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A Legacy of Synthetic Nitrogen

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Abstract

The early synthetic ammonia industry became strongly associated with myths surrounding Fritz Haber’s personal role in enabling Germany to wage war through his involvement with nitrogen products. Today, this is still repeated as fact. More correctly, he was associated with the use of toxic chemicals in warfare. While he was an ambitious and arguably amoral servant of his country at war, and certainly an adept administrator, he was certainly no worse than those John Galbraith described as “mostly honest men whose public and private behaviour would withstand public scrutiny as well as most” [1].

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Travis, A.S. (2018). A Legacy of Synthetic Nitrogen. In: Nitrogen Capture. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68963-0_18

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