The man who shaped the world in ways we have yet to understand.

The German who shaped our world in ways we have not yet grasped.

In the late 19th century the world was heading towards the total depletion of nitrogen from guano. It looked like the world was a few decades away from the collapse of food production as the soil nitrogen content was dangerously low.

Enter Fritz Harber.

He solved the problem and his method for ammonia production led to the population boom that increased world numbers by billions.

For his contribution to the world, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918. This invention is important for the large-scale synthesis of fertilizers and explosives. It is estimated that two-thirds of annual global food production uses ammonia from the Haber–Bosch process and that this supports nearly half the world population.

He adapted his production process to create explosives for the German army during the First World War.

He went on to create the chlorine gas that was used very effectively by the Germans against the allies.

After Germany surrendered, he started making pesticides using chemical weapons knowledge.

One of his really successful projects was the creation of a cyanide-based pesticide that had no smell and was undetectable to humans.

They mixed the product with a terrible-smelling chemical to make it detectable to humans and it was very successful as a pesticide.

When the nazis came to power and interned Jews, they requested that the factories producing the pesticide leave out the foul-smelling element and the odourless cyanide was used in the Gas chambers.

Fritz Harber was a Jew.

July 2022
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