[Marxism] The alchemy of air

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/11/AR2008121103058.html
Chemistry and Morality
German scientists developed fertilizer, then bombs and gases.

Reviewed by Guy Gugliotta
Sunday, December 14, 2008; BW02

THE ALCHEMY OF AIR
A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That 
Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
By Thomas Hager
Harmony. 316 pp. $24.95

Somehow fertilizer seems an unlikely subject for a Faustian tale 
about pride, vanity and ambition. Yet here it is: Chemists Fritz 
Haber and Carl Bosch won Nobel Prizes for their contributions to 
humanity as young men and reached the pinnacle of German science, 
only to be brought low by their own, very human failings.

Haber and Bosch invented industrially made fertilizer during the 
first decade of the 20th century, developing a method of synthesizing 
and mass-producing ammonia from hydrogen and atmospheric nitrogen, 
hence the title of Thomas Hager's book, The Alchemy of Air. The need 
for such a process was urgent. Agricultural crops required nitrogen, 
but by the late 19th century the parched flatlands of Chile's Atacama 
Desert were the world's only major source of nitrates, and supplies 
were running out. With most arable land already cultivated and 
populations on the rise, a Malthusian nightmare loomed.

Haber, a chemist living in Karlsruhe, invented a method of blending 
hydrogen and nitrogen in a high-pressure, high-temperature chamber 
using a metal catalyst. He developed a tabletop model and sold the 
ammonia production process to the German dye works Badish Anilin- und 
Soda-Fabrik, known today as BASF, one of the world's leading chemical 
companies.

Bosch, a BASF chemist, was given the task of scaling up Haber's idea. 
He succeeded spectacularly, creating immense manufacturing complexes 
and eventually becoming managing director of BASF and, subsequently, 
chairman of IG Farben, the conglomerate he helped create. The 
Haber-Bosch process is still the leading method of making synthetic 
fertilizer, and Bosch is venerated in some circles as the father of 
industrial chemistry.

Hager, a science writer who previously wrote a biography of Linus 
Pauling and a book about the discovery of the earliest antibiotics, 
tells the story of fertilizer well. But it takes up only half the 
book. The rest focuses on the personalities of Haber and Bosch, and 
on how their strengths ultimately became fatal weaknesses.

Once he made his initial discovery, Haber, a prodigiously gifted but 
insecure young chemist, rose to the front rank of the world's 
scientists as a director at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes. Genius 
played a role, as did guile. But Haber also forged ahead by 
consciously forswearing his Jewish heritage to embrace German 
nationalism. Albert Einstein, a lifelong friend, at first gently 
mocked Haber for his willingness to please, then felt sorry for him 
as they grew older.

Bosch, meanwhile, began as an earnest, honest young researcher 
debunking the claims of lesser scientists. He ended up as a 
multinational industrial tycoon whose obsession with scoring 
commercial successes led him to build IG Farben into one of the 
largest companies in the world.

But when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, things changed. Haber 
suddenly understood that he would always be Jewish and that the 
terrible bargains he had made would bring him nothing but contempt 
and ostracism. Bosch, heartsick at the prospect of firing large 
numbers of his Jewish employees in a Nazi purge, sought an exception 
in a personal interview with Hitler, only to endure an anti-Semitic 
tirade. He realized that the immense industrial enterprise to which 
he had dedicated his life had been placed at the service of a monster.

Yet neither man is to be pitied, for both made their choices freely. 
Inventing fertilizer may have helped mankind, but it also launched 
their careers, and both took advantage. At the beginning of World War 
I, Bosch volunteered to convert his entire operation to the 
manufacture of explosives, fertilizer's chemical first cousin. The 
government subsidized the biggest munitions plant in the world and 
built it partly with slave labor. Haber, also eager to please, joined 
the war ministry, donned a captain's uniform, developed a method of 
blanketing enemy trenches with poisonous chlorine gas and oversaw its 
first successful demonstration at Ypres in 1915.

Structurally, The Alchemy of Air is a series of narrative set pieces 
linking Haber and Bosch to tumultuous events. First comes a brief 
history of fertilizer, with episodes in the Atacama and the guano 
islands off Peru, where Chinese coolies worked in horrendous 
conditions; it's a harsh but riveting story little known in the 
United States. Then Hager describes the development of the 
Haber-Bosch synthesis, a worthy addition to the growing genre of 
histories about scientific processes. Finally, the author presents a 
cautionary tale about the misuse of science in modern times: how two 
brilliant innovators helped create the explosives, poison gas and 
synthetic fuels that enabled despots in a small nation to wage two 
catastrophic wars.

The Alchemy of Air is a quick, easy read, aimed at a general -- i.e., 
impatient -- audience. This is unfortunate. Haber and Bosch are 
fascinating if troubled personalities, brought by Hager compellingly 
to life. Though Haber and his contradictions have inspired a number 
of biographies and even a play, Bosch (whose collections of 25,000 
minerals and 4 million insects ended up in the Smithsonian) is almost 
unknown. With these two stars, plus Imperial Germany and the rise of 
Nazism as a stage and cameos by Einstein, Max Planck and other giants 
of German science and industry, there is material here for twice as 
big a book. One wishes that Hager had kept writing. ·

Guy Gugliotta is a former Washington Post science reporter.


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