- 25 -
relative might have contracted what sickness and how.” She was excessively anxious.
15
By this time, there was little left of the Clara Immerwahr of old. The menial household tasks her husband had set
her were all she had, and she was consumed by them.
As World War I started, Haber became more and more involved with the war effort, something which
she opposed. “She began to regard poison gas as not only a perversion of science but also a sign of barbarism.”
16
Still, he persisted. At one point, when the weapons project had progressed to field tests, Clara went with him.
One soldier remembered her as “a nervous lady who was sharply opposed to his accompanying the new gas
troops to the front.”
17
Although Clara objected, Haber continued his efforts, and a major offensive was set for April 22, 1915.
It was so successful that there was a reception at Haber‟s home on the 1
st
of May. Many people attended;
Charlotte Nathan may have been one of those people, although this has never been confirmed. One report of the
evening, however unreliable, tells of how, that night, Clara came upon Charlotte and her husband in an
embarrassing situation, realized that they were having an affair, and went over the edge.
18
This is certainly a
possibility. Another is that her genetic predisposition to depression – many of her family members were
depressed, and one of her sisters committed suicide – finally got the best of her. A third is that, having exhausted
all her other resources, Clara took the only route left to her in one last final protest against her husband‟s
involvement in gas warfare.
The only thing that is sure is that, early the next morning, after composing several letters which have not
survived, Clara took her husband‟s service pistol, went to the garden and fired a test shot. She then shot herself
in the heart, but did not die immediately. Their son Hermann, hearing the shots, found his mother dying, and
called for his father, who had taken sleeping pills that night as usual and could not be awakened. She died shortly
after.
Haber returned to the front that night, as his orders told him to. He was close-mouthed about Clara‟s
death for most of his life, and it certainly did not deter him from continuing to aid the German war effort.
However, his attitude toward Hermann as the boy was growing up, as well as certain comments he made to his
friend Richard Willstätter, indicate that he did feel a certain amount of guilt over what happened. Was it simply
- 26 -
because he felt he could have treated her better over the course of their marriage, and thus possibly prevented her
death? Was it because he knew that his involvement with chemical weapons had pushed her past her limit?
- 27 -
Notes
1.
Hager, Thomas. The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery
That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler. New York, NY: Harmony Books, 2008, page 156.
2.
Stoltzenberg, Dietrich. Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel Laureate, German, Jew. Philadelphia, PA:
Chemical Heritage Press, 2004, page 45.
3.
Hager, Thomas. The Alchemy of Air, 155.
4.
Charles, Daniel. Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the
Age of Chemical Warfare. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005, Page 46.
5.
Ibid, 48.
6.
Ibid, 48-49.
7.
Ibid, 49-50.
8.
Goran, Morris. The Story of Fritz Haber. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967, pages 28-
29.
9.
Charles, Master Mind, 46.
10.
Ibid, 51.
11.
Stoltzenberg, Chemist, Nobel Laureate, 174.
12.
Charles, Master Mind, 179.
13.
Goran, The Story, 30.
14.
Stoltzenberg, Chemist, Nobel Laureate, 174-175.
15.
Ibid, 175.
16.
Goran, The Story, 71.
17.
Hager, The Alchemy of Air, 160.
18.
Charles, Master Mind, 167.
- 29 -
The Post-War Years: Haber’s Ongoing Research on Chemical Weaponry
1918-1926
At the conclusion of The Great War, Fritz Haber was confronted with many conflicting emotions. He
would have to give up the power he had attained as an officer during the war and would have to resume life as a
civilian. This proved to be a most difficult task for several reasons.
As Germany rose to greatness and then fell from such great heights, Haber keenly felt the devastated. On
his fiftieth birthday on December 9, 1918, he was in no mood to celebrate, for it was only a month after the war
had ended and he was harboring too many worries. In February 1919, Haber expressed his feelings in a letter to
the chemical magnate Carl Duisberg: “You know the feeling when you‟re on a snow-covered slope, sliding
downward? You don‟t know until you get to the bottom whether you‟ll arrive with all your limbs intact or with
broken legs and neck. All you can do during the slide is stay calm…. This mountaineering experience is what
we‟re going through- painfully- in economic life at the moment.”
1
This was only the beginning of the stressful
issues he would have to face during his transition back to civilian life.
Immediately after the war, his friend and colleague Richard Willstätter had nominated him for a Nobel
Prize in chemistry. Haber did not think he would have a chance to win and in a letter to Willstätter he expressed
his doubts: “I find it unbearable to write about such things. It‟s all so dreary and irrelevant, and I have no doubt
that political considerations make it inconceivable for Stockholm to consider Germans who‟ve been
recommended by other Germans.”
2
He also did not think that he had made any great scientific achievements for
he says that he “always jumped from one thing to another.” The Nobel Committee, however, thought that
Haber‟s accomplishments were impressive enough to award him with the prize. He would not find out the
verdict until several monthss after the war, and after facing much more distress.
The greatly patriotic Haber, as well as the whole of the German nation, would be forced to see their
beloved country humiliated by the treaty which would bring peace after the war. The Treaty of Versailles,
presented to the German government on May 7, 1919, “exceeded the gloomiest expectations”. The German
government was allowed three weeks to review and to accept the terms of the Treaty. Germany would be forced
to relinquish vast amounts of territory, including all her colonies, territories in the East, and Alsace-Lorraine,
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