A little obscure history.
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When Clara Immerwahr (photo, left) decided she wanted to get a degree in chemistry, she had a tough road ahead.
In 1890s Prussia, a woman studying for an advanced degree simply was not done, so she started by asking each individual professor if she could sit in on his class as a guest. When that worked, she asked for permission to take the exams, which also was granted.
Her plan worked so well that, in 1900, the University of Breslau graduated her magna cum laude with a PhD in Chemistry.
The following year she married another scientist, Fritz Haber (photo, right), and was forced to walk away from her research, although she quietly contributed to his, and lived in his growing shadow.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Fritz became an army officer and went to work for the German military developing chemical weapons in hopes that they would shorten the war. This logic disgusted Clara, who was a pacifist, and she spoke out vehemently against her husband's work.
In early 1915, with Fritz supervising, the German Army began unleashing deadly chlorine gas attacks on the French, British, and Canadian trenches (they soon reciprocated). The effects were stunning, and Clara was horrified.
While Fritz was home on leave a few days later, Clara took his service pistol from its holster, put it to her chest, and took her own life.
Fritz was devastated, but had orders to return to the front, and so could not stay home long. He threw himself into his work to hide his grief, but many thought he was acting callously about his young wife's suicide.
After Germany's defeat, Fritz went back to his research developing chemicals to help with agriculture. Before the war he had developed a chemical fertilizer that helped feed millions of people, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1918.
Now he focused on chemical pesticides, and in the 1920s helped develop a "safer" version of a banned hydrogen-cyanide-based pesticide, that was marketed under the name Zyklon B.
In 1933, Fritz Haber's position was terminated due to his Jewish heritage (Clara also was Jewish, but both had converted to Christianity, most likely due to social stigma), and he died in exile the following year, only a few years before the Nazis would use his innovation against his own people.
