Fritz Haber, The Jewish Man Whose Chemical Invention Was Used By Nazi Germany Against Jews

While Fritz Haber was one of those scientists who create and invent new ways to do things and to ensure easier methods for daily living, his particular invention or action earned him a title that has
remained synonymous with the idea of disastrous inventions. His inventions were both responsible for the creation of Fertilizers, at a time when the world needed growth in the agricultural business but it was also responsible for the creation of chemical products that eventually became weaponized. One thing that stood him out of the crowd of scientists, and eventually earned him a Nobel Prize as a Jewish-German Chemist, was the fact that he worked on multiple chemical substances that he thought were useful in different spectrums.
However, just like others, especially those who created Nuclear weapons and researched them, his ideas were turned against him and were used as the very instrument in the hands of Hitler and his army in Killing a large percentage of Jews, during the Second World War. Millions of Jews died at the hands of the chemical weapon, and it seems quite ironic that the very chemical weapon used on them in Gas chambers, was created by one of their own who had created these chemicals and also facilitated its introduction in earlier wars.


Born December 9, 1868, in Breslau, Prussia, now known today as Wroclaw, in Poland, Haber was an intelligent kid who had great support from his parents who are said to have been successful in their dyes and pharmaceutical business. However, shortly after he was born his father died and his mother remarried, which made Haber grow up with six stepsisters.
However, while he was born Jewish and his mother married into a Jewish family, there were still very few Religious practices going on around him. This is not to say that they didn't observe and practice Jewish rituals and Religious practices but they were not particularly the kind of family that was very religious. During his teenage years, he found himself in a Protestant high school, where half the students are Jews. Soon, perhaps due to the influence of his
new friends and that of his school, Fritz converted to Lutheranism.


Interestingly, both his wives who were Jews also converted to Protestantism. Turning a family that was once Jewish into a family of progressive Christians.
However, with his newfound Religious ideology came better freedom and more choices and so he chose to study Chemistry and perhaps become a Chemist or pharmacist like his father. First, he spent a few years at the University of Heidelberg and Berlin, then he went on to the Technical College of Charlottenberg.
After years of hard work and study, Fritz Haber found himself as a Professor at Karlsruhe University in 1906.
By the time it was 1911 he had been appointed the first director of Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for
Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, where he remained until 1933. He was respected and loved and perhaps also revered as one of those who laid the foundation for the institution that the place was renamed after him in 1953.


However, though his achievements are long, lengthy enough to fill books, a very interesting discovery and achievement among all was his work on a particular substance that eventually left a dent on his legacy, even to date. While Fritz worked at the Karlsruhe University from 1894 to 1911, he and his colleague began to work on something interesting and developed a process called the Haber-Bosch process, named after himself and his colleague, Carl Bosch.
Anyway, the idea was to make a dangerous substance from otherwise mundane, atmospheric ones. This became a key to creating fertilizers and of course, Chemical weapons.
Soon after, his actions and creations seemed successful and it didn't take long for him and his colleague to get recognized for their inventions. This cough the eye of the German government who made Haber the head of the Chemical warfare department during World War I. Soon, the genius began to work on several chemical weapons that were used by Germans during World War I, many of which were very dangerous and efficient in mass murder.
Unfortunately, the emotional torture became too intense that it led his wife to kill herself when she
heard the news of her husband's actions.


Though his wife had killed herself, he didn't stop, he kept on working with governments even after the World War had ended. Researching until he created the cyanide-based Zyklon B. Unfortunately, this very dangerous gas was used by Nazi Germany in the population of Jews, his very own people, on death camps. Though he didn't live to see it he was blamed and it left a terrible legacy for him.


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