Comments Off on Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare
Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare by Daniel Charles ISBN: 0060562722 Published byEcco on August 2nd 2005 Pages: 336
Len's Summary: Haber won the Nobel Prize for his work to extract nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it into fertilizer. Though almost forgotten today, he was the chemical genius behind German war-time explosives production and the initiation of poison gas warfare in April 1915. Imperial Germany, blockaded by the Royal Navy, desperately needed his inventions in order to survive an industrialized conflict. Reviewed by Martin Sieff in the October St. Mihiel Trip-Wire. The author is a science correspondent for NPR.
We are changing the WW1HA’s newsletter’s publication schedule to monthly. Publishing “Here and There with the WW1HA” twice a year provides too few opportunities to interact effectively with the membership! So, we’re going to go with shorter, monthly publications via our Constant Contact mailing list. My goal is that each issue will contain a brief comment from the President / Officers, a quick summary of WW1-related news, and a focus on a member and his/her research in each issue. What else should it include? You tell me: lavarennes@meuse-argonne.com.
Membership was very low at the beginning of the year, so we have formed a Membership Committee. The first action taken was to contact 2020-22 members who had not renewed in 2023. That was the low-hanging fruit. The second action will be to increase year-end renewal reminders and touch points with the membership—also low-hanging fruit. The third action will be to explore ways to reach beyond our current customers.
On 11 March we held our first quarterly Fireside Chat—with 27 participants—using Zoom. Again, this provided interaction with our members. We will be doing these quarterly and will be announcing the next one shortly. The top two responses of how/why members got excited about WW1 were 1) family involvement in the war and 2) aviation. How do we use this information to grow membership?
A small group of us are actively posting in the World War One Historical Association’s Facebook Group. Join us there.
Ed Klekowski is itching to do a Summer (third) issue of World War One Illustrated. He is working on the first Summer issue as we speak.
I have not made major changes to the website yet, because of the above-mentioned initiatives. That said, I did modernize the Chapters/Events Page to reflect our current activities.
I hope these efforts breathe new life into the Association, and I want to encourage you to do your bit. If you have a good idea, tell me about it. Better yet, step up and be willing to take a more active role.