Why Fritz Haber Is Called the Father of Chemical Warfare

Fritz Haber was the German chemist behind Haber-Bosch fertilizer, and he also proposed chlorine gas to the German army and oversaw its release at Ypres in 1915. His ammonia process supports nearly half the world's population, and the army made him a captain so he could command the gas troops. He converted to Protestantism in 1893, when a Jew could not hold a German academic chair, and directed a Berlin institute from 1912. On 22 April 1915, German troops released more than 168 tons of chlorine from nearly 6,000 cylinders along a 6 km front at Ypres. In early May 1915 his wife Clara Immerwahr took her own life, and he left the next morning to organize another gas attack. The 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, presented in 1919, went to him while some Allied scientists demanded a war crimes trial. He resigned in 1933 rather than dismiss Jewish staff, and died in 1934; research from his institute fed into Zyklon B. Chapters: 00:00 A loaf of bread and a gas cylinder 01:03 One third of dinner 02:03 The patriot and his sixteen words 04:00 The 1893 conversion certificate 05:01 Karlsruhe, then Berlin 07:03 The problem nobody could solve 09:21 Air, hydrogen, pressure 10:22 Bosch does the arithmetic 12:19 Bread out of thin air 15:46 There was no garage 16:53 Clara Immerwahr, doctor of chemistry 19:16 In peacetime, in wartime 21:01 The blockade 22:09 Fertilizer and explosives, one plant 24:06 Nobody drafted him 26:03 The errand to the ministry 27:17 A captain, on paper 29:31 The Hague said no, in writing 31:58 Six thousand cylinders, by hand 33:12 Waiting on the wind 35:01 It says projectiles 36:01 22 April 1915, Ypres 39:37 The count 41:53 More humane than a bullet 43:58 A party in Berlin 45:03 The triumph scene 47:03 After the guests left 48:56 Clara Immerwahr, 2 May 1915 52:07 The travel order 53:59 Back to work 54:51 Twenty-one years in the chair 56:48 The diploma 57:47 A Nobel with empty chairs 1:01:13 A Nobel is not a verdict 1:02:20 Eighteen words in one headline 1:04:14 The beard, reportedly 1:05:17 The file closes itself 1:07:13 Pest control 1:09:06 Weimar's most honoured 1:10:14 The tin 1:12:14 Staying until 1933 1:13:08 April 1933 1:15:01 The list 1:17:17 The one paper he would not sign 1:18:31 Forty years after the certificate 1:20:29 Cambridge, four months 1:21:44 A hotel in Basel 1:23:46 The chain to Zyklon B 1:27:24 The family record 1:28:26 The invoice for today 1:30:31 Science is not neutral The scenes are illustrated re-creations, the voice is synthetic, and every fact is documented in the sources below. Music: "Lament, Part 2" - Frozen Silence (Jamendo) "The Life Countdown" - Paulo Kalazzi (Jamendo, CC BY 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) "My Freedom" - Keffy Kay (Jamendo, CC BY 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) "Distorted reality" - zero-project (Jamendo, CC BY 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) Sources: S1. Science History Institute, Fritz Haber - https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/s... S2. Science History Institute, Casualty of War - https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/mag... S3. Jewish Women's Archive, Clara Immerwahr - https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/immer... S4. Legion Magazine, The complicated life and career of Fritz Haber, father of chemical warfare - https://legionmagazine.com/the-complicated... S5. Smithsonian Magazine, Fritz Haber's Experiments in Life and Death - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fri... S6. NobelPrize.org, Fritz Haber - Facts - https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistr... S7. Encyclopedia Britannica, Fritz Haber - https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fritz... S8. Davidson Institute of Science Education, Fritz Haber: The War Criminal Who Helped Prevent Global Hunger - https://davidson.org.il/read-experience/en... S9. Wollheim Memorial, Zyklon B: An Insecticide Becomes a Means for Mass Murder - http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/zyklon_... #FritzHaber #History #Documentary