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| Clara Immerwahr was the first German woman to be awarded a doctorate in chemistry |
A new TV drama is leading Germans to rediscover a long-forgotten heroine of the women’s rights movement – and tragic victim of World War One.
Clara Immerwahr was the first German woman to be awarded a doctorate in chemistry, and with her husband, Fritz Haber, a pioneer of chemical fertilisers. Together, they devised the process by which ammonia is produced to this day.
But with the coming of the First World War, Haber turned his talents to darker uses, and became the father of chemical weapons, supervising the use of chlorine gas in Flanders, the first deployment of a weapon of mass destruction in history.
Horrified at what her husband had done, Immerwahr committed suicide, shooting herself in the chest with his military pistol. Her death was hushed up, and for decades she has been forgotten. » | Justin Huggle, Berlin | Thursday, May 29, 2014
