Industrial chemistry

[Tero]

I'm involved in chemistry and know some of the processes used on industrial scale, but here I am talking mostly about huge quantity chemicals. Like ammonia. We use ammonia and urea made from it as fertilizer. Old Fritz discovered this in the early 1900s. So not quite Nazi chemistry yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber-Bosch

But old Fritz was involved in WWI

World War I
Haber played a major role in the development of chemical warfare in World War I. Part of this work included the development of gas masks with adsorbent filters. In addition to leading the teams developing chlorine gas and other deadly gases for use in trench warfare, Haber was on hand personally to aid in its release despite its proscription by the Hague Convention of 1907 (to which Germany was a signatory). Future Nobel laureates James Franck, Gustav Hertz, and Otto Hahn served as gas troops in Haber's unit.

Haber's genius was recognized by the Nazis, who offered him special funding to continue his research on weapons. As a result of fellow Jewish scientists having already been prohibited from working in that field, he left Germany in 1933. His Nobel Prize-winning work in chemistry, and subsequent contributions to Germany's war efforts in the form of chemical fertilizers, explosives and poison munitions, were not enough to prevent eventual vilification of his heritage by the Nazi regime.

In other industrial chemistry, Germany was the leading country through the 1900s.

There are endless examples.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2 ... ch_process

Fischer–Tropsch production accounted for an estimated 9% of German war production of fuels and 25% of the automobile fuel.

All this came to my mind when Robert brought up the Batman dude and explosives.