A few years after Hermann’s death, Clara, the eldest of his three daughters
also took her life, the third family member in as many generations to do so
and the fourth in the story of ‘fixation’. Clara, also known as ‘Claire’, was
born in Haber’s house in Berlin on 21 December 1928, Marga and Hermann
living there as Haber tried to find Hermann a job.
65 According to Kate
Mitchells story, ‘The Forbidden Zone’, presented at the Salzburg Festival, 30
July 2014 and described in The Times Article ‘The Secret Story of the Poison
Gas Family Suicides’ the same day, a researcher uncovered Claire’s birth
certificate and unraveled the story of Haber’s granddaughter. Claire—also a
chemist—died a horrible death in 1949 gasping for air after swallowing
cyanide in a Chicago toilet opposite the American Institute where she had
been working on counter-agents to poison gases. The story goes, at least as
Mitchell tells it, that in her bag was Haber’s Iron Cross (Chap. 13). Claire too
it seemed, struggled to cope with the cruel legacy of her family.
Were Robert and Emily aware of these events at the time? We don’t know,
but they probably heard of them from Johannes Jaenicke when he visited St.
Helier in 1959 (Chap. 18)—if indeed news had not already filtered through.
Over the quarter century of their retirement together, this private couple were
to engage in an amazing, but humble, demonstration of their humanity
undoubtedly predicated on their life experiences and a desire to help people
less fortunate than themselves. And it’s always part of the human condition
that even when people bear what seems to be more than their fair share of
tragedy in life, out of that tragedy often comes triumph.
Notes
1. Robert Clayton & Joan Algar (Editors), A Scientist War. The War Diary of Sir
Clifford Paterson, 1939–45, Peter Peregrinus Ltd., in association with the
Science Museum, (1991). ISBN 0 86341 218 1, https://doi.org/10.1049/
PBHT014E. This title was later acquired by the Institution of Engineering
and Technology, (30 January 1991).
2. During the war, the Laboratories produced 303,848 valves of 40 different
types, Clayton and Algar, op. cit. (note 1), p. 574. The ‘magnetron’ was a
device that generated microwave energy—as its name implies—from the
interaction between a magnetic field and electrons. The ‘cavity magnetron’
developed by the Laboratories was a particularly high-powered ‘sealed-off’
vacuum tube that generated microwaves in such a way.
3. Clayton and Algar, op. cit. (note 1), p. 588.
4. However, Clifford Paterson’s war diary for Sept 1st 1939 op. cit. (note 1), has
the entry … ‘Intensification of activity on valve and radio work for Bawdsey and
Signal School’. Ironically however, a very readable account of CH and CHL
446
D. Sheppard
also took her life, the third family member in as many generations to do so
and the fourth in the story of ‘fixation’. Clara, also known as ‘Claire’, was
born in Haber’s house in Berlin on 21 December 1928, Marga and Hermann
living there as Haber tried to find Hermann a job.
65 According to Kate
Mitchells story, ‘The Forbidden Zone’, presented at the Salzburg Festival, 30
July 2014 and described in The Times Article ‘The Secret Story of the Poison
Gas Family Suicides’ the same day, a researcher uncovered Claire’s birth
certificate and unraveled the story of Haber’s granddaughter. Claire—also a
chemist—died a horrible death in 1949 gasping for air after swallowing
cyanide in a Chicago toilet opposite the American Institute where she had
been working on counter-agents to poison gases. The story goes, at least as
Mitchell tells it, that in her bag was Haber’s Iron Cross (Chap. 13). Claire too
it seemed, struggled to cope with the cruel legacy of her family.
Were Robert and Emily aware of these events at the time? We don’t know,
but they probably heard of them from Johannes Jaenicke when he visited St.
Helier in 1959 (Chap. 18)—if indeed news had not already filtered through.
Over the quarter century of their retirement together, this private couple were
to engage in an amazing, but humble, demonstration of their humanity
undoubtedly predicated on their life experiences and a desire to help people
less fortunate than themselves. And it’s always part of the human condition
that even when people bear what seems to be more than their fair share of
tragedy in life, out of that tragedy often comes triumph.
Notes
1. Robert Clayton & Joan Algar (Editors), A Scientist War. The War Diary of Sir
Clifford Paterson, 1939–45, Peter Peregrinus Ltd., in association with the
Science Museum, (1991). ISBN 0 86341 218 1, https://doi.org/10.1049/
PBHT014E. This title was later acquired by the Institution of Engineering
and Technology, (30 January 1991).
2. During the war, the Laboratories produced 303,848 valves of 40 different
types, Clayton and Algar, op. cit. (note 1), p. 574. The ‘magnetron’ was a
device that generated microwave energy—as its name implies—from the
interaction between a magnetic field and electrons. The ‘cavity magnetron’
developed by the Laboratories was a particularly high-powered ‘sealed-off’
vacuum tube that generated microwaves in such a way.
3. Clayton and Algar, op. cit. (note 1), p. 588.
4. However, Clifford Paterson’s war diary for Sept 1st 1939 op. cit. (note 1), has
the entry … ‘Intensification of activity on valve and radio work for Bawdsey and
Signal School’. Ironically however, a very readable account of CH and CHL
446
D. Sheppard