While Bosch was trying to make synthetic gasoline Fritz Haber was living the carefree life studying at his institute. Him and his team made breakthroughs in the studies of colloids, chain reactions, charged particles, gases, and flames/explosions. At his institute there were debates between chemists and Haber would roam around the institute being a social butterfly. At the University of Berlin his students saw him as a father figure. At home it was very different. Haber was distant, tired, and unhappy at home. His wife Charlotte after having their second child said they should take a half a year cruise to make their marriage better. They did, but when they came back their marriage stayed the same. Soon they got a divorce. Haber hated being divorced he thought he was a failure and became depressed. This made him work even harder, but soon eh became sick. He had insomnia and had to take nitroglycerin because he had heart problems. He tried to take off to relieve stress, but when he went back to work he would become sick again. Many things worried him one of them was being a Jew. In Germany many Jews were getting discriminated so he converted to Christianity. He only did this to be more accepted, but really he was a Jew at heart. Another thing he worried about was money. Even though he had loads of money he spent a lot of it on his home, hotels, restaurants, cigars, and sending money to Charlotte and his two children because he said in the divorce he would still take care of them. He wasn’t making any more money from ammonia because he took a settlement. Even though he had a lot he still worried.
Back at Leuna, Carl Bosch was worried of another revolt like the one in 1921. He decided to put his own police force there, walls, guards. All the workers had ID cards and there were random checks to make sure no one had weapons. One journalist that went undercover as a worker at Leuna said it was industrial hell. Bosch saw Leuna as a wonderful thing showing what humans are capable of accomplishing. All the other directors of Farben (Farben is the merger of all the chemical dye industries) thought Leuna was costing too much money that they would never get back. Bosch didn’t see it that way he just wanted it to get bigger and bigger. Bosch also saw it as the future. This was going to be the next big thing to make synthetic gasoline here. It was also the perfect place to make it because it was surrounded by everything they needed: coal mines, water, and a railroad. When Farben met for its first meeting Bosch said his two goals were making synthetic fuels including synthetic gasoline and he wanted to make Farben more than just a German company (many countries hated Germany still so he wanted to break through that). Farben was created mostly because Bosch needed other companies money to expand Leuna and make this synthetic gasoline. Many of the other directors didn’t want to fund any of these thing, but since Bosch was the head they went with it. Bosch needed to have alliances with other companies to become an international company so he went around the world to some of the biggest chemical companies for example in the Brunner Mond chemical facility in Britain. Now he was going to the United States. One of the ones he talked to was Allied Chemical. Bosch told other companies about what Farben was doing with synthetic gasoline. He wanted to make deals with them so he could get more money for the project because the cost of all the problems were getting larger than expected. Bosch made these deals by partnering up with the companies that wanted to join. The partners would pay money to continue the partnership. This was how Bosch made money for Leuna. The partnership was between Allied Chemicals, Brunner Mond, and Farben. Until Allied Chemicals backed out and partnered with DuPont. Bosch then decided to cozy up with Standard Oil and Ford. Standard Oil was especially friendly because they were worried that in the 1930s the world would run out of gasoline and their business would be done for. Walter Teagle who was the president of Standard Oil even went to visit Leuna and said it was incredible. Teagle even talked about how far ahead the Germans were in science from the other countries. Teagle and Bosch both wanted to work together. Ford also wanted to work together and even branched off into Germany. Farben then made a branch into the United States and put the director of Ford on the board. Bosch was making amazing international ties for Farben. Since this was working out so well Bosch thought bigger. What if he could make a giant global company. It would give the consumers everything they needed and help develop bigger and better products. Bosch thought that when competition lowered prices that if there was no competition more money could be made and used for research. As the years went on Standard Oil and Farben actually made many patents together and worked together on many things. Standard Oil bought the rights to use the high pressure process for fuels outside of Germany for about 150 millions marks.
Leuna was not off to a great start. In the fall of 1926 it was said that Farben would begin making 100 thousand tons of gasoline a year, but so far they have only made a few barrels. There were just too many problems with the process. The other companies at Farben thought this Leuna synthetic gas project was a waste of time and money. Bosch kept moving he knew he would prove them all wrong. Then disaster struck for Farben. A sea of oil was found in Oklahoma. There wouldn’t be a gasoline shortage after all and gas was selling for nine cents a gallon. Even more oil spots were found down in the south of the United States. Farben took a deep breathe though because the oil was still gonna run out eventually it just gave them more time to complete the synthetic gas project. Bosch still needed more money for the project to be completed so he went to the last place he could get money from, the government. He started to bring politicians to impress them with all the work Farben had done so far. He also persuaded them with more of Germany’s money being kept in Germany. Germany would become a self sufficient country. Even though they needed money for Leuna, Farben was still making lots of money and everyone was pretty happy at the time until things got worse.
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