A MAN WHO PROLONGED THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 111, 12 May 1934, Page 19

A MAN WHO PROLONGED THE WAR

There lias recently died a choinist' whose genius prolonged tlio war by prolonging the resistance of Germany. lie has died an exile from the country he had done .so much to aid, and he camo to find refuge in tho country ho fought against, says the "Children's Newspaper." i' • '■

This brilliant German .chemist was Profossor Fritz Haber, and his great achievement was the harnessing of the air itself to fight Germany's battles for her. Early in tho war he solved tho problem of converting the nitrogen of tho air into ammonia, the source of tho nitric acid required for explosives.

Ammonia,. too, is au essential fertiliser and tho achievement enabled Germany to grow food supplies when tho nitrates from Chile were cut off by tho blockade.

Though tho process or1 obtaining ammonia from tho air is comparatively simple, involving the passing of nitrogen mixed with oxygen over a special material ,at high pressure, tho process cannot bo carried out without expensive and , complex machinery. Professor i Habcv ■•' found a German engineer, Dr. Bosch, to join him in setting up sufficient nitrate factories tv relieve Gei'-

many of any anxiety about explosives. But with tho coming of peaco it was as a'fertiliscr for crops that his great discovery proved invaluable. It 'will be rememberod that Sir William Crookcs made the dire prophecy that before many years had passed tho earth would ; not yield sufficient food for its growing population. ■ Sir William; was basing his calculations to a large extent on the number of years the Chilean nitrate deposits would last. : v " Brilliant'scientist though.hewas,- he had not".realised • that the ingenuity of man would quickly solve this problem. Professor- Haber's process has-made the Chilean nitrate industry of smaller account.

And yet this man, to whom Germany should have been grateful, was driven into oxile. Ho was a Jew. His war work exempted him from the antiJewish decrees, but he resigned his chair at Berlin University as a pro-. tost against the anti-Jewish persecution. Hitler and his followers hold intellectual genius as of little account, and the great chemist, one of the Nobel prize-winners, became tho guest of England, working for many months in a. laboratory, at Cambridge TJnivcrsity. But his lifework was finished, and lie died at Baslc Si