The complex legacy of Fritz Haber

With a growing global population that has already reached seven billion, we are undoubtedly indebted to Fritz Haber for his work. As a show of gratitude, we should take a moment to thank Haber. Or should we? 

Fritz Haber. A legacy so complex, yet unlike any other to have ever existed. Born on  November 9, 1868, in East Prussia, which is now known as Poland, was a man named Fritz Haber. As a child, he showed great curiosity and keenness towards science and was considered one of the brightest minds in his class. Pursuing a career in chemistry, he completed his studies at the University of Berlin and obtained a Ph.D. in 1891. 

In 1798, English economist Thomas Malthus wrote in his publication 'An Essay on the Principle of Population' about the dangers of a growing population on the world food supply. He argued that 'the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man'. 

In simple words, he prophesied that the exponential growth in population would one day outrun the food supply, leading to mass starvation. Such predictions were made by other intellectuals too, such as British chemist William Crooke, who believed that the world was in danger of a great starvation event if the population continued the way it did. 

Primarily, nitrogen is an essential component of chlorophyll, the green pigment in plant cells that is responsible for capturing light energy during photosynthesis. Every time soil is used for cultivation, plants and crops use up nutrients available on the land. The nitrogen in the soil gets used up, and therefore the next generation of crops do not have as much nitrogen left to effectively photosynthesize. Hence, the key to maintaining as well as increasing the fertility of lands and food supply lies in replenishing this nitrogen. 

In old times, this nitrogen was replenished by guano bird excrement solidified over time. With time, the excessive usage of guano led to a potential shortage, and agriculture needed a new fertiliser. Ammonia, a naturally occurring compound made up of three hydrogen atoms and one nitrogen atom, could potentially be the saviour. The answers to all our agricultural issues and worries about the future of the food supply lie in ammonia.

 The world needed a catalyst to rapidly increase how much food we produced. Rationally, the two ways left for survival: lower the number of babies being born each year or find this catalyst. 

We only had the latter. While the world hoped for a solution, a 40-year-old Haber was experimenting to bring together nitrogen and hydrogen from air to form a method of synthesising ammonia. What makes him so important in the context of history is his emergence and discovery at a time when the world needed it the most.

In his laboratory, he created apparatuses to produce and synthesise ammonia. Since nitrogen is inert in reactions, Haber had to create temperatures up to 500 °C to make it react with hydrogen under extreme pressure. Using iron as a catalyst, Haber invented this fertiliser that would revolutionise agriculture and pave the way for a sustained supply of food that grew just as fast as the population. 

During the first World War, a patriotic and devout  nationalist, Fritz Haber joined the German army, both as a soldier and a scientist. He played a key role in the development of chemical weapons for the German army. 

In the trenches of the First World War,  enemy firing did not hit the soldiers since they were underground, and provided protection from incoming troops. However, a stalemate would often form, as neither armies could attack their enemy. The strategy here was to wait and only block the enemy when they attacked. As time went on, the party that ran out of resources to fight would eventually lose. 

The 1899 Hague Convention had banned the use of poisons and chemicals as weapons, but Germany, France, and Britain all made plans to attack with them. Seeing the stalemate, Haber felt that the only way out of this was to create a toxic gas, denser than air, that would sink into the enemy trenches. 

Knowing that it would kill thousands in the area and potentially make the entire place toxic, Haber argued that he was killing thousands but saving the millions that would die if the war did not end soon. 

During the second battle of Ypres, German forces released 168 tons of poisonous chlorine gas towards the allied forces, turning the trenches into mass graveyards. The same person who revolutionised agriculture saved billions  had killed millions with his one decision. 

In the trenches, soldiers were burnt and made to choke on the very thing that keeps us alive, air. The loss to war was far greater than just the people, it was the death of countless aspirations of the youth that died. The world will never know how many potential scientists, writers, economists it lost. To the soldier who suffered a slow, painful death in the trenches, while watching all his compatriots face the same fate, would Haber still be a hero? 

History will be a testament to the price the world paid for Haber's genius. For billions, the price of a million. Haber valued the lives of his countrymen more than the lives of the ones who died in the trenches. But what really makes people of one country more valuable than those from another? 

People are never born with labels stating their intrinsic values based on nationality, colour, or race. The differences that we make are only imaginary. The borders between Germany and France  are imaginary and made by us. 

Was Haber's claim that he was only saving his countrymen by killing millions in those trenches justified? Even though the distinction between what he called 'his' men and others came only because of imaginary borders that we created, and which have forever kept changing through the course of history? The complexity of this moral dilemma taints the legacy that Haber has left behind. 

Perhaps history works in the strangest of ways. Germany was devastated by the humongous reparations it was asked to pay in the Treaty of Versailles. The economy was plagued with hyperinflation and war debt. 

Personal tragedies faced Haber too, who lost his wife during the war, and was badly affected by the economic crash. With the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, Haber, who was a Jew, was forced to emigrate  from Germany and move to Switzerland. His patriotism and nationalism were met with betrayal, as he could never come back to his own country ever again. 

The end of his story serves as a reminder of how fragile and ever-changing international issues are. Conflicts among states will forever be there, but the people must always take a moment to think of the humane and ethical implications of their decisions. The world will forever be grateful to Fritz Haber, maybe with some bitterness.

Mohammad Siyam is a contributor to the Business Standard. 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.