Who was Fritz Haber? Why write, read, or review a book about him?

Fritz Haber was one of the most important, and now almost unknown, scientists of the early 20th Century - and one of the most ambivalent of all German Jews. Haber discovered a process for fixing atmospheric nitrogen, thus making possible the development of artificial fertilizers - and freeing Germany from dependence on imported nitrate for the production of gunpowder. He was the true father of the Green Revolution, "the man who brought bread from the air" - and the man who almost won the first World War single-handedly for Germany, for without gunpowder production from nitrogren fixation, Germany, cut off from nitrate imports, could not have stayed in the first World War, or begun the second - only to be dismissed by the Nazis and die in exile in Switzerland. But this is not why Haber's name is not spoken. It was Fritz Haber,patriotic German Jew, who created poison gas. And that is why Haber has been not so much overlooked, as deliberately ignored.

Stoltzenberg's book therefore fills a substantial gap. This review is written from the German text, which is clear and straightforward with few rhetorical flourishes, although highly technical in places. Those looking for pop psychoanalysis or gruesome battlefield scenes will be disappointed, as the tone is restrained and understated throughout. Stoltzenberg has unusual advantages in handling this difficult subject. He is a professional chemist himself, the son of a chemist who was a close associate of Haber during and after WWI, had access to material collected for a biography in the 1950s but unwritten at that time, and supplemented that with years of research in government and private archives. This massive book is meticulously documented, almost entirely from contemporary sources, most never published, and will surely be the standard biography.

Apologists for Haber's close friend, Albert Einstein, have excused his work on the atomic bomb on the grounds that he was really an abstract scientist, who didn't understand what he was doing, and that anyway he was a pacifist who acted only because of the Holocaust. Stoltzenberg makes it clear that these excuses don't apply to Haber. Haber was an intensely patriotic German. He deliberately invented poison gas (or rather a whole family of gases). He persuaded the government into its use, over the initial opposition of the army; was present at the first gas attack at Ypres (and always felt afterwards that if the army had believed him, and had been ready to follow up with a full-scale attack through the broken French and British lines, the war could have been won at that point - and at least a few historians have agreed with him). He organized the entire system of gas research, production, and supply, including the development and production of gas masks, and was present at numerous other attacks on both the western and eastern fronts. Stoltzenberg describes him as "besessen" -obsessed. He continued gas research secretly after the war, passing off the post-war development of Zyklon under the noses of the Allied Control Commission as a pesticide. And he never apologized or felt that he had acted wrongly.

However, the book is not limited to Haber's wartime activities. Stoltzenberg also discusses in equal detail the rest of Haber's life. These subjects include: his pre-war years in Karlsruhe, according to the author, the happiest and most successful of his life, and the development of the nitrogen fixation process, including the complicated negotiations between the university, industry, and government; the equally complicated negotiations over Haber's move to Berlin, and the creation of an entirely new division of the Kaiser Wilhelm (now Max Planck)Institute, lavishly financed and built to Haber's specifications; the years spent rebuilding the Institute after the war; the controversial award of the Nobel Prize; his failed search for gold in sea water; and his personal life. As might be expected of a man who was effectively married to his work, Haber's two marriages were both failures; his first wife shot herself and his second ended in divorce. His closest relationships were with his colleagues, and here he shone, being regarded with tremendous respect and affection. Haber was never a solitary genius, but a hands-on and hugely effective team leader, who could organize and inspire outstanding work in the most difficult circumstances.

The dismissal of Jews by the Nazis was a particularly devastating blow to Haber, a man utterly indifferent to religion, but who had always felt himself as, and been regarded by the German government as, an intense patriot. However, the story that Hitler personally called Haber into his office and fired him was apparently a journalistic fantasy; according to Stoltzenberg, it was Max Planck who demanded a personal interview with Hitler in order to plead for his Jewish colleagues, and who personally endured Hitler's irrational ranting. The experience was not repeated. Haber left for England, but was not especially happy. He died in Switzerland, and was buried there. Stoltzenberg accepts the official view that Haber, having been ill for years, not least due to his own constant exposure to poisonous gases, died, in the presence of his son and his own doctor, of a heart attack - or, of a broken heart.

This is not a book for the casual reader, and Jews especially may find it emotionally painful. However, those readers with a serious interest in Haber, the history and sociology of science, the military history of WWI, German Jews, or the Holocaust will find it well worth their effort and expense.

The Nobel laureate Fritz Haber will always be remembered by Chemists for his process to make ammonium nitrate from the atmosphere through iron catalysis. When his son, the author, witnessed a protest in Germany at a meeting to honor his father for his achievements he was compelled to write this book.

Fritz Haber is also thought of by many as the father of chemical warfare. Ludwig Haber offers insight into the personal life and beliefs of his father, while attempting to exhonorate his father for his role in CW. He ends up not being able to truly exhonorate him, but does offer a fatalistic opinion of his father's role as a patriotic proponent that ends up a pesimistic defeatist (in regards to CW).

The Poisonous Cloud is a complex, richly detailed work on the history of CW in WWI. The author is an economic historian by profession, and his approach is refreshing. Detailed are the individual battles that CW was used in, it's gain in prominence by military commanders, the industrial aspects of weaponization, and various lesser known incidences of CW.

The Poisonous Cloud is one of the best source books on CW in WWI I have ever read, and is derfinitely thought provoking. Through detailed analysis the author discussed the utility of CW, and concludes several findings that are difficult to refute. Particularly, the advantage CW made on the battlefield was at a disproportionate cost to industry at home that drew resources away from conventional weapons. Furthermore, he points out that unlike the tank and aircraft, after WWI there no unifying doctrine or tactical purpose was devised for CW.

The Haber process is arguably the most significant development of the 20th century, yet it remains virtually unknown to the general public. There are a few chapters on the history and chemistry of this vital process, and they are reasonably well written. But the vast majority of the book is an endless litany of statistics, completely devoid of narrative structure. For example:

"In the United Kingdom more than half of all nitrogen fertilizer has been applied to grasslands. A Royal Society study found that in the late 1970s average applications on pastures surpassed the inputs to arable land (172 vs. 135 kg N/ha), and that synthetic compounds accounted for 57-63% of all inputs. The overall use of fertilizer nitrogen in the United Kingdom rose by almost 50% between the late 1970s and the mid 1980s, but it declined afterwards, and its average during the late 1990s has been only about 20% higher than a generation earlier, which means that the synthetic fertilizers supply between 65 and 70% of all nitrogen inputs. But high-yielding winter wheat -- the 1998 mean was 7.97 t/ha -- still receives more than 180 kg N/ha, double the amount applied in 1970 when the yield was around 4 t/ha, and the secular correlation between the rising applications of inorganic nitrogen and rising harvests is obvious (fig. 7.8)."

Now imagine 300 more pages of text just like that, and you get the idea. There is no *story* here, just data. It's a shame, because there is definitely a story to be told.

The material on the Haber process itself is better, but not great. In particular, the author can't seem to choose the level of the audience: descriptions of chemistry alternate between being too simplistic and assuming too much. Details essential to understanding often seemed to be missing, while details of no apparent relevance are in abundance. I don't really care whether the process takes place under 137 vs. 152 atmospheres; but I do care *why* the pressure is so critical, which is never explained.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. There *is* plenty of good material here, but you have to sort through a lot of empty statistics to get it, and the omission of key pieces of scientific explanation makes for a painfully frustrating read.

This is a great book for any one interested in the way the Haber-Bosch process of making Nitrogen fertilizer changed the world. Enriching the Earth provides in depth information on the history that led up to the discovery of the process of using N2 and H2 to make NH3. It also contains up to date information on the effects that all of this new nitrogen has on the earth.

The book can get a little technical at times, with chemical formulas and schematics of the instruments. While I found this information useful, some people might find it overwhelming. If you skip over the techincal parts, the book is very well written for the average person.

These little known scientists really changed the world as we know it. When you think about it, what has Einstein done for you lately? These guys put food on the table.

Far too little is available in English on the life of a man whose achievements now help feed half of all people on Earth. However, fertilizers were the last thing on Haber's mind when he set out to do his most famous and important work. Haber's career and eventual personal tragedy are full of ironies - a patriotic German forced out by Hitler, a developer of weapons whose discoveries were to prolong a war that destroyed his country, but later were to fuel the Green Revolution, a man of great talent, generosity, and pettiness, a lover of women whose marriages ended in suicide and divorce. Goran lets the story tell itself without imposing his own judgments, and indeed the only major criticism I would make of this book is the tendency to pile together uncritically facts and anecdotes, while the central character remains elusive. Goran's work would appear to have served as a source for Rhodes (Making of the Atomic Bomb), unless both Rhodes and Goran used the same source. Goran's work clearly deserves to be better known, and the fact that this 30-year-old volume has not been supereded in the Amazon catalog poses a clear challenge to historians and biographers.