expectation made of him. His sincere recognition of Le Rossignol for the
work he did, the fact that he ‘played fair’ by him in their financial arrangement, (Chap. 14) and intervened to get him released from Ruhleben testifies
to this side of his character. It is reflected too in the support he provided for
his children and his second wife Charlotte after their divorce, and in his
resignation from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute when ordered by the Nazis to
remove his Jewish scientists. And in 1933 when leaving for a position at
Cambridge, he sought an ‘honourable separation’ from Germany to avoid the
‘Reichsfluchtsteuer’ for ‘unpatriotic desertion’ which would not only decimate his finances. but brand him a tax evader.
23 Such was his emotional
attachment to Germany, it was a legacy he could not countenance and
illustrates the ‘tension’ he felt at being torn between his obligations on the
one hand and his pursuit of money as reward on the other.
His patriotism too was unquestionable. In his resignation letter from the
KWI he said of WW1, ‘Science is for the world … but for your country in
time of war!’. But we should not suppose that he enjoyed war per se. He
hated the suffering, the waste of life, the pointlessness of it all, for in his
emotional ‘ground state’ he was kindly, helpful, and benevolent. But it is
equally true that the excitation of war transformed him into a ruthless
autocrat, a side of him which in peace-time he either suppressed or made
manifest as his ‘strength of purpose’. He gave his whole being over to the
struggle for victory and nothing was allowed to deflect him: neither family,
human suffering, nor considerations of international law. He brought a
vitality to all the positions he held and he always placed Germany first, For
three or four generations past, his family had fought for, or served, Germany
and he was proud to have become a Prussian officer and such an influential
military man, so when defeat finally came it weighed heavily upon him as did
the personal repercussions of his role in chemical warfare.
In the wider terms of his science, Haber was characterized by versatility.
There was hardly an important branch of contemporary physical chemistry to
which he did not make a fundamental contribution. But despite all his
talents, his eclectic and fundamental contributions to chemistry, his energy
and his devotion to duty, he is remembered by many today not by the epitaph
he composed for himself: ‘He served his country in war and peace, as long as
it was granted him’, (Stoltzenberg, Chap. 2) but in a way he would have never
have wanted. ‘As a Jew … the ‘father of chemical warfare’.’
But in the history of science, Haber’s papers of 1905–1908 with van Oordt
and Le Rossignol stand alongside those of Einstein’s 1905 Annus Mirabilis,
not of course in terms their imagination and scientific insight, but in their
subsequent impact on humanity. Einstein’s explanation of the photo-electric
382
D. Sheppard
work he did, the fact that he ‘played fair’ by him in their financial arrangement, (Chap. 14) and intervened to get him released from Ruhleben testifies
to this side of his character. It is reflected too in the support he provided for
his children and his second wife Charlotte after their divorce, and in his
resignation from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute when ordered by the Nazis to
remove his Jewish scientists. And in 1933 when leaving for a position at
Cambridge, he sought an ‘honourable separation’ from Germany to avoid the
‘Reichsfluchtsteuer’ for ‘unpatriotic desertion’ which would not only decimate his finances. but brand him a tax evader.
23 Such was his emotional
attachment to Germany, it was a legacy he could not countenance and
illustrates the ‘tension’ he felt at being torn between his obligations on the
one hand and his pursuit of money as reward on the other.
His patriotism too was unquestionable. In his resignation letter from the
KWI he said of WW1, ‘Science is for the world … but for your country in
time of war!’. But we should not suppose that he enjoyed war per se. He
hated the suffering, the waste of life, the pointlessness of it all, for in his
emotional ‘ground state’ he was kindly, helpful, and benevolent. But it is
equally true that the excitation of war transformed him into a ruthless
autocrat, a side of him which in peace-time he either suppressed or made
manifest as his ‘strength of purpose’. He gave his whole being over to the
struggle for victory and nothing was allowed to deflect him: neither family,
human suffering, nor considerations of international law. He brought a
vitality to all the positions he held and he always placed Germany first, For
three or four generations past, his family had fought for, or served, Germany
and he was proud to have become a Prussian officer and such an influential
military man, so when defeat finally came it weighed heavily upon him as did
the personal repercussions of his role in chemical warfare.
In the wider terms of his science, Haber was characterized by versatility.
There was hardly an important branch of contemporary physical chemistry to
which he did not make a fundamental contribution. But despite all his
talents, his eclectic and fundamental contributions to chemistry, his energy
and his devotion to duty, he is remembered by many today not by the epitaph
he composed for himself: ‘He served his country in war and peace, as long as
it was granted him’, (Stoltzenberg, Chap. 2) but in a way he would have never
have wanted. ‘As a Jew … the ‘father of chemical warfare’.’
But in the history of science, Haber’s papers of 1905–1908 with van Oordt
and Le Rossignol stand alongside those of Einstein’s 1905 Annus Mirabilis,
not of course in terms their imagination and scientific insight, but in their
subsequent impact on humanity. Einstein’s explanation of the photo-electric
382
D. Sheppard