- 46 -
25.
Ibid, 141.
26.
Ibid, 153.
27.
Ibid.
28.
Stoltzenberg, Chemist, Nobel Laureate, 200.
29.
Ibid.
30.
Ibid, 201.
31.
Ibid.
32.
Ibid, 202.
33.
Charles, Master Mind, 241.
34.
Stern, Einstein’s German World, 163.
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Charlotte Nathan: His Second Wife
1915 – 1927
Charlotte Nathan, born in 1889 in Berlin, had many secretarial positions in her life, the last at The
German Society of 1914, located in Berlin. Her position here was closer to managerial than secretarial; she ran
the business end of the club as well as organizing the meetings and receptions which occurred. It was here that
she met Fritz Haber for the first time.
Though they were engaged by the Easter weekend in 1917, a few months went by without any sort of
plans being made or any real motion forward toward marriage. While Charlotte became impatient, Haber grew
doubtful:
“I don‟t have the inner certainty of what we can become to each other when we commit ourselves to
each other forever and live together for a few years, because at that point the love that we feel now
will be finished. In its place must emerge an inner harmony in our relationships with other people
and the world around us, and we don‟t know yet whether we possess that harmony.”
1
Despite his misgivings, the two were married on October 25, 1917, in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in
Berlin. Soon after, Charlotte became pregnant, and their first child, Eva-Charlotte Haber, was born on July 21,
1918.
However, this initial positive attitude toward his second marriage did not last long. During its first year,
which was also the last year of World War I, Haber was always doing something, and even when he was home,
he only saw Charlotte briefly. This began to dissatisfy Charlotte, who wrote to Haber that year about it:
“In my opinion you can‟t expect a twenty-eight-year-old woman, who hasn‟t lived a family life for
years and still does not – for you can‟t call it family life to have breakfast in a hustle and bustle at
8.30 A.M. and supper around 9 to 10 P.M. in the company of a man who‟s usually flat-out tired – to
keep calm and quiet and to live out in contemplation her new married life, the past nine months of
which have brought no great joys.”
2
She wanted to travel, to go somewhere and recuperate, but Haber did not at all agree with this, telling her that he
wished her to move to Dahlem with Eva-Charlotte and “establish [herself] there as befits a mother and wife”
3
.
- 48 -
Charlotte
was unhappy about this, but did so anyway because it would be best for their daughter.
Their second child, Ludwig-Fritz, was born on July 12, 1920. These first few years were generally
happy, but this would not last. True, they both enjoyed traveling, and went on many journeys together, including
one six-month trip around the world in 1924. However, this was the only hobby they shared; Haber‟s devotion to
science, as shown in his first marriage, came before all else in his life, and in addition to that there was the
generational gap to consider. Since they were two decades younger than Haber, the people with whom Charlotte
associated, as well as Charlotte herself, had different ideas of what was considered normal and acceptable, things
which Haber was most definitely against.
The marriage only got worse. Haber was always late to dinner, and when Charlotte called the institute to
ask where he was, he would not answer and eventually would instruct an assistant to tell her he was not there.
Also, when annoyed by something Charlotte had said or a particular mannerism of hers, he would rebuke her in
public. One of them would then have a tantrum, at which point they would officially be fighting. Haber‟s way of
ending these fights was usually to write her some poetry; this would bring about reconciliation, but it was only
ever effective for a while.
4
As previously stated, Charlotte loved to travel. The couple did often travel together, but still Charlotte
had a hard time dealing with a husband who was always tired from his work at the institute. She therefore
traveled quite a bit on her own, and in fact began to prefer being abroad to being at home, as she wrote to Haber
in 1922 after returning home from a trip:
“Returning to our home in Dahlem was particularly hard after this trip. It‟s distressing to realize that
every trip leaves me more alienated from this place…. There are dark shadows in this house. There‟s
no room for harmless jokes and fun. Lightheartedness can‟t just come from itself; it has to be
thought-out and logical. The constant education, correcting both thoughts and action – it feels like
pressure. As soon as this pressure is relieved, one‟s true nature explodes; the mask falls. That‟s the
way it is, and this time I felt the difference between home and the outside world with special
bitterness.”
5
It‟s clear that home was no longer a place Charlotte considered to hold happiness.
There were also other problems in their relationship. Hermann Haber, who was born on June 1, 1902,