News Release

CHF publishes biography of Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber biography examines controversial life in science

Book Announcement

Chemical Heritage Foundation

TITLE: Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel Laureate, German, Jew
by Dietrich Stoltzenberg
2004, Chemical Heritage Foundation

Haber pioneered in electrochemistry and thermodynamics and won the Nobel Prize for his synthesis of ammonia, a process essential for both fertilizer and explosives. His dedication to work spurred his efforts to increase support for scientific study in Germany; yet it also helped cause the breakdown of his two marriages. His ardent patriotism led him to develop chemical weapons for World War I and to try to extract gold from seawater, to help pay for Germany's huge war reparations. Yet Haber, a Jew by birth, was exiled from his homeland in 1933 by the Nazi party and died shortly after.

Praise for the German edition
"A fine biography of this deeply flawed individual. . . . [It] should appeal to general readers as well as to historians and all those interested in the social responsibility of science.
--David Cahan, Nature

"Stoltzenberg's superb biography, which leaves little to be desired, is the remarkable achievement of a professional chemist turned historian."
--Peter Alter, Ambix

"[An] excellent biography . . .
--Max Perutz, New York Review of Books

Winner of the German Chemical Society's author's prize.

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Dietrich Stoltzenberg was born in 1926, the son of Hugo Stoltzenberg, a manufacturer and chemist, and Margarethe Stoltzenberg-Bergius, also a chemist.

After studying chemistry at the Karlsruhe College of Technology, he earned his degree in 1958 with work carried out under Rudolf Criegee on cyclical hydroperoxide and azohydroperoxide.

He subsequently worked for the chemical industry, where among other positions he was employed by the firm Phoenix-Gummiwerke and by Unilever in research, development, and production. Since his retirement in June 1984 he has worked for various businesses as a consultant on issues of environmental protection. As a member of the history of chemistry interest group of the German Chemical Society, he has published several articles on various subjects in the history of 20th-century chemistry. He lives in Hamburg, Germany, with his wife, Eva.


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