Translations:Manfred Klett: Von der Agrartechnologie zur Landbaukunst/236/en

The ammonia synthesis had reached productive maturity just before the outbreak of the First World War, thereby making the Central Powers independent of imports of Chilean saltpetre and rendering the Atlantic blockade by the English to prevent these imports obsolete. Only through the ammonia synthesis was the First World War — as a war of artillery and bombs — conductable for the Central Powers in the devastating extent and duration that it reached. In the course of the war, the Western Allies also gained command of this technology. After the end of the war, the question from the side of the nitrogen industry was: if no more war, then where is the nitrogen to go? Agreement was reached quickly among victors and vanquished alike; the European Nitrogen Syndicate was founded and agriculture was declared the new market. With enormous advertising campaigns and industry-driven, practically oriented research, nitrogen production passed seamlessly from the manufacture of explosives for bombs and shells over into the production of synthetic fertilisers for agriculture. Once more the truth of the statement of Heraclitus was borne out — that war is «der Vater aller Dinge» (the father of all things). The same occurred after

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