There is no doubt that Fritz Haber was deeply indebted to Hans Luggin at
this time and the two could well have gone on to produce some spectacular
work, but any future collaboration was cut short when on 15 December 1899
aged just 36 years, Luggin died after a brief illness. Here we see many parallels
with Robert Le Rossignol who, at roughly the same age as Haber, lost his
elder brother Austen Clement. Although Hans and Fritz were not related
there was a tremendous respect between the two and just like Austin
Clement, Luggin should have gone on to a glittering career. Such was the
affinity between the two men that after Hans’ death his father permitted
Haber to attend to his son’s scientific affairs. Fritz completed a series of
experiments that Hans had started and published the results. Throughout the
rest of his career Haber always recognised his professional debt to Luggin and
who knows, in later years both he and Robert may well have talked about
their loss.
2.8 Clara Immerwahr
The loss of Hans Luggin was both a professional and a personal blow to
Haber but there was another relationship in his life that had been developing
quietly over the years. Clara Immerwahr
30 had grown up along side Fritz in
Breslau’s close-knit Jewish community; a comfortable world held together by
marriages between ‘well-to-do’ families with overlapping friendships.
31 Both
Fritz and Clara were the children of wealthy merchants. Like Fritz, Clara was
not particularly attentive to her religious provenance and by 1891 there is
some evidence that their acquaintance began to develop romantically. At the
time however, Clara’s mother had recently died and the family had the
upheaval of moving from their estate just out side Breslau to a new home on
Breslau’s central square. Even if it had been proposed, marriage would have
been out of the question as Fritz was probably in the most uncertain years of
his life with little prospect of supporting a wife. Both he and Clara therefore
‘moved on’ but neither really forgot each other, (Charles
6 ).
Over the next decade these two young people achieved remarkable things.
Fritz of course embarked on his career in chemistry which by 1901 established him as professor Extraordinarius at Karlsruhe. Clara’s achievement(s)
over the same period might be regarded as even more remarkable.
A Gymnasium education was not available to girls in Breslau but she achieved
the same level of education through private tuition and, utilising a loophole in
Breslau’s University admission policy towards women, gained admission to
pursue a degree in chemistry—just like her father. At about the same time
2 Fritz Haber and Karlsruhe
51
this time and the two could well have gone on to produce some spectacular
work, but any future collaboration was cut short when on 15 December 1899
aged just 36 years, Luggin died after a brief illness. Here we see many parallels
with Robert Le Rossignol who, at roughly the same age as Haber, lost his
elder brother Austen Clement. Although Hans and Fritz were not related
there was a tremendous respect between the two and just like Austin
Clement, Luggin should have gone on to a glittering career. Such was the
affinity between the two men that after Hans’ death his father permitted
Haber to attend to his son’s scientific affairs. Fritz completed a series of
experiments that Hans had started and published the results. Throughout the
rest of his career Haber always recognised his professional debt to Luggin and
who knows, in later years both he and Robert may well have talked about
their loss.
2.8 Clara Immerwahr
The loss of Hans Luggin was both a professional and a personal blow to
Haber but there was another relationship in his life that had been developing
quietly over the years. Clara Immerwahr
30 had grown up along side Fritz in
Breslau’s close-knit Jewish community; a comfortable world held together by
marriages between ‘well-to-do’ families with overlapping friendships.
31 Both
Fritz and Clara were the children of wealthy merchants. Like Fritz, Clara was
not particularly attentive to her religious provenance and by 1891 there is
some evidence that their acquaintance began to develop romantically. At the
time however, Clara’s mother had recently died and the family had the
upheaval of moving from their estate just out side Breslau to a new home on
Breslau’s central square. Even if it had been proposed, marriage would have
been out of the question as Fritz was probably in the most uncertain years of
his life with little prospect of supporting a wife. Both he and Clara therefore
‘moved on’ but neither really forgot each other, (Charles
6 ).
Over the next decade these two young people achieved remarkable things.
Fritz of course embarked on his career in chemistry which by 1901 established him as professor Extraordinarius at Karlsruhe. Clara’s achievement(s)
over the same period might be regarded as even more remarkable.
A Gymnasium education was not available to girls in Breslau but she achieved
the same level of education through private tuition and, utilising a loophole in
Breslau’s University admission policy towards women, gained admission to
pursue a degree in chemistry—just like her father. At about the same time
2 Fritz Haber and Karlsruhe
51