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Perhaps I should try and describe the situation in Germany to you. But I assume that you
have daily contact with informed people. The provision for German scientists who have had to
yield to the law on Berufsbeamtentum [racial laws regarding employment in the public service]
is being interpreted to Aryan colleagues abroad who are trying to help- for example, [Max] von
Laue and [Fritz] Schlenk- as a crime. The support for a limited number of prominent scholars
that comes from abroad makes the overall situation only more terrible. I was never in my life as
Jewish as now.
31
The fact that Haber now referred to himself as being Jewish and was even considering moving to
Palestine and working there seems to astound Einstein. In a reply letter, he expresses that he is glad that his
friend‟s “love for the blond beast” had diminished and he is especially pleased that Haber now is approaching
him “as the advocate of the Jewish.” Einstein concludes his letter saying that he hopes to “meet [Haber] under a
milder sky.”
32
Unfortunately for the two men who shared such a unique and exceedingly strong friendship over the
course of two world wars and through many personal tragedies, they would never meet under a milder sky.
Haber‟s long struggle with failing health would end in January 1934. Einstein wrote to Haber‟s son, Hermann in
great sadness for the loss of his old friend:
Now almost all of my true friends are dead. One begins to feel like a fossil, not a living creature.
At the end, he was forced to experience all the bitterness of being abandoned by the
people of his circle, a circle that mattered very much to him, even though he recognized its
dubious acts of violence.
I remember a conversation with him; it must have been about three years ago after a
meeting of the Academy of Sciences. He was quite incensed about the way he‟d been shabbily
treated during a vote, and to recover he went with me to the Schlosscafé on Unter den Linden. I
said to him, a bit drolly, “Console yourself with me- your moral standing is truly enviable, and
here I am happy and cheerful!” And this is what he said: “Yes, all of society never mattered to
you.” It was the tragedy of the German Jew; the tragedy of unrequited love.
33
This great friendship had been forged in kind of golden age for science, which was ended by the rise of
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Hitler. As Fritz Stern described it:
The openness of Berlin‟s scientific community- in the academy, in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society,
in the university, and in the impromptu settings- had brought Haber and Einstein into close
companionship, and it was Haber‟s genius to convert collegiality into friendship. For Haber, his
institute had been home; for both men the scientific cluster of activity in Berlin guaranteed the
deepest kind of nurturing. They found and kept alive a place of human decency, an oasis even in
its own time, and oasis before Hitler destroyed all that was valuable and destroyed the faith that
had been the precondition of these deep bonds.
34
This scientific community provided the basis for many of his deepest friendships. His relationship with
Einstein is especially revealing about the way that Haber felt about many of the great events of his life. Through
reading the correspondences between the two, one is able to discover the many choices and obstacles that Haber
was faced with and the manner in which he dealt with these. The way that Haber viewed himself, as a chemist, a
German, a Jew, or some combination of the three, can also be extracted from these correspondences.
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Notes
1.
Stoltzenberg, Dietrich. Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel Laureate, German, Jew. Philadelphia, PA:
Chemical Heritage Press, 2004, page 193.
2.
Friedrich, Bretislav. "Fritz Haber (1868-1934)." FHI-Berlin. 5 Oct 2008
berlin.mpg.de/~brich/Friedrich_HaberArticle.pdf>.
3.
Stern, Fritz. Einstein's German World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999, page 62.
4.
Ibid.
5.
Ibid, 65.
6.
Stoltzenberg,
Chemist, Nobel Laureate, 195.
7.
Ibid.
8.
Stern,
Einstein’s German World, 113.
9.
Stoltzenberg, Chemist, Nobel Laureate, 195.
10.
Stern, Einstein’s German World, 114.
11.
Stoltzenberg, Chemist, Nobel Laureate, 195-196.
12.
Stern, Einstein’s German World, 114.
13.
Stoltzenberg, Chemist, Nobel Laureate, 196.
14.
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 151.
15.
Stern, Einstein’s German World, 124.
16.
Ibid.
17.
Ibid, 128.
18.
Ibid, 136.
19.
Ibid, 137.
20.
Ibid.
21.
Charles, Master Mind, 209.
22.
Stern, Einstein’s German World, 138.
23.
Ibid, 139-140.
24.
Ibid, 140.