Paste your essay in here…A Biography of Fritz Haber
Over the three-year span between 1915 and 1918 that was marked by the first world war, the World witnessed as death was manufactured. A scientific revolution at the end of the nineteenth century would allow weapons especially chemical agents to be produced at a new unprecedented rate due to innovative new chemical processes. Nearly one hundred thousand tons of chemical weapon agents were used over the course of World War I, which resulted in around one million two hundred thousand casualties. Due to the large role that chemical weapons played in the first world war it became known as The Chemist’s War. The man most associated with the scientific revolution that caused the first world war to be so deadly, was Fritz Haber. In 1909, the famous German scientist would pioneer a method to synthesize ammonium that would come to be known as the Haber-Bosch process and which would ultimately win him a Nobel prize in Chemistry. The new method to produce ammonium would supplement the diminishing reserves of nitrates, and provide for the world’s growing demand of nitrates. While the Haber process is attributed to the prolonging of the first world war, due to its utilization by the Germans to mass synthesize explosives, the process would also come to revolutionize farming and agriculture as it introduced new nitrate based synthetic fertilizers. While there is much debate concerning the legacy of Fritz Haber, through all of his experiments and innovations Fritz Haber’s motivation became known by many he even once stated that he, “was one of the mightiest men in Germany. [His] work was essential for the economic and military expansion of Germany.” Fritz Haber truly was a German Nationalist whose main goal was to provide for and serve his country through the means he knew best, chemistry.
On December 9th 1868, Fritz Haber was born to a prominent Jewish family in the city of Breslau, Prussia. Under the Prussian edict in March 1812 which allowed Jews and their families to be treated as citizens of Prussia, Haber’s family was able to prosper as his great grandfather established himself as a prominent wool dealer. By the time that Fritz was born to the Haber family, the family had started to assimilate into German society with many members of the Haber family becoming established as prominent members of Germany with many assuming positions in business, politics, and law. When Fritz Haber was only 3 weeks old his mother Paula Haber would pass away due to her very difficult pregnancy with Fritz. This was very difficult on Fritz Haber’s father Siegfried and left young Fritz to be raised by several of his aunts. Nine years after Fritz’s mother died his father would go on to remarry Hedwig Hamburger, together they would have three daughters. Fritz greatly loved his family and received plentiful affection during his early life even though he was ten years older than his youngest stepsister.
When Fitz reached the age to acquire formal schooling he was enrolled at the Volksschule, otherwise known as common school that was open to all and was equally filled with students of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish faith. Following three years at the Volksschule, Fritz would go on to attend St. Elizabeth Gymnasium, which was equally divided between Jewish and Protestant students. During his nine years attending the St. Elizabeth Gymnasium, Fritz would undergo a curriculum strongly focused on the humanities. Very little science would be taught to Fritz during this time period, instead he would be required to study Greek, Latin, literature, and philosophy. This was actually quite influential in Fritz Haber’s life, his studies of the humanities would cultivate an interest in literature and philosophy that he would maintain throughout his life. One of the biggest impact his knowledge of philosophy had on his life was due to his interest in Immanuel Kant. Kant was a prominent German philosopher during the 18th century and was Fritz’s favorite philosopher. One of the prominent philosophies of Kant that Fritz Haber was a follower of was that of Kant’s belief on spirituality, Kant believed that since there was no empirical or irrefutable evidence, one could neither prove nor disprove the existence of God and an afterlife. Because Kant believed that there was no way of definitively knowing the truth, he felt that it was up to the individual to decide for himself whether or not to believe in God and spirituality. Fritz Haber’s belief in this philosophy had a profound effect on his life by greatly increasing his sense of nationalism, as Fritz would later identify himself as German rather than Jewish and would go as far as converting to Christianity so as to better integrate himself into German society.
After passing all of his exams at the St. Elizabeth Gymnasium, Fritz Haber would enroll in the University of Berlin during the autumn of 1866 just before Haber would turn 18. At the time the University of Berlin was a center of scientific innovation and was home to many widely-celebrated scientists and scholars such as Hermann Helmholtz, Rudolf Virchow, and Theodor Mommsen, who would all go on to greatly impact their respective fields of study. During Fritz Haber’s first semester at the University of Berlin, the elective system established at the university would allow him to sample the studies of several departments, and would result in Fritz finding his great interest in chemistry. Although Fritz’s father Siegfried had always hoped for his son to follow in his steps and become involved in his pigment and dyeing business, Siegfried Haber and Company, Siegfried would ultimately relent and give his permission to Fritz to study chemistry; this was in part due to his recognition of the growing prestige of chemists due to the wave of scientific research that was sweeping across Germany, his sons tendency to experiment as a child, and his understanding that knowledge in chemistry could be beneficial to his company.