
Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World - mikecarlton
https://medium.com/the-mission/the-tragedy-of-fritz-haber-the-monster-who-fed-the-world-ec19a9834f74
======
soneca
_" Billions of people would not exist without him. And yet without him, World
War I would have ended years earlier"_

The article is very interesting, but there is this Hollywood simplistic
approach where one man is responsible for all things. The text even mention
the Allies developing a poison gas, why not other German chemic? No one other
person would be able to discover how to produce amonia? I don't subscribe to
this way of looking into historical figures.

Nevertheless, a great text.

~~~
mannykannot
There is no doubt that if he had not solved the nitrogen-fixing problem,
someone else would have, and it is certainly possible that someone else would
have pushed the use of poison gas into practice. It is also generally
simplistic to claim that any one thing greatly prolonged the war. 'Great men'
and 'pivotal event' historiography is a simplistic way of looking at the past,
but nevertheless, it is a simple historical fact that he was the person who
did these two things, and the case for nitrogen-fixing extending the war is
better than most other 'but for...' stories.

~~~
dclowd9901
I think people take special people for granted. You can't say, for certain,
that anyone would have figured out the nitrogen fixing problem _in a period of
time when it would have been effective to have done so_. The entire world
could have been blown up before someone came along to figure it out.

The world has yet to churn out another mind quite like Einstein's, that flips
convention on its head, or opens up humankind's collective knowledge by an
order of magnitude. Special people, like Einstein, this man, Norman Borlaug or
Ada Lovelace, I think, may have just been the right people at the right
moment.

~~~
mannykannot
You are right; I cannot say for certain that someone else would have solved
the nitrogen fixing problem in time to save humanity from global starvation,
but for it not to happen, it would have required a lot of chemists to all not
perform the sort of experiments that chemists are trained, employed and choose
to do.

Having read somewhat widely, as a kid, about the history of technology, I was
struck by how often several people were working independently on the same
ideas at the same time, but that is not so surprising once you realize that
the timing is often determined by when some prerequisite knowledge became
available, or some prerequisite capability was mastered. Einstein stands among
the most original thinkers of all time, but even he was standing on the
shoulders of people like Heaviside, Fitzgerald and Lorentz (and Maxwell, of
course) - yet the first three, at least, are invisible in popular
historiography.

------
jzl
There is an incredible book about this topic called "The Alchemy of Air"@,
which I highly recommend. It's one of the best non-fiction science books I've
ever read. Also available on Audible.

Fritz Haber's life story is intertwined with Einstein's and the book pairs
extremely well with Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography, which is a MUST read
(or audiobook listen).

@ - _Full title: "The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and
the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler"_

~~~
Pulcinella
I second this recommendation.

It also covers Carl Bosch, who took Haber’s process and industrialized it at
BASF. Haber got the process to work in a small bespoke quartz reactor, which
obviously wouldn’t scale.

------
dschuetz
I don't think that his involvements in WW I are justified by his achievements
in chemistry in favor of world population problems. Someone else would have
found a way to bind nitrogen without him and so feed billions of people in the
end. Much later perhaps, but eventually still. Yet, most of today's populus
have barely enough to eat. So, ultimataly the problem remains unsolved, or it
shifted even.

Haber was not a solution. He was as tragic and as fanatic as everybody else in
Europe at that time. Nazi Germany also have invented A LOT of world changing
things. They solved a lot of problems. Yet, they managed to do such
unspeakable things that all the good stuff instantly fades.

In my humble opinion, it's not difficult to judge a person who commits
unspeakable crimes by his good or bad deeds. Good deeds are optional, always.
Bad deeds are never an option, regardless of eventual outcomes or
consequences.

~~~
derstander
"Someone else would have found a way to bind nitrogen without him and so feed
billions of people in the end."

The same logic that wipes out his achievement could also absolve him of his
sin. Certainly someone else would have also invented chlorine gas.

Based on the little I've read of him I agree that he doesn't sound like a
great guy (though I certainly don't know enough to really have an informed
opinion). But, more generally, I oppose the notion that summarizing someone is
as simple as a toggle switch between good and bad; I think that's too
reductionist. Humans are (and the world is) more complicated than that.

~~~
Joe-Z
While I agree with you that humans cannot simply be labeled as good or bad
(there‘s also a nice Solschenizyn-quote at the end of the article) your
argument has one flaw: He not only invented chlorine gas he actively pushed
for its use against the opinion of German generals.

The question stands how many people would‘ve not only disocered this deadly
weapon but also were so enthusiastic about its use (see also: some quotes of
him in the article)

~~~
neaden
People were already shooting each other, blowing each other up, stabbing each
other, wounding each other in the dirt to die of gangrene or other infections,
setting each other on fire. On what basis do we condemn chemical weapons while
ignoring all these other methods of death and pain?

~~~
hrasyid
This is a good philosophical question, but the answer the governments of major
powers came up with is that to limit the atrocity there must be rules even in
war. So people came up with mutually agreed conventions. It was agreed that
violating these would be worse then killing "by the book". Germany was a party
to the rule prohibiting chemical warfare:
[https://verdragenbank.overheid.nl/en/Verdrag/Details/002422](https://verdragenbank.overheid.nl/en/Verdrag/Details/002422)

------
loorinm
What an insane and fascinating read. Two things occured to me:

I don’t really understand how and why war happens. Like, it starts out as two
parties both wanting the same resource, and then somebody says “over my dead
body” or something and then a million other people decide to also join in this
fight? I do not get it.

The other thing is : The “inherent harm of technology”. Every single
advancement will 100% hurt someone. In this case it hurt a lot of people. But
it’s impossible to stop progress, even if you keep a discovery secret for a
while, it won’t last. Humanity will advance, and somewhat destroy itself in
the process.

~~~
groby_b
Well, good thing is we're all getting an object lesson right now. Watch North
Korea and the U.S. interact.

That is how war happens. Leaders who for various reasons taunt and provoke
each other, implementing what to either populace seems a reasonable policy.
(NK would like to be able to defend against the US, so they get nukes. The US
would like to not be nuked, so they agitate strongly against them). Alas,
these policies are in conflict, so tensions rise.

At some point, a small event - a misunderstanding, a border skirmish, etc -
happens. In the context of already ratcheted up tensions, it spirals out of
control because everybody feels the need to react quickly, before the other
side escalates.

Nobody says "over my dead body". Everybody takes the next step, a step that's
entirely reasonable from their perspective, but opens up "reasonable" steps
for the other side. The core problem is that neither side considers the needs
of the other side.

Peace requires active communication to constantly de-escalate and compromise,
from both sides. An interest in a common good. War is what happens when you
lose that and move to self-interest.

~~~
jessaustin
USA has constantly pressured DPRK over the course of decades, mostly for
domestic political purposes. At many points we could have chosen less
confrontation, but usually we chose more. Recently we offered Qaddafi the same
deal we have continually offered the Kims, and then after he accepted it we
"changed our minds" and shoved a bayonet up his ass. Even now we continue the
pressure (somewhat erratically, because Trump), when doing so has no
conceivable "self-interest" on a national level. Of course more war is very
much in the interest of armaments manufacturers and their sockpuppets in
politics and the media. If war were ever in the overall national interest,
we'd occasionally win a war or even just accomplish some vague goal by
fighting one. That has never happened in my lifetime or that of my parents.

Of course I have to stipulate now that the Kim Dynasty are very bad no-good
people whom we should all detest, otherwise trolls might pretend to
misunderstand me.

~~~
bzbarsky
> That has never happened in my lifetime or that of my parents.

Unless your parents are really young,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War)
is an obvious counterexample. There was a reasonably clear goal and the goal
was accomplished.

I will grant that this is the only example I can think of right now, though.

~~~
jessaustin
I was in high school then, and unlike others I actually _remember_ the
bullshit I hear on the news. We were told that it wasn't like Korea, because
the troops would come home immediately. To the contrary, the continued
presence (to the present day!) of USA military in Kuwait, Iraq, and especially
Saudi destabilized the Middle East and was the primary motivator for the
author of 9/11\. If evicting Iraqis from Kuwait was "the goal", why was that
other crap necessary?

~~~
bzbarsky
I think listening to the news to figure out what goals anyone has is a pretty
lost cause. The news anchors will say things that have no bearing on reality.
People they interview will say things that have only slightly more bearing on
reality, maybe.

I agree that keeping troops in place after the war was a bit questionable.
Though one does need to answer the "OK, we kick Iraq out, what keeps them from
coming back?" question. Which was answered in a ham-handed way, if at all.
Keeping troops in Kuwait maybe made sense. Keeping troops in Saudi... one of
the ostensible goals was in fact to prevent an Iraqi invasion of Saudi, not
just to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. I do think in retrospect this was a bad idea.
It's harder to tell how it looked at the time, and in particular what the
Saudi government was telling the US government.

~~~
jessaustin
Kuwait's position, of a rich weak nation with no military alliances bordering
a hungry strong one, was somewhat untenable. It is folly to fight a war for a
short-term benefit. If spanking Saddam and then leaving would so obviously
result in his invading Kuwait again, then the decision to deploy was
effectively a decision to deploy indefinitely [0]. That was also folly. One
can forgive impermanent mistakes, however. In retrospect, withdrawing troops
soon after they repelled Iraq and then encouraging fracking in USA would have
been a better decision. It was certainly discussed at the time, and Korea was
certainly mentioned in those discussions. The reason we didn't "choose" to do
that, is that military-industrial complex would have made much less money in
that case. That's always true, however. An ineffective military that is always
fighting is an eternal fountain of money for them.

[0] One supposes that another option would have been to disrupt the governance
of Iraq such that it would stop invading Kuwait, but later experience suggests
that could also have had its drawbacks...

------
nscalf
If you're interested in this, RadioLab did a great episode on good and evil
and really took note of Fritz Haber. It's called The Bad Show. Fritz Haber was
a really conflicting character, he seemed extremely patriotic and made a lot
of personal sacrifices for his country.

Every time I see someone who is described like that, I have to wonder how much
of the disdain we have for him is because that wasn't our country? If we had a
brilliant man who invented a solution to the worldwide fear of an impending
food shortage, but they also made a disturbing wartime weapon, would we feel
the same way?

~~~
aalleavitch
Isn't that basically the case for all the famous men on the Manhattan project?

~~~
wbl
They made sacrifices for someone else's country. A lot of them were not US
citizens.

~~~
mieseratte
Sure, a whole lot of 'em might have been of foreign origin but that doesn't
preclude one from being or becoming an American.

------
sampo
> The amount of crops one can grow is directly tied to how much nitrogen can
> be provided.

This is only half true. You also needed to breed new crop varieties that were
able to put all that abundance of nitrogen to good use. Older crops varieties,
adapted to grow well in the less nitrogen-rich soils, would not simply double
their output even when given double nitrogen.

So there is another man, plant breeder Norman Borlaug, who is equally
responsible for feeding most of our 8 billion people today.

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-macaray/the-man-who-
sav...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-macaray/the-man-who-saved-a-
billi_b_4099523.html)

------
zeveb
Wow, the article is full of just enough half-truths that I wonder what its
real intent was. You get the impression from it that Germany was the first to
use chemical weapons in the Great War — but it wasn't: France started, with
the use of tear gas.

Use of gas projectors did not violate the 1899 Hague Declaration against use
of gas-filled projectiles. Use of irritants like chlorine arguably didn't
violate the 1904 Hague Convention on use of poison or poisoned weapons (is an
irritant a poison? does dosage matter?).

The first German use of chemical weapons (tear gas, again) was on the Eastern
Front, near Warsaw, not at Ypres. I don't know if the use of chlorine at Ypres
was intended as an irritant or a poison — it's been too long since I studied
the history.

> As Germany’s population grew along with their economy, the newly formed
> country became ambitious. The decision was made to further their status in
> the world by attacking France through Belgium.

That's a description of the beginning of the Great War so short that it's a
lie. It's not as though the Germans woke up one morning and thought, 'hey,
let's invade France!' The reason Germany attacked France was that Russia had
mobilised on her eastern borders, while France was mobilising to her west (and
the belief was that France was the far deadlier foe). This was in an era in
which a mobilised army was believed to mean almost certain victory. And the
reason that Germany invaded Belgium was that the French frontier was too
heavily fortified. As it turned out, that was a good operational decision but
an extraordinarily poor strategic one: while the German Army almost got to
Paris, violation of Belgian neutrality led to Britain's entry into the war.

~~~
Symmetry
The Germans argued at the time that their use of poison gas didn't violate the
Hague Convention because they released it from dispensers on the ground rather
than from gas-filled projectiles. But that was seen as a technicality by the
Allies and the whole convention quickly went out the window.

------
perfmode
> Billions of people would not exist without him

As if this is a gift. A big assumption to make. More and more, I am taking to
the anti-natalist viewpoint.

~~~
workthrowaway27
That's a poor approach to life. I've tried it.

~~~
perfmode
Say more

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jumbopapa
Oh yeah, I heard about this guy on the Joe Rogan Experience!

~~~
BLanen
Yea... Quite a lot...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhNWB4eqQbI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhNWB4eqQbI)

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xefer
The great Vaclav Smil wrote about the Haber process and its relationship to
world population in a Scientific American article in 1997:

[http://vaclavsmil.com/wp-
content/uploads/Smil_SciAm_N2cycle....](http://vaclavsmil.com/wp-
content/uploads/Smil_SciAm_N2cycle.pdf) [PDF]

It sort of blew my mind when I read it back then

------
baybal2
Haber was a true giant.

Nobody out people there would've lived without him inventing a process that
lead to first generation chemical fertilizers.

An invention I rank second to invention of fire in history of our species.

(third being the metallurgy)

Yet, the man is unknown to non-chemist, and some anthropologists

------
PeterMikhailov
Did Erling Johnson's work build on this?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrophosphate_process](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrophosphate_process)

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mmirate
Quite obviously the billions of people outweigh the millions of soldiers.

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turc1656
"Great and good are seldom the same man."

------
abainbridge
> Fritz Haber set that future by on a different course by solving one of the
> greatest problems humanity ever faced: How to feed the world.

He didn't solve it. He just delayed the problem for a while. Solving it
requires stopping the exponential growth of the human population.

~~~
nabla9
Human population is not growing exponentially anymore. Human population growth
rate peaked 1962 at 2.1%, and it has been slowing down since.

Even remaining population growth is a big problem, but using he word
'exponentially' to describe growth that is slowing down and is most likely
sublinear is not accurate.

~~~
abainbridge
Yes, sorry, you are right. I still think we might have a nicer planet if Fritz
had invented a (humane) way to prevent the exponential population growth we
had in the 20th century, instead of a way to support it.

