Original version

BBC World Service East Asia

The Forum

Documentaries

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

The Forum: Fertiliser and poison gas: The legacy of chemist Fritz Haber

Fertiliser and poison gas: The legacy of chemist Fritz Haber

05/05/2022 GMT

BBC World Service - The Forum, Fertiliser and poison gas: The legacy of chemist Fritz Haber

The scientist who helped feed billions, and unleashed a new kind of death

The scientist who helped feed billions, and unleashed a new kind of death.

German chemist Fritz Haber's discovery of how to turn atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia is seen as one of the most significant of 20th century science - it enabled the industrial manufacture of fertilisers, which now provide food for up to half the planet's people.

But he was also responsible for the development and deployment of poison gas on the battlefields of World War One and is remembered by some as the 'father of chemical warfare'. His was also a life touched by personal tragedy and a struggle against a Jewish heritage that at first threatened to hold back his career, and would later send him into exile.

Bridget Kendall examines a life that epitomises science’s capacity to create and to destroy.

Contributors:

Dan Charles, US journalist and author of ‘Master Mind: The Rise And Fall Of Fritz Haber, The Nobel Laureate Who Launched The Age Of Chemical Warfare’;
Shulamit Volkov, professor emerita of European and especially German History at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel;
Dr Anthony Travis, senior researcher in the history of technology at the Sidney M. Edelstein Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine, at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and author of ‘Nitrogen Capture: The Growth of an International Industry’.

(Image: A portrait photograph of Fritz Haber, dated around 1920. Credit: ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Forum

Fertiliser and poison gas: The legacy of chemist Fritz Haber

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service East Asia

About BBC World Service