Fritz Jakob Haber (German:[ˈfʁɪt͡sˈhaːbɐ]ⓘ; 9 December 1868 – 29 January 1934) was a Germanchemist who received theNobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of theHaber process, a method used in industry to synthesizeammonia fromnitrogen gas andhydrogen gas. This invention is important for the large-scale synthesis offertilizers andexplosives.[4] It is estimated that a third of annual global food production uses ammonia from the Haber–Bosch process, and that this food supports nearly half the world's population.[5][6] For this work, Haber has been called one of the most important scientists and industrial chemists in human history.[7][8][9] Haber also, along withMax Born, proposed theBorn–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating thelattice energy of anionic solid.
Haber, a known German nationalist, is also considered the "father ofchemical warfare" for his years of pioneering work developing andweaponizing chlorine and other poisonous gases duringWorld War I. He first proposed the use of the heavier-than-airchlorine gas as a weapon to break thetrench deadlock during theSecond Battle of Ypres. His work was later used, without his direct involvement,[10] to develop theZyklon B pesticide used for the killing of more than 1 million Jews ingas chambers in the greater context ofthe Holocaust.
After theNazis' rise to power in 1933, Haber resigned from his position. Already in poor health, he spent time in various countries beforeChaim Weizmann invited him to become the director of the Sieff Research Institute (now theWeizmann Institute) inRehovot,Mandatory Palestine. He accepted the offer but died ofheart failure mid-journey in aBasel, Switzerland hotel on 29 January 1934, aged 65.
Haber was born inBreslau, Kingdom of Prussia (nowWrocław, Poland), into a well-offJewish family.[11]: 38 Though Haber was a common family name in Breslau, the family has been traced back to a great-grandfather, Pinkus Selig Haber, who was a wool dealer fromKempen (now Kępno, Poland). An importantPrussian edict of 13 March 1812 determined that Jews and their families, including Pinkus Haber, were "to be treated as local citizens and citizens of Prussia". Under such regulations, members of the Haber family were able to establish themselves in respected positions in business, politics, and law.[12]: 3–5
Haber was the son of Siegfried and Paula Haber, who were first cousins who married in spite of considerable opposition from their families.[13] Haber's father Siegfried was a well-known merchant in the town, who had founded his own business in dye pigments, paints and pharmaceuticals.[12]: 6 Paula experienced a difficult pregnancy and died three weeks after Fritz's birth, leaving Siegfried devastated and Fritz in the care of various aunts.[12]: 11 When Haber was about six years old, Siegfried remarried to Hedwig Hamburger. Siegfried and his second wife had three daughters: Else, Helene, and Frieda. Although his relationship with his father was distant and often difficult owing to Fritz being associated with the death of his first wife, Haber developed close relationships with his stepmother and his half-sisters.[12]: 7 Siegfried displayed love and care for his three daughters but never fully accepted Fritz as his son.[14]
By the time Fritz was born, the Habers had to some extent become assimilated into German society. He attended primary school at the Johanneum School, a "simultaneous school" open equally to Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish students.[12]: 12 At age 11, he went to school at theSt Elizabeth [de] classical school in Breslau, in a class evenly divided between Protestant and Jewish students.[12]: 14 His family supported the Jewish community and continued to observe many Jewish traditions, but were not strongly associated with the synagogue.[12]: 15 Haber identified strongly as German, less so as Jewish.[12]: 15
Haber successfully passed his examinations at the St Elizabeth gymnasium in September 1886.[12]: 16 Although his father wished him to become an apprentice in the dye company, Haber obtained his father's permission to study chemistry at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin (today theHumboldt University of Berlin), with the director of the Institute for ChemistryA. W. Hofmann.[12]: 17 Haber was disappointed by his initial winter semester (1886–87) in Berlin, and arranged to attendHeidelberg University for the summer semester of 1887, where he studied underRobert Bunsen.[12]: 18 He then returned to Berlin, to theTechnische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (todayTechnische Universität Berlin).[12]: 19
In the summer of 1889, Haber was conscripted and left university to perform hisone-year volunteer service in the Sixth Field Artillery Regiment.[12]: 20 Upon its completion, he returned to Charlottenburg where he became a student ofCarl Liebermann. In addition to Liebermann's lectures on organic chemistry, Haber also attended lectures by Otto Witt on the chemical technology of dyes.[12]: 21
Liebermann assigned Haber to work on reactions withpiperonal for his thesis topic, published asUeber einige Derivate des Piperonals (About a Few piperonal Derivatives) in 1891.[15] Haber received his doctoratecum laude from Friedrich Wilhelm University in May 1891, after presenting his work to a board of examiners from the University of Berlin, since Charlottenburg was not yet accredited to grant doctorates.[12]: 22
With his degree, Haber returned to Breslau to work at his father's chemical business, where their relationship continued to have difficulties. Through Siegfried's connections, Haber was assigned a series of practical apprenticeships in different chemical companies to gain experience. These included Grünwald and Company (a Budapest distillery), an Austrian ammonia-sodium factory, and the Feldmühle paper and cellulose works. These experiences drove Haber to learn more about technical processes, and persuaded his father to let him spend a semester at the Polytechnic College inZürich (now theETH Zürich), studying withGeorg Lunge.[12]: 27–29 In the Fall of 1892, Haber returned again to Breslau to work in his father's company, but the two men continued to clash and Siegfried finally accepted that they could not work well together.[12]: 30–31
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. Haber urged his father to transfer from natural to synthetic dyes, but his father refused. Eventually, his father followed global business trends and switched to synthetic dyes. Haber's next suggestion, during acholera epidemic, was for his father to purchasecalcium hypochlorite, which at the time was the only known method for the prevention of cholera. That epidemic ended up being isolated and resulted in their possession of a sizeable amount of unused calcium hypochlorite, which is unstable. This caused a rift between Siegfried and Haber, with his father telling him to go back to his university studies as he did not belong in the business world.[11]
Haber then sought an academic appointment, first working as an independent assistant toLudwig Knorr at theUniversity of Jena between 1892 and 1894.[12]: 32 During his time in Jena, Haberconverted from Judaism to Lutheranism, possibly in an attempt to improve his chances of getting a better academic or military position.[12]: 33 Knorr recommended Haber toCarl Engler,[12]: 33 a chemistry professor at theUniversity of Karlsruhe who was intensely interested in the chemical technology of dyes and the dye industry, and the study of synthetic materials for textiles.[12]: 38 Engler referred Haber to a colleague in Karlsruhe,Hans Bunte, who made Haber anAssistent in 1894.[12]: 40 [16]
Bunte suggested that Haber examine the thermal decomposition ofhydrocarbons. By making careful quantitative analyses, Haber was able to establish that "the thermal stability of the carbon-carbon bond is greater than that of the carbon-hydrogen bond in aromatic compounds and smaller in aliphatic compounds", a classic result in the study ofpyrolysis of hydrocarbons. This work became Haber'shabilitation thesis.[12]: 40
Haber was appointed aPrivatdozent 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 1896, the university supported him in travelling to Silesia, Saxony, and Austria to learn about advances in dye technology.[12]: 41
In 1897 Haber made a similar trip to learn about developments inelectrochemistry.[12]: 41 He 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. Haber's 1898 bookGrundriss der technischen Elektrochemie auf theoretischer Grundlage (Outline of technical electrochemistry based on theoretical foundations) attracted considerable attention, particularly his work on the reduction ofnitrobenzene. In the book's foreword, Haber expresses his gratitude to Luggin, who died on 5 December 1899.[12]: 42 Haber collaborated with others in the area as well, includingGeorg Bredig, a student and later an assistant ofWilhelm Ostwald in Leipzig.[12]: 43
Bunte and Engler supported an application for further authorization of Haber's teaching activities, and on 6 December 1898, Haber was invested with the title ofExtraordinarius and an associate professorship, by order of theGrand Duke Friedrich von Baden.[12]: 44
Haber worked in a variety of areas while at Karlsruhe, making significant contributions in several areas. In the area of dye and textiles, he and Friedrich Bran were able to explain theoretically steps in textile printing processes developed by Adolf Holz. Discussions with Carl Engler prompted Haber to explainautoxidation in electrochemical terms, differentiating between dry and wet autoxidation. Haber's examinations of the thermodynamics of the reaction of solids confirmed thatFaraday's laws hold for the electrolysis of crystalline salts. This work led to a theoretical basis for theglass electrode and the measurement of electrolytic potentials. Haber's work on irreversible and reversible forms ofelectrochemical reduction are considered classics in the field of electrochemistry. He also studied thepassivity of non-rare metals and the effects of electric current oncorrosion of metals.[12]: 55 In addition, Haber published his second book,Thermodynamik technischer Gasreaktionen: sieben Vorlesungen (1905) trans.Thermodynamics of technical gas-reactions: seven lectures (1908), later regarded as "a model of accuracy and critical insight" in the field of chemical thermodynamics.[12]: 56–58
In 1906, Max Le Blanc, chair of the physical chemistry department at Karlsruhe, accepted a position at the University of Leipzig. After receiving recommendations from a search committee, the Ministry of Education in Baden offered the full professorship for physical chemistry at Karlsruhe to Haber, who accepted the offer.[12]: 61
During his time atUniversity of Karlsruhe from 1894 to 1911, Haber and his assistantRobert Le Rossignol invented theHaber–Bosch process, which is thecatalytic formation ofammonia fromhydrogen and atmosphericnitrogen under conditions of high temperature and pressure.[17] This discovery was a direct consequence ofLe Châtelier's principle, announced in 1884, which states that when a system is in equilibrium and one of the factors affecting it is changed, the system will respond by minimizing the effect of the change. Since it was known how to decompose ammonia in the presence of a nickel-based catalyst, one could derive from Le Châtelier's principle that the reaction could be reversed to produce ammonia at high temperature and pressure.[18]
To further develop the process for large-scale ammonia production, Haber turned to industry. Partnering withCarl Bosch atBASF, the process was successfully scaled up to produce commercial quantities of ammonia.[17] The Haber–Bosch process was a milestone in industrial chemistry. The production of nitrogen-based products such asfertilizer and chemical feedstocks, which was previously dependent on acquisition of ammonia from limited natural deposits, now became possible using an easily available and abundant base: atmospheric nitrogen.[19] The ability to produce much larger quantities of nitrogen-based fertilizers in turn supported much greater agricultural yields, supporting half the world's population.[20]
The discovery of a new way of producing ammonia had other significant economic impacts as well. Chile had been a major (and almost unique) exporter of natural deposits such assodium nitrate (caliche). After the introduction of the Haber process, naturally extracted nitrate production in Chile fell from 2.5 million tons (employing 60,000 workers and selling at US$45/ton) in 1925 to just 800,000 tons, produced by 14,133 workers, and selling at $19/ton in 1934.[21]
The annual world production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is currently more than 100 million tons. The food base of half the current world population is based on the Haber–Bosch process.[20]
Haber was awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work (he actually received the award in 1919).[22]In his acceptance speech for that Nobel Prize Haber commented "It may be that this solution is not the final one. Nitrogen bacteria teach us that Nature, with her sophisticated forms of the chemistry of living matter, still understands and utilizes methods which we do not as yet know how to imitate."[23]
Haber greeted World War I with enthusiasm, joining 92 other German intellectuals in signing theManifesto of the Ninety-Three in October 1914, a proclamation that galvanized support for the war in German schools and universities.[25] Haber played a major role in the development of the non-ballistic use ofchemical warfare in World War I, in spite of the proscription of their use in shells by theHague Convention of 1907 (to which Germany was a signatory). He was promoted to the rank of captain and made head of the Chemistry Section in the Ministry of War soon after the war began.[12]: 133 In addition to leading the teams developingchlorine gas and other deadly gases for use intrench warfare,[26] Haber was on hand personally when it was first released by the German military at theSecond Battle of Ypres (22 April to 25 May 1915) inBelgium.[12]: 138 The team Haber assembled consisted of more than 150 scientists and 1,300 technical personnel.[27] Haber also helped to developgas masks withadsorbent filters which could protect against such weapons.
A special troop was formed for gas warfare (Pioneer Regiments 35 and 36) under the command of Otto Peterson, with Haber and Friedrich Kerschbaum as advisors. Haber actively recruited physicists, chemists, and other scientists to be transferred to the unit. Future Nobel laureatesJames Franck,Gustav Hertz, andOtto Hahn served asgas troops in Haber's unit.[12]: 136–138 In 1914 and 1915, before the Second Battle of Ypres, Haber's unit investigated reports that the French had deployedTurpinite, a supposed chemical weapon, against German soldiers.[28]
Gas warfare in World War I was, in a sense, the war of the chemists, with Haber pitted against French Nobel laureate chemistVictor Grignard. Regarding war and peace, Haber once said "during peace time a scientist belongs to the world, but during war time he belongs to his country". This was an example of the ethical dilemmas facing chemists at that time.[29][30]
Haber was a patriotic German who was proud of his service during World War I, for which he was decorated. He was even given the rank ofcaptain by theKaiser, which Haber had been denied 25 years earlier during his compulsory military service.[31]
In his studies of the effects of poison gas, Haber noted that exposure to a low concentration of a poisonous gas for a long time often had the same effect (death) as exposure to a high concentration for a short time. He formulated a simple mathematical relationship between the gas concentration and the necessary exposure time. This relationship became known asHaber's rule.[32][33]
Haber defended gas warfare against accusations that it was inhumane, saying that death was death, by whatever means it was inflicted and referred to history: "The disapproval that the knight had for the man with the firearm is repeated in the soldier who shoots with steel bullets towards the man who confronts him with chemical weapons. [...] The gas weapons are not at all more cruel than the flying iron pieces; on the contrary, the fraction of fatal gas diseases is comparatively smaller, the mutilations are missing".[34]
Haber received much criticism for his involvement in the development of chemical weapons in pre-World War II Germany, both from contemporaries, especiallyAlbert Einstein, and from modern-day scientists.[35][36]
From 1919 to 1923 Haber continued to be involved in Germany's secret development of chemical weapons, working withHugo Stoltzenberg, and helping both Spain and Russia in the development of chemical gases.[12]: 169
During the 1920s, scientists working at Haber's institute developed thecyanide gas formulationZyklon A, which was used as aninsecticide, especially as afumigant in grain stores.[37]
From 1919 to 1925, in response to a request made by German ambassadorWilhelm Solf to Japan for Japanese support for German scholars in times of financial hardship, a Japanese businessman named Hoshi Hajime, the president of Hoshi Pharmaceutical Company, donated two million Reichsmark to theKaiser Wilhelm Society as the 'Japan Fund' (Hoshi-Ausschuss). Haber was asked to manage the fund, and was invited by Hoshi to Japan in 1924. Haber offered a number of chemical licences to Hoshi's company, but the offers were refused. The money from the Fund was used to support the work ofRichard Willstätter,Max Planck,Otto Hahn,Leo Szilard, and others.[38]
In the 1920s, Haber searched exhaustively for a method to extract gold from sea water, and published a number of scientific papers on the subject. After years of research, he concluded that the concentration of gold dissolved in sea water was much lower than that reported by earlier researchers, and that gold extraction from sea water was uneconomic.[11]: 91–98
By 1931, Haber was increasingly concerned about the rise ofNational Socialism in Germany, and the possible safety of his friends, associates, and family. Under theLaw for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of 7 April 1933, Jewish scientists at theKaiser Wilhelm Society were particularly targeted. TheZeitschrift für die gesamte Naturwissenschaft ("Journal for all natural sciences") charged that "The founding of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes in Dahlem was the prelude to an influx of Jews into the physical sciences. The directorship of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical and Electrochemistry was given to the Jew, F. Haber, the nephew of the big-time Jewish profiteer Koppel". (Koppel was not actually related to Haber.)[12]: 277–280 Haber was stunned by these developments, since he assumed that his conversion to Christianity and his services to the state during World War I should have made him a German patriot.[39] Ordered to dismiss all Jewish personnel, Haber attempted to delay their departures long enough to find them somewhere to go.[12]: 285–286 As of 30 April 1933, Haber wrote toBernhard Rust, the national and Prussian minister of Education, and toMax Planck, president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, to tender his resignation as the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and as a professor at the university, effective 1 October 1933. He said that although as a converted Jew he might be legally entitled to remain in his position, he no longer wished to do so.[12]: 280
Haber and his son Hermann also urged that Haber's children by Charlotte Nathan, at boarding school in Germany, should leave the country.[12]: 181 Charlotte and the children moved to the United Kingdom around 1933 or 1934. After the war, Charlotte's children became British citizens.[12]: 188–189
Haber metClara Immerwahr inBreslau in 1889, while he was serving his required year in the military. Clara was the daughter of a chemist who owned a sugar factory, and was the first woman to earn a PhD (in chemistry) at theUniversity of Breslau.[12]: 20 She converted from Judaism to Christianity in 1897, several years before she and Haber became engaged. They were married on 3 August 1901;[12]: 46 their son Hermann was born on 1 June 1902.[12]: 173
Clara was awomen's rights activist and according to some accounts, apacifist. Intelligent and a perfectionist, she became increasingly depressed after her marriage and the resulting loss of her career.[40][41][42] On 2 May 1915, following an argument with Haber, Clara died of suicide in their garden by shooting herself in the heart with hisservice revolver. She did not die immediately, and was found by her 12-year-old son, Hermann, who had heard the shot.[12]: 176
The reasons for her suicide remain the subject of speculation. There were multiple stresses in the marriage,[42][41][40] and it has been suggested that she opposed Haber's work in chemical warfare. According to this view, her suicide may have been in part a response to Haber's having personally overseen the first successful use ofchlorine gas during theSecond Battle of Ypres, resulting in over 67,000 casualties.[43][44] Haber left within days for theEastern Front to oversee gas release against the Russian Army.[45][46] Originally buried inDahlem, Clara's remains were later transferred at her husband's request to Basel, where she is buried next to him.[12]: 176
Haber married his second wife, Charlotte Nathan, on 25 October 1917 in Berlin.[12]: 183 When out travelling, Fritz was staying at the Adlon Hotel which was near the Deutscher Klub. At this establishment, Fritz met Nathan, who was one of the secretaries and sparked his interest with her accomplishments despite not having extensive experience or education. On the day that he met her, it had been raining and she gave him an umbrella to use to which he replied "I lay the umbrella into your arms and myself and my thanks at your feet". She replied "I'd rather like the contrary". They began seeing each other and he would soon propose to her. Charlotte rejected the proposal at first due to their large age difference but she eventually agreed.[11] Charlotte, like Clara, converted from Judaism to Christianity before marrying Haber.[12]: 183 The couple had two children, Eva-Charlotte and Ludwig Fritz ("Lutz").[12]: 186 Again, however, there were conflicts, and the couple were divorced as of 6 December 1927.[12]: 188
Haber and Clara's son, Hermann Haber, lived in France until 1941, but was unable to obtain French citizenship. When Germany invaded France during World War II, Hermann and his wife and three daughters escaped internment on a French ship travelling from Marseilles to the Caribbean. From there, they obtained visas allowing them to immigrate to the United States. Hermann's wife Margarethe died after the end of the war, and Hermann committed suicide in 1946.[12]: 182–183 His oldest daughter, Claire, committed suicide in 1949; also a chemist, she had been told her research into an antidote for the effects of chlorine gas was being set aside, as work on the atomic bomb was taking precedence.[47]
Fritz Haber's other son, Ludwig Fritz Haber (1921–2004), became an eminent British economist and wrote a history of chemical warfare in World War I,The Poisonous Cloud (1986).[48] Hermann's daughter Eva lived in Kenya for many years, returning to England in the 1950s. She died in 2015, leaving three children, five grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Several members of Haber's extended family died inNazi concentration camps, including his half-sister Frieda's daughter, Hilde Glücksmann, her husband, and their two children.[12]: 235
The grave of Fritz and Clara Haber (née Immerwahr) in the Hörnli graveyard of Basel, Switzerland
Haber left Dahlem in August 1933, staying briefly in Paris, Spain, and Switzerland. He was in extremely poor health during these travels. Haber specifically suffered attacks fromangina.[49] Repeated angina attacks can cause lasting damage which likely contributed to his death the next year.[12]: 288
In the meantime, some of the scientists who had been Haber's counterparts and competitors in England during World War I now helped him and others to leave Germany. BrigadierHarold Hartley, SirWilliam Jackson Pope andFrederick G. Donnan arranged for Haber to be officially invited toCambridge, England.[12]: 287–288 There, with his assistantJoseph Joshua Weiss, Haber lived and worked for a few months.[12]: 288 Scientists such asErnest Rutherford were less forgiving of Haber's involvement in poison gas warfare: Rutherford pointedly refused to shake hands with him.[50]
In 1933, during Haber's brief sojourn in England,Chaim Weizmann offered him the directorship at the Sieff Research Institute (now theWeizmann Institute) inRehovot, inMandatory Palestine. He accepted, and left for the Middle East in January 1934, travelling with his half-sister, Else Haber Freyhahn.[12]: 209, 288–289 His ill health overpowered him and on 29 January 1934, at the age of 65, he died of heart failure, mid-journey, in aBasel hotel.[12]: 299–300
Following Haber's wishes, Haber and Clara's son Hermann arranged for Haber to be cremated and buried in Basel's Hörnli Cemetery on 29 September 1934, and for Clara's remains to be removed from Dahlem and re-interred with him on 27 January 1937 (see picture). Albert Einstein, his longtime friend, eulogized Haber with the following words: "Haber's life was the tragedy of the German Jew – the tragedy of unrequited love".[12][51][52]
Haber bequeathed his extensive private library to theSieff Institute, where it was dedicated as the Fritz Haber Library on 29 January 1936. Hermann Haber helped to move the library and gave a speech at the dedication.[12]: 182 It still exists as a private collection in the Weizmann Institute.[53]
In 1981, the Minerva foundation of theMax Planck Society and theHebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) established the Fritz Haber Research Center for Molecular Dynamics, based at the Institute of Chemistry of the Hebrew University. Its purpose is the promotion of Israeli-German scientific collaboration in the field of Molecular Dynamics. The Center's library is also called Fritz Haber Library, but it is not immediately clear whether there is any connection to the 1936 homonymous library of the Sieff (now Weizmann) Institute.[citation needed]
The institute most closely associated with his work, the former Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry at Dahlem (a suburb of Berlin), was renamedFritz Haber Institute in 1953 and is part of theMax Planck Society.
The Swedish power metal bandSabaton wrote the song "Father" about Haber.
A fictional description of Haber's life, and in particular his long-term relationship withAlbert Einstein, appears in Vern Thiessen's 2003 playEinstein's Gift. Thiessen describes Haber as a tragic figure who strives unsuccessfully throughout his life to evade both his Jewish ancestry and the moral implications of his scientific contributions.[61]
BBC Radio 4Afternoon Play has broadcast two plays on the life of Fritz Haber. The description of the first reads:[62] from the Diversity Website:
Bread from the Air, Gold from the Sea as another chemical story (R4, 1415, 16 Feb 01). Fritz Haber found a way of making nitrogen compounds from the air. They have two main uses: fertilizers and explosives. His process enabled Germany to produce vast quantities of armaments. (The second part of the title refers to a process for obtaining gold from sea water. It worked, but didn't pay.) There can be few figures with a more interesting life than Haber, from a biographer's point of view. He made German agriculture independent of Chileansaltpetre during the Great War. He received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, yet there were moves to strip him of the award because of his work on gas warfare. He pointed out, rightly, that most of Nobel's money had come from armaments and the pursuit of war. After Hitler's rise to power, the government forced Haber to resign from his professorship and research jobs because he was Jewish.
The second play was titledThe Greater Good and was first broadcast on 23 October 2008.[63] It was directed by Celia de Wolff and written by Justin Hopper, and starredAnton Lesser as Haber. It explored his work onchemical warfare duringWorld War I and the strain it put on his wife Clara (Lesley Sharp), concluding with her suicide and its cover-up by the authorities.[64] Other cast includedDan Starkey as Haber's research associateOtto Sackur,Stephen Critchlow as Colonel Peterson, Conor Tottenham as Haber's son Hermann,Malcolm Tierney asGeneral Falkenhayn and Janice Acquah as Zinaide.
In 2008, a short film titledHaber depicted Fritz Haber's decision to embark on the gas warfare program and his relationship with his wife.[65] The film was written and directed by Daniel Ragussis.[66][67]
In December 2013, Haber was the subject of a BBC World Service radio programme: "Why has one of the world's most important scientists been forgotten?".[70]
His and his wife's life, including their relationship with the Einsteins, and Haber's wife's suicide, are featured prominently in the novelA Reunion of Ghosts by Judith Claire Mitchell. The characters are named Lenz and Iris Alter.[71]
Haber's life and relationship to Albert Einstein was portrayed in the first season ofGenius which aired onNational Geographic Channel from 25 April to 27 June 2017.[72]
^Smil, Vaclav (2004).Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production. Cambridge, Massachusetts:MIT Press. p. 156.ISBN9780262693134.
^Smil, Vaclav (27 February 2004).Enriching the Earth Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production. Cambridge, Massachusetts:The MIT Press. p. 231.ISBN978-0262693134.
^Haber, Fritz (2020).Die Chemie im Kriege; fünf Vorträge (1920–1923) über Giftgas, Sprengstoff und Kunstdünger im Ersten Weltkrieg (in German). Berlin: Comino Verlag. p. 50.ISBN978-3-945831-26-7.OCLC1136163177.
^Shapin, Steven (26 January 2006)."Tod aus Luft".London Review of Books.28 (2):7–8.Archived from the original on 20 June 2019. Retrieved18 April 2017.
^Charles, Daniel (2006).Between genius and genocide : the tragedy of Fritz Haber, father of chemical warfare. London: Pimlico.ISBN978-1844130924.
^A photograph of their gravestone in Hörnli Cemetery, Basel can also be found in the book written by Stoltzenberg.
^Friedrich, Bretislav; Hoffmann, Dieter (2017), Friedrich, Bretislav; Hoffmann, Dieter; Renn, Jürgen; Schmaltz, Florian (eds.), "Clara Immerwahr: A Life in the Shadow of Fritz Haber",One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 45–67,doi:10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6_4,hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-002D-7FF9-2,ISBN978-3-319-51663-9,S2CID159561319
^abWisniak, Jaime (2002)."Fritz Haber – A Conflict Chemist"(PDF).Indian Journal of History of Science.37 (2):153–173. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 17 October 2014. Retrieved16 September 2014.
^"The Bad Show".Radiolab. 2012.Archived from the original on 4 November 2020. Retrieved12 January 2012.
^Williams, Mike (27 December 2013)."Nitrogen: Forgetting Fritz".BBC World News.Archived from the original on 17 February 2015. Retrieved16 September 2014.
Hager, Thomas (9 September 2008).The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler. Crown.ISBN978-0-307-44999-3.
Albarelli JR., H. P.:A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments – Trine Day LLC, 1st ed., 2009,ISBN0-9777953-7-3
Charles, Daniel:Master mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare (New York: Ecco, 2005),ISBN0-06-056272-2.
Dunikowska, Magda; Turko, Ludwik 2011 "Fritz Haber: The Damned Scientist". "Angew. Chem. Int. Ed." 50: 10050–10062
Geissler, Erhard:Biologische Waffen, nicht in Hitlers Arsenalen. Biologische und Toxin-Kampfmittel in Deutschland von 1915–1945. LIT-Verlag, Berlin-Hamburg-Münster, 2nd ed., 1999.ISBN3-8258-2955-3.
Geissler, Erhard: "Biological warfare activities in Germany 1923–1945". In: Geissler, Erhard and Moon, John Ellis van Courtland, eds.,Biological warfare from the Middle Ages to 1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999,ISBN0-19-829579-0.
Maddrell, Paul:Spying on Science: Western Intelligence in Divided Germany 1945–1961. Oxford University Press, 2006,ISBN0-19-926750-2.
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