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The architect of life. The man who made bread from air. The astute chemist whose decades of experience and effort would put food in the calloused hands of over 40 million Germans during the Great War. The archangel of death. The mad scientist whose wretched chemicals and calculations would lead thousands to perish in the marshes of Europe.

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To the larger scientific community, the name Fritz Haber is associated with many identities, but none as recognized as the inventor of the “Haber Process”. A phrase echoed through the hallowed halls of scientific institutions, the Haber Process is an equilibrium exothermic reaction commonly used for the synthesis of NH3 or, as it’s more widely known, ammonia. By reacting atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen to produce ammonia with the aid of a metal catalyst, the Haber Process enables chemical industries to mass produce ammonia on an unprecedented scale, standing at approximately 130 million tonnes per year. Although Haber’s chemical ingenuity would become the most important innovation in the field of agriculture, effectively tripling the annual crop yield of Imperial Germany, the true intentions behind its creation were far more sinister.

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As the 19th Century ushered in the dawn of a new scientific renaissance in Europe, physicists and chemists alike had become increasingly aware of the far-reaching implications their work had on the lives of a rapidly increasing population. With the average life expectancy increasing before the optimistic eyes of newly-coined “scientists” (previously known as natural philosophers), it became apparent that the current standard of agriculture would not yield nearly enough food due to a growing scarcity of the natural fertilizer of the time, guano. 

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A combination of bat, seabird, and seal excrement, guano was a nitrogen-rich concoction of animal feces exported by South American countries, known for its high effectiveness as a fertilizer and for its diminishing quantity. As Europe stumbled face-first into WWI, British blockades restricted the import of guano, forcing Germany to look elsewhere for a substitute. They found their answer in a patriotically zealous, intellectually insatiable, and comically unstable German chemist known as Fritz Haber. With the backing of the German state and in collaboration with the chemical firm BASF, Haber developed the first synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen. Fritz Haber had given birth to a new variety of synthetic fertilizers that were instrumental to facilitating a 60% increase in crop yield from nitrogen fertilizers, the global minimization of food scarcity, the improvement of animal and human nutrition, and the genesis of the green revolution. By merely harnessing the composition of gases surrounding him, the scientist had devised a simple, economical medium of producing ammonia that could be repeated on a mass scale. Haber had proved that human intellect and the pursuit of knowledge could triumph over the worst of the problems that the 20th Century had to offer. 

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However, in the eyes of Fritz Haber, the ability to provide sustenance for millions of his people was a serendipitous side effect of what the Haber Process truly sought to achieve. Although ammonia is typically synthesised as an inorganic fertilizer capable of bolstering plant nutrition, its primary purpose held far more destructive capabilities during WW1: nitrate explosives. When large quantities of ammonium are exposed to intense heat, it readily ignites, leaving behind a lingering flame and a trail of craters, corpses, and cadavers. Much to the dismay of his pacifist wife, the fiercely nationalist Haber developed the formula as a cost-effective means for chemical manufacturers to rapidly produce nitrate explosives in a race to maintain pace with the encroaching Allied Powers. Classified today as a high-explosive grade chemical explosive, nitro-glycerine was extensively used in WW1, claiming not only 8 million lives on the battlefield, but thousands more in the bleak factories that produced shells and missiles, without mention of the animals slaughtered to obtain the necessary glycerides for the weapon’s creation. Despite Haber’s involvement in chemical weaponry, creation of chlorine gas for the use of trench warfare, and blatant disregard for the ban of chemical irritants under the Hague Conventions of 1889 and 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry a few months after the end of the World War, in 1918. That day, the world of science chose to celebrate a man built by a reputation of scientific innovation but defined by a legacy of pain and suffering. 

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To this day, the name of Fritz Haber lives in parallel worlds of reverence and infamy. Though his principles are taught to the young, his intentions are visited upon those who set foot on the battlefield. His innovation raised global life expectancy to its current standard, but it also took the lives of as many as it was used to protect. He was commemorated with a testament to his intelligence, but he was resented for his lack of morals. Ultimately, all that one can conclude from the story of Fritz Haber is that mankind must evaluate the implications of its scientific innovation or bear the weight of its consequences.

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Written by Ali Khan

Edited and Designed by Anushka Roy