Haber, Fritz

Haber, Fritz (hä`bər), 1868–1934, German chemist. He was a professor of physical chemistry at Karlsruhe and became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute at Dahlem in 1911. During World War I he directed Germany's chemical warfare activities, which included the introduction of poison gas; following the Nazi rise to power in 1933, however, he resigned his posts and went into exile. Haber won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of the Haber process for synthesizing ammonia from its elements. He also did studies of autoxidation and pyrolysis.

Bibliography

See biographies by M. H. Goran (1967) and D. Charles (2005).

---

Haber, Fritz

(born Dec. 9, 1868, Breslau, Silesia, Prussia—died Jan. 29, 1934, Basel, Switz.) German physical chemist. After early research in electrochemistry and thermodynamics, he developed, with his brother-in-law Carl Bosch (1874–1940), the Haber-Bosch process for making ammonia. Intensely patriotic, he directed Germany's World War I chemical-warfare efforts, under which poison gas was introduced. His versatility and his wide-ranging and important work brought him fame and honour, and he was awarded a 1918 Nobel Prize. In 1933 the Nazi Party's anti-Semitic policies led him to resign as head (since 1911) of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute.

---

Haber, Fritz 

Born Dec. 9, 1868, in Breslau; died Jan. 29, 1934, in Basel. German inorganic chemist.

In 1898, Haber became a professor at the Karlsruhe Poly technical School. In 1904 he began to investigate the equilibrium between ammonia and its elements, nitrogen and hydrogen, at high temperatures and pressures. In 1908, working under semifactory conditions, Haber first produced liquid ammonia (Nobel Prize, 1918). In 1913 a plant for the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen was organized under his direction. In 1911 he took over the direction of the Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry at Berlin-Dahlem. During World War I he was one of the organizers of the German war chemicals industry, developing in particular poison gases. After the war, Haber actively contributed to the revival of the German war industry. He left Germany after the fascists came to power in the spring of 1933.