this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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Everyone knows they invented the Haber-Bosch process. Pretty important shit.
Don't get me started on the Haber process. My students will tell you that I can and will go on for half an hour about how it prolonged WW1 and is one of the first commercial processes to make use of Le Chateliers principle.
Also, probably best not to spend too much time idolizing Fritz Haber, ~~as I'm pretty certain he went on to become a staunch supporter of Hitler.~~ edit: I mixed up Haber with someone else, but his research was foundational in developing many German chemical weapons, including Zyklon B
Edit 2: probably Richard Kuhn who fell into line and fired Jewish coworkers at the direction of the Nazis or Herman Kolbe who was an outspoken German nationalist and anti-Semite. I use all three of them as examples of prominent scientists behaving badly in my O-Chem course.
Really a fascinating bit of science history
I recall that one of the men ended up shooting themselves or their wives did or something along those lines. It was the one that did his best to kill as many people with chemical weapons as he could.
The exact opposite is true.
I must have been remembering that his research between the World Wars lead to the development of Zyklon B muddled that up with some other chemist (maybe Otto Ambros?). I'll see if I can find my source.
Edit: probably Richard Kuhn who fell into line and fired Jewish coworkers at the direction of the Nazis or Herman Kolbe who was an outspoken German nationalist and anti-Semite. I use all three of them as examples of prominent scientists behaving badly in my O-Chem course.
Zyklon B was not developed for killing people. The most common usage was for killing lice in clothes. (To make it very clear: It was also used for killing people in Vernichtungslagern).
Zyklon B might not have been developed as a chemical weapon, but Haber was instrumental in developing and advocating for the use of chemical weapons explicitly on humans for Germany and Spain both during and after WWI (source)
And Haber of Haber-Bosch fame also invented using poisonous gas as a weapon in WW1.