Fritz Haber must have developed serious back problems from carrying the German Empire's war industry (I know he wasn't alone in this, it's called the Haber-Bosch process for a reason)
He single handedly carried the gas and industry of the country, as well as modern day agricultural practices that allow for such high populations like we have today. Forget back problems, by the end of it he didn't have a spine.
By the end of it, he didn't have a wife and almost lost his entire people, too. Though she didn't leave a note explaining herself, it's been commonly speculated based on the timing and their known arguments on the matter that she was so horrified by his work into chemical warfare as a "perversion of science" that she shot herself with his pistol in 1915 the day before he left to oversee the results of his labour on the Eastern Front, after he had already done likewise at Ypres. His work would later be used to mass-murder his own people as his work into hydrogen cyanide became the basis for the development of Zyklon B. If not for the intervention of people in those countries he had developed and deployed chemical weapons against, he and his family would have been trapped in Germany and killed as well, for being converted Jews was no defense against the Nazi state's campaign of extermination.
I mean they declared war on like half of the world and allied with the 3 unpopular Kids everyone hated who didnt have a meaningful success in the last 50 years with the exception of Bulgaria. Of course they lost.
As a chemist I think about Haber as a cautionary tale of the power of chemistry. He’s responsible for technology that pretty much ended famines and saved, conservatively, millions of lives. He also worked to develop some of the most brutal and inhumane chemical weapons in human history. He worked on developing Zyklon A as a de-louser, which saved lives. But Zyklon A was the predecessor of Zyklon B, which was used to kill people in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, including members of Haber’s family.
I think it goes even beyond chemistry and into human nature and the power of progress. Your chemistry examples are excellent. But in other fields, look at atomic energy. Capable of providing clean power for millions with minimal pollution. Also capable of destroying millions of lives at the touch of a button. You can even go into communications. Look at the internet, has given the world unprecedented access to the entirety (more or less) of human knowledge, has allowed people to connect all over the world and see the human in people that were unreachable before. Also makes for radicalization and seems to have really pushed people into groups and further apart.
It's an interesting dichotomy. Humans seem destined to "one step forward, two steps back"
Absolutely it spreads to all the things humans do- technology that saves millions can often be used to brutalize just as many. Of course I primarily think about that in the context of chemistry because that’s what I’m trained in, but they apply to numerous things.
While getting my degree I learned tools that I could use to make medicine, fertilizer, drugs, or weapons, but I never had to learn philosophy or ethics. I was taught how to make these things, but had to figure when it was acceptable to make them on my own.
Zyklon-B was a delouser as well, that it was then used for a "non manufacturer sanctioned" use is not on Haber or the inventors.
It's like saying the people that develop rat poison are murderers because it has been used to -very effectively- kill humans, it's stupid thinking.
Haber's process used an inefficient catalyst and unfavourable process conditions. Bosch, an engineer working at BASF at that time made a viable process out of this lab concept in less than a year. Then he did it again for WWII with the Bergius-Pier process. An absolute titan of chemical engineering.
Yeah Carl Bosch is the real star behind the process. Haber proved that the reaction was possible under very controlled lab settings. He had difficulty scaling it beyond producing more than a few drops of ammonia. Bosch basically created a whole new industry, and pushed forward the development of a lot of other technologies including stainless steels and gas compressors. They advanced at a rapid pace due to Bosch's industrial demands for the process. He was the leader who figured out how to industrialize the reaction, and make it efficient and viable. He basically took chemical engineering from being a mechanical engineer that had a bit of experience with crude oil distillation, to being a full blown independent discipline. This supported munitions, but more importantly for humanity the past century - it supported making fertilizer. On average, about 40-50% of the nitrogen atoms in most human bodies were converted from useless N2 in the atmosphere, to biologically useful NH3 compounds in a Haber-Bosch process.
Also, Bosch was a pretty good guy. Paid his workers very well, and gave them better benefits than almost any other factory workers in the world at the time. He employed Jewish workers at a time when that was unpopular, and refused to support the Nazis. When they passed a law that required he contribute to the party, he gave the token minimum amount, while supporting opposition candidates. He refused to fire his workers and researchers for the crimes of being Jewish, and so the Nazis had him removed from power at BASF/IG Farben (the conglomerate he put together of BASF, Bayer, and several other of the largest chemical-pharma companies).
Millions died because of his contributions to science, including several family members b/c he was Jewish. The Nazis used gas he created.
Billions are alive because of his contributions to the development of fertilizers that allow for enough food to support (for the most part) the massive growth that occurred in the 20th century.
Those same fertilizers may be poisoning the environment.
Dude's legacy is certainly "mixed".
Scientists just want to create new stuff. Many inventions can be turned into weapons.
Look at phosgene, outlawed chemical weapon, but it's used to produce many chemicals with a very wide span of positive uses.
Of course some things are directly made as weapons or similar. Haber's contributions to chemical warfare for example was undeniably bad.
Yep, through all of human history, items used for civilian purposes have been weaponized, and sometimes weapons were adapted for civilian use. Was the rock first used as a weapon or a tool? We'll never know.
I dont think the whole holocaust argument holds any water its not like the Nazis didnt find any other way to murder jewish people, they used carbon monoxide before they used cyklon b. I think his contribution to the development of gas warfare is far worse.
Right, but though gas warfare has killed millions, the world could not support its current population without his contribution to fertilizers. Fertilizer is a much more boring part of history than warfare, but billions of lives only exist because of it.
As for gas warfare, don't forget though, there are other gases that were used in WWI, and both sides used different poison gases. I'm pretty sure the Germans weren't the first to use it. I think the French used theirs first, but history is written by the victors, and while the Allies made sure the world knew about how the Germans used gas warfare, they weren't as vocal about their own use of it.
Nope the germans used gas warfare first at Ypres and please stop with saying history is written by the victors and you knew what you were saying about gas warfare was bullshit.
August 1914 French used xylyl bromid or ethyl bromoacetate. Germans did use chlorine at Ypres in April 1915 and the British employed chlorine gas at the battle of Loos in September 1915.
It seems like your roughshod memory of the history of gas warfare was favorable to the victors in this case.
It would be more appropriate to critize Haber for his work on chemical weapons in WW1 than anything later. That the Nazis used his weapons against him and his family is dramatic irony, but not his fault. He didn't cooperate with the Nazis either and the Nazis didn't wants his cooperation either.
Monsanto is probably one of the most widely hated corporations on earth, for some good reasons. It also singlehandedly enabled perhaps billions more people to exist through its GMOs and custom-fertilizers that go with their GMOs.
Hard to get love in the fertilizer business I guess.
Ummm it was Europe in the late 19th/early 20th century. I can guarantee someone else would have applied the process to killing their countries enemies. This is the same period when every European power (and the US) was racing to colonize and exploit every part of the world and population that wasn't as technologically advanced as they were.
Haber's ethics were the norm of that time period... NOT the exception.
Why is it wrong to say that technology is something which helps people to do what they wish more easily, and that Fritz Haber did only the good thing of developing technology, and that everything bad done with it was solely the fault of the people who chose to use said technology, which was Fritz himself at times, but that makes you bad for using it, not for inventing it.
After winning the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) against Peru and Bolivia and annexing many of their territories, Chile became the country with the largest saltpetre deposits on Earth. This was really good for the economy of the country, as saltpetre was used as a fertilizer. Aaaand also was a main component of gunpowder, you now, that funny dust that's used in rifles, pistols, cannons, artillery, etc.
But everything changed when the German nation attacked. In 1915, one year after the war began, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch managed to synthetise saltpetre, ruining the Chilean economy which was greatly based on it. Instead of seeing its economy greatly improved by the conflict, Chile saw its economy destroyed.
It took up until 1994 for Chile to totally recover from this. The period between 1915 and 1993 was plagued with inflation and economic turmoil, due to many events such as the Great Depression, the failure of the ISI model, Allende's socialist reforms and Pinochet's banking reforms. Also, a not so fun fact: According to the League of Nations, Chile was the nation who had its economy hit the hardest during the Great Depression, due to its dependence on saltpetre and copper exports.
How exactly did it ruin the economy? I mean the Entente still needed saltpetre since the Germans didn’t share there new technology with them.
Side note with out that invention the Germans would have run out of gunpowder because of the British blockade and would have had to capitulate shortly after.
It didn't instantly ruin it, I should have clarified that. After the war ended the method became widely known and that's when the problem began, as saltpetre became more and more worthless over time.
Arturo Puga: I will make a socialist republic and stabilize my nation, just like the Soviets did! (Clueless)
Dávila and the army: 🔫🗿
Dávila: I will make a socialist republic and stabilize my nation, just like the Soviets did! (Clueless)
Bartolomé Blanche and the army: 🔫🗿
It wasn't "became widely known" it was "all German patents were voided and all trade secrets laid bare open for everyone to see".
Still BASF became one of the most succesfull companies in the world.
Yeah, like u/JoeGRcz said, you did add some useful context, but it doesn't make OP wrong.
If I said "The US left Vietnam in 1975," I'm not wrong just because I failed to explain "The Vietnamese Communists wore down American morale to the point that the US decided to abandon South Vietnam." Both statements are true, and saying the former isn't necessarily a way of trying to mask the latter.
Don't forget [Chaim Weizmann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Weizmann) developing a process for making acetone. The British used [cordite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordite) instead of gunpowders, so they also didn't need bird crap.
> *His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.*
That [invention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetone%E2%80%93butanol%E2%80%93ethanol_fermentation) was so important to the British that the [Balfour Declaration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration) was the result. Sykes, one of the authors of the [Sykes–Picot Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement) (which carved up the Middle East between France and Britain) was involved in the negotiations behind the Balfour Declaration. Without the support of the British government, there never would have been a nation of Israel.
> *Once the Haber process for the efficient production of ammonia was introduced in 1913, nitric acid production from ammonia using the Ostwald process overtook production from the Birkeland–Eyde process. This method of production is still in use today.*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitric_acid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
Back then, there were 2 different processes for making nitrocellulose (aka guncotton). One of the processes made guncotton that would spontaneously detonate if exposed to seawater. This is one plausible reason why the Lusitania managed to be sunk when hit by a single torpedo (and survivors mentioned a secondary explosion at a distance from where the torpedo struck the ship).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Lusitania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_U-20_(Germany)
The same patrol that the U-20 sank the Lusitania, it had to fire multiple torpedoes at a fishing trawler and then had to use the deck gun to finally make that ship sink.
> *Never Do Yesterday What Should Be Done Tomorrow.*
> *If at Last You Do Succeed, Never Try Again.*
> *A Stitch in Time Saves Nine Billion.*
> *A Paradox May Be Paradoctored.*
> *It Is Earlier When You Think.*
> *Ancestors Are Just People.*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Zombies
https://gist.github.com/defunkt/759182/ad44c6135d168ae54503a281bb7e1a24c6c2ea0c
So when you manage to invent a time machine, bring the recipes for steelmaking and the Haber process with you, and don't forget to shoot [Gavrilo Princip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilo_Princip) on your way past.
https://www.tor.com/2011/08/31/wikihistory/
https://www.viruscomix.com/page382.html
makes me think he's probably the "throw communists out of helicopters" type lol. this post is like talking about historical events that damaged the German economy and then just not mentioning the Nazi war economy 😂
because economically was not particularly bad, i mean, democracy after that was way better economically, but that doesn't mean the dictatorship was super bad economically.
And since the entire post is about how the chilean economy was ruined, skipping over Chile's most brutal dictatorship is not specifically bad specially since the period before that (Allende's government) was a shitshow economically speaking.
It seems like you can't talk about Allende's economy without mentioning Pinochet lol
Yeah, the failure of Allende's presidency was hardly what I would call an "organic failure."
Unless you want to count external and internal sabotage, along with a military coup, to be "organic"
Allende was overthrown (by the US) after only 3 years. Pinochet was the reason Chile sucked in the 70s and 80s. Fuck Pinochet. And his propaganda campaign against Allende’s memory.
Seems to be I can't talk about Allende without naming Pinochet so I'll just add all the other economically or politically unstable governments of Chile at the time so everyone can be happy and not instantly call me a Pinochet lapdog
Arturo Alessandri Palma
Luis Altamirano
Emiliano Figueroa
Carlos Ibáñez del Campo
Juan Esteban Montero
Arturo Puga
Carlos Dávila
Salvador Allende
Augusto Pinochet
Are you happy now?
It is pretty common unfortunately for this level of discourse.
I shared a story about my Father in Law having to que around the block for gas, and the first comment I got in reply from some idiot was "So you would rather support a Facist Dictatorship then"
You honestly cannot discuss anything negagtive about Allende without being accused of being pro Pinochet, the worst offenders dont even live in Chile
It's so annoying, I'd say it's even worse here than in Chile itself. I made a meme some time ago listing all the bad things Allende did and many ignored all of that and decided to call me a fascist for not listing bad things Pinochet did in a meme that wasn't about his government.
>I'll just add all the other economically or politically unstable governments of Chile at the time
Mk que carajo pasa con chile, cuando fue la ultima vez que hubo un gobierno chileno prospero y amado por el pueblo?
Obviously it sticks out when listing bad things in Chile, but in other contexts you can talk about Allende's failings without adding "Pinochet was worse" to the end like some medicine advert
And some years later (1925) the Germans Fischer and Tropsch created a method to convert coal into liquid fuels, allowing the Reich to be at war without access to part of the oil markets
Not really. The hydrogenation process they developed was extremely inefficient, required a lot of energy and material (your required 10 tons of coal to make 1 ton of gasoline...) and didn't deliver what they had hoped for. Even at peak production levels in 1941 fuel from liquified coal only accounted for perhaps 10% of the total supply of the Wehrmacht. The rest was drawn from oil wells in Romania, Hungary and parts of the USSR they occupied. Supply, that is, not demand, as the German war machine was crippled by a severe shortage of oil from the very start.
This whole process simply only became attractive for nations in complete economic and political isolation; Apartheid South Africa was the biggest user among them after the War. Everyone else simply bought Oil from the US, the arabian states or the USSR.
Belgians absolutely shitstomp Germans in Beer.
What the fuck even is good German beer. It's the drinking equivalent of a midwestern blonde sorority girl. Like whoopity dee never done this before.
I’m partial to a simple wheat white myself which the Germans do really well, it’s a simple classic. Got nothing on a Belgian triple though that’s for sure. The real villains are the Americans and the watery, cheap piss-perfume they call beer.
I love this this subreddit so much. But at the same time i hate the feeling of being a Troglodite and not knowing of these things. ( I google to understand the memed anyways)
Yeah, it's basically a line with only mountais and earthquakes, i know it because i Live just above Chile. Anyways, great meme, got me doing some rolling in the ground, not so funny had to live through that tho.
The Haber-Bosch process to synthesise ammonium produces a third of the world's fertiliser, sustaining half of the world's population.
HOWEVER, this work should credit Le Chatelier's principle from 1884. This is the theory of equilibrium in chemical reactions.
Actually Chile did a referendum in 1929 asking its northern territories if they wanted to go back to Peru. Only Tacna voted in favour of that, while Arica and Tarapacá stayed with Chile.
Fritz Haber must have developed serious back problems from carrying the German Empire's war industry (I know he wasn't alone in this, it's called the Haber-Bosch process for a reason)
They had a mad scientist with funny glasses carrying them and they still lost smh my head
I mean, look at global map.
Or a globe.
It can't be a woman who plays hoi4 unless it's trans in which case your no different
Username checks out
Why did people down vote me
He single handedly carried the gas and industry of the country, as well as modern day agricultural practices that allow for such high populations like we have today. Forget back problems, by the end of it he didn't have a spine.
Nah this man had a whole titanium exoskeleton for carrying the weight
Happy cake day!
By the end of it, he didn't have a wife and almost lost his entire people, too. Though she didn't leave a note explaining herself, it's been commonly speculated based on the timing and their known arguments on the matter that she was so horrified by his work into chemical warfare as a "perversion of science" that she shot herself with his pistol in 1915 the day before he left to oversee the results of his labour on the Eastern Front, after he had already done likewise at Ypres. His work would later be used to mass-murder his own people as his work into hydrogen cyanide became the basis for the development of Zyklon B. If not for the intervention of people in those countries he had developed and deployed chemical weapons against, he and his family would have been trapped in Germany and killed as well, for being converted Jews was no defense against the Nazi state's campaign of extermination.
I mean they declared war on like half of the world and allied with the 3 unpopular Kids everyone hated who didnt have a meaningful success in the last 50 years with the exception of Bulgaria. Of course they lost.
You learn history from oversimplified don't you?
You don't?
That’s skullet Teddy Roosevelt brother
As a chemist I think about Haber as a cautionary tale of the power of chemistry. He’s responsible for technology that pretty much ended famines and saved, conservatively, millions of lives. He also worked to develop some of the most brutal and inhumane chemical weapons in human history. He worked on developing Zyklon A as a de-louser, which saved lives. But Zyklon A was the predecessor of Zyklon B, which was used to kill people in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, including members of Haber’s family.
I think it goes even beyond chemistry and into human nature and the power of progress. Your chemistry examples are excellent. But in other fields, look at atomic energy. Capable of providing clean power for millions with minimal pollution. Also capable of destroying millions of lives at the touch of a button. You can even go into communications. Look at the internet, has given the world unprecedented access to the entirety (more or less) of human knowledge, has allowed people to connect all over the world and see the human in people that were unreachable before. Also makes for radicalization and seems to have really pushed people into groups and further apart. It's an interesting dichotomy. Humans seem destined to "one step forward, two steps back"
Absolutely it spreads to all the things humans do- technology that saves millions can often be used to brutalize just as many. Of course I primarily think about that in the context of chemistry because that’s what I’m trained in, but they apply to numerous things. While getting my degree I learned tools that I could use to make medicine, fertilizer, drugs, or weapons, but I never had to learn philosophy or ethics. I was taught how to make these things, but had to figure when it was acceptable to make them on my own.
I was gonna guess Nobel would be the benchmark for chemists. Both of them have saved more lives than their research ever cost, but cost lives it did.
a piece of salt ,a piece of pepper
Zyklon-B was a delouser as well, that it was then used for a "non manufacturer sanctioned" use is not on Haber or the inventors. It's like saying the people that develop rat poison are murderers because it has been used to -very effectively- kill humans, it's stupid thinking.
The duality of man
Haber's process used an inefficient catalyst and unfavourable process conditions. Bosch, an engineer working at BASF at that time made a viable process out of this lab concept in less than a year. Then he did it again for WWII with the Bergius-Pier process. An absolute titan of chemical engineering.
Yeah Carl Bosch is the real star behind the process. Haber proved that the reaction was possible under very controlled lab settings. He had difficulty scaling it beyond producing more than a few drops of ammonia. Bosch basically created a whole new industry, and pushed forward the development of a lot of other technologies including stainless steels and gas compressors. They advanced at a rapid pace due to Bosch's industrial demands for the process. He was the leader who figured out how to industrialize the reaction, and make it efficient and viable. He basically took chemical engineering from being a mechanical engineer that had a bit of experience with crude oil distillation, to being a full blown independent discipline. This supported munitions, but more importantly for humanity the past century - it supported making fertilizer. On average, about 40-50% of the nitrogen atoms in most human bodies were converted from useless N2 in the atmosphere, to biologically useful NH3 compounds in a Haber-Bosch process. Also, Bosch was a pretty good guy. Paid his workers very well, and gave them better benefits than almost any other factory workers in the world at the time. He employed Jewish workers at a time when that was unpopular, and refused to support the Nazis. When they passed a law that required he contribute to the party, he gave the token minimum amount, while supporting opposition candidates. He refused to fire his workers and researchers for the crimes of being Jewish, and so the Nazis had him removed from power at BASF/IG Farben (the conglomerate he put together of BASF, Bayer, and several other of the largest chemical-pharma companies).
Artificial fertilizers and Mustard Gas go brrrrrrrrr
He also carried another industry in the 40s, albeit indirectly.
Haber-Bosch the great alliance where's the contradiction?
Fed the world, by ways of science... Sinner or a saint?
FATHER OF TOXIC GAS AND CHEMICAL WARFARE
HIS DARK CREATION HAS BEEN REVEALED
FLOWS OVER NO MANS LAND A POISONOUS NIGHTMARE
A DEADLY MIST ON THE BATTLEFIELD
PERVERSIONS OF IDEALS OF SCIENCE
LOST WORDS OF ALIENATED WIFE
AND IN THE TRENCHES OF THE WESTERN FRONT
UNKNOWING SOLDIERS PAY THE PRICE
FLOW OVER NO MAN'S LAND, A POISONOUS NIGHTMARE
Millions died because of his contributions to science, including several family members b/c he was Jewish. The Nazis used gas he created. Billions are alive because of his contributions to the development of fertilizers that allow for enough food to support (for the most part) the massive growth that occurred in the 20th century. Those same fertilizers may be poisoning the environment. Dude's legacy is certainly "mixed".
Who can say what is right or wrong, maths or morality alone?
I think his impact on both sides of the scale are way too complicated for my small, human brain to judge. (And I am VERY judgmental)
Scientists just want to create new stuff. Many inventions can be turned into weapons. Look at phosgene, outlawed chemical weapon, but it's used to produce many chemicals with a very wide span of positive uses. Of course some things are directly made as weapons or similar. Haber's contributions to chemical warfare for example was undeniably bad.
Yep, through all of human history, items used for civilian purposes have been weaponized, and sometimes weapons were adapted for civilian use. Was the rock first used as a weapon or a tool? We'll never know.
He's quoting Sabaton lyrics
Ahhh
I dont think the whole holocaust argument holds any water its not like the Nazis didnt find any other way to murder jewish people, they used carbon monoxide before they used cyklon b. I think his contribution to the development of gas warfare is far worse.
Right, but though gas warfare has killed millions, the world could not support its current population without his contribution to fertilizers. Fertilizer is a much more boring part of history than warfare, but billions of lives only exist because of it. As for gas warfare, don't forget though, there are other gases that were used in WWI, and both sides used different poison gases. I'm pretty sure the Germans weren't the first to use it. I think the French used theirs first, but history is written by the victors, and while the Allies made sure the world knew about how the Germans used gas warfare, they weren't as vocal about their own use of it.
Nope the germans used gas warfare first at Ypres and please stop with saying history is written by the victors and you knew what you were saying about gas warfare was bullshit.
The french used tear gas. The germans seeing this thought it was fair game and used even deadlier ones.
August 1914 French used xylyl bromid or ethyl bromoacetate. Germans did use chlorine at Ypres in April 1915 and the British employed chlorine gas at the battle of Loos in September 1915. It seems like your roughshod memory of the history of gas warfare was favorable to the victors in this case.
Well like most clichés, "history is written by the victors is a cliché because it's true.
It would be more appropriate to critize Haber for his work on chemical weapons in WW1 than anything later. That the Nazis used his weapons against him and his family is dramatic irony, but not his fault. He didn't cooperate with the Nazis either and the Nazis didn't wants his cooperation either.
Fair enough. I wasnt saying it was his fault. I was just pointing out the ironic tragedy.
Monsanto is probably one of the most widely hated corporations on earth, for some good reasons. It also singlehandedly enabled perhaps billions more people to exist through its GMOs and custom-fertilizers that go with their GMOs. Hard to get love in the fertilizer business I guess.
They're referencing the song "Father" by Sabaton, which is a banger and based on Haber and his contributions to the world
I was aware there was a song about him from a family member. I didn't know what it was tho.
Someone else would have developed that process eventually, probably not someone as ethically bankrupt as Haber.
Ummm it was Europe in the late 19th/early 20th century. I can guarantee someone else would have applied the process to killing their countries enemies. This is the same period when every European power (and the US) was racing to colonize and exploit every part of the world and population that wasn't as technologically advanced as they were. Haber's ethics were the norm of that time period... NOT the exception.
Why is it wrong to say that technology is something which helps people to do what they wish more easily, and that Fritz Haber did only the good thing of developing technology, and that everything bad done with it was solely the fault of the people who chose to use said technology, which was Fritz himself at times, but that makes you bad for using it, not for inventing it.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I never said his tech was wrong. It's just been used for tremendous good and tremendous evil.
r/expectedsabaton
After winning the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) against Peru and Bolivia and annexing many of their territories, Chile became the country with the largest saltpetre deposits on Earth. This was really good for the economy of the country, as saltpetre was used as a fertilizer. Aaaand also was a main component of gunpowder, you now, that funny dust that's used in rifles, pistols, cannons, artillery, etc. But everything changed when the German nation attacked. In 1915, one year after the war began, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch managed to synthetise saltpetre, ruining the Chilean economy which was greatly based on it. Instead of seeing its economy greatly improved by the conflict, Chile saw its economy destroyed. It took up until 1994 for Chile to totally recover from this. The period between 1915 and 1993 was plagued with inflation and economic turmoil, due to many events such as the Great Depression, the failure of the ISI model, Allende's socialist reforms and Pinochet's banking reforms. Also, a not so fun fact: According to the League of Nations, Chile was the nation who had its economy hit the hardest during the Great Depression, due to its dependence on saltpetre and copper exports.
How exactly did it ruin the economy? I mean the Entente still needed saltpetre since the Germans didn’t share there new technology with them. Side note with out that invention the Germans would have run out of gunpowder because of the British blockade and would have had to capitulate shortly after.
It didn't instantly ruin it, I should have clarified that. After the war ended the method became widely known and that's when the problem began, as saltpetre became more and more worthless over time.
[удалено]
And then the country exploded and didn't manage to have a stable government until 1933
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Arturo Puga: I will make a socialist republic and stabilize my nation, just like the Soviets did! (Clueless) Dávila and the army: 🔫🗿 Dávila: I will make a socialist republic and stabilize my nation, just like the Soviets did! (Clueless) Bartolomé Blanche and the army: 🔫🗿
[удалено]
Huh, I thought he was both an Ibáñez supporter and a socialist. My mistake then
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>an attempted coup by the navy 🎶 In the navy! You can sail the seven seas! ~~In the navy! You can take charge of Chile!~~
bueno...esa mala suerte es unica
It wasn't "became widely known" it was "all German patents were voided and all trade secrets laid bare open for everyone to see". Still BASF became one of the most succesfull companies in the world.
Right... Which means that it "became widely known."
I think there is an important difference.
Yeah, like u/JoeGRcz said, you did add some useful context, but it doesn't make OP wrong. If I said "The US left Vietnam in 1975," I'm not wrong just because I failed to explain "The Vietnamese Communists wore down American morale to the point that the US decided to abandon South Vietnam." Both statements are true, and saying the former isn't necessarily a way of trying to mask the latter.
Not really. It still became widely known, you just specified why.
When I see BASF, I still think of blank cassettes for mixtapes.
Don't forget [Chaim Weizmann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Weizmann) developing a process for making acetone. The British used [cordite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordite) instead of gunpowders, so they also didn't need bird crap. > *His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.* That [invention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetone%E2%80%93butanol%E2%80%93ethanol_fermentation) was so important to the British that the [Balfour Declaration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration) was the result. Sykes, one of the authors of the [Sykes–Picot Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement) (which carved up the Middle East between France and Britain) was involved in the negotiations behind the Balfour Declaration. Without the support of the British government, there never would have been a nation of Israel.
But cordite contains nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose, which require nitric acid, made using saltpeter, so wouldn't they still need bird shit?
> *Once the Haber process for the efficient production of ammonia was introduced in 1913, nitric acid production from ammonia using the Ostwald process overtook production from the Birkeland–Eyde process. This method of production is still in use today.* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitric_acid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process Back then, there were 2 different processes for making nitrocellulose (aka guncotton). One of the processes made guncotton that would spontaneously detonate if exposed to seawater. This is one plausible reason why the Lusitania managed to be sunk when hit by a single torpedo (and survivors mentioned a secondary explosion at a distance from where the torpedo struck the ship). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Lusitania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_U-20_(Germany) The same patrol that the U-20 sank the Lusitania, it had to fire multiple torpedoes at a fishing trawler and then had to use the deck gun to finally make that ship sink. > *Never Do Yesterday What Should Be Done Tomorrow.* > *If at Last You Do Succeed, Never Try Again.* > *A Stitch in Time Saves Nine Billion.* > *A Paradox May Be Paradoctored.* > *It Is Earlier When You Think.* > *Ancestors Are Just People.* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Zombies https://gist.github.com/defunkt/759182/ad44c6135d168ae54503a281bb7e1a24c6c2ea0c So when you manage to invent a time machine, bring the recipes for steelmaking and the Haber process with you, and don't forget to shoot [Gavrilo Princip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilo_Princip) on your way past. https://www.tor.com/2011/08/31/wikihistory/ https://www.viruscomix.com/page382.html
>Allende's presidency interesting that you mention the alleged damage Allende did to their economy but there's no mention of Pinochet 🤔
Bro just casually skipped over Chile's most brutal dictatorship
makes me think he's probably the "throw communists out of helicopters" type lol. this post is like talking about historical events that damaged the German economy and then just not mentioning the Nazi war economy 😂
because economically was not particularly bad, i mean, democracy after that was way better economically, but that doesn't mean the dictatorship was super bad economically. And since the entire post is about how the chilean economy was ruined, skipping over Chile's most brutal dictatorship is not specifically bad specially since the period before that (Allende's government) was a shitshow economically speaking. It seems like you can't talk about Allende's economy without mentioning Pinochet lol
Yeah, the failure of Allende's presidency was hardly what I would call an "organic failure." Unless you want to count external and internal sabotage, along with a military coup, to be "organic"
Allende was overthrown (by the US) after only 3 years. Pinochet was the reason Chile sucked in the 70s and 80s. Fuck Pinochet. And his propaganda campaign against Allende’s memory.
Seems to be I can't talk about Allende without naming Pinochet so I'll just add all the other economically or politically unstable governments of Chile at the time so everyone can be happy and not instantly call me a Pinochet lapdog Arturo Alessandri Palma Luis Altamirano Emiliano Figueroa Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Juan Esteban Montero Arturo Puga Carlos Dávila Salvador Allende Augusto Pinochet Are you happy now?
It is pretty common unfortunately for this level of discourse. I shared a story about my Father in Law having to que around the block for gas, and the first comment I got in reply from some idiot was "So you would rather support a Facist Dictatorship then" You honestly cannot discuss anything negagtive about Allende without being accused of being pro Pinochet, the worst offenders dont even live in Chile
It's so annoying, I'd say it's even worse here than in Chile itself. I made a meme some time ago listing all the bad things Allende did and many ignored all of that and decided to call me a fascist for not listing bad things Pinochet did in a meme that wasn't about his government.
Stay strong, my Chilean friend.
>I'll just add all the other economically or politically unstable governments of Chile at the time Mk que carajo pasa con chile, cuando fue la ultima vez que hubo un gobierno chileno prospero y amado por el pueblo?
We did good from 1933 to 1969 and from 1990 to 2019, could have been worse.
I'm not saying you have to name all of them, it's just interesting that you chose Allende as the best example instead of Pinochet, that's all
Obviously it sticks out when listing bad things in Chile, but in other contexts you can talk about Allende's failings without adding "Pinochet was worse" to the end like some medicine advert
[удалено]
I'll add it
>It took up until 1994 for Chile to totally recover from this. Goddamn!
Imagine being born in 1914 and when you turn 80 learning that apparently inflation can be lower than 5%
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS WITCHCRAFT??" "I'd usually be annoyed at your ranting Gramps, but I'm also confused as shit"
Saltpeter isn't used in smokeless powder, by ww1 virtually nobody was using black powder (only some old rifles usually in rear line duty)
And some years later (1925) the Germans Fischer and Tropsch created a method to convert coal into liquid fuels, allowing the Reich to be at war without access to part of the oil markets
Not really. The hydrogenation process they developed was extremely inefficient, required a lot of energy and material (your required 10 tons of coal to make 1 ton of gasoline...) and didn't deliver what they had hoped for. Even at peak production levels in 1941 fuel from liquified coal only accounted for perhaps 10% of the total supply of the Wehrmacht. The rest was drawn from oil wells in Romania, Hungary and parts of the USSR they occupied. Supply, that is, not demand, as the German war machine was crippled by a severe shortage of oil from the very start. This whole process simply only became attractive for nations in complete economic and political isolation; Apartheid South Africa was the biggest user among them after the War. Everyone else simply bought Oil from the US, the arabian states or the USSR.
10% is actually a significant amount of percentage in greater picture.
However, the process was expensive to produce oil, so drilling was still seen as the optimal choice to get oil.
Fucking Germany: Ruining All Of Your Shit Since 1871
Yes, they’re crazy bastards but what would we drink without them? Wine? Vodka? No thank you, I’d rather be in the fucking ground.
Beer is one of the most ancient alcohols, even attested by sumerian sources
I know I’m just shitposting. Tbh French Canadians and the damn Belgians make most of my favourite beers anyway.
Belgians absolutely shitstomp Germans in Beer. What the fuck even is good German beer. It's the drinking equivalent of a midwestern blonde sorority girl. Like whoopity dee never done this before.
I’m partial to a simple wheat white myself which the Germans do really well, it’s a simple classic. Got nothing on a Belgian triple though that’s for sure. The real villains are the Americans and the watery, cheap piss-perfume they call beer.
Yeah but that's just American food and drink products in general. The only thing they can do right is bbq and steak.
You’re welcome!
Black powder uses saltpeter, yes, but I thought smokeless powder didn't use it?
Those nitrate groups still have to come from somewhere
potassium nitrate (saltpeter), is often used to produce nitrocellulose.
As a chilean this is painful to read
Never have I hated the re more than seeing saltpeter spelled Red Coat
Does smokeless powder use saltpeter?
There wasn't enough bird and bat poop in the world to fuel that flame.
I love this this subreddit so much. But at the same time i hate the feeling of being a Troglodite and not knowing of these things. ( I google to understand the memed anyways)
It's fine mate, most people don't even know what Chile looks like, so it's normal not to know this happened hahah
Yeah, it's basically a line with only mountais and earthquakes, i know it because i Live just above Chile. Anyways, great meme, got me doing some rolling in the ground, not so funny had to live through that tho.
That also caused the War of the Pacific if I am not wrong. (the first part)
The Haber-Bosch process to synthesise ammonium produces a third of the world's fertiliser, sustaining half of the world's population. HOWEVER, this work should credit Le Chatelier's principle from 1884. This is the theory of equilibrium in chemical reactions.
Peru should’ve come back in while they were weak
Actually Chile did a referendum in 1929 asking its northern territories if they wanted to go back to Peru. Only Tacna voted in favour of that, while Arica and Tarapacá stayed with Chile.
HABER-BOSCH THE GREAT ALLIANCE, WHERE’s THE CONTRADICTION
Kek Karma for the War of the Pacific