The most ironic part of the food security issues going into WW1 is that one of Germany’s most notorious and nationalistic chemists, Fritz Haber, developed the industrial processes that would soon lead to cheap and effective mass-produced fertilizers: the synthesis of ammonia through the “Haber process”. He won a Nobel Prize in 1918 for chemistry for that discovery. But it’s a dual-use technology. You can use it to make bulk fertilizers, or you can use it to make bulk explosives.
But Haber didn’t just take part in chemistry research. He was an enthusiastic advocate of chemical warfare. He relentlessly lobbied the German military to try using deadly gases, especially chlorine, as a weapon. German military officials agreed, and at the second battle of Ypres in 1915, Haber was personally there to supervise the first use of chlorine gas weapons. He would do this throughout the war on the western and eastern fronts.
The most ironic part of the food security issues going into WW1 is that one of Germany’s most notorious and nationalistic chemists, Fritz Haber, developed the industrial processes that would soon lead to cheap and effective mass-produced fertilizers: the synthesis of ammonia through the “Haber process”. He won a Nobel Prize in 1918 for chemistry for that discovery. But it’s a dual-use technology. You can use it to make bulk fertilizers, or you can use it to make bulk explosives.
But Haber didn’t just take part in chemistry research. He was an enthusiastic advocate of chemical warfare. He relentlessly lobbied the German military to try using deadly gases, especially chlorine, as a weapon. German military officials agreed, and at the second battle of Ypres in 1915, Haber was personally there to supervise the first use of chlorine gas weapons. He would do this throughout the war on the western and eastern fronts.
Haber was one of the scientists who signed the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three. He was no dove. He knew what he was doing, he knew what his government was doing, and he had no moral issues with any of it.