offered him a very junior position and in the Spring of 1894, he left Jena for
Karlsruhe not being entirely certain of what awaited him. Haber was always a
great story teller, so how much of this is true and how much invention one
will never know but on 16 December 1894, in his mid twenties and by a
twist of fate, he became assistant to Professor Hans Bunte in the department
of Chemical and Fuel Technology at Karlsruhe where he was to stay for the
next seventeen years. With duties to perform but ample time for research, he
had finally achieved what he wanted, a foot on the first rung of the academic
ladder.
2.6 On Coming to Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe, capital of the state of Baden, was a prosperous city on the river
Rhine in southern Germany near Stuttgart and a focus of liberalism in
Germany. The university’s young chemistry institute was hardly the most
prestigious but it was unfettered by tradition—the kind of German tradition
that would have held back a Jew’s progress, (Charles
6
) It also had close
relations with industry—and not just any industry, but the world renowned
Badische Anilin & Soda-Fabrik (the BASF) at nearby Ludwigshafen. Haber
therefore considered it doubly fortunate that chance led him to Karlsruhe.
Karlsruhe was also a good place to be a Jew
22 in that only a small proportion
of the Baden electorate had ever voted for the anti-Semitic parties in the
elections of 1893 and 1898, (Charles
6
). In addition to its industrial links the
Institute also attracted solid local government funding. Couple all of this with
Haber’s understanding of industry after working in Breslau, Hungary and
Poland and he had for the first time a recipe for success. Here Haber found
the space to set his mind free and he threw himself into his work. Over the
years he amassed an amazingly eclectic collection of respected work largely in
physical chemistry, the subject that had captivated him in his final year at
Berlin. But what was even more amazing was that Haber claimed he was self
taught never having attended a lecture on the subject (apart from his own) in
his life!
23 As always however, Haber was a great tease and there was more to
this claim than ‘met the eye’.
Having come from Jena, where he had worked in organic chemistry, to the
department of Chemical and Fuel Technology at Karlsruhe, Bunte quite
naturally suggested that Haber tackle a problem in organic chemistry which
impinged on the fuel industry viz., the thermal decomposition (‘pyrolysis’) of
hydrocarbons, an exercise which began Haber’s life long interest in flames and
the effect of heat on substances. Some thirty years earlier the eminent French
2 Fritz Haber and Karlsruhe
47
Karlsruhe not being entirely certain of what awaited him. Haber was always a
great story teller, so how much of this is true and how much invention one
will never know but on 16 December 1894, in his mid twenties and by a
twist of fate, he became assistant to Professor Hans Bunte in the department
of Chemical and Fuel Technology at Karlsruhe where he was to stay for the
next seventeen years. With duties to perform but ample time for research, he
had finally achieved what he wanted, a foot on the first rung of the academic
ladder.
2.6 On Coming to Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe, capital of the state of Baden, was a prosperous city on the river
Rhine in southern Germany near Stuttgart and a focus of liberalism in
Germany. The university’s young chemistry institute was hardly the most
prestigious but it was unfettered by tradition—the kind of German tradition
that would have held back a Jew’s progress, (Charles
6
) It also had close
relations with industry—and not just any industry, but the world renowned
Badische Anilin & Soda-Fabrik (the BASF) at nearby Ludwigshafen. Haber
therefore considered it doubly fortunate that chance led him to Karlsruhe.
Karlsruhe was also a good place to be a Jew
22 in that only a small proportion
of the Baden electorate had ever voted for the anti-Semitic parties in the
elections of 1893 and 1898, (Charles
6
). In addition to its industrial links the
Institute also attracted solid local government funding. Couple all of this with
Haber’s understanding of industry after working in Breslau, Hungary and
Poland and he had for the first time a recipe for success. Here Haber found
the space to set his mind free and he threw himself into his work. Over the
years he amassed an amazingly eclectic collection of respected work largely in
physical chemistry, the subject that had captivated him in his final year at
Berlin. But what was even more amazing was that Haber claimed he was self
taught never having attended a lecture on the subject (apart from his own) in
his life!
23 As always however, Haber was a great tease and there was more to
this claim than ‘met the eye’.
Having come from Jena, where he had worked in organic chemistry, to the
department of Chemical and Fuel Technology at Karlsruhe, Bunte quite
naturally suggested that Haber tackle a problem in organic chemistry which
impinged on the fuel industry viz., the thermal decomposition (‘pyrolysis’) of
hydrocarbons, an exercise which began Haber’s life long interest in flames and
the effect of heat on substances. Some thirty years earlier the eminent French
2 Fritz Haber and Karlsruhe
47