaments and the pursuit of war.

In November 2008, Fritz Haber was again played by Anton Lesser in Einstein and Eddington.

In January 2012, Radiolab aired a segment on Fritz Haber, including the invention of the Fritz Haber Process, the Second Battle of Ypres, his involvement with Zyklon A, and the death of his wife, Clara.