101 774
THE DRAMA OF ALBERT EINSTEIN
By Antonina Vallentin
THE DRAMA. OF ALBERT EINSTEIN
H. G. WELLS
Tens i SAW: A LIFE OF GOYA
MIRABEAU
LEONARDO DA VINCI
FRUSTRATION: STRESEMANtf's RACE WITH DEATH
POET IN EXILE: *i'f$ K LIFE OF HEINRICH HEINE
EINSTEIN AT THE WINDOW OF HIS STUDY, PRINCETON
"God does not play at dice/*
Tht DRAMA of
ALBERT EINSTEIN
by Antonina Vallentin
TRANSLATED BY MOURA BUDBERG
Doubleday 6- Company, Inc., Garden City, N.Y., 1954
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 54-5715
Copyright, 1954, by Antonina Valkntin
Att Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States
at
The Country Life Press, Garden City, tf.Y.
First Edition
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LOTTE JACOBI
THE DRAMA OF ALBERT EINSTEIN
God does not play at dice.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Chapter I
ALBERT EINSTEIN has never quite accepted the fact that
he is a celebrity. Few men have been quite so spectacularly
and steadily successful, but fame is no more to Einstein than
a traveling companion he manages to forget it from time
to time, but there it is, always beside him, irritating him by
its very permanency. It is not part of his real nature and to
understand him properly one has to forget about it.
Albert Einstein's life has been a constant struggle between
his love of anonymity and the burdens of his fame, and at
times only his sense of humor has saved Tn'm from complete
exasperation. He has never let himself be carried away by the
enthusiasm he provokes. He bows without embarrassment
to the frenzied applause which greets him, but there is a
conspiratorial twinlde in his eye for his relations and friends
as if calling them to witness that these strange proceedings
have nothing to do with him. His smile of amusement is
always tinged with the same faint surprise, as though he
recognizes that the crowd has to have an idol but still cannot
- 9
imagine why they should have picked on him to fill the role.
The British Ambassador to Berlin, Sir Horace Rumbold,
once told him the story of how his son, arriving from school,
had asked with one foot still on the train: "Daddy, have you
met Einstein?" When the Ambassador had to admit that he
had not yet had that honor, the boy shrugged his shoulders
pityingly, implying that his father had wasted his time in
Berlin. "I was quite withered by his contempt," said Sir
Horace. Einstein shook his head, amused yet puzzled. "I
really don't know why it is," he said, "that, having written
a few papers that only a handful of people in the whole world
are able to understand, I have apparently acquired such
fame." He spoke with detachment, as though describing
some peculiar phenomenon. He evidently considered the
problem insoluble, but he spoke with astonishment as well as
resignation.
The contrast between his almost legendary reputation and
its esoteric origins is, in fact, striking. One of Einstein's
assistants describes how, around 1917, a physicist talking to
Sir Arthur Eddington, the famous English astronomer and
one of the scientists most instrumental to Einstein's glory,
said: "You, Sir Arthur, are one of the three men in the world
who understand the theory of relativity." A slightly pained
expression crossed Eddington's face and his questioner
hastened to add: "There's no need to be embarrassed, Pro-
fessor, you are much too modest."
"It's not a question of modesty," protested Sir Arthur, "I
was only asking myself who the third could be."
But there must be some reason why admiration for Ein-
stein has reached such a high spiritual level and has pene-
trated so deeply into the minds of the masses. He has caught
10 -
the imagination of the man in the street in Paris, London,
Berlin, and Tokyo. When a film on Einstein was shown at
the Museum of Natural History in New York the scene he-
came a riot which necessitated police intervention. It would
take a philosopher and a sociologist together to analyze the
extent of Einstein's fame and the sensational forms it has
taken. A study of this curious phenomenon, the homage of
the humble to the great, would be a major contribution to
our understanding of our times.
This fame, the like of which few living men have ex-
perienced, has remained unaff ected by passing tastes, changes
in values, and contemporary problems. Einstein is, as some-
body remarked, the only immovable idol of our troubled age.
This celebrity has often been tested, and has sometimes
been made the subject of jokes. Two American students
once made a bet. They addressed an envelope to "Professor
Albert Einstein, Europe." It arrived at its destination with
the normal delay. "How excellent the postal service is!" was
Einstein's only comment.
There is nothing more difficult than to escape from the sort
of mesmerism which a great name seems to exercise: but
to understand Einstein properly, it is essential to try to break
free from it. It is equally important, too, to free oneself from
the spell exercised by his appearance the immense head
made even larger by the huge shock of hair: a striking head
too well known from photographs. With age Einstein has
gained in intensity of expression: most certainly his peculiar
fascination has increased. As a young man and even in
middle age, Einstein had regular features, plump cheeks, a
round chin masculine good looks of the type that played
havoc at the turn of the century. His short nose, with its
11
finely chiseled bridge, spread outward toward the nostrils,
giving an impression o sensuality. His large, generous mouth
looked red under his black mustache, and contrasted with
his dull skin with its slightly sallow tinge. The lower half
of his face might have belonged to a sensualist who found
plenty of reasons to love life and enjoy it. His round head
was finely set on his powerful neck with its pale, easily tanned
skin. His large, square shoulders were those of a standard-
bearer. His muscular body grew heavy in later life, not in
the way that the bodies of inactive people do, carelessly and
sluggishly, but haphazardly and reluctantly, like those who
retire from a life in the open explorers, sea captains. But
when you came to the eyes this first impression vanished:
they were dark, compelling, slightly protruding eyes. The
picture of the fine physical specimen in love with life had to
give way to a new concept of him.
He might have been a poet, or certainly a musician. These
brilliant, sparkling eyes might have been lost in a dream of
harmony, as if the dreamer were one with the sound. His
hands also seemed made for a violin. Hands which were
large and sensual, judging from the palms, narrowed toward
the tapering fingers, with rounded nails the hands and
fingers of a musician. But above the striking eyes came the
forehead. It was not particularly high in itself, or impres-
sively wide. But the lobes were strong, stretching the pol-
ished skin, and almost forming a semicircle as they descended
to the temples. This bone structure prepared one for the
exceptional. Even if the head had been shaved, the space
tinder it would have seemed vast, but it was overhung by
his hair, which was black as the night when he was young.
It formed a turbulent background for his face, as it stood
12 *
off from his forehead, rebellious and straight, full of an in-
dependent vitality. Today his hair is spectacularly white. The
first silver streaks that appeared ran from both sides of his
forehead, so that he looked like Michelangelo's Moses. As
they increased, the silver and black locks, flowing in the wind,
looked almost iridescent.
Today his appearance is unforgettable. It attracts imme-
diate attention. One feels either immeasurably flattered or
stupidly embarrassed whenever one is near Einstein. But he
himself seems impervious to the sensation he creates. His
self-assurance is not like that of the famous personalities who
walk through a crowd with complete indifference. His un-
self-consciousness is so complete that one can hardly believe
he is not putting it on. He actually does not realize that there
is anything unusual going on around him. It is true that he
can see the attention fixed on him; he is aware of an atmos-
phere of respect; he hears his name mentioned all around
him; and he is even conscious, secretly, of the bores he wishes
to avoid. But all this attention means no more to him than
the noise of the windmill to the sleeping miller. It is not, and
never has been, a source of amusement to him. On the other
hand, it has ceased to annoy him.
Einstein has achieved a detachment which few other
people have ever attained. He is equally disassociated from
the impression he makes on the world and from the reper-
cussions of his fame. He was incidentally responsible for one
of the rare revealing sentences about himself when he
thanked G. B. Shaw for the flattering words "addressed to
my mythical namesake who makes my life a singular bur-
den." This detachment is so complete that very often in his
presence it is difficult to remember that one is indeed with
IS
him. It would be so easy to think one was in the presence o
his double yet even the doubles of celebrities are conscious
of having something exceptional about them. Einstein is un-
conscious of being exceptional to a degree that is difficult to
imagine. I have even had the suspicion that he really believes
himself to be exactly like everyone else.
One day at Princeton, in the small, quiet university town
where he has lived for years, he wanted to see the film The
Life of Emile Zola. He arrived at the movie theater with his
assistant, bought tickets and went in, and then discovered
that the performance would not start for another quarter of
an hour. They decided to go for a walk.
TBut we have given up our tickets/* Einstein murmured
anxiously to the ticket collector. "Will you recognize us?"
The man laughed, thinking Einstein must be joking. <C I
dare say we will, Professor Einstein/' he grinned.
In any case, Einstein blames the unflagging zeal of pho-
tographers for the fact that people instantly recognize him,
and he has a grievance against them for depriving him of his
anonymity. He blames them for the daily nuisances he is
subjected to. Even today he cherishes this grievance to such
an extent that once, when he was being photographed re-
cently, he stuck out his tongue at the cameraman. The result
was an immense tongue in the middle of an immense face,
with wisps of white hair standing on end round his head, like
serpents! This terrible picture was widely reproduced in the
press, a schoolboy's prank turned into a nightmare.
While one is trying to analyze the elements that are foreign
to Einstein's character, one might as well include his past.
Curiosity spurred on by his fame has done all it could to
explore his origins and reconstruct the surroundings in which
14
he was born, and discern the subtle influences that he might
have felt. People have tried to find out what sort of a child
he was, what pangs of adolescence he suffered, in order to
link the exceptional with the commonplace. But biographical
data are an inadequate background to a portrait of Einstein.
He might have come from anywhere or from nowhere. He
has mentioned the "vague isolation" that penetrates his
relationships, even with those closest to him. There is, in-
deed, something very like a void around him. He once wrote:
"I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state,
nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family." But
the background to Einstein's portrait has a certain individ-
uality, and some of the characteristics of his origin have left
their traces on his life.
I once visited Hechingen in the Hohenzollern Sigmaringen
region, a little town that was the home of Einstein's family
and the birthplace of the cousin who became his second wife.
The Swabian imprint remains even on those who desert it
early for foreign lands. The thick accent of the district often
remains in their speech, especially in a circle of intimates,
and there is a special Swabian good-natured humor, curiously
like English humor, and a taste for practical jokes. A friend
of Einstein's family, also born in Hechingen, made the
journey with me and tried to explain the peculiarities of the
Einstein family. Petit bourgeois, they were not poor enough
to have to struggle hard for their living, or rich enough to
lead a life apart from their humbler neighbors, who still lived
very close to the soil. They lived in a sheltered and peaceful
atmosphere, reacting against speed, and reluctant to change
either their habits or their friendships. Like all countries that
enjoy life and good food, Swabia has its particular tradition
of cooking and in the uneventful life of the Einsteins local
dishes played a part as dearly loved as nursery rhymes.
, The problems that agitated the large towns of Germany
like Munich and Berlin were not so serious in the gentler
climate of Hechingen. The Jews lived in the same mellow
atmosphere as everybody else, without much friction with
their surroundings. The friend who came with ine, whose
father had also been born in Hechingen, came of an old
though not orthodox Jewish family. He told me that when
the time came for him to continue his studies in town his
father had left him in the care of the parish priest. The priest,
in his turn, had found nothing astonishing about bringing up
a small, very gifted Jewish boy, with no thought of alienat-
ing "him from his religion. Religious tolerance existed quite
naturally in this atmosphere. Albert Einstein's parents were
also freethinkers. But their attitude was by no means ag-
gressive, as is sometimes the case when conversions and
repudiations have been reached at the price of great inner
struggles. The family's attitude was tolerant, slightly indif-
ferent, as frequently happens when one emotion replaces
another almost unnoticeably.
A period of industrial expansion emptied the small towns.
The young Jews of modest circumstances, without inherited
property, land, or money, without too vast ambitions or too
striking qualifications, were the first to leave and seek their
livelihood in the larger towns.
It was at Ulm, one of the stages of the Einstein family's
pilgrimage and a town still under Swabian influence, that
Albert Einstein was born, on March 14, 1879. The next year
his parents settled in Munich, which was the background of
his whole childhood. The general trend of the times rather
than any aptitude for mechanics made Einstein's father set
- IB
up a small factory for electrical supplies in Munich. There
was nothing in this middle-class milieu to explain an out-
standing destiny and nothing in this commonplace childhood
to point to an exceptional future. All the members of the
family who knew Albert as a child or heard his elders speak
of him described him as almost backward; he learned to talk
so late that his parents were quite upset about it. In con-
trast to the childhood tales told about other precocious
geniuses (to whom one attributes so many true or mythical
stories of other exceptional childhoods), this family picture
seemed to underline with a certain satisfaction all that was
backward in Einstein. The other children in the family took
comfort in this picture of the famous uncle who learned to
talk very late, continued to say very little, took in the outside
world with difficulty, and revealed a deliberate slowness
in all that he did, which irritated his teachers. One trait seems
still to link Albert Einstein and the child with the lazy mind;
his horror of unnecessary words. There is sometimes a hesita-
tion in his speech and a slight pause at the beginning of his
sentences as though he were asking himself whether it is
worth while uttering a word or even taking in what he has
heard and replying to it.
"My personal external circumstances," he once wrote,
"played only a minor role in my thoughts and my emotions."
This meticulous statement is true only in so far as it concerns
the positive factors of his life. It ignores the negative side of
his external circumstances and the provocations that forced
him out of his detachment. When he did take action, he acted
with an impatience that arose out of the conflict with his
otherwise controlled nature: the idea of being stirred by im-
pulses which were imposed on him from outside angered him.
It seems particularly important for the future development
17
of Albert Einstein that his consciousness of being Jewish and
of being German was in a way imposed on him from outside,
rather than awakened spontaneously in him. At the age of
ten, this reserved child found himself in the atmosphere of
a German school. The god of discipline reigning there was
an alien god to "him. The teachers, with their military ap-
proach, belonged to the type of automaton which antago-
nized him immediately. He had to face the most contemptible
of adversaries, which he came to classify later as the "educa-
tional machine/' At first he certainly did not understand
either the reasons for his contempt or the damage that edu-
cation could do to young minds. He could not even say that
he hated it. According to family legend, this taciturn child,
who was not given to complaining, did not even seem very
unhappy. Only long afterward did he identify the tone and
atmosphere of his schooldays with that of a barracks, the
negation, in ids opinion, of the human being.
The horror of constraint did not come to Albert Einstein
in maturity, in the process of establishing his convictions,
but was from the beginning an elemental, natural reaction
in him, like hunger or thirst. As a child he must have realized
that an open revolt would have been inexpedient and ab-
surd, that it would only lead to a useless waste of strength,
and this sense of economy of effort seems to have come to
him early. With characteristic logic, he simply ignored an
authority which appeared incomprehensible, and it was an
attitude he never abandoned. If at times he appeared easy
to influence, because he bowed before an inescapable situa-
tion with good grace, his extraordinary powers of concentra-
tion enabled him to keep his mind altogether unaffected.
The little boy was faced with the problems of inexorable
1ft
German discipline and his Jewish origins at the same mo-
ment. Liberal-minded Jews of the time, like his parents, tried
to solve the problem by assimilating themselves as com-
pletely as possible. A strong family tradition as well as their
religions indifference prevented them from becoming con-
verts, but they hoped to be able to merge with the others in
much the same way as very white-skinned half-castes believe
they can cross the color line. They had sent their boy to a
Catholic primary school, where he was the only Jew in his
class. The first religious education their son received was
lessons in the catechism. But when faced with the more ad-
vanced educational machine of the grammar school, it was
the boy himself who felt the need to escape from attempts
to mold his mind, and find somewhere the comfort of soli-
darity. He deliberately assumed the position of a Jew, which
isolated him from the others, as a starting point in this escape.
To the astonishment of his parents, he underwent a period
of religious fervor. When Albert Einstein, at the approach
of his seventieth birthday, collected a few biographical notes
which he called "Notes for an Obituary,'* he interpreted this
religious fervor, this lost paradise of his childhood, as the
"first attempt to liberate myself from purely personal links/*
to join something greater, something that was not within
him. His mind was already ripe for great ambitions. "Percep-
tion of this world by thought, leaving out everything sub-
jective," wrote Einstein, "became, partly consciously, partly
unconsciously, my supreme aim."
The popularized scientific books which he devoured with
the curiosity common to his age made him familiar with
laws that were in striking discord with religious teachings.
He became aware that in the Bible stories many things
19
"could not be true'' With the consistency which he had
shown in his convictions since childhood, he underwent a
sudden and complete change of heart. The freethinking at-
titude which he adopted at the age of twelve was sternly
belligerent; he himself described it as fanatical. But the
conclusions he drew from this disastrous experience were'not
limited to revolt against transmitted beliefs. He felt that he
had been duped, but not by those who succeeded in awaken-
ing in him the fervor for the faith of his ancestors, nor by
the priest who taught him his catechism in the primary
school. With this need, which already existed in him as a
child, to find out where responsibility really rested, he rec-
ognized behind the rabbi, as well as behind the priest, a
force which, disregarding liberty of thought, made religious
education compulsory. 'It was a shattering realization," Ein-
stein recalled many years later. He was also aware that what
happened to him did not happen to him alone. He saw in the
whole system of education the deliberate intention of the
state to mislead youth.
His suspicion of all authority, joined to the instinctive
horror of constraint which obsessed him, grew into one of his
rooted principles. He remained skeptical in regard to all
convictions imposed by a social scale and "this attitude, like
suspicion, never abandoned me," he wrote, "although some
of its violence was removed when I understood better the
relations of causality."
What remained of this first defiance of established con-
cept? The child could have fallen back into the narrow
circle of selfish preoccupations; he could have been content
to relate everything to himself, but even in his childhood
Albert Einstein did not allow disillusionment to lead him to
20 -
a denial of wider aspirations. A concept of the world removed
from the myopia of personal interests, a concept within the
limits of his intellectual comprehension, remained his ulti-
mate aim at that time. "For a man like me," he recalls, "the
change brought by development lies in the fact that the
principal interest detaches itself, little by little, and more
and more, from all that is transitory and personal, in order
to devote itself to the task of comprehending life through
thought"
This comprehension must have taken place slowly, pene-
trating the consciousness of the child during his dreary
school studies, for which he revealed no special aptitude and
no premature gift. Only one small fact emerges from his early
childhood to foretell his future vocation. Albert Einstein re-
membersor believes that he can remember, perhaps because
it has often been repeated to him since that one day when
he was about five he received a compass from his father as
a present. The parents were amazed when they saw the child,
usually phlegmatic and absent-minded, show a passionate
interest for the little finger that vibrated of its own accord as
though propelled by a mysterious force. He had already
realized the relation existing between an external cause and
the effect; he knew that things moved because they were
touched. But this finger of the compass behaved in a manner
that never ceased to surprise him and for which he found
no explanation. An infinitesimal seed must have been sown
at that moment. "The evolution of our world of ideas," Ein-
stein says, recalling this scene of his early childhood, "is in a
certain sense a constant struggle against the 'miraculous.* *
A second "miracle" took place when he was twelve. Per-
haps it made so definite an impression on him because his
21
paradise of faith had been shattered; perhaps the subcon-
scious need of compensation that draws miracles to our path
had left the child particularly receptive. The event that
acquired such large and important proportions for him was
nothing more than a small book which he received at the
beginning of the school year, a popular textbook on Euclidean
geometry. He never forgot the enormous impression this book
left on him. Later on he wrote: "Anyone who was not trans-
ported by this book in youth was not born to be a theoretical
searcher/* Even when he himself reconsidered this "miracle"
of his youth, he remembered how wonderful it was to realize
for the first time that "man was capable, through the force
of thought alone, of achieving the degree of stability and
purity which the Greeks, before anybody else, demonstrated
to us in geometry/* He remained "fascinated 3 * by mathe-
matics.
With this revelation of stability and purity within the
reach of human effort, the young man felt the ground firm
under his feet. It was not yet a vocation, or even the begin-
ning of a rapid, sensational blossoming, of an unleashing of
spiritual forces in him. He made great progress in mathe-
matics at school but was backward in most of the other
subjects. There was nothing to draw attention to him. It was
significant that even at the moment of his swift rise to glory,
none of his school companions boasted of friendship with
him; no teacher claimed to have molded the mind of a genius.
His former teachers, in fact, did not even remember having
had him in their classes.
Einstein believed himself to have profited most from a
professor of literature who had awakened in him a taste for
the German classics. He imagined that the interest provoked
* 22
by this professor had not remained unnoticed. One day he
had already begun his staggering career and had just been ap-
pointed a professor in Zurich a sentimental impulse, or, more
precisely, the sense of justice that registers spiritual debts,
gave him the idea to call on his old professor as he was pass-
ing through Munich. He found a man who had no recollec-
tion of his pupil. Far from being flattered by the young man's
gesture, the professor considered it unsolicited and sus-
picious. He glared distrustfully at his visitor. "He must have
thought that I had come to borrow money," remarked Ein-
stein later. He laughed, but there was a tinge of bitterness in
his laughter, left by a painful interview. But the incident gave
him a feeling of liberation. Einstein now knew that he owed
nothing to anybody.
Although the pupil of the Munich school remained com-
pletely anonymous, lost in the crowd, eclipsed by studious
mediocrities, though he was still groping for his own spiritual
gifts he was morally ripe for his destiny. At the age of fifteen
he was already completely mature. He knew what he wanted.
He hated all compromise and had freed himself from all ties.
Everything within him seemed ready to make the best use
of outside circumstances.
His father does not seem to have had sufficient business
sense to make the Munich enterprise prosper. There was
nothing to keep him there. He decided to seek his fortune
elsewhere, and emigrated with his family, including Albert's
younger sister Maya, to Milan. But the studies of a boy of
fifteen could not be interrupted, so Albert Einstein remained
in Munich, and the six months he spent alone there helped
him to make his decision. It was a strange decision for a boy
of his age: it was taken without consulting anybody and after
23
long periods of solitary meditation, in the same way in which
he was to reach all later decisions which he declared with a
calm smile to be irrevocable.
He left Munich. But he did not leave suddenly, in a mo-
ment of defiance, like a child deprived of affection and eager
to return home. To avoid the appearance of running away,
which might have embarrassed him in the future, he pro-
cured a medical certificate and departed on grounds of
health. But he knew he would never return and that nothing
would make him do so.
The boy was already experiencing the complete breaks
and total loyalties of the man. Striking the balance of his
childhood, he decided to ignore all that he considered wrong
in it. He decided to leave the Jewish community, in order to
mark a phase which was definitely over. He also severed
another tie. When he got to Milan he told his father his
decision also made entirely on his own to abandon his
German citizenship. He had no definite plan in view and no
security to exchange for that he was abandoning. He had no
ties elsewhere. He was simply freeing himself from beliefs
he had outgrown, as one throws off false loyalties'. There was
nothing to make one foresee that he would one day belong
to the whole world. His native country had failed him and he
no longer wished to recognize it as his fatherland. The only
certainty he possessed was his independence. This moral
independence showed itself even before he had acquired an
independence of the mind. His confidence that he. had acted
on a moral jmperative preceded his confidence in his own
intellectual gifts. The boy already revealed himself as the
man he wanted to be, deliberately uninhibited, obstinately
firm, and self-sufficient.
. 24
Chapter II
"WHEN I was still a rather precocious young man, I already
realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations
that most men pursue throughout their lives,** wrote Einstein
in his biographical notes.
This precocious young man launched himself into what
was, in fact, a mad adventure. Nothing that usually makes for
success in an adventure spurred him on: neither ambition,
nor taste for money, nor a desire to assert himself. The
secret of his success lay elsewhere. It lay in something nega-
tive: not in what he did possess, but in what he did not
possess and never would. It lay in his freedom from encum-
brances: he traveled as light in the beginning as he was to
travel all his life.
This conviction that most human effort is futile liberated
Einstein not only from the atmosphere in which his young
days had been spent but from everything that he had hitherto
absorbed. He seemed to have forgotten, or not to have wished
to remember, everything he had been taught in his child-
25 *
hood. One might have thought that he had never known any
o the established conventions. All the children in his family
were dressed in "Sunday clothes" and brought into the
drawing room with reminders to "say how-do-you-do nicely
to the lady/* Albert Einstein retained nothing of the behavior
and" traditions of a well-to-do bourgeoisie. He confronted
society as though he had been born on another planet.
If his parents* life had not been easy at times, he had never
undergone privations. He freed himself from material bonds
as he did from everything else, almost without noticing it,
but he did not pride himself in the least on acquiring this
liberty because it was essential to him He had no require-
ments, so that one might Ijave suspected "him of a longing
for austerity. On the contrary, in middle life he was not at all
insensible to beauty and the good things of life. There was
vitality in every inch of his great body, but he despised with
all the violence that contempt aroused in him the enjoyment
of mere material satisfaction. "'Well-being and happiness,**
he wrote one day, "never appeared to me as absolute aims.
I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambi-
tions of a pig/*
He has firmly refused to adapt himself in any way to the
demands of his fame. He has maintained a personal, simple
way of questioning the necessity of an action, or expected
behavior, or an attitude. In vain one would explain to hfn>
the customary formalities, and those who had not known
him long would explain patiently, as to a backward child.
They^would repeat: "This is done . . /* "Why is it done?"
he would ask. Until you noticed his smile he seemed like a
malicious child. "Tails? Why tails? I never had any and never
missed them.** Once his wife employed all her powers of
26
persuasion, her charm and humor, to make him order evening
clothes, for one solemn occasion, and after violent resistance
from him a compromise was eventually reached: a dinner
jacket, instead of tails. Afterward he merely said, yes, he did
have a dinner jacket in his cupboard which he was even
ready to exhibit, until the day came when "the fine thing,"
as he called it, had grown too small and was no longer pre-
sentable.
He defended himself against submission to conventions
with obstinacy and wit. He was only really at his ease in an
open-necked shirt and sandals. He preferred old clothes a
mended sweater, an ancient waistcoat to any material
strange to the touch: a shabby dressing gown was always
more comfortable than any grand new one given him as a
present. Luxurious gifts had a way of disappearing from one
day to the next: they were given away to some poor wretch
whom Einstein would persuade to hurry off discreetly with
his parcel before the family noticed it.
In his battle against material things Einstein showed his
pity for those who complicate their lives with the trifles they
carry around with them. When he was invited to a series of
conferences at the Sorbonne, the German Ambassador to
France, Von Hoesch, insisted that he should stay at the
embassy. He could not refuse. But against the luxurious set-
ting of the former home of Josephine Beauharnais Einstein
appeared completely incongruous. "You know, Einstein has
arrived with only one pair of shoes,** the Ambassador con-
fided to me. "My valet has to clean them several times a day."
Einstein in his turn complained that his shoes were con-
stantly disappearing. "I keep telling the good man that I'm
going out, that it is still raining, that he shouldn't polish
* 27
them when they are going to get dirty right away, but he
doesn't understand me."
One day when he had come to see us in Geneva, I noticed
as he was leaving that it was raffling in torrents. He had
nothing on his head, so I offered him one of my husband's
hats. "What for? I knew it would rain, that's why I didn't
take my hat it dries less quickly than my hair surely that
is obvious!'* he said to me, laughing.
Once he left for London with a suitcase well packed by his
wife. He returned to Berlin with all the clothes still folded
and untouched. He had had no opportunity to wear them,
he said. He was wearing shoes but no socks, and explained
to me triumphantly: *Tve discovered that one can easily
wear shoes without socks socks, you know, get holes in them
my wife does nothing but mend them. Ill never wear any
again now that I can do without them." The argument
seemed conclusive to him.
In all this quiet victory of Einstein's over material encum-
brances was reflected the memory of what happened when
life had been hard for him after he left his sheltered child-
hood. The privations of a penniless boy in a foreign country
taught him a lesson he remembered all his life. The founda-
tion of security on which the youth of sixteen had based his
future life was flimsy. He had to get a job quickly, to earn
his living. He had given up his matriculation when leaving
Munich and now he had to make up for it, as no free career
was open to him without it
His father's business prospered no better in Italy than it
had in Germany, and he was unable to help his son. Other
members of the family had done better. Dispersed over all
the world, they had maintained the solidarity, characteristic
. 98 .
of Jewish families, which does not imply affection so much
as a tradition of mutual responsibility. Albert Einstein aimed
at the Polytechnic in Zurich and hoped his mathematics
would enable him, to pass his entrance exams. Rich relations
helped out by supplying a hundred Swiss francs a month,
but they had no suspicion of the forces they were helping
to unleash, and one of the most remarkable scientific careers
in history was launched out of family charity, exercised more
from a sense of duty than any confidence in the boy's gifts
or any interest in science.
His career began with a failure. His knowledge of mathe-
matics was not enough to make up for gaps in other fields.
Although he was morally mature beyond his age, the young
man had to return to the school desk like any dunce or time
waster. It was the ordinary canton school in the small Swiss
town of Aarau. One of his teachers took a particular interest
in the strange youth, such a mixture of self-confidence and
shyness, of indifference and curiosity. The fact that he was in
a small town must have helped TIJTYI overcome the dismay of
his initial failure, for he had never liked the bustling life of
big cities. Long solitary walks in fields or forests are still
better for his work than hunching over a desk. Watching
him kick the ground, on a walk, as though testing it with his
toe before putting his boot down, one would suppose that
some strange atavism remains in him, as if he had inherited
a love of the soil from generations of peasants. In Aarau the
hills were close by and Nature gave him self-confidence as
no human being could have done.
After passing the examinations for the Zurich Polytechnic,
he decided to devote himself to teaching instead of specializ-
ing as an engineer, his original intention.
"There is such a thing as a passionate desire to understand,
just as there is a passionate love for music. This passion is
common with children, but it usually vanishes as they grow
up. Without it, there would be no natural science and no
mathematics/* Thus Einstein wrote in 1950, in connection
with his scientific memoir on the theory of generalized
gravitation. This passion has always remained with him. It
has never been blunted and it still dominates the man of
seventy-five, as it guided the young man on his chosen path
with the sureness of a sleepwalker. The birth of a theory
that was to shake the world originated with this passion, the
violence of this curiosity. The question that fascinated the
youth of sixteen was: What would happen if a man should
try to imprison a ray of light? The question was naturally
more complex, but as scientific formulae were beyond me,
it was with these simple words that Einstein explained what
he himself considered to be the starting point of his lif ework.
Once he had asked himself the question, the problem
haunted him. It was always present as he continued his
studies at the Polytechnic and struggled with the material
difficulties in his path. In spite of an intense interest in mathe-
matics, he decided to study to be a teacher of physics.
Mathematics, he said to himself, was divided into so many
specialized fields that any one of them could absorb the short
span of a man's life. "I was like Buridan's donkey, who could
not decide which stack of hay to choose,** he said later. His
choice was dictated by his contempt for automatically ac-
quired knowledge, which he would have had to absorb be-
fore reaching essential principles. It sums up his lasting sense
of economy in all unnecessary intellectual effort. One could
call it a reluctance to use a very fine instrument for coarse
work.
During his first visit to America in 1921, lie was given a
questionnaire covering all the intellectual equipment a
student was supposed to carry with him through life, once
his university studies ended. To one question as to the speed
of sound, Einstein replied: *T don't know. I don't crowd my
memory with facts that I can easily find in an encyclopedia."
Looking back on his years of study, he must have said to
himself, with regret, that his intuition in the mathematical
field cannot have been sufficient to enable him to distinguish
between things of fundamental importance and the heap of
information with which he could have dispensed.
In contrast to this resistance to what he considered the
dead weight of knowledge, the work in the laboratory fasci-
nated him by its direct contact with experiment. But he
was forced to proclaim later the absolute priority of pure
speculation. Summing up this conviction in recently pub-
lished notes, he writes: "A theory can be checked by experi-
ment, but there is no path that leads from experiment to a
theory that has not yet been established."
This fascination for laboratory work arose from a charac-
teristic one would not have expected in him. One might have
thought that, having worked with principles which the man
in the street could not grasp, he had arrived at a divorce
from reality. His aloofness from daily chores also might have
created the impression that there was a screen between him
and the material side of Jif e. In fact there is nothing of the
absent-minded scientist about him. The vagueness often
observed in him is put on, a kind of protection against
an intrusive presence. Though concentration on his work
removes him from the outside world, when not so absorbed
his attention is curiously alert, arrested often in the most
unexpected way by an apparently uninteresting phenomenon.
SI
He is intensely observant: his glance fixes on some detail
and lingers over something which other people do not even
notice. His interest will be aroused suddenly by statements
made by specialists on questions which one would have
thought alien to his world, secrets of craftsmanship and
details of engineering. Everything ingenious in the material
sphere engages his attention. If you watch him handle some
object, he seems to take possession of it. He does not touch
things as though he wanted to push them away as people do
when their thoughts are elsewhere; he follows the outline
and sounds the surface, seeming to penetrate into all its
properties. He has a taste for solid things such as steel struc-
tures; he likes to watch a thing in the making. He feels at
home in a world of stable laws, in a reality ruled by unaltera-
ble material facts.
I saw him one day talking with a building engineer. His
fingers passed tenderly over the blueprint for a bridge spread
on the table. He underlined certain details, and showed that
labor and material could be saved by a better disposition of
the arches. The engineer watched him with wide-eyed, naive
surprise. ""People think that Albert is a dreamer/' said Mrs.
Einstein. Trie really is a very practical man." She seemed
proud that her husband had his feet on the ground. Had
Einstein carried out his initial plan of study, he might have
become a remarkable technician.
The experiments in the laboratory which so fascinated
him were the most attractive part of the Polytechnic pro-
gram. All his life he has retained a distaste for education
when it stuffs young minds with facts, names, or formulae.
He is apt to say that one need not go to a university to
learn these they can be found in books. Education should
32
EINSTEIN AND HIS SISTER MAYA AS CHILDREN
Photos on Einstein family cups.
"They lived in a sheltered and peaceful atmosphere . . "
EINSTEIN AND HIS SISTER MAYA, ABOUT 1885
be devoted wholly to helping young people to think, to give
them the training no textbook can provide. "It is truly a
miracle that modern education hasn't completely stifled the
sacred curiosity of research," he said. As a student, he felt
deeply the horrible oppression and the constraint of examina-
tions. He felt as if he were living under the guillotine, in im-
minent fear of a deadline being put to his time. Now, in his
seventies, he remembers his years of study with a kind of
resentment at the time it all took. "I believe that you could
even ruin the appetite of a healthy animal if you forced it to
eat under threat of a whip, even when it is not hungry, and
especially if you made an appropriate choice of the food it
must swallow."
Constraint has always been his personal enemy. His whole
youth was a battle against it. When he uttered the German
word for it, an abrupt word, with a peculiarly sinister sound,
Zwang, everything tolerant, humorous, or resigned in his ex-
pression vanished. He spat out the word as one does a fish-
bone. While editing his biographical notes in the peace of
his Princeton study, where no power on earth would seem
any longer to threaten his absolute liberty, Einstein remem-
bered the havoc it played with his life. "The constraint was
so terrifying that after I had passed the final examination, I
found myself unable to think of any scientific problem for
almost a year." That year must have been a painful one. He
had made sacrifices himself in order to secure a livelihood
independent of family charity. He had often gone hungry.
He had few needs and was careless in appearance. A misera-
ble room and an old suit did not upset him, but insufficient
food was another matter. He never spoke of his privations,
but his health suffered from it and when he showed signs
83
of exhaustion later on, Mrs. Einstein would explain that "it
was the effect of what he had endured when he was so poor/ 3
She could not spoil him enough; a picture of the "poor boy"
haunted her. The serious illness which recently made it
necessary for him to undergo a grave operation was the price
paid for the poverty of his youth.
No matter how hungry he was, Einstein meticulously put
aside twenty francs from the hundred francs his family gave
him each month to pay for his naturalization. By the time he
passed his examination he was a Swiss subject. His papers
were in order. He asked for what seemed to htm the most
obvious post that of an assistant, which professors usually
granted to gifted pupils. But no professor had marked his
exceptional faculties, none had enough interest in him to
forward his career. In vain he tried to join the university
through this little door. What disconcerted him most was
that the refusals were not even backed by some forceful,
weighty argument. They left him with a sense of bitterness
that was rare with Mm. It was not because of the humiliation
of pleading, or that the refusals undermined his self-confi-
dence, but because of the hypocrisy he sensed behind the
conspiracy of silence that confronted him. Once, years after,
he wrote to an American student who had sent him a passion-
ate indictment on the injustice of professors, of which she
felt herself a victim : "I, too, once was treated so by my profes-
sors, who did not like my spirit of independence, and though
they needed an assistant, refused to appoint me as one." But
he wrote to the American further that one only made oneself
ridiculous by fostering personal resentments. He advised her
to put her temper in her pocket and her manuscript in her
desk
34
Einstein never harbors grudges. He always hastens to
forget any wrong done to him personally. He deliberately
sweeps away from his memory all painful incidents, all his
most humiliating encounters with stupidity or malice. Once,
after he had received honorary degrees from many universi-
ties, he was awarded one by Zurich. He burst into laughter,
honest laughter with no irony in it, but he read out to us, his
eyes glittering with amusement, the answer he composed to
thank the Alma Mater that had shown so little initial interest
in him for bestowing the honor. He looked like an urchin
with his tongue in his cheek as he watched our reactions.
The young man had been forced, owing to this failure, to
look for a job. He tried for a professorship in physics at a
lycee, but was unsuccessful, both in Zurich and in smaller
Swiss towns. Did he really seem so little qualified for the
post he sought or was it perhaps some apprehension of genius
which put off the administrators who might otherwise have
hired him? Einstein still wonders and does not know whether
he was just too insignificant or whether there was already an
odor of sulphur about him. He began to answer newspaper
advertisements, rushing hither and thither when he read of a
vacancy, any vacancy. He found a post as temporary assist-
ant in a technical school in Winterthur which kept him going
for several months. With gratitude he took on a modest post
as tutor at a boarding school in Schaffihausen, looking after
two backward boys. He liked the job, but he had his own
ideas about teaching physics. He lost the job because he
wanted to teach freely, in his own way. He could find no
other place in secondary education.
All his life Einstein has regretted not having been a school-
teacher. It may be just a sentimental reflex; as a toy coveted
35 -
in a poor childhood might haunt a man grown rich. The
regret is sincere, though it puzzles those who know his lack
of enthusiasm for regular instruction, and his choice later
on of positions not entailing the obligations of following a
scheduled course. His own work and ideas absorbed him to
such an extent that he tended to propound them before an
audience ill equipped to understand him. He had no desire
to impose any moral laws, and even less to exercise authority.
What he did regret, as a great pleasure that he never experi-
enced, was the task of awakening curiosity in minds which
had not yet been blunted by conventional education. Put
more simply, it is contact with childhood which he feels he
has always missed.
Whenever Einstein speaks to a child one realizes what
barriers exist in his relationship with adults. He is quick to
reach an understanding with children and they have only
to look at each other to become accomplices. It is not the re-
emergence of the backward child or boy in Einstein. Chil-
dren's minds have for him the same fascination as the authen-
tic material of inanimate objects: he loves their naivete,
still unaffected by conventional restraints, their impetuous
questions, and their lack of embarrassment about the gaps
they reveal in their knowledge. Above all Einstein shares
their laughter and that mysterious sense of humor that makes
grownups exclaim: "What on earth are they laughing about?"
(The humorous verses Einstein composed for my daughter
when she was small were never beyond her comprehension,
And so Einstein goes on regretting never having been a
schoolteacher. He thinks of children as lost in a universe
of physical phenomena. He knows that he can make the great
laws of nature accessible to them. He loves an explanation to
36
be both exact and clear. He once interrupted a grandiloquent
statement on a scientific discovery by a visitor with: "If it is
something that one can understand, one can also explain it
clearly/ 7 It annoys him that the automatic way in which
physics is so often taught to children is responsible for the
number of adults excluded forever from awareness of that
miraculous universe. I talked to him about my own ignorance
of the most elementary facts, as I had a blind spot for even
the basic principles of mathematics and physics. tfe What non-
sense!" he said aggressively. "It is merely that you haven't
been taught properly/' The telephone interrupted us. **You
see,** I said, "I have been told how a telephone works, but I
still don't grasp it" "Why, it's very simple," and he explained
it so clearly that it became quite obvious and also wonderful.
"You see what a good teacher of elementary physics I might
have been," he said, laughing at my sense of achievement.
Afterward he made a point of ^plaining discoveries which,
without Trim, would still be enigmas to me. He has a tireless
patience in answering the most ignorant questions. He takes
joy in pointing out the action of the great laws of the universe*
in prosaic, everyday happenings.
Once I saw him stir the tea in his cup with concentrated
attention, playing with his spoon as if wrapped in a dream.
The whirlpool he had produced in the cup so completely
absorbed him that he did not even hear his wife speaking to
him. The rest of us lowered our voices, aware that his
thoughts were far away. Suddenly he glanced at us with
mischievous defiance. "Who can explain why a tea leaf in a
cup that you stir remains on the top and in the middle?"
Obviously, none of us knew, and even had we thought we
did we would not have risked an explanation in his presence.
- 37
For a moment lie was silent, then said triumphantly: "You
see, there were several tea leaves that fell to the bottom of
the cup because they were heavier. When I began to stir, they
gathered in the middle, owing to the centrifugal force. But
die whirlpool that I produced is not uniform it is arrested
at the edges by friction and its force of rotation there is
weaker than in the middle. It is also weaker at the bottom of
the cup and that is why the leaves are carried toward the
middle and to the top, until the rotating movement is sta-
bilized by the influence of the friction exercised from the
depth."
Einstein spoke simply, making us participants in his own
discovery; and we felt we could have discovered it without
him. He went on: "The same thing happens at the river
bends. It explains the erosion that goes on at the shore and
the formation of windings. Can't you see how simple it is?"
It was, in fact, very simple everything is very simple when
he explains it with ordinary words. But when he stops speak-
ing the heavy door of the lost universe shuts behind him
again.
This taste for playing with problems like so many billiard
balls is so strong that Heinrich Simon, the editor of the
Frankfurter Zeitung, once let him, at his own request, write
scientific riddles. The condition was that they should be
published anonymously. Heinrich Simon was amazed. An
American paper had offered Einstein a fabulous sum for an
article and failed to get a statement of a few lines. The same
man was willing to sit down and in his fine, clear writing
formulate "posers" which he might have tried on the students
in his class and now was giving away. The readers of the
Frankfurter Zeitung never suspected the authorship of the
38
scientific problems over which they racked their brains.
Heinrich Simon, who found it difficult to keep the secret,
told me that readers did not always find them easy, but they
were always highly instructive. "It is, after all, so simple/'
said Einstein. That conviction is the key to his work, which
he^affirmed in 1936 in a paper on "Physics and Reality":
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it
is comprehensible."
39
Chapter III
"EVERY scientist ought to have a shoemakers job," Ein-
stein once said. He found one of the sort in 1902, after a
long and anxious search, thanks to a schoolfellow who was
touched by his obvious poverty and who asked his father to
intervene for Einstein with the director of the Federal Office
of Patents in Bern. Here again he almost met with failure.
The director was looking for someone capable of judging
whether a request for a patent had any justification. 'What
do you know about patents?'* he asked. "Nothing," replied
Einstein. The interview might have ended there and then,
but the frankness of this brief admission intrigued the man,
who had been informed of the financial straits of the candi-
date. A long conversation proved that the applicant did know
enough to recognize the value of an invention.
With this well-paid job, a small fortune in Einstein's eyes,
his struggle for existence came to an end. He could now
consider getting married. He had met at the university a
Serbian student, Mileva Marie, who also intended to be-
41
come a teacher o physics. Perhaps the difference in their
origins, the contrast in their characters, attracted him. His
youth may have been drawn subconsciously toward the
support of a woman slightly older than himself, or perhaps
lie simply felt the need of an understanding response. Albert
Einstein is not the sort of man who ever fully communicates
his thoughts to other people: but he likes to use them as the
sounding board of his own ideas. He needs appropriate an-
swers in a conversation that is chiefly a monologue.
His purely personal feelings have been consciously rele-
gated more and more to the background of his existence.
He spoke once of the "puritanical reserve" necessary to the
scientist who, seeking truth, must remain removed from all
disturbing emotions. With him this puritanical reserve is
not the natural reserve of a man whose private life has been
invaded by fame, nor merely a refractory instinct rejecting
ill display of sentiment, but rather a conscious distribution of
values according to their true worth.
Summing up his life on the eve of his seventieth birthday,
Einstein confined himself to an account of what had been for
him a great spiritual adventure. He realized how inadequate
his story was to dispel curiosity about him as a human being,
and added mischievously: "Is this what is called an obituary?
The surprised reader may well wonder. I am almost ready to
reply: essentially, yes, it is for the essential in the destiny of
a man of my sort is what and how he thinks and not what he
does or what he goes through." The true story of Albert
Einstein unfolds on two planes, that of his private life and
that of his thought. What happens to him in his private life
has always been on a lower level for him, only externally
affecting his real destiny. His real world has been the world
of thought and science.
On this lower level Albert Einstein, when twenty-three
years old, settled down in Bern, married, and founded a
family. Two sons were born in succession. The younger
looked like him he had his father's large, bulging, and
sparkling eyes and shape of face. He inherited some part
of his gifts and his taste for music, but he suffered from his
mother's heredity, for she came of a mentally unbalanced
family.
Albert Einstein loved his sons as much as he could love
anyone. They caused him the joys and torments all children
cause their parents, but parental joy and torment were sub-
ordinated to his work. On the lower worldly level also he
was engrossed with the work in the Patent Office, judging
the quality of applications and often editing imprecise and
loosely worded formulations. His "job as a shoemaker" inter-
ested him. His gifts as a jack-of-all-trades revealed them-
selves, and he even invented an apparatus for measuring
short electric voltages.
But his thoughts were elsewhere. To understand what
happened in the years following his new-found security, one
must consider not only the creative miracle of genius but
also the curious capacity he had for absenting himself from
his immediate worldly surroundings. A separation seemed to
take place between his mind and his body not unlike the
ecstasy of a saint. The word "transfiguration" acquired an
almost literal sense. But Einstein's "absences" were, in their
external aspect, as alien as possible to ecstatic conditions;
they were so realistic and commonplace that a superficial
observer might never have noticed them.
Albert Einstein would be there, his senses radiantly alive to
the simple and sensual pleasures of life. You might be sitting
43 -
alone with him, or with two or three others, or the room
might even be full of people. He had just finished a sentence.
You would think he was following the conversation intently.
Suddenly he would fall silent and stop listening to you.
He would rise to his feet without a word, or remain sitting
motionless. The effect would be the same. He would be
unreachable. You could start talking noisily, or lapse into an
even more embarrassing silence, with everybody staring at
him, but he would neither see nor hear. This had nothing
in common with the absent-mindedness of a man wrapped
up in his own thoughts, who continues to circulate in a world
of reality, causing absurd misunderstandings. With Einstein,
the eclipse was and is total. Nothing, as far as one could see,
changed in his expression. The shadow of a smile might still
linger around his lips, he might still frown if some pain-
ful matter had been the subject of discussion, but the
thoughts of the moment before had vanished. The eyelids
might droop, heavy, slightly purple in color, or the eyes be
wide open, but they would be dark and lusterless as the
eyes of a blind man. He might appear lost to us for a long
time, and then return to u*s as if he had never realized his
absence; he might remain without movement for a time that
to us appeared an eternity, or return so rapidly that we
thought we had been dreaming. His returns were as abrupt
as his departures. But one never quite lost the feeling that
his presence among us was only a temporary loan.
At the Federal Patent Office during the three years that
he conscientously performed his duties there, the same thing
must often have happened. As soon as he got back his inter-
est in scientific research, and recovered from the saturation
of knowledge he needed for his examination, he attacked
44 -
the problem of light rays which had haunted him ever since
he was sixteen. He spoke once of the "desperate efforts"
pursued by him over many years to find a solution. His fu-
ture collaborator, Professor Infeld, pointed out that these
characteristic efforts illustrated first and foremost what he
called Einstein's capacity for wonder. Perhaps that capacity
which appears not only in the field of pure speculation is
one of his chief characteristics: he faces every phenomenon
as though it were quite new, as though it had not yet found
its stable place in the universe, and asks Why? as though
nothing had ever before been said on the subject He accepts
no solution on trust Infeld points out another ability of Ein-
stein's: to ponder for years over the same problem "until
darkness is transformed into the light of understanding," and
his gift of finding formulae for simple, imaginary experi-
ments, "experiments that could never be performed in prac-
tice, but which, when properly analyzed, strangely clarify
our understanding of the world around us/*
During this time of extraordinary creative richness Ein-
stein attended to many other problems that came his way,
edited papers on various subjects, and treated them all as
of equal importance. The theory that scientists the world
over agreed had caused a break with the experience of many
centuries, and the creation of a new universe, first saw the
light in a specialized German publication, the Year Book
of Physics, a bulky volume filled with the most diverse
contributions. Einstein published one article in it each year
after 1901, when he completed his studies. The 1905 volume
contained five contributions from Trim. They were all on
different subjects. Perhaps the author did not wish to empha-
size one subject more than another. But the one entitled
45 -
"A New Definition of Molecular Dimensions" was to give
Tiim his chance at a university career. Another dealt with the
quantum law of the emission and absorption of light and
explained the phenomenon known in physics as "photo-
electrical effect." The principle formulated by Einstein has
influenced research in the physics of the quantum and spec-
troscopy everywhere. His formulation of this law gave birth
to television and other applications of the photoelectric cell.
This was the contribution that won for him the Nobel Prize.
A third article took as its starting point the experiment made
by the botanist Robert Brown on the movement of minute
particles suspended in liquid. The fourth paper was the
longest of all. Its title in no way augured the revolution that
it was to create: "On the Electrodynamics of Bodies in Move-
ment/* But men with a knowledge of scientific publications
note a purely superficial difference: this particular article
contains no references, quotes no authority, and has few
footnotes and those few serve only to explain the text. Even-
tually, the experts were unanimous in declaring that what
might have been but an outline of the theory of relativity
was in fact a complete paper on the subject. Einstein himself
must have been conscious of the importance of the solution
he had arrived at. It was learned much later that he had a
total collapse after it, exhausted by his superhuman effort.
He was ill for a fortnight. The shock was very violent.
Einstein never forgot the moment when the ultimate light
was revealed to him. He was conscious of living through a
supreme experience. He knew no greater human emotion: no
violent passion or deep distress could compare in intensity
with the transformation of the universe which had taken
place before his eyes. In an essay written in January 1940 on
46 -
the foundation of theoretical physics, after speaking of the
new concepts of fields discovered by Faraday, Einstein
wrote: "The precise enunciation of the laws of these fields in
space-time was the work of Maxwell. Can we visualize what
he must have gone through when the differential equations
that he had formulated proved that the electromagnetic
fields are propagated in the shape of polarized waves and
with the speed of light? . . . To few people in this world has
it been given to witness such an experiment/* he added with
one of his rare glimpses of emotiqn, reminded no doubt of
his own happiness.
Perhaps it was struggle required to reach his final convic-
tions, perhaps it was the very intensity of his creative pow-
ers, but he seemed (was it from birth or from that moment?)
unconscious of everything life could offer him and impervious
to emotion. In his affections as well as in his thoughts, he
seemed to be only lending a presence which he might with-
draw at any time.
Spurred on by this supreme effort, Albert Einstein not only
reconsidered theories of physics and questioned mechanical
laws that had seemed safe against attack, but in his outline of
the theory of relativity, as well as in a short article the fifth
which appeared in the Year Book of Physics under the title
"Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on Its Energy Content?"
he gave warning of a power that was to shake the world.
For the first time the formula rendering the use of atomic
energy theoretically possible appeared in print, and the pos-
sibility of annihilating humanity became a subject of specula-
tion. The old concept of our universe had been upset by one
man. Writing about the consideration of all values that be-
gan to take place, Bafchelard raised the question: "Is so little
47
required to shake a spatial universe? Can a single experiment
of the twentieth century annihilate (a follower of Sartre
would plunge into nothingness) more than two or three cen-
turies of rational thought? Yes, a single decimal sufficed."
The date 1905 in the science books is often given as the
decisive date in the new physics. One cannot, however, "date"
great matters so clearly. Though the formula of the theory
had appeared in print, and was safely stowed in the Year
Book of Physics, there was no immediate revolution as the
result of these new, still unassimilated ideas. Once again, as
at the beginning of his career, Einstein's work was met with
curious indifference. Nothing happened, absolutely nothing.
Those who were later on to grasp the immense importance of
these theories seem not to have noticed the article in which
he developed them for the first time. His future collaborator,
Professor Infeld, describes the years of silence that followed
the publication of the first paper on relativity. Here and there
an isolated scientist bent over the article and had some glim-
mering of the changing universe. But with whom could he
share the deep impression it produced? Where were the
scientists qualified to discuss this genius, this stranger with
no university credits, no university chair, no claim to justify
such audacity of thought?
A long way from Zurich, in the University of Cracow, a
Polish professor, Witkowski, exclaimed on reading the arti-
cle: "A new Copernicus has been born." He roused enthusi-
asm in one of his pupils who later became a remarkable
physicist. This young professor, Loria by name, spoke of
Einstein's article to other colleagues, repeating the words
of his teacher: "A new Copernicus has been born." Einstein?
the name meant nothing to his colleagues. The professor
talked with such f ervor to the German physicist Max Born
that they went to the library to look for the 1905 Year Book
of Physics, and Max Born wrote: "One of the most remarka-
ble volumes in all scientific literature is Volume 17, Series 4,
of the Year Book of Physics, 1905." Max Born himself became
one of the first contributors to research in this field of rela-
tivity. "But it was not before 1908 or 1909 that the attention
of a great number of scientists was drawn towards Einstein's
results,** wrote Infeld. Three or four years more went by. Is
Einstein's later spectacular success to be explained by some
mysterious law governing f ame, working now to compensate
for all the early indifference? Fully conscious of his personal
contribution, did Einstein expect immediate response, and
was he eaten up with bitterness, with impatience? If so, he
never expressed it. Little things he said such as: "The scien-
tific mills are the slowest to grind their corn," may easily have
referred to someone else. When he talks of the beginning of
his career, he speaks of it as of something happening to an-
other man. There was certainly no sense of frustration in
him, and the patience he had then to exercise perhaps helped
to render hrm immune to his later glory.
Though the importance of his work was not at once
recognized, its scope was noticed sufficiently to produce the
impression that his modest position was somehow inade-
quate. But one could not, after all, offer a Chair to a civil
servant of the Federal Patent Office! In all the Germanic
countries the line of demarcation between the secondary
school and the university is strictly defined. A future univer-
sity professor must justify himself by some work of distinc-
tion to reach the first stage, the grade of lecturer. One of the
articles published in the Year Book of Physicsnot the one
49
on the theory of relativity was considered sufficient to
"qualify" Einstein. But since a lectureship does not bring
with it any remuneration other than the scanty contributions
of the students, Einstein could not think of abandoning his
"livelihood." A compromise was finally found: while he was
waiting for a professorship at Zurich to come through, the
University of Bern let him keep the patent job and combine
it with addresses to students as a university lecturer.
One of his colleagues reports that Einstein, pursuing his
own work in his mind, showed little interest in university
matters and did not take enough trouble in preparing his
lectures. The physicist who had proposed him for the Chair
in Zurich, himself a professor there, came to Bern to get a
report on his protege. Disappointed, he told Einstein that the
lectures he addressed to his students would not be appro-
priate for the position he had planned for him. "I do not
especially wish to transfer to Zurich/* said Einstein quickly,
like a man who wants above all to be left in peace. Still, he
knew that he could not keep on working in Bern forever. He
had to think of his career and it was inconceivable to refuse
a Chair. There was, however, a rival on his path who was
already established in the University of Zurich and who had
been a former colleague in the Polytechnic. Friedrich Adler's
father, Victor Adler, was leader of the Austrian Social Demo-
crat Party; he was well known and had a large following
abroad. Socialist circles in Zurich were very much on his son's
side. A famous name might easily have eclipsed a stranger.
Once more Einstein's career was in jeopardy. But integrity
was a god to Friedrich Adler. It was he who intervened with
the university authorities and stood aside. One of Einstein's
biographers, Professor Frank, describes Adler s impatient
50 *
tone in promoting his rival: "If we can win a man like Ein-
stein for our university, it would be ridiculous to nominate
me; my faculties as a man of research in the field of physics
are not in the same class as Einstein's.*' He insisted that politi-
cal sympathies should not be allowed to interfere with the
nomination.
Einstein's university career began with this disinterested
pleading by a man whose political convictions were well
known. He was later to give spectacular proof of them in his
own hour of fame. For one day, at a particularly critical
moment in the First World War, Friedrich Adler walked
into a Vienna restaurant and shot the Prime Minister, Count
Stiirgkh, because he held hrm responsible for the disastrous
and long-drawn-out war.
Among the strange twists of fate that link the career of
Einstein with great international events is the fact that
Friedrich Adler, in prison on the eve of his death sentence,
was correcting a paper of his own, refuting the theory of
relativity. This theory, however, was by now so well estab-
lished in the scientific world that it was on the strength of the
arguments he expressed against it that an attempt was made
to save Adler's life on the grounds that he was out of his mind
at the moment of the murder.
From 1909, the year of Einstein's appointment as professor
extraordinary at Zurich (he was not yet holder of a Chair),
though his remuneration was no higher than it had been as
an official in Bern, his obligations increased. The family
budget was balanced only by taking in students as lodgers.
The appreciation of the scientific world came to Einstein
gradually and this fact, curiously enough, permitted Trim to
advance rapidly in his university career. Only a year had
51 -
passed and he was just over thirty when he was granted a
Chair. In 1910 he was called to the German University at
Prague. This nomination was merely an incident in his ca-
reer, but it brought hi to two important turning points in
his personal life. The regulations concerning government
employment in Austria forced him to declare his religion.
He had had no ties with the Jewish community since he left
Munich, and no more links with Jewish tradition. His wife
was Greek Orthodox. But he had not lost his youthful in-
transigence. In university circles a more or less disguised
anti-Semitism existed, particularly in Austria though the
Austrian who was later to preach racial discrimination had
not yet made his appearance. At that time it was sufficient
to state one's religion on paper, in this way severing all con-
nection with Jewry, to overcome many obstacles. Einstein's
friends insisted that he should make what could be called a
concession to prejudice. They quoted to him many "conver-
sions'* for the sake of a career, but it was precisely these op-
portunist arguments and these laws enforced by the Emperor
Francis Joseph that brought Einstein to the reaffirmation of
one of the principles of his life. The young professor filled in
his questionnaire in his clear and regular handwriting: "Re-
ligion Israelite." The decision was forced on him from out-
side. It became more and more deeply rooted in him.
A further change took place in his private life. The move,
with all that it involved in the way of adaptation to the new
milieu, to changed conditions in everyday life, served to
accentuate the friction that existed between him and his wife.
The special political circumstances that reigned in Prague
must have weighed hard on Mileva Einstein, who was par-
ticularly sensitive to the Skv problem. The Czech masses
52
were restless and angry at unfair discrimination against them.
The dual monarchy maintained the fiction of equal civil
rights. But the German-speaking Austrians considered them-
selves the elite in a city which, had been the first in Central
Europe to found a university; they treated the Slav elements
with a contempt that was fed on old jokes from imperial
Vienna. For them Czech was an inferior language used for
addressing servants.
In university life burning problems are reflected in small
vexations and deep susceptibilities, and Albert Einstein did
not "play the game"; he seemed not to notice that he was
expected to identify himself with his surroundings. He re-
mained aloof, unable to share petty resentments and vanities.
His colleagues* narrow view of the world had little attraction
for him. Now and then it aroused his sense of humor, but
his amusement found little echo either at home or among his
colleagues. In university circles he was like a visitor with
strange manners. His successor in Prague, Professor Frank,
was received on his arrival by the dean with: "In your spe-
cialty, we ask only for one thing: to be a more or less normal
man."
The new professor was surprised. "Is that so rare a quality
among physicists?"
**You are not going to make me believe that your predeces-
sor was a normal man?" replied the dean.
Einstein stayed only two years in Prague. He did not know
how people felt about him. He was absorbed in his work,
isolated as though on a desert island, and hardly noticed
other people. He was documenting and widening the theory
of relativity as he had expounded it in 1905 and it was later,
because of its restricted nature, characterized as "specific." *I
53 -
only became fully conscious of the fact/' lie said, "that the
specific theory of relativity was only a first step towards a
necessary evolution when I tried to integrate gravitation into
the framework of that theory /* In 1912 six articles which he
published in the Year Book of Physics were devoted for the
most part to the problem of gravitation. The integration he
attempted proved difficult. "The path was more arduous than
had been expected," he wrote later, "because it was in con-
tradiction to Euclid's Geometry/*
At one time Einstein tried to describe the processes of
scientific work and in doing so he exposed the workshop of
his mind. Starting with primary concepts directly linked to
sense experiences and with theorems which are interdepend-
ent, the scientist tries to discover the logical unity in the
image of the universe. He goes beyond what Einstein calls
the ^secondary layer* to arrive at a system of the greatest
conceivable unity. He considered it an error to designate
these superimposed layers of thought as "degrees of abstrac-
tion/* "I do not consider it right to conceal the logical inde-
pendence of a fundamental concept from the sense experi-
ment.** And he adds, in that picturesque language which he
frequently uses: "The connection is not comparable to that of
soup to beef, but more to that of the cloakroom ticket to the
overcoat/*
In his attempt to throw light on how scientific thought
functions, Einstein emphasizes that "the fundamental con-
cepts and theorems and the relations between them should
be as narrow as possible but freely selected/* But the free-
dom given to the scientist in his choice of axioms is different
from that of any other form of creative effort. "It is not like
the freedom of a novelist, but rather like that of a man try-
- 54
ing to solve a cleverly designed crossword puzzle. He may
suggest any word as a solution, but there is only one word
that can really solve the puzzle in all its parts.'* Einstein at
that time was only halfway on the path to his unique solution
of the mystery. Following this path with characteristic
tenacity, he challenged almost casually those whom he had
not yet convinced, and the challenge had consequences
whose spectacular repercussions even he could not foresee.
In examining the influences of gravitation on light, he de-
clared, making another breach in Newtonian physics, that a
light ray undergoes a deviation in proportion to the gravita-
tion, so that it acquires the shape of a parabola. He wrote
this from his desk perhaps he looked up at an exceptionally
bright night sky as he did so, perhaps his eyes remained
fixed on his paper, but it wouldn't have mattered: there was
a picture of the star-studded sky in his mind's eye. By
thought alone, and by application of the logic that leads to
the unity of the world, he established the laws that govern
this inaccessible world. In the paper he went on to prepare
for the Year Book of Physics., he stressed that this deviation
of light rays of stationary stars must be visible during an
eclipse of the sun and that it would therefore be possible to
verify his theory by experiment. He concluded his article:
"It would be urgently desirable for astronomers to become
interested in this question, even if the considerations given
here appear insufficiently founded or even adventurous.'*
Thus the suggestion was launched. A test of the immense
design Einstein had sketched and now was filling in was
called for and said to be in the realm of the possible. In that
world of thought where nothing is lost, the idea went on its
way.
55
From this point on, Einstein was no longer a solitary
searcher, a mere man of promise, with brilliant gifts and bold
ideas which frightened his conservative colleagues. In 1910
Professor Planck, originator of the quantum theory, most
eminent among the theoreticians of physics in Germany, was
asked to give an opinion on Einstein's scientific contribution,
and declared: If Einstein's theory is proven to be correct,
as I expect it will be, he will be considered as the Copernicus
of the twentieth century/* This was a happy comparison it
had already been made once before. But there was still an
"if in Planck's statement. In the meantime Einstein's contri-
bution to science continued, quite apart from his revolution-
ary theory. Max Born wrote later: "In my opinion, he would
have been one of the greatest theoreticians of physics even
if he had never written a line on relativity."
The Zurich Polytechnic realized belatedly its mistake in
not clinging to the former student who was one day to be its
chief pride. It now offered a Chair to the candidate who had
been rejected so coldly only a few years before. And in 1912
Einstein returned to lecture to the selfsame benches where
once he had sat and listened. He returned to the town, whose
streets he had once tramped in hunger, as a man who had
"arrived," no longer the professor extraordinary who could
not balance his family budget without the humiliation of
lodgers in his own home. At first, back in the familiar atmos-
phere in which he had first met his wife, their relations may
have improved. But their differences were too deep-rooted
for the breach to be altogether healed. And their stay in
Zurich was not long enough to bring together two people
who were by now virtually estranged.
The year after his nomination to Zurich, Albert Einstein
- 56 -
received the most flattering invitation that could have been
given to a man of thirty-four. Germany's two most eminent
physicists, Planck and Nernst, proposed him as a member of
the scientific institute founded by the Emperor, the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute. The two scientists went to Zurich to per-
suade Einstein of the enormous advantages offered to him.
He would have a Chair at the university, without the obliga-
tion of regular lectures, and apart from this he would have
more time to devote to his scientific work, with a high salary
and membership in the Prussian Academy of Science the
equivalent of a marshal's baton offered to a young lieutenant.
The proposal was enough to dazzle even a man as insensitive
to material advantages and honors as Einstein. The Berlin of
1913 vibrated with an intense intellectual life and was the
cradle of great spiritual movements as well as of new scien-
tific ideas. This city to which Einstein was summoned was a
place of unlimited possibilities, thanks to the extraordinary
prosperity of its economic system. Berlin prided itself on
being in the forefront of civilization, appreciating everything
that was new, whether laborious research, audacious thought,
or artistic inspiration. The University of Berlin counted
among its professors the greatest names in almost every
sphere. If neither honors nor position could impress Einstein,
he had the feeling of the humble for the influence exercised
by personality and a deep respect for spiritual values and
scientific achievement.
But, flattered as he must have been, nevertheless Einstein
was cautious. The professor of a university was a govern-
ment servant. As a civil servant he acquired with his post
German nationality. Einstein had not lost the convictions of
his youth which had once made him break with the country
57
of his birth. His Swiss nationality had given him the feeling
of being international rather than national, "a citizen of the
world." The obstinacy with which he defended his point of
view was so instinctive that it might have sprung from some
presentiment of the future.
The problem he had raised was a hard one for the German
scientists to swallow, but they were eager to benefit from his
growing fame. Besides, there was a precedent. The faculty
of letters had among its prominent personalities a French-
man, Professor Haguenin, who before accepting his nomina-
tion had stipulated that he wished to keep his nationality.
Einstein and Haguenin were the only ones in this large uni-
versity body to remain foreigners while becoming Prussian
civil servants.
In the autumn of 1913 Einstein left Zurich and went to
Berlin alone. His separation from his wife, at first temporary,
soon became final. He knew that it was inevitable when he
went and was deeply distressed when he left his sons: it was
probably the only time in his life when anyone saw him cry.
58
Chapter IV
AT FIRST it seemed no more than the ordinary newspaper
headline to those who were engrossed in their own work
and did not follow political events very closely: the murder
of the Archduke occurred in the middle of a peaceful sum-
mer, -whose brilliant sunshine made man-made disasters seem
curiously unreal. A few more weeks of waiting, with the
weather still wonderful, raised everyone's hopes.
The declaration of war hit Berlin as if the sky had fallen.
War was still an unknown factor, for no one had seen it at
close quarters. But the instinct of the masses revolted per-
haps not so much against this still unknown war as against
the end of peace and against a break in the solidarity of the
working classes everywhere.
On the afternoon of August 1, 1914, when it still seemed
possible that the disaster could be averted, the crowd
marched through the streets of Berlin crying, "Down with
the war!" The workmen who walked in close ranks, and the
public orators who climbed upon improvised platforms, an-
59
grily addressing the crowd, seemed like a tidal wave which
might really sweep away the arrogant military caste with
their sham Lohengrin at their head. Next day the crowd,
even denser and more excited, stampeded in the square in
front of the palace. The Kaiser appeared. The crowd was
delirious with enthusiasm. This war which Wilhelm II had
declared suddenly appeared to them as a long-awaited re-
lease, a holy war: but had they any idea what it was to be
a release from? These thousands of voices rising from the
square sounded like a single angry outcry, an ancient ele-
mental force that had existed long before these men, women,
and children who acclaimed the Emperor as their military
idol were born. There were no more protests, no more looks
of anguish or caution on the radiant faces to whom war had
been promised. The brothers and sisters of the same men
who only yesterday had cried, '"Down with the war," perhaps
even those men themselves, now created out of the Schloss-
platz a volcano of popular feeling, a tumult of warlike ardor.
Einstein, like all those who lived through these hours in
Berlin and saw this delirium, was never to forget how a
crowd could be completely won over to a destructive im-
pulse. "My pacifism is instinctive/' he said later. He was
always afraid of the chaos created in man by incitement to
war, by the call to hatred, and by the deformation of truth.
He saw the intellectual elite, as well as the crowd deluded
into believing in a conspiracy of the powers of evil directed
against a peaceful Germany, and that the war was a neces-
sary struggle if the threatened homes, moral values, and
driving power of Germany were to survive. Einstein recog-
nized in this explosion of enthusiasm and wrath, of self-
confidence and contempt for all that is different or foreign,
60
the reaction that arises from fear of solitude, from need of
solidarity, from a love of sacrifice and self-effacement so
strong that it destroys all critical sense and having recog-
nized it as such, he was never able to forget it. He remained
as impervious to the intoxication of the crowd as he did to
the patriotic anger that blinded the German elite. "This
blindness, incomprehensible to me, has struck like an epi-
demic many who have always seemed to think and feel
clearly up till now,** he wrote to Romain Holland.
His status as a neutral protected him from the necessity
of making a .stand. On the strength of it he was able to refuse
to sign the manifesto of the ninety-three intellectuals, the
capitulation of German spiritual independence. But he did
not retreat altogether into the protective shelter of neutrality.
In the same month of October when this manifesto ap-
peared, he signed a countermanifesto, written by that in-
domitable German pacifist Professor G. Nicolai, who later
achieved fame with his spectacular escape by airplane from
wartime Germany. This Appeal to Europeans had, if I am
not mistaken, only three signatures: the third one was that
of Wilhelm Foerster, president of the International Office of
Weights and Measures, father of another great German paci-
fist, F. W. Foerster. There were not many indeed who dared
to dissent from the concert of hatred. "Will future centu-
ries,** Einstein wrote to Romain Rolland, "really be justified
in glorifying our Europe in which three centuries of intense
cultural work have only brought about the transition from
religious mania to nationalist mania?'* His sense of humor
came to the rescue. In this letter, dated March 1915, he
added: "Even the scientists of various countries behave as
61
though eight months ago they had had their brains ampu-
tated."
His reputation as an eccentric saved him from the most
savage attacks of his indignant colleagues. Nevertheless in
" their eyes he was a moral leper. He was to remember that
when he came for the first time to Paris. He had been in-
vited by Madame Curie and when he sat down in the salon
he glanced at the row of chairs beside him which no one
dared to occupy and smiled across at young Frederic Joliot.
"Come and sit next to me, for I feel exactly as if I were at a
meeting of the Prussian Academy where two chairs are
always left empty beside mine,* he explained, laughing.
As a reaction against the general neurosis, the Union of
the New Fatherland was founded in Berlin at the beginning
of the war, to "fight chauvinism and prepare public opinion
for a peace that would respect the honor of all the belliger-
ent parties." They were merely a handful of men and women
who had not allowed to quote Einstein's words their brains
to be amputated. They felt very isolated amid the angry
outcries which followed. It was through the papers and
through the Bund, whose activities he highly approved, that
Einstein learned of the position taken up by Romain Holland.
He wrote to him at once to express his admiration for his
courage and to put at his disposal **my feeble forces in case
you might want to use me as an instrument, either owing to
my position or my relations with the foreign and German
members of the Academy of Science/* In fact he knew that
his influence was limited. When Romain Rolland asked him
one day if he was able to express his ideas to his German
friends, if he was able to discuss politics with them, he shook
his head. Nothing could break through the barriers of mis-
understanding. All Einstein could do was shower questions
upon them to shake them from their complacency, and "they
don't like that very much, 9 * he added with a laugh. The
scientists, mathematicians, and the physicists were the most
accessible of the Germans, while the humanists of the uni-
versity proved to be the most affected by the frenzy of na-
tionalism. At the root of this mania for war Einstein found
once again his ceaseless enemy, the system of education,
which, by being blindly submissive to the state, exalted
national pride and reduced a nation that boasted of itself as
the nation of "thinkers and poets" to a nation of slaves. This
submission was not so much a national characteristic as a
result of that discipline of thought that had dominated his
own frustrated youth.
By the time the war began Einstein had no illusions left
as to its outcome. Although he took part in all the scattered
protests and clandestine activities like those of the Bund
Neues Vaterland, which was suppressed in 1915, he knew
them to be wholly inadequate. But his doubts about the ef-
fectiveness of any action had never stopped him. It was this
that showed the fundamental difference between the state
of mind of the average German and the strength of the feel-
ings which moved Einstein himself. He was aware of the
difference in these grave moments, when even men of good
will refused to take responsibilities for fear of finding them-
selves isolated. Einstein recognized that Germany herself
was incapable of revolt or of any sort of daring initiative
that would lead to a spiritual rebirth. Respect for power was
too deeply rooted in the German mind; it corresponded too
well to their desire to dominate others. Talking once to
Romain Rolland, Einstein used the word affame to describe
the Germans. He was aware that this desire for power, this
thirst for conquest and respect for success, was a compensa-
tion for a feeling very close to an inferiority complex. Bru-
tality, even at its lowest, concealed something like aT desire
to be not only respected but loved, in the words of the
ironical ditty well known in Germany: "If you don't want
to be my brother, 111 bash your skull in." The Germany
which violated Belgian neutrality, the Germany of the crimes
of Louvain and the attack on tie Lusitania, was still naive
enough to be surprised at the hatred these crimes aroused
in the civilized world. When the Council of the Berlin Uni-
versity met and the professors got together in a beer cellar
after the session, their conversations invariably began with
one question: "Why does the whole world hate us?" (Ein-
stein told this to Remain Holland with a laugh, but in his
laughter there was perplexity at the German capacity for
self-deception. )
Einstein understood on the one hand that it was their lack
of self-criticism that gave rise to this spirit of submission
among Germans and to jheir resentment of isolation: on the
other hand he was conscious of their great capacity for or-
ganization, their gift for adaptation, and their ingeniousness.
He knew from the first year of the war that nothing but total
defeat would put an end to German militarism and to the
oppressive social framework. Himself a native of peaceful
Swabia, he saw in Prussia the incarnation of all the German
virtues but also all the German vices. The kingdoms and
principalities of the south had still preserved a certain spirit
of tolerance and humanity. When at a meeting of all German
universities the question was put whether all links with the
other universities of the world should be severed, the Univer-
64
EINSTEIN AS A STUDENT-AARAU, SWITZERLAND, 1896
... the young man had to return to the school desk like any dunce."
EINSTEIN IN 1905
**A new Copernicus has been born/ 3
sity of Berlin alone approved the motion against the opposi-
tion of all the universities of southern Germany. Einstein
knew, nevertheless, that differences of opinion and resent-
ments, like the hatred between Bavaria and Prussia, were
forgotten in time of danger and that the common ordeal of
the war reinforced the unity of the empire, so that it would
be difficult to return to the federal system. Nevertheless he
still cherished a dream, knowing it was no more than this,
of a disunited Germany, where the southern provinces would
join with Austria.
He spoke of this to Romain Holland when they met at
Vevey in September 1915. He had come to Zurich with a
Swiss friend on purpose to see the man who in the eyes of
the pacifists of the world was the incarnation of a free con-
science. They met on the veranda of the hotel where Rolland
was living, on a soft autumn afternoon, "among swarms of
bees, who came to rob the flowers and the ivy." Einstein was
thirty-six at that time, but his black curly hair was already
streaked with gray. Rolland found him "very alive and gay;
he cannot help giving an amusing twist to the most serious
thoughts." He discovered the absolute independence and
serenity of his mind: none of his previous visitors had pro-
duced the same impression. He noted in his diary: "Einstein
is incredibly detached in his judgments on his native coun-
try. No other German has such detachment." But the meet-
ing saddened Rolland. "All that he has told me points to the
impossibility of concluding a lasting peace with Germany
without defeating her first." Einstein told him, too, that
"whatever the result of the war, the chief victim will be
France." Rolland thought the severity with which Einstein
judged the Germans was excessive; his criticism he thought
- 65
too sarcastic and his prophecies too gloomy. In the end the
meeting left him perplexed: Einstein's personality somehow
eluded him. "Another man would suffer if he felt himself so
isolated in thought in this dreadful year. But not Einstein:
he just laughs/* He was surprised that Einstein should have
been able, under such conditions, to work on his theory
about which the Swiss friend had whispered to him: "It is
the greatest revolution in thought since Newton/'
It would have been more difficult for Einstein to preserve
the calm necessary for his work, and stand the increasing
privations that the war effort imposed upon Germany, had he
been wholly alone in the foreign Prussian capital. But on
arriving in Berlin he found support, and soon after shelter,
with one of his uncles and the latter's daughter. The meeting
between Einstein and his cousin Elsa was the beginning of
the only permanent personal relationship in his life: thence-
forward their relationship dominated his private life. He
had known her as a child, when she used to visit his younger
sister, but having as a boy no interest in little girls, he had
completely forgotten her existence. Now he met a woman
who was already mature, who had been divorced after an
unhappy marriage, and who was the doting mother of two
wistful and frail little girls. She must have been very charm-
ing; people who met her later in life disregarded the total
lack of coquetry in her manner to admire her regular fea-
tures and remarkably fair complexion. Her lively expression
saved her from being merely pretty. She had bright blue,
extremely myopic eyes, and a humorous mouth. Einstein,
distrustful of all intrusions into his private life, must have
been on the defensive against every stranger, but with Elsa
it was as if he rediscovered something with which he had
66
been familiar all his life and his defenses disappeared. They
had many memories in common, both their own and their
elders'; they recalled old times, in a language spiced with
dialect, inherited proverbs and sayings; they put forward
mysterious interpretations of events long past: tiny incidents
that were both tragic and grotesque. They would exchange
understanding glances, like those of old friends, and smiles
that were much older than their relationship as man and
wife. They met on a common ground of friendship and self-
confidence which remained with them always. The quiet
care with which Elsa looked after her cousin was sometimes
concealed by an air of vagueness: perhaps deliberately, for
too great an appearance of efficiency might have repelled a
man who was so indifferent to worldly things. Elsa protected
him against the hostile world as she was to protect hfm later
on against the assaults of admiration or curiosity. Their mar-
riage, when it took place, seemed the most obvious thing in
the world to both of them. She was not the sharer in his
scientific work that he had once thought he had found in
Mileva. Elsa's quick intelligence would have certainly let her
glimpse the world in which her husband lived, but she ab-
stained, deliberately, and Einstein has always been grateful
to her for having left this line of demarcation between them.
Whenever he was working particularly hard, Elsa saw that
he had silence around him and made his everyday life as
easy as possible, so that the transition from the intellectual
effort should be smooth and unobtrusive. When he emerged
from his study where he had been closeted for many hours
with his assistant, followed by clouds of smoke and pulling at
his pipe, with his eyes shining, Elsa would slowly bring him
back to reality as though awakening a sleepwalker; she
67
would gradually bring to his attention the people around him
and the food on his plate, which he was chopping with his
knife like a blind man. One day, in a moment of relaxation,
she asked him: "People talk a lot about your work at the
moment Everybody keeps asking me for news. I appear so
stupid when I have to say that I know nothing. Couldn't you
just tell me a little about it? 9 *
"Yes," said Einstein, "it must be irritating for you." He
thought for a moment. He smiled; it was a tender smile. Elsa
gazed at him with her vague, serene, shortsighted glance.
"Well,* 7 he began with a visible effort. He stopped, then sud-
denly his face lit up happily. "Well, if people ask you, you
can tell them that you know all about it, but can't tell them
as it is a great secret/' He was delighted to have discovered
this solution. Horrified as he was by a groping approach to
scientific facts and the commonplace transformation to
which his ideas were subjected, he was deeply grateful to
Elsa when she burst out laughing at his suggestion.
Apart from the mutual confidence in which they reveled,
and the similarity of their simple tastes, they had another
trait in common: a very special and personal sense of pro-
portion. One never knew how or against what background
they would look at either men or things. One could only be
certain that their way of looking at them would have little
in common with anyone else's. Elsa had the greater merit in
acquiring such independence of judgment: she lived on the
same level as other human beings, while with Einstein it
was as if he moved from one planet to another.
Elsa had an acute gift of observation, which was softened
by the natural tolerance of her nature. She would analyze
a human being with her shortsighted eyes and she would
. fift .
discover at once the secret of ids personality. Very often she
knew more about people she met for the first time than their
closest friends would ever know; she was a merciless judge,
but pity overcame her as soon as she pronounced her verdict.
Above all she had a sense of humor that triumphed over
all the great and small difficulties of life. An incident that
might have caused anybody else to have a nervous break-
down made her shriek with laughter, gay laughter that swept
away all irritations like so many cobwebs. She made any
daily tragedy the subject for a comedy which she would re-
enact like a trained actress. In fact she had been on the stage
and had given lessons in elocution to pay for her children's
education. She could -mimic to perfection the important per-
sonalities that later filled the house, as well as romantic
vagabonds; she gave imitations of herself, usually in not too
favorable a light, and imitated her husband in his battle
with the petty side of life. Albert Einstein was the first to
laugh at his wife's illustrations of incidents, in which his
halo of celebrity was often ridiculed.
Destiny, when it united Albert Einstein and Elsa at this
moment of their lives, before the sudden blaze of his glory,
must have foreseen the disaster that an ambitious woman
might have made of his life.
In the peace of his new home it was much easier for Ein-
stein to devote himself more and more to the increasingly
engrossing adventure of his work. He was nearing the goal
he had pursued for ten long years. On November 28, 1915,
at the height of the war, Einstein wrote to a physicist friend,
Arnold Sommerfeld, who had written hn" several unan-
swered letters: "This last month I have lived through the
most exciting and the most exacting period of my life: and
it would be true to say that it has also been the most fruitful.
Writing letters has been out of the question. I realized that
up till now my field equations of gravitation had been en-
tirely devoid of foundation. When all my confidence in the
old theory vanished, I saw clearly that a satisfactory solution
could only be reached by linking it with the theory of the
Riemann variations. The wonderful thing that happened
then was that not only did the theory of Newton result from
it, as a first approximation, but also the perihelian motion of
Mercury (43" per century) as a second approximation. For
the deviation of light by the sun, I obtained twice this fig-
ure/*
To Sommerfeld's slightly skeptical reaction, Einstein re-
plied on a postcard dated February 8, 1916, with the brevity
and assurance of a man who has acquired a final certainty:
"You will be convinced of the general theory of relativity as
soon as you have studied it. Therefore I will not utter a word
in its defense/'
Referring to Planck in a speech a little later, Einstein
actually described his own state of mind at the time. He bor-
rowed a sentence from Leibnitz to explain the love of
research that stimulates every scientist, the "desire for a
pre-established harmony/* It was, according to him, mistaken
to attribute (as is generally done) Planck's indefatigable
tenacity and patience to his unusual strength of will and
rigorous discipline, for the "emotional condition that allows
similar achievements to be accomplished is more like that of
a deeply religious man or of a man in love; the daily effort is
not dictated by either a purpose or a program, but by an
immediate need."
In 1916 there appeared in the Year Book of Physics, as
well as in a separate publication, the work he had mentioned
to Sommerfeld: "The Foundations of the Theory of General
Relativity/* This, Einstein's main work, took up sixty-four
pages. Rarely, perhaps never before in the history of human
thought, has so small a publication had such a tremendous
effect on the world. Einstein himself was aware that a great
victory had been won and he was fully conscious of his own
contribution. One day, much kter, his collaborator, Infeld,
said to him:
"I believe that the special theory of relativity would have
been formulated with but little delay whether or not you
had done it/"
"Yes, that is true," said Einstein. He thought, indeed, that
a scientist like Langevin, for instance, might have developed
it; for according to Einstein, Langevin had clearly realized
its essential features. However, he added immediately: "But
this is not true of the general theory of relativity. I doubt
whether it would have been known yet/*
This awareness of his achievement and his feeling of a
spiritual triumph had nothing to do with self-satisfaction.
It was more like the joy of a believer in seeing a miracle
accomplished in front of him, an almost humble joy. Einstein
described later this faith that possessed him: "In a certain
sense I hold it to be true that pure thought can grasp reality
as the ancients dreamed it/*
But the moment when this work of Einstein's first saw the
light could not have been more ill chosen or more unpropi-
tious for the diffusion of his ideas. The war in Germany was
at its height and the atmosphere was tense. It was a year of
crimes against humanity the horrors of gas warfare and
the submarine war; it was the year that nearly destroyed a
whole generation. Atrocities were rife in a country that did
not yet realize that it was being deceived, and still believed
in a near victory, where medals were coined in advance for
the entry of German troops into Paris, and the sinister attack
on the Lusitania was commemorated by a medal depicting
a skeleton welcoming passengers in a ticket office. Through-
out the whole of Germany resounded the war cry of hatred
against "perfidious Albion/* the words of a peace-loving poet
twisted by blind German anger.
In this increasingly restrictive atmosphere Albert Einstein
suffered both from the constraint of silence and from the
complete isolation into which he was forced. Priding himself
as he did on his independence of exterior circumstances, he
was nonetheless more deeply affected than he would have
liked to admit by the horrors of this seemingly endless war.
"I know men in Germany/* he wrote to Remain Holland,
"who, in their private lives, are guided by an almost com-
plete altruism, but who have awaited with great impatience
the declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare/* Morally
shaken, he was physically even more vulnerable. The priva-
tions suffered by the inhabitants of large cities were a severe
strain on his health, but he refused to take the slightest ad-
vantage of his position to secure extra privileges. Bread was
inedible, rations were insufficient, lard, meat, and sugar were
all non-existent, and bitter cabbages served as a base for
everything. Despite Elsa's ingenuity there was never enough
to eat and in the three years of war he lost sixty pounds.
When he went to Switzerland to see his children in July
1917 his host was terrified at how thin and tired he seemed.
He went to rest in Arosa with his sons, and his friends
began a campaign to keep hm\ in Switzerland and prevent
- 72
his return to Germany, where he would be running the risk
of permanently ruining his health. Even a month's rest did
not suffice to improve his condition noticeably. The least
exertion was still difficult for him, and he wrote to Romain
Holland, "Even the smallest effort takes its toll/' Rolland,
moved by the accounts he heard from friends of Einstein's
physical and moral condition, joined in the efforts being
made to dissuade him from returning to Germany. "I know
that you will not be careful of your health as you should,
which is both a crime against science and a source of pain to
your friends/' he wrote, and added, "It is hard for me to
believe that you have lost that optimism which struck me
so much in you. I still have a bright and cheerful memory
of it." Einstein was very touched "by your friendly interest
in a man you have only seen once," he wrote, with that naive
surprise which he so frequently expressed when he realized
that others were worried about him.
He was still too weak to make the trip to Villeneuve, but
he wrote to Rolland at length about conditions in Germany.
"As a result of the military victories of 1870 and of those in
the fields of commerce and industry, the country has arrived
at a sort of religion of power. It dominates almost all of the
intellectuals and has almost completely dispossessed the
ideals of the times of Goethe and Schiller. I am firmly con-
vinced that this aberration can only be driven back or re-
pressed by the duress of facts/' He returned to this theme
several times in his letter, as if he were trying to dissipate
illusions which he knew to be tenacious. "Only facts can turn
the deluded masses away from their false belief that we live
for the state and that the proper goal of the state is power,
at any price. As long as German statesmen go on hoping that
a change in the present balance of power will occur sooner
or later one cannot hope for any important changes in the
situation/*
Einstein was by no means alone in thinking that a German
victory or even a semidef eat would be the end of all liberty
of spirit in Germany. At the time of the great German of-
fensive, the director of a liberal newspaper said to the writer
Bernhard Kellermann, who was going to the front, "If it suc-
ceeds there will be nothing left for us but to become ex-
patriates.**
Because of the state of his health Einstein had seen almost
no one during his stay in Switzerland. But he had warned his
friends in letters, as he had warned Romain Holland, and in
these letters, which were circulated from hand to hand, the
man who was returning to Germany, where any indiscretions
could have grave consequences, in effect urged the Allies to
carry the war to the end, to the complete surrender of Ger-
many. 'Without this," he wrote, "we ourselves will never be
able to rid ourselves of the yoke/' Only one human voice
managed to penetrate the noise of war; and it was the voice
of a scientist who spoke the language of the enemy.
The English scientists listened and what they heard deeply
disturbed them. They pored with passionate interest over
the article Einstein published in the reports of the Prussian
Academy of Science: "Cosmological Notes on the Theory of
General Relativity.**
"Modern cosmology was born in that year of 1917,** Ein-
stein's collaborator, Professor Infeld, wrote later. And he
added: "Though it would be difficult to exaggerate the im-
portance of this paper, Einstein's original ideas as viewed
from the perspective of the present day are antiquated, if not
74 *
wrong.* 7 Since Einstein had worked out his cosmology
through the effort of pure thought, and had been able to
materialize, as he said, the dreams of the ancients, the meth-
ods of observation of the universe had been multiplied and
had acquired a power that he himself did not suspect at the
time. The human eye penetrated beyond the nebulae into
this universe, which Einstein pictured as a finite universe,
with curved space populated with matter, and not as an in-
finite universe, a void around an island of matter.
Certain phenomena observed by these powerful means,
such as the tendency of the spectrum of the nebulae to dis-
place itself toward the red the red shift of the nebulae, as
it was calledseemed to other scientists, like Inf eld, a breach
in Einstein's theory. It never ceased, however, to occupy the
minds of astronomers, physicists, and mathematicians. A new
spatial notion was born. Ideas about the structure of the
universe, more or less modified, will never be what they were
before him.
The effect was immediate. Einstein's suggestion to the
astronomers that they direct their attention to the theory of
relativity was accepted. In March 1917 the official organ of
the Royal Astronomical Society, the Astronomer Royal, an-
nounced that on May 29, 1919, a total eclipse of the sun would
take place and that therefore there would be particularly
favorable conditions at that time for submitting Einstein's
theory to a decisive experiment.
The mind of one man had spanned the abyss of hatred and
sorrow that existed between nation and nation: it was a span,
however, invisible to those who fought and died in the vain
hope that there would be no more wars.
At that dark moment in the world conflict the words which
Prince Louis de Broglie was later to utter acquired their
fullest significance: "The theories of Einstein can be com-
pared to burning flares, throwing a brief but powerful light
on an immense and unknown region/'
76
Chapter V
IT WAS like a great epic or adventure into the unknown an
escape beyond the barriers of human misery which war had
erected. Two great expeditions were organized in February
1919. One was to Sobral, in the north of Brazil; the other to
the island of Principe, in the Gulf of Guinea. But neither of
these expeditions, organized at great expense, was aiming to
explore hitherto unknown regions or study unusual ways of
life. They were organized to surprise the sky at a moment
when the total eclipse of the sun allows men to penetrate
further into its mysteries. In the old days treasure hunters
would sometimes set out with nothing to guide them but
their faith in an old map, found by accident. These two mod-
ern expeditions left because of their faith in one man, who
had elaborated a bold theory, guided only by his scientific
logic. Never before was tihere an adventure of such daring,
so totally confined to the domains of pure thought.
Sir Arthur Eddington, the great British astronomer, has
described the expedition to Principe, which he insisted on
joining himself. Nothing was left to the last minute. The
expedition arrived a month before the eclipse. On the day
itself dawn broke in a clouded, misty sky. When the eclipse
became total, the dark disk of the moon, surrounded with
its halo, appeared among the clouds as one often sees it at
night when the stars are invisible. "There was nothing to do
but carry out the arranged program and hope for the best."
A strange, ghostly half-light covered the earth, accompanied
by deep silence, broken only by whispered conversations,
the click of the observers changing their plates, and the in-
exorable ticking of the metronome squandering the precious
seconds. Suddenly a flame shone out above the invisible sun
and remained floating in space hundreds of millions of miles
above the surface of the sun. The team at Principe had no
time to take in this strange sight: they were too anxious
about the success of the experiment.
The sky clouded over more and more: it seemed deter-
mined to thwart the efforts of man and baffle his curiosity.
On the first photograph there was no sign of a star. About
sixteen photographs were taken, however, with exposures
varying from two to twenty seconds. Toward the end of the
eclipse, the clouds vanished and the last photographs were
clear. In many of them one or other of the essential stars was
missing. But one plate eventually succeeded in capturing
the light of five stars, and this was good enough to be used
for an examination of the Einstein theory.
Months passed by, devoted to the careful examination of
the results obtained, and to a comparison of the photographs
brought from Sobral with those taken at the Greenwich
Observatory. After repeatedly verified calculations, the devi-
ation of light of 1.64 seconds was established: the deviation
78
that Einstein, from his writing desk, had fixed at 1.75 sec-
onds.
In February 1952 a new expedition was organized by the
University of Chicago to verify an akeady ancient experi-
ment. The stars visible only during a total eclipse of the sun
were photographed in Khartoum. The expedition had at its
disposal every new apparatus; it was far better equipped
than the English astronomers had been in 1919. Owing to
this progress and the perfected methods of American re-
search, die Khartoum experiment proved to be even more
conclusive than that of Sobral and Principe. The deviation
of light established came closer to the figure arrived at by
Einstein 1.70 seconds. But the success of the earlier experi-
ment had by now been generally recognized.
It was at the beginning of November 1919, at a solemn
joint meeting of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronom-
ical Society in London, that the results achieved were made
public, amid considerable tension. A philosopher who was
present compared it later to a Greek drama in which the
chorus awaits the verdict of destiny. The president of the
Royal Society opened the meeting by describing Einstein's
theory as one of the greatest achievements in the history of
human thought. "It is not the discovery of an outlying island,
but of a whole continent of new scientific ideas. It is the
greatest discovery in connection with gravitation that has
been made since Newton first enunciated its principles."
The hall in which the meeting took place was dominated
by a large portrait of Newton. The shadows of a great man
of the past and of the absent stranger loomed over the audi-
ence. A stranger, under suspicion because of the very lan-
guage in which he had enunciated his theory, had dared to
79
challenge one of the most glorious names in English history.
Looking back on this hour of triumph which he was not
there to share, Einstein wrote in his notes for his autobiog-
raphy: "Forgive me, Newton: you had discovered the only
path possible in your time, even to a man of the greatest
ability and creative power. The concepts which you estab-
lished still determine our efforts in the domain of physics,
though we know now that if we aspire to a deeper under-
standing of relations in general, they have to be replaced by
others more distant from the sphere of immediate experi-
ence.'*
At the moment when the meeting of the physicists and
astronomers took place, Einstein's conceptions still seemed
completely inaccessible to the man in the street. The great
physicist who presided at the meeting said himself: "I have
to admit that until now no one has been able to state to me
in simple words what Einstein's theory actually represents."
But there was something in the event itself that impressed
everyone with its elemental importance.
The whole world seemed to be waiting with baited breath:
everything conspired to capture the imagination of the
crowd. Endless spectacular rumors were being circulated.
Suddenly this theory which depended on the testimony of
the sky and the disappearing sun acquired, as you might say,
a market price. A prize of five thousand dollars was offered
in America for a precis of the theory of relativity not exceed-
ing 3000 words. The man in the street, the man who stum-
bled over the word 'relativity/* which had not yet become of
common usage, suddenly learned that it could bring fortune
to the initiated: five dollars for three words. For some time
this was all Einstein's work meant to the man in the street.
80
At the time a young Polish student was just arriving in
Berlin to finish his studies. He had no idea that he would one
day be chosen as one of Einstein's collaborators. All he knew
was that in his own country the value of money was rapidly
depreciating, melting away from day to day. The sum fixed
for the prize, converted into marks, reached astronomical
figures. Leopold Infeld described later how he set to work
with a friend, and as they sat in his dingy student's room
polishing and pruning the text, counting the words, they
dreamed of the rain of gold that was going to be showered
upon them. But, according to Professor Frank, it was a man
of over sixty and, strangely enough, like Einstein a former
employee of the Office of Patents, though in Dublin, who
pocketed the fabulous prize.
There was a mysterious factor in the blaze of Einstein's
glory that was not explained purely by scientific achieve-
ment. It was as though a troubled age was looking for some
firm article of faith to support it. Did the pride which was
taken in the peaceful exploit of one man mean the world
regretted the waste of human genius in the bloodshed of the
war? Did they want to replace in the future their soldier
heroes with heroes in the world of thought?
Einstein himself recognized that a generous impulse had
played a part in the spreading of his fame. He said, at a
moment when his notoriety began to irritate him: "The cult
of a human being has always seemed to me unjustified. It has
nevertheless become my destiny and there exists a grotesque
discord between the capacities and the powers which people
attribute to me and what I really am and am capable of. To
be conscious of this strange discord would be unbearable
without one great consolation: it is a reassuring sign for our
81 -
times, which are described as materialistic, to know that they
transform into a hero a simple mortal whose objectives are
inspired by moral and spiritual issues."
In fact, at the time when the meeting in London placed
Tiim in the limelight, the most diverse elements and currents
united to transform the unknown man of yesterday into a
legendary figure. One can never say exactly how legends
grow.
Albert Einstein, with his incomprehensible theories and
his genius which the ignorant could not even check up on,
became the prey of a legend that ignored the true reasons
for his greatness. Yet mere chance, and the lucky coincidence
of a widespread desire to believe in the miraculous, cannot
explain why the choice fell on him. It is easier to believe in
the instinct of the masses for appreciating anything that is
authentic. Who knows what would have happened to this
same desire to admire, believe, and love if it had fastened
with the same eagerness on another man one who was
capable of being taken in by his own myth? The fates are
apparently careful not to betray humanity through one of its
most disinterested impulses.
Elsa Einstein told a story about the day her husband re-
ceived the first photographs of the English expedition. He
looked at them with astonishment that soon changed to joy.
"It is marvelous, it is truly marvelous!" Everybody believed
him to be rejoicing at his triumph.
When the importance of this confirmation of his theory
was explained to Mrs. Einstein, she murmured timidly:
"How pleased you must be, Albert!"
And Einstein, his eyes still riveted on the photographs, ex-
claimed: "This really makes me happy!" But it was the qual-
. 82
ity of the photographs that made him happy, for he added
at once: "I never thought that photography could reach such
perfection today/*
The first contact between the enthusiastic public and Ein-
stein occurred the day after the memorable meeting. The
Times had sent a correspondent to Berlin to ask him for a
few words of explanation of his theory. Einstein was not at
all reluctant it was the first time he had been approached.
He even expressed his gratification at being able to say a few
words about "relativity" (he still put the word in quotation
marks) and made use of the occasion, after the lamentable
collapse of international relations among scientists, to express
his gratitude to the English physicists and astronomers. It
is quite in keeping with the great and proud traditions of
scientific work in your country that eminent men of research
should devote a lot of time and a lot of effort, and your sci-
entific institutions a lot of money, to examine the results of
a theory that was elaborated and published during the war
in the country of your enemies."
Effacing himself behind the scientific importance of the
event, Einstein stressed almost apologetically his personal
gratitude, for "without this enterprise of my English col-
leagues, I would have never received in my lifetime the proof
of the most important developments of my theory." Suddenly
the earnestness with which he was composing his reply for
the English paper came up against his very specialized sense
of humor. The correspondent who came to see hrm had
given a description of his personality and private life which
showed an appreciable amount of imagination. Suddenly
Einstein saw himself as he saw others, over the top of a lor-
gnette, a hero in spite of himself. And he added in a post-
script for the benefit of the average reader this example to
illustrate the principle of the theory of relativity: "Today, I
am considered in Germany as a German scientist and in
England as a Swiss Jew, but if one day I become persona non
grata I would be a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German
scientist for the English."
The readers of The Times did not seem to appreciate this
joke. Einstein's sally, however, concealed the bitter after-
math of a conviction that was to remain with him always.
But at the moment he was overwhelmed by the fame which
he had won almost overnight. After the first encounter with
it, and all the disruption it brought into his life, he said to his
wife, to console her: ~After all, it can't last long/* But "it"
still lasts.
The word itself, "rektivity," seemed to lend itself to the
most arbitrary interpretations, to become a parlor game. One
day > when someone began to propound in front of him some
flagrant nonsense, Einstein growled impatiently, barely
lowering his voice: "You're mixing me up with Steinach"
(a Viennese professor who had invented a rejuvenation cure
which was the rage of the moment). This parlor curiosity
had always been his enemy. He never could reconcile himself
to it and from the start he refused to make any concession to
it.
Postwar Berlin, as though it were trying to catch up after
all the years of isolation, was increasingly avid for all novelty,
and open to all new ideas. Intellectuals wanted to make up
for all the books they had not been able to read in those
years. New values were accepted simply because they of-
fered a change from the old ones: and in the general readi-
ness to welcome anything new, in the general desire to forget
84
the past, the relief o survival was mixed with a more or less
conscious need to rebuild life on a broader basis. But Ger-
many had not experienced a revolution that swept away the
ancient structure and made way for new foundations: she
had only undergone the exhaustion of economic distress, so
that her conversion to democracy sprang from too sudden a
change of heart for it to last. The new society was built up
out of fragments still in love with the past: impoverished
aristocrats, industrialists with their fortunes intact, financiers
who had made money out of the defeat, high-ranking officers
of humanist culture, members of the foreign embassies, di-
rectors and journalists of the great daily newspapers which
considered themselves the leaders of public opinion. This
society was probably not so large as people thought. Kurt
Tucholski, a German pamphleteer who was also a fine poet
(unfortunately too little known abroad and driven to suicide
by Nazism), took as a refrain to one of his poems at that
time: "We live, after all, among two hundred people."
But the whirlwind created by this elite was so breath-
taking and its activity so feverish that it deceived many as
to the profundity of its influence and the abyss that sepa-
rated it from the rest of the country. It devoted itself to the
creation of new gods, by magnifying small celebrities and
by entering the famous people of the day in a steeplechase
of vanity.
Einstein found himself all at once the center of attraction.
Rarely have fanatics chosen an idol who reacted worse to
their devotion. "Albert is a shy man, 9 * Mrs. Einstein wrote to
me one day. "Yes, it is difficult to believe it, but it is so. When
you say to people that he is humble, timid, and deprived of
even the 'normal dose* of self-confidence, people begin to
85
smile." Perhaps the word "shy ' is not the right one. Elsa
Einstein, though she knew her husband better than anyone
else did, attributed her own shyness to him. She experienced
real terror when forced to face a chattering crowd in a room
with a slippery parquet floor that seemed to recede under
her feet, glances that intercrossed like a canopy of swords,
the expectant silence that stifled the words in her throat. But
Albert Einstein knew nothing of these inner hesitations, of
these nightmares that overcome the shy. He did not hover
between self-doubt and unjustifiable self-satisfaction. He did
not feel one moment pushed into the shade and the next
moment pushed into the foreground. He never asked himself
what impression he was making. But he never failed to keep
the external world in perspective. People and events neither
shrank to enlarge him nor cast a spell to diminish him. He
had a perfectly steady sense of proportion which never al-
tered: and nothing was more disconcerting than this stability
in his relations with the rest of the world. He applied his own
standards in all places and on all occasions: He was guided
by an inner law so peculiar to himself that it was difficult for
others to define it.
His kindness was legendary. His good nature emanated
from him like a light, indifferent to what it illuminated. But
it was not the good nature of the great seducers who must
please as they must breathe. It was the expression of his
fundamental equilibrium, just as his gaiety was that of a man
who was fundamentally sane. His kindness was born of a
sense of social justice which he himself considered should be
boundless. His compassion for victims of persecution, for
people in need, did not arise from great sensitivity or a deli-
cate shudder in front of suffering. He did not experience the
86
embarrassment of a healthy man in front of a sick one, or
the vague uneasiness that prosperous people sometimes feel
in front of undeserved misery. It was more a sense of respon-
sibility which at once overcame hurry It was also a sense of
justice, accompanied by a healthy anger with all those who
did not have it. When one realized this fundamental intran-
sigence in him, one sensed the rocklike nature which was
concealed by his smiling good humor.
The ridge of the rock was there to rebuff the intrusions of
worldly vanity and the lures of ambition. One of the most
popular hostesses in Berlin one day tried to tempt him by
listing the distinguished guests she had invited to dinner.
"So you would like me to serve as a centerpiece?" Einstein
demanded sternly.
"Albert is impossible," groaned Elsa, but she was secretly
amused.
Einstein's inner law was a law of economy. He hated
numerous parties where men of intelligence paralyzed one
another. With rare exceptions he accepted only invitations
to meals with five or six other people. He showed himself
merciless when he detected a subterfuge. One winter day,
coming to see me, he found the entrance filled with over-
coats. "She told me it would be an intimate luncheon/* he
muttered, and quietly turned back. Elsa had great trouble in
catching him on the stairs, shouting that in fact there were
only four or five overcoats there.
Usually his wife's diplomacy met with obstinate refusals:
"Why do you want me to go there? These people don't
interest me." No reasons of opportunism or considerations of
social position and offended susceptibility could shake him.
His celebrity allowed him a great margin of indulgence, and
87 *
his reputation as a crank protected him to a certain degree,
but he would never have been able to reconcile this refusal of
all concessions with unavoidable social demands without
Elsa's help. She placed herself like a screen between him and
the all too pressing requests; she became his interpreter,
translated his abruptness into diplomatic language, and tried
at the same time to make him see the humanity hidden under
the conventions. Elsa's efforts to shield him were all the more
admirable because she herself suffered all the agonies of
shyness, aggravated by her shortsightedness, and had no
compensatory feeling of personal self-satisfaction. These con-
tacts with the world, the necessity of which Einstein denied,
seemed to her, threatening as they were, an ordeal to be
overcome with courage. When she resigned herself to accept
an invitation several times refused by her husband, she
dreaded disappointing her hosts by arriving alone. She ef-
faced herself, as if trying to apologize. She, who had a great
gift for conversation, for prompt repartee, for a picturesque
play on words, would remain in a room, smiling a secret
smile that was like part of some unspoken dialogue. What
she had to say seemed to her of no importance. When a story
of hers which she kept only for her friends, by the way-
produced bursts of laughter, she would stop, surprised, as
though saying to herself: "I didn't know this was funny!'*
She was convinced that she was invited only because of her
husband, that people listened to her simply out of polite-
ness, and that the only interest she offered was that of the
name she bore. When I said to her for the first time: "I
would so much like to see you/* asking her to come and have
tea with me, she replied that Albert was not free that day.
When I made it dear that it was she I wanted to see, she
- 88
exclaimed in a suddenly shrill voice: "Me?" and stared at
me incredulously.
Among many other things, Elsa Einstein gave to her
friends, as she did to her family, a sense of security. One
always felt she was there, in spite of her busy life, smiling
even if she was upset, serene even if deeply disturbed. One
felt sheltered by an unshakable, impregnable confidence in
her affection. She, on the other hand, was uncertain, barely
conscious of what she represented to all who knew her, even
to those who loved her. After many years, after various or-
deals undergone together which had consolidated our friend-
ship, she once wrote to me this astonishing sentence: "I am
telling you the truth when I say that it is often impossible for
me to understand why you are fond of me.**
It is rare that the wife of a great man should have kept so
little of the aura for herself. She retired into his immense
shadow, perfectly at ease in this shelter. Pursued on account
of his celebrity, she wanted to be forgotten, and she partly
succeeded. It needed a nature as strongly tempered as hers
and an unshakable common sense, as well as a sense of
humor equal to Einstein's own, to remain immune to the in-
sidious traps of vanity.
She had, owing to her powers of intuition, more sympathy
for human weaknesses than her husband; she knew, though
she had never experienced it herself, that hurt vanity can
make people suffer, and false pride prey upon the mind as
badly as an imaginary illness. Her sympathy tried to soften
the effects of Einstein's intransigence, although she was not
always successful. A busybody who did many kind works in
a restless way and embraced all good causes had pursued
Albert and Elsa for a long time with her advances. She was
so insistent, and Her disappointment as a collector of celeb-
rities caused her so much distress, that Elsa was touched.
"Couldn't we invite her to a musical evening?" she ventured
one day.
Einstein shrugged his shoulders. It was immaterial to him
whether he played to a large or to a small audience. Music
was a curtain behind which he hid. He played for his own
pleasure. When people were asked to hear him play, it was
always to help some unknown musician whose talent he
appreciated. He laughed at this publicity gained at his ex-
pense. "He plays well, I play badly, and he believes he is get-
ting publicity by playing with me." He was amused by the
illogicality of it.
On that occasion he had enjoyed the hours of music so
much that he forgot the crowd that had invaded his house.
He was looking absent-mindedly at the flow of visitors pass-
ing. The melody was still alive in him, triumphing over the
voices that murmured compliments. Suddenly I saw his at-
tention aroused. The persistent lady stood in front of him, an
ecstatic expression on her face.
"YouTI let me come again, I hope, Prof essor?"
"No" Einstein said calmly. There was no harshness in his
voice, only a statement of fact. He gazed with astonishment
at the woman's confusion as she left the room.
"How could you, Albert?" exclaimed Elsa.
"But why should she come back?" There was sincere as-
tonishment on his face. He could not understand the conster-
nation he had provoked. "I don't see the necessity." He shook
his head with the air of a man conscious of having allowed
reason to triumph.
To shake him, one had to use his own argument of "neces-
90 -
sity" against him. Those who did not know him well were
surprised to see how few arguments had any effect on him.
He was all the more impervious to them because he was
totally deaf to all worldly considerations; one often saw him,
too often sometimes, give in to requests that appeared to
be totally undeserving of his attention. One would see him
show the door to an important visitor "He is of no interest,"
Einstein would declareand spend hours closeted with a
poor wretch who had asked to see him. He was often re-
proached for the naivete with which he replied to anony-
mous requests and, indeed, no appeal of moral or material
suffering failed to move him. He dealt with them almost be-
fore they came to his ears, as though in memory of the
privations he had himself endured.
Fame brought material comforts. It might have brought a
fortune, but Einstein refused all fabulous offers astronomi-
cal fees, for example, to appear for ten minutes on the screen.
There would be nothing for him to do, they insisted, but
stand in front of a blackboard with a piece of chalk in his
hand. Einstein laughed. "What next? You really believe that
111 behave like a performing monkey?'*
One got the impression that Albert and Elsa were eager to
get rid of all the surplus money left over from their modest
way of life. They were besieged by beggars as well as by
celebrity hunters. They found they had hordes of relations
who confidently expected to be helped, and complete stran-
gers asked for their help wih the same confidence. A queue
gathered around their door, as though waiting for miracles
to be performed, and Elsa had to sort out the crowds of appli-
cants by examining each individual case. Sometimes the
clever ones escaped her eagle eye.
91 -
"But, Albert, you*ve again given some money to that crook
who has fooled you several times already/' she would say in-
dignantly.
"I know/' he replied calmly, "but he must be in need of
money all the same. One does not beg for pleasure/* He
gazed at us as if defying us to deny the truth of this.
The rare occasions when Einstein agreed to appear in pub-
lic were always in aid of charitable institutions or in defense
of a cause. Sometimes Elsa made arrangements without his
knowledge. He performed his duty, at first with a grumble,
but later he would ask laughingly: "How much did you sell
me for this time?" And turning to me, he would add approv-
ingly: "She knows how to go about it and gets considerable
sums for me at times/*
There was, in fact, deep down, a fundamental contradic-
tion in Albert Einstein, a contradiction between his total de-
tachment and his sense of duty toward humanity. Spiritually
he was free from all chains, but morally he was bound by
them. He was isolated and inaccessible but at the same time
he was full of brotherly sympathy for his fellow men. He was
very conscious of this double aspect of his nature, which was
the real explanation of his secluded life, interrupted only by
violent interventions on behalf of the causes that were close
to his heart. The passing of the years accentuated his love of
solitude "painful when one is young but delightful when
one is more mature" but they also increased his sense of
responsibility. He never ceased to stress this duty of a scien-
tist toward humanity. "The concern for man and his destiny
must always be the chief interest of all technical effort. Never
forget it among your diagrams and equations/* The scientist
in his ivory tower has always seemed a ridiculous and despi-
92 -
cable figure to Einstein, and has even taken on in ids eyes the
character of a criminal, or at least an accomplice in crime.
He summed up the motives of his own behavior in a sen-
tence: "Only a life lived for others is a life worth while."
Disconcerted by the sudden growth of his fame, he began
to use it as a loudspeaker for the ideas he wanted spread and
as a means of action. He seemed to consider himself increas-
ingly in debt toward humanity as his fame increased; as
though his reputation was a loan that had to be paid back.
He seemed to be waiting for an opportunity to put himself
at the service of a cause. He explained one day why he be-
came such a passionate champion of Zionism. He had aban-
doned the Jewish community, and had remained a practicing
Jew only on paper. But on his nomination to the University
of Berlin, the matter faced him in all its acuteness. He wrote
later on: "It was when I came to Germany, fifteen years ago,
that I discovered I was a Jew and I owe this discovery more
to non-Jews than to Jews/* He discovered in Germany a la-
tent anti-Semitism, especially in the universities, which were
and remained, in contrast to educational institutions in other
countries, the principal fortresses of reaction, the hotbeds of
prejudice. In this atmosphere of contempt and hostility was
born, to quote Einstein, "the pathetic, converted Geheimrat"
a man too uncertain of himself to resist the suggestive powers
of his environment. "I saw the shameful pretences of Jews of
high standing and my heart bled," he recalled one day.
He saw, too, the mistrust of these turncoats for the Eastern
Jews who were searching for true human values in their own
way: and he perceived their fear of being identified with this
as yet uncultured mass their desperate efforts to deny all
connection with these poor wretches who were knocking at
93
their back gate. The attitude of German Jews led Einstein to
ask himself what being a Jew meant to him, personally. Was
it a source of strength or a wound that weakened him? In
fact, what was there in common between Jews dispersed
throughout the world, the cultured and the backward, the
intellectual elite and the masses still repressed by ancient
prejudices, the owners of fabulous fortunes and the profes-
sional beggars? It was among the Eastern Jews, the poorest
and the most faithful to tradition, that he found the most
passionate desire for knowledge, an almost superstitious cult
of "education/* a respect for the man of letters. Among the
starving students who came to him, barely able to express
themselves, the study of science had replaced that of the
Torah, but the passion had remained the same. The desire
for knowledge for its own sake seemed to him the most strik-
ing feature of the Jewish masses and the link that bound
them to himself. He wanted to find out if there were any
other links among the widely differing Jewish elements.
One day he talked about it at length to Walther Rathenau,
the son of a man who had founded the most powerful elec-
trical firm in Germany, a sociologist, a philosopher, a man of
rare culture and one with a great knowledge of political
economy. Rathenau hardly thought of himself as a Jew. He
had none of the traits that are usually attributed to Jews;
even his appearance was more like that of a distinguished
descendant of a long line of overbred aristocrats. In the
course of conversation Rathenau told Einstein: "If a Jew told
me that he went hunting for pleasure, I would know that he
was a liar." Einstein burst out laughing, but after a moment's
thought, he was struck by the truth of this remark. He won-
dered where this reluctance to shed blood and this unwilling-
94
ness to inflict suffering originated: and lie realized that he
Jiad another trait in common with other Jews respect for the
life of every living creature. This evaluation of life as a sacro-
sanct quality seemed to him intimately related to his own
reverence for the spiritual.
Einstein feels close to everything that heightens or exalts
life, for despite his taste for austerity he himself has an in-
tense joie de vivre. He feels that he is descended not from the
gloomy prophets of the Bible who prophesied that the hand
of God would fall on the Jewish people, but from the psalm-
ist who expressed "a sort of intoxicated joy and wonder at the
beauty and sublime grandeur of the world" the same elated
feeling that is to be found in the song of a bird, that stimu-
lates the desire for knowledge and is the source of creative
effort.
Among his links with Judaism, Einstein discovered also his
longing for independence and almost fanatical love of justice,
so that he concluded: "These traditional principles of the
Jewish people prove to me that it is my destiny to belong to
them/' Einstein never lost that conviction even during his
worst ordeals; he knew that the problem had been settled for
him. But others had still to face it. How were the refugees
from persecution, leading a precarious existence as un-
wanted guests of other nations and making frantic efforts to
identify themselves with them, to be given back their sense
of human dignity? tf l realized," Einstein wrote later to a Ger-
man professor, "that only a common cause that would touch
the hearts of all Jews could restore the Jewish people to
health." He knew that the current reproach of Zionism was
that it created, in a world already torn by many exaggerated
nationalisms, yet another one, and he admitted that this re-
95
proach was not without foundation. The word was an ugly
one, even if it was, in fact, a "nationalism that does not aspire
to power, but to dignity and recovery," as he consoled him-
self.
This early illusion, combined with his hatred of national-
ism and his horror of all violence and militarism, was to
throw a passing shadow on his future relations with Zionist
leaders, and later on with the young Israelite state, which he
had not foreseen, or even wished for, in the form which it
took. "Laying aside practical considerations,'* he wrote dur-
ing the fierce battles in Palestine, "the true conception of the
nature of Judaism is essentially opposed to the idea of a Jew-
ish state, with frontiers, an army, and a measure of temporal
power, modest as it may be/*
Einstein was taken aback to see the reality exceed his
dreams but in a different form than he had imagined. He
was a little awed to see the storm break out, when he had
thought this work would lead to peace and fine weather. His
dreams often came up against, not so much circumstances,
of which he was a reasonable judge, as against the nature of
men, whose reactions and possibilities of development he did
not always foresee. When he was offered the presidency of
Israel after Weizmann's death, he showed his awareness of
this in the way he framed his refusal. "Scientific problems
are familiar to me," he wrote in reply to the spontaneous
offer, "but I have neither the natural capacity nor the neces-
sary experience to handle human beings."
At the beginning of the conflicts in Palestine, he had hoped
that a reasonable agreement might be reached with the
Arabs, "on the basis of living together in peace." He did not
envisage the possibility of the conflict turning into a war and
- 96 -
ending with a victory. "We are no longer the Jews of Mao
cabean times/* he declared, ignoring the passionate fervor of
those youths who had nothing in common with the Jews he
knew. When he spoke later of the exploits of the young
heroes of Israel, of their stubborn work, of their implacable
courage, of their surrender of themselves in a gesture of
almost insane self-confidence, he spoke with great surprise
and a disconcerted admiration.
However, won over after the First World War to Zionist
ideas, he looked upon Palestine as a refuge for all oppressed
Jews, all the Jews in an uncertain world. He used the com-
mon term of "national home** reluctantly, preferring that of
"cultural home. 7 * He was particularly tempted by the idea of
founding a university in Jerusalem; he thought of those un-
fortunate students who came to tell Trim of their difficulties
as though defeated from the start by adversity. On the in-
sistence of Weizmann, who was also a scientist, a chemist,
though now chiefly interested in practical matters, and a
great leader of men, Einstein decided to accompany him on
his trip to America to collect the necessary funds for Zionist
organizations and for the foundation of a university.
Einstein's adherence to Zionism and the news of his jour-
ney with Weizmann created great perturbation in Germany.
This conquered nation, which had, in a sense, felt rehabili-
tated by his glory, this democracy that had established itself
with difficulty amidst the resentment of defeat, feared that
Einstein's conversion to Zionism might be considered as a
repudiation. Most outraged by his decision were the univer-
sity circles. This consciousness of being a Jew which they had
rediscovered in him seemed to them a desertioji of Germany.
Einstein was not impressed by his colleagues* disapproval; he
97
knew that some of them were violently antagonistic to him,
knew about their more or less repressed hostility. Reaction
was still in arms and the conspiracy of envy and mediocrity
was always ready to attack him. He smiled, amused by the
pseudo-scientific arguments with which the unconvinced
contested his theories. During a concerted attack at a con-
gress of natural sciences in 1920, however, he emerged from
the silence that he had kept so long to reveal the real motives
of this attack. They did not deserve in his eyes a scientific
refutation; he contented himself with publishing an article
in the Berliner Tageblatt under the title: "My Reply to the
Anti-Relativist Society/* His theory had the misfortune, he
wrote, to have been worked out not by a reactionary, deutsch-
national German but by a Jew with progressive ideas.
Einstein was impressed more by the embarrassment that
some of the German political leaders, mostly Social Demo-
crats, showed at the announcement of his departure than by
the arguments of his colleagues who tried to dissuade him
from the journey to America as an emissary of Zionism. The
Weimar Republic was fragile. It was vulnerable to any attack
and the Kapp Putsch had almost dealt it a death blow. It
owed its survival to a unanimous reaction of all men of good
will. Like all those who had witnessed this episode, Einstein
was very much impressed by the quality of the resistance
that had arrested the reactionary attempt, the spectacular
effect produced by a general strike. The challenge thrown by
the working class in their song, "All the wheels stop as soon as
your strong arm desires it," became reality. The streets with
their empty shopwindows were deserted and in the dead of
night, interrupted by sounds of shots, a rain of pink pam-
phlets was showered upon the town, the ridiculous manifesto
of a pseudo dictator, announcing that all employees and
workmen who were not at their posts on the morrow would
be shot. By remaining absent, the workers carried off a great
pacific victory over an armed conspiracy.
Einstein drew an important lesson from those dangerous
days. He believed that a mobilization of good will would be
enough to combat a mobilization of arms. A unique experi-
ence deceived him about the possibilities of a spiritual vic-
tory. In the excitement of the moment, he felt himself closer
than ever before to these German masses that had saved
democracy. But he knew at the same time that the danger
was not averted. Tomorrow, or the next day, the Jewish shel-
ter of Palestine might, perhaps, become more necessary than
ever. Nothing could dissuade him from his scheme. But he
had always been the champion of the weak. So it was to this
weak German Republic that he sacrificed the independence
that Swiss nationality had secured for him and that he had so
jealously safeguarded. He gave to this Germany what he had
refused to the imperial one, in the way that one offers a loan
to some young undertaking that needs the money to survive.
He became a German citizen, but without any illusions about
the expediency of his action. For the moment he had linked
his fate with that of Germany. Nevertheless he sailed to
America as an emissary of all those without a fatherland,
both in the past and in the future. He sailed on this quest for
funds as though he wished to silence the lament of the
prophet: "Thou hast made us as outcasts and refuse in the
midst of the people."
99
Chapter VI
EINSTEIN'S first encounter with the New World was a sen-
sation. Many American Jews felt personally honored by the
arrival of their illustrious coreligionist and left their work or
closed their shops to welcome the visitor: but it was not only
the Jews who acclaimed him. On the deck of the ship Albert
and Elsa underwent the first mass attack of journalists and
the miming fire of photographers. They thought they were
steeled against it, but it was only in that spring of 1921 that
they encountered the stormy side of celebrity, the aspect of
success which is particularly prominent in America,
I believe that it was during this first visit to New York that
Einstein was driven down the main streets in a car preceded
by a gigantic poster: "This is the famous Professor Einstein.**
Presumably his face was not yet familiar enough to make this
unnecessary. Airplanes droned in the sky and flowers and
multicolored paper streamers were dropped on the proces-
sion. It was frightening and spectacular at the same time.
Elsa was bewildered; she pressed to her heart the immense
bouquet presented to her.
* 101
do you think of it all, Albert?" she asked faintly.
"It is like the Barnum circus!'' he said, laughing, and
added, glancing at the crowds gathered on their way: "After
all, it must surely be more amusing to see an elephant or a
giraffe than an elderly scientist/*
The financial success of his journey was just as great as the
sensation he created. He spoke with Weizmann to Jewish
organizations or, more precisely, he let Weizmann speak; he
addressed students and appeared at enormous banquets ar-
ranged by powerful financiers 'Tike a centerpiece/* to use
his own expression. He gazed at the people around him with
bright, watchful eyes, as if they were a human species
hitherto unknown to him. He did not altogether reassure the
orthodox American Jews, who had taken refuge from social
anti-Semitism and general discrimination against Jews in the
strict practice of their religion. The practicing Jews wanted
to know whether he was really one of them, and, as this was
America, where matters of conscience are made public, a
New York rabbi cabled to him in advance as though examin-
ing his credentials: "Do you believe in God?" Einstein cabled
back this truthful and brief reply: "I believe in Spinoza's
God, who reveals himself in a harmony among all people, not
in a God who worries about the destiny and actiogsjof man."
Einstein was not very reassuring to the conservative Jews,
who found his jokes about money in bad taste. He repeated
all too readily the statement that all the great figures in his-
tory were completely disinterested men, and added: "Can
one imagine Moses, Jesus Christ, or Gandhi with Carnegie's
money?" Yes, the man was obviously disturbing, but one al-
lowed him to talk in his irresponsible way and one "coughed
up," with an oblique glance at the sum given by a rival,
102
Hebrew University was born in the spring of 1921. The
national fund was raised. But Einstein had not only "come
to beg/* as he called it, and to be welcomed as a sovereign.
He also received an honorary doctorate from Princeton Uni-
versity, On his arrival he was greeted by President Hibben
as "a new Columbus who sails alone across the uncharted
seas of thought."
He delayed his return to give four lectures on relativity in
that university. It was his first contact with Princeton and he
found it free from all outside disturbances, an island of
scholarly seclusion amid the bustle of American life.
Einstein had no idea that the calm scene which confronted
him was to be the final setting of his life: that he would one
day tread heavily over the very grass on which he now
stepped so lightly.
If he had no suspicion as yet of what the future had in
store for him and he was not very curious about it he was
intensely interested in America and the Americans, as though
he knew that he would in time be living among them. He
was won over by America's spontaneous welcome, which was
simple and unambiguous in spite of its enthusiasm. He found
his contacts with people pleasant and inoffensive because of
this absence of complexity. But he also noticed that, while
the average American was more sympathetic, good-natured,
and optimistic than the European, he had less critical sense
and was less conscious of his own individuality* "His life is
always something he is going to become, not what he is/*
Einstein had now entered that phase in his life when curi-
osity was to drive him on endless journeys across the whole
world. He had entered a phase of travels and numerous con-
tacts. He had emerged from the seclusion of his studious
- 103 -
youth, the limited circle of interests, and solitary work, to
enjoy everything that the world and man offered. Did he
remain so impervious to external influences, so free from the
clutches of his fellow men, because he had emerged so late
or perhaps because his character was so fully formed from
the beginning?
At the end of his travels he was like a man who has been
to a movie and seen the most extraordinary landscapes and
varied characters flit across the scene a fascinating film but
unconnected with his own life. Einstein's meetings with the
most prominent personalities of his time seem to have been
divided into those which took place on a personal level and
those which were purely formal.
On his return from America, Einstein landed in England.
It was his first contact with the world of British scientists,
who had been in a way the midwives of his glory. He spoke
at King's College. Through Lord Haldane, the instigator of
his visit, he saw a cross section of English society the nobil-
ity, the distinguished dilettanti, the world of science and
politics; the conservatives with their mild curiosity about
everything and everyone strange and foreign; the liberals
who had often studied in German universities and retained a
sort of nostalgia for an idyllic Germany which they had dou-
bly lost with their youth and with the war. Einstein also met
George Bernard Shaw, who amused him with the running
fire of his paradoxes, his manner of playing with words and
ideas as though with little overturned pyramids which he
tried to balance on their points. The characters created by
Shaw were not people of flesh and blood for Einstein but
elfin creatures of wit, humor, and grace. Speaking of Shaw's
social satire, Einstein said to him: "You have succeeded in
104
winning the love and joyful admiration of men on a path that
for anyone except you would have become the way of the
cross."
Not all sides of English life happened to amuse Albert and
Elsa Einstein. Having just left Princeton, America's corrected
edition of Old England, they were confronted with the real
thing when they were asked to Lord Haldane's Scottish
castle. This imposing castle had stood the assaults of time
and it continued to brave the present with its feudal bearing.
On their arrival Einstein and his wife were taken to their
room by a solemn butler who carried a heavy silver candle-
stick majestically in front of them. They marched in a proces-
sion along the interminable passages that separated them
from the rest of the world. Their large room was filled with
deep shadows as though it concealed ghosts. They awoke in
the morning in this immense bedroom, buried in darkness,
like two people shipwrecked on a desert island.
"Could we ask them to open the shutters . . . ?" mur-
mured Elsa.
"Ask whom? That man who brought us here?" Einstein
exclaimed in terror. A long pause ensued.
"AH the same, I would love to have a cup of tea/* Elsa ven-
tured timidly.
**Sh ... sh ... perhaps they have forgotten about us.
..." A faint hope sounded in Einstein's voice.
This journey was the first international contact he estab-
lished after the war. So far there had been no clashes. The re-
establishment of a contact with France was more delicate.
When, in March 1922, Einstein received an invitation from
the College de France, he immediately envisaged all the pit-
falls the journey might mean for him and his French friends.
105
He wrote to Langevin, giving the reasons for his refusal. But
the next day Langevin received a second letter from Einstein
in which he told with his usual simplicity why he had
changed his mind. "Rathenau has told me that it is my duty
to accept and so I accept/* German university circles were
indignant. The universities, with rare exceptions, had never
in spirit subscribed to the Diktat of Versailles, refusing to
honor the signatures of "traitors.** Great Britain, against
whom all the hatred in Germany had been mobilized during
the war, was already the ^victorious gentleman/* on the way
to becoming a potential ally. France, on the other hand, had
become once again the hereditary archenemy.
Einstein shrugged his shoulders. He knew that his French
colleagues were encountering even greater difficulties and
that they had shown great courage in inviting him to Paris.
He knew that the resentment against the enemy lasted longer
in a country that had suffered in its devastated land than in
those that had been spared the physical presence of the war.
He realized how much accumulated bitterness there was in
the contemptuous word "Boche,** and it was as a German
scientist, as the leading German of his day, that he was to
face Paris. But the promoters of his journey, people on the
left, as many of the French university men were, were keen
on this gesture, not only in order to show their respect to a
great scientist, whom they knew was one of themselves, as
far as opinions were concerned, but also to underline the
brotherhood of the human race which could triumph over
barbed wire.
Paul Painleve, who had organized this first meeting with
his usual efficiency an efficiency which he concealed under a
vague exterior came to power two years later, owing to the
106
victory of the parties of the left This great mathematician,
recently converted to Einstein's theories, now followed them
with passionate interest. He was one of the rare people whom
Einstein considered capable of understanding them. One
day, about 1929, 1 believe, Paul Painleve came up to me look-
ing absorbed and highly excited. "Remarkable, you know,
this theory of Einstein's yes, the one on synthetic fields/' He
pulled out of the inner pocket of his waistcoat a carefully
folded booklet of a few pages. He went on speaking about it,
stammering a little as he always did when he was moved,
using superlatives that seemed disconcerting in view of the
few pages that he brandished. I had heard nothing about it,
but I had received several months before a letter from Elsa
announcing that Albert was "concocting something big-" So
this, then, was the concoction.
"Is it long since it has been published?" I asked Painleve.
"I received it this morning, but I had a cabinet meeting."
(He was then Minister of War.) "I had to take it away
with me and read it under the table at a suitable moment."
Then he added sharply, staring at me with his round eyes,
which had suddenly grown suspicious: "Promise you won't
tell anyone about it. I assure you that no one noticed it."
I could not help laughing at this idea of the great scientist
at a cabinet meeting stealthily reading these pages, so diffi-
cult to understand, like a schoolboy poring over a detective
story under his desk.
Painleve seemed a little dismayed by my laughter. "No, I
really mean it it would make me look so silly,*' he said.
When Albert Einstein left for Paris in March 1922, he
knew that he would be skating on thir> ice. He would have to
watch carefully every word and deed and not allow himself
107
to be rebuffed by possible affronts. He went, confident in his
common sense and his instinct, and not even very anxious.
When he arrived, he was faced with the alarming news that
hostile demonstrations were in preparation. He was ready to
turn back, without any resentment, but Paul Langevin had
come to meet him. This meeting led to a lifelong friendship.
Seeing them together, one was struck by the contrast in
their appearances. On the irregular features of Paul Langevin
passions and spiritual torments had left deep wrinkles and
indelible traces. Einstein's regular features he was about six
years younger were still young and firm, his face serene.
Langevin spoke with his usual passion, his feline mustache
bristling with emotion even when describing abstract ideas:
even figures seemed to come to life when he spoke about
them. His voice had a peculiar quality, as though it were
yielding everything and he was making an unconditional gift
of himself, when he was speaking to someone he loved. Ein-
stein replied slowly, in halting French with a strong accent;
to his great regret, he could not introduce into his speech the
puns and the picturesque images that he favored so much.
He contented himself with smiling now and then, an almost
tender smile, or bursting out in his rich, rumbling, guttural
laughter. But there was a complete understanding between
them, an understanding on every plane, almost without the
aid of words. When one saw them together, one was struck
by the strange intimacy between them. When they greeted
each other in the morning, it was as if they had emerged from
the same room in which they had been closeted together in
long, secret conversation. Their thoughts, indeed, so often
took the same direction and remained for so long in harmony
that their relationship seemed to exist outside of time. Ein-
- 108
stein shared with Langevin the same lucidity and the same
creative instinct that knew how to extract the essentials.
With that generosity of -mind which reflected the generosity
of the man, Langevin welcomed all the ideas of his col-
leagues, foresaw their importance, and stimulated them with
his own enthusiasm. Einstein had a far greater dose of skep-
ticismin all spheres than Langevin, a greater reserve than
his more fervent elder colleague. But in spite of that skepti-
cism and that reserve, he was always as ready as Langevin to
fling himself into a cause, and to throw all his weight into a
struggle against injustice. Their intimate companionship was
based on their totally disinterested attitude and on their
acute sense of responsibilities. Einstein once said of Lange-
vin: '"His heart was so pure that he was convinced that all
men should be ready for a complete personal renunciation as
soon as they had seen the light of reason and justice."
Einstein had a much more moderate belief in man and
much more doubt of the power of reason. If he did not follow
Langevin on the path of his political commitments, he was as
ready as he to let himself be carried away by indignation, to
act under the impulse of the moment, and to be led astray
from time to time; their occasional mistakes were only at-
tempts at the impossible dictated by their generosity. En-
tirely obsessed with his own research, Einstein regretted that
Langevin was not obsessed so completely, and that he gave
too many constructive suggestions to his pupils and left too
much to others the privilege of exploiting the scientific re-
sults which he himself had reached.
It was in Marie Curie that Einstein found a reflection of his
own single-mindedness. He met her during his stay in Paris.
She had grown old prematurely, burned up by conflicting
109 -
and devastating passions. Her drawn face seemed like a mask
of death molded over the features of a live woman, her eyes,
with their dark shadows, were deep hollows in that gray
mask, like open windows in a house destroyed by fire. With a
feminine impulse rare in her, Marie Curie always avoided the
camera; if pursued by photographers she would protest in
anger and cover the all too revealing face with her hands,
hands that also bore the scars of scientific research.
From her native land Marie Curie-Sklodowska brought
that special fervor, that slightly insane courage, that pride in
self-immolation, which is characteristic of the heroines of all
the great struggles in history. She upheld this courage and
pride with a deliberate sternness, with a passionate austerity
the two words were not a contradiction with her and with
a stubbornness that was like a constant victory, a victory won
each day anew over a natural Slavic taste for fantasy and
idleness.
Einstein very soon penetrated Marie Sklodowska's external
defenses. He knew the price she had paid for this dryness,
this uprightness that was not softened by any artistic im-
pulse. He admired her strength of character, her will power,
unbending and sharp as steel, not unlike his own rocklike
character. He wrote in 1935, on the death of Marie Curie:
"The greatest scientific achievement of her life the demon-
stration of the existence of radioactive elements and isolation
of these, owes its realization not only to a bold intuition but
also to a devotion and tenacity, through the greatest imagi-
nable difficulties, that have not often been seen in the history
of science.'* And since he was writing in times of distress and
disturbed consciences, he added: *lf only a small part of the
force of character and devotion of Marie Curie existed among
110
the intellectuals of Europe, there would be a more brilliant
future before us/*
Einstein returned to Berlin to relax at home and to enjoy a
few peaceful moments before a long and trying ordeaL It was
a beautiful summer day, that twenty-fourth of June 1922, a
Saturday. Berliners had left the town and invaded the forests
of pine trees that grow on the sandy soil of the march of
Brandenburg, their key branches high up on the tall, slender
pillars. Excursionists, rowing on the calm, silvery mirror of
the Wannsee or letting themselves be carried along by slack
sails, knew nothing of the drama that took place quite close
by, in the upper-class quarter of the Grunewald.
An open car was driving through the park: Walther Rathe-
nau, who was sitting in it, did not notice the other car, which
had been on the lookout for him for some time. It drove
straight toward him: a few revolver shots and the cushions of
Rathenau's car were stained with blood. The efficient way in
which the murder was carried out was typically German
this crime, committed in a few seconds, had been the subject
of exhaustive preparations. This was not the first murder to
be committed with such precision, by murderers from the
same group acting from the same motives. The German revo-
lution could hardly be described as a bloody one, but the
blood that did flow was always that of the democrats, and the
best among them. The revolt came from the left, but the
assassinations came from the right. Even during the short
period of the "red reign" in Munich, the victims were the
revolutionaries themselves. Perhaps Walther Rathenau would
never have been killed had a storm of indignation broken
out in Germany after the first crimes. Perhaps he would have
been spared if his Socialist colleagues in the government had
111 *
reacted with greater severity in punishing not only those who
executed the crimes but also the instigators. On the contrary,
however, a murder like that of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa
Luxemburg had secretly relieved them, as it definitely inter-
rupted the impact of the second revolutionary wave, and
consequently they acquiesced to the story of the two prison-
ers being shot while attempting to escape, instead of admit-
ting the truth about the cowardly execution in the dead of
night.
Behind the murderers of Walther Rathenau lurked the real
vice of the German revolution its fear of being a revolution
or becoming one. But this time there were powerful reper-
cussions; apprehension was on a scale with the crime. Possi-
bly people were beginning to realize that his death marked the
beginning of something more formidable than a series of iso-
lated murders the murder of humanity itself. The murderers
had chosen a particularly striking victim in Walther Rathe-
, nau. It was he who had demanded a mass levy when Ger-
many was on the brink of disaster toward the end of the
war, and in certain ways he had more in common with his
murderers, who had been rendered crazy by defeat,, than
with those who had reason to mourn his death. He was a
social conservative, not out of any personal interest, but out
of respect for authority and for established institutions. This
man of great integrity, who had never gone back on his word
or avoided a commitment, had introduced the seesaw policy
between the East and the West, with its vague taint of
bribery, which paved the way for all the turncoats and all
the disloyalties of the future. Had the tragedy not been so
great, the loss of such a man so irreparable, the crime would
have seemed a grotesque case of mistaken identity.
112 *
This time Germany reacted to the situation. Berlin reacted
in the same way as it had reacted against the Kapp adven-
ture. An impressive demonstration showed the fierce deter-
mination of the working class to defend democracy. The
Berlin workmen marched along, past the limits of the work-
ing-class quarters which were the usual sphere of their
demonstrations, and invaded in dark waves the principal
arteries of West Berlin. As they marched, only their steps
grating on the asphalt broke the heavy silence; they mourned
one who, through his death, had become one of them. Their
faces, old or young, male or female, acquired a curious
similarity, the tensity and concentration of a crowd that is
silent and buried in thought. This somber, interminable pa-
rade through districts unaccustomed to such manifestations
gave tremendous weight to the warning. But the terror of
death persisted. Every man on the left felt "himself hunted
and saw himself as the next victim. The trial of the assassins
was to reveal all that was festering in the wound of the Ger-
man defeat in the way of stupidity, unrest, irresponsibility,
and incurable brutality. It was to prove that the murderers
knew nothing about their victim, except that he was a Jew.
Later on there was talk of the lists of St. Vehme, 1 in which
Einstein's name appeared at the top of the list of men who
were to be exterminated; but it was obvious from the very
beginning that he would be the first target.
Einstein was deeply upset by the death of a man he
respected, and by the abyss that had opened at his feet,
revealing unsuspected horrors. He had no thought for his
own safety. But Elsa Einstein was overcome with terror.
With all the vividness of her imagination she saw death
1 The Vdbmic Court was an illegal criminal tribunal
- 113
lying in wait for him, her beloved falling under a rain of
bullets, bathed in his own blood. She was like a wild lioness,
scenting danger. But she employed the ruses of a serpent.
Albert was to go to Holland in the course of the summer.
Implored by his wife, who now lived in anguish, he agreed,
in a moment of pity and tenderness, to hasten his departure.
But he refused to take any precautions' or to sneak away. Was
that recklessness, fatalism, or mere irritation?
He never knew, probably does not know even now, that
Elsa had persuaded the chief of police to keep close watch
over the approaches to the station, that the row of men on
the platform were plain-clothes policemen, and that the two
young men who got into the compartment with him, their
hands pushed into their pockets, had undertaken to deliver
him safe and sound to his destination. Buried in his thoughts,
he did not even notice them and wrote happily back to friends
that his wife's fears had been exaggerated. He agreed, how-
ever, to remain absent for more than three months, as he
liked Holland and found the atmosphere of Leiden Univer-
sity conducive to his work.
"We left like sovereigns surrounded by a court/' Elsa
used to say about their journey to the Far East she was
exaggerating slightly. At the last moment Albert Einstein
had fiercely refused to have a personal valet. "I have never
had one and have no need for one.** The luxury that sur-
rounded them amused Elsa. She explored the comforts of
their apartments in the ship as though she were unwrapping
a parcel containing a present which was almost too beautiful.
She had never before had a lady's maid the idea intimidated
114
her from the startbut she said, half resigned: "One of us
had to live up to the grandeur of the situation/*
During this triumphant tour of China, Japan, and Palestine,
ending on the way back with a visit to Spain, they both had
a strangely transient feeling. They enjoyed the spectacles
that spread before them with the freshness of people who see
things for the first time. The same incidents, the same sur-
prises amused them; they let themselves be carried away by
the wave that would bring them back on the morrow to their
normal lives. Albert Einstein always thought that "it could
not go on." Sometimes, when they were embarrassed by an
overcomplicated ceremony or a novel social occasion, an
oversumptuous reception or the insistence of the curious,
they repeated to themselves, by way of consolation, that all
this was only a dream from which they would awaken in the
morning.
The Nobel Prize, which Einstein was awarded while he
was still in Japan, consolidated what he considered to be his
"frail celebrity." From then on he had to reconcile himself to
it. In fact, when the problem was set before him, the adjust-
ment had already been made. It had been managed through
a refusal. He refused to change anything in his behavior or his
habits. Refusal is, perhaps, too strong a word for it. It implies
a more definite attitude than Einstein's, a possible choice
between accepting or refusing. But he never envisaged this
possibility: he was simply following his incredible destiny.
He did not see, according to his favorite expression, the
necessity of changing himself. He had been received by
sovereigns in the course of his travels; he had spoken to the
Empress of Japan and the King of Spain, and to the King of
Sweden when he received the Nobel Prize; he had met,
* 115
at the Brussels Congress, the Belgian King and Queen; he
had even assisted at the ceremonial of a proconsul, more
regal than that of a sovereign, when he was the guest of Sir
Herbert Samuel, the British High Commissioner in Palestine.
He played, in a way, on the threshold of thrones, the part of
Benjamin FranHin arriving at Versailles. His eccentricity of
dress was less spectacular but his behavior just as rigorously
nonconformist; his eyes sparkled with amusement, he was
like an adult trying to understand the absurd rules of a
child's game.
Mirabeau had deduced from his encounter with Benjamin
Franklin that one could remain a child of nature even in the
midst of society. Einstein could give the same impression.
But Franklin was consciously the prophet of a new religion of
equality, while Einstein did not realize that his attitude had
anything singular in it. He never searched for disciples to
whom he might preach a doctrine of independence. His law
was a solitary one.
Einstein's frequent visits to Brussels and a common taste
for the same music and the same German poetry gradually
turned his relationship with the Belgian royal family, par-
ticularly Queen Elizabeth, into a friendship based on mutual
confidence. This friendship had no special emphasis for Ein-
stein, He said "the Queen" as he might have said any ordi-
nary Christian name.
One day, in his country house, I was beside him while he
was going through the pockets of an old pair of white trou-
sers, searching for a piece of paper he could not find. With
impatient gestures he was emptying the contents of the
pockets on the table. They were the pockets of a school-
boy: penknife, pieces of string, bits of biscuits, bus tickets,
116
change, tobacco dropped out of his pipe. At last, with a
rustle of parchment, a large sheet of paper fell out. It was a
poem that the Queen of the Belgians had dedicated to him.
At the bottom of the large ivory-colored page there were
a few words and a few figures in Einstein's small, regular
handwriting. I bent over the table. Immortal calculations
side by side with the royal signature that slanted across the
page? I read: Autobus SO pfennigs, newspaper, stationery,
etc. Daily expenses, noted with care, entangled with the loop
of the regal "E." Elsa brought the sheet of paper nearer to
her shortsighted eyes. Her husband gazed at her, with his
eyes wide open, incapable of understanding why she was
laughing.
The Queen of the Belgians once asked him to play a
musical piece with her which they both particularly liked
and they acquired a habit of playing together every time
Einstein passed through Brussels. Their common love of
music probably made an understanding easier between two
such dissimilar human beings. To the Queen, Einstein must
have been rather like a wanderer from the world at large who
came to tell her his adventures. She showed an interest in his
political views in the same way as one plunges into some
dangerous exploration. He did not try to soften them for her
benefit. He thought aloud when he spoke. Sometimes the
King would arrive at teatime and they would talk about
these matters with Einstein telling his royal hosts that the
world was crumbling around them. Then, after the King had
left, the Queen and Einstein would return to their music.
When the Queen asked him for the first time to come to
Laken, her summer residence, she had to wait a long time
for him. The chauffeur who had been sent to the station came
117 -
back saying that he had not seen anyone. Since Einstein was
always punctual, the Queen began to be alarmed. A lady in
waiting was asked to look out for him in the park. It was a
hot summer afternoon, and the roads were dusty. After a long
time she saw a man appear at the crossroad. He was covered
with dust and his hair flowed in the breeze as he walked. He
was balancing a violin in his hand and whistling gaily. "How
could I guess that you would send a car to the station?"
Einstein replied to the Queen's questions. Later the chauf-
feur explained: "No one came out of the first-class carriage
and it never occurred to me that Her Majesty's visitors would
travel third."
Sometimes though rarelyEinstein noticed the difference
between his way of thinking and that of others, between his
behavior and that expected of him. He would then tell stories
of his misadventures with obvious pleasure, not only because
his sense of humor was tickled by ridicule even if he was the
object of it, but also because he saw all the absurdity of the
conventional world which he shocked.
To protect him from unpleasant incidents, Elsa Einstein
had acquired the habit of providing her husband at every
journey with a first-class round-trip ticket and, if necessary, a
sleeping-car accommodation. She knew that otherwise any
money he might have carried with him would go to help
some poor wretch. But one day Einstein, who was in London,
decided suddenly to go to Brussels. He had had quite a lot of
money with him but had probably met many people who, in
his expression, "needed it." When he came to buy his ticket
for Brussels, he had just enough to pay for a third-class one,
and this left him with only a few francs in his pocket. He
wandered about for a time in the streets of Brussels, looking
118
for a cheap lodging. He ended up in a slum, covered with
dust and disheveled, with his clothes rumpled and nothing
but a small suitcase in his hand. "Have you got a telephone?"
he asked the proprietor. The telephone was in the bar. TDo
you know how to ask for Laken? Yes, the Castle of Laken,
the royal residence." The proprietor and the early customers
sitting in the bar exchanged astonished glances. They heard,
through the open door of the telephone booth, the hirsute
traveler who looked like a vagabond ask for Her Majesty the
Queen. Was he a madman? Or an anarchist? Most likely a
madman, but perhaps he was a^ dangerous one. When Ein-
stein left the booth he found a crowd assembled at the door.
While he had been battling with the telephone, the news
had spread round the district. Two policemen were at the
door. They were waiting for an ambulance. ""I really must
have looked suspicious" and Einstein shook with laughter,
recalling this grotesque scene. Perhaps he was secretly satis-
fied at having for once escaped recognition.
Einstein's fundamental indifference to titles, positions, and
money is so complete that it seems exaggerated. One might
almost believe "him to be an inverted snob, to profess the
bravado of a rebel. But he has no personal resentment against
society. It is not even an angry reaction or any deep pity that
causes him to identify himself with the poor. It is more like
a reasoned attitude, a conviction accepted once and for all.
"The differences between social classes do not seem to me
justified. I believe them to have been in fact established by
force, 3 * he once wrote. He neither hates his neighbor nor is
filled with an overwhelming love for him. His social con-
science seems almost detached from its object: man. His
sense of responsibility is, in fact, only the final expression of
119
his rigorous fidelity toward himself. The years have only
helped to accentuate this detachment. His curiosity about
human beings, which might have been taken to be an interest
in them, became blunted in the course of his travels; he had
seen too many and his love of the exceptional was exhausted;
besides, the diversity in men appeared to him increasingly
superficial.
He has never really needed human contacts, but has de-
liberately freed himself more and more from all emotional
dependence in order to become entirely self-sufficient. Real
intimacy and the unconditional sharing of thoughts and
feelings with another person, so that one becomes almost
another self, is an experience he has scarcely ever had: he
fears it because it threatens the complete inner freedom
that is essential to him.
Einstein is fully conscious of his own dualityhis keen
sense of social duty, and his desire to escape from all com-
panionship. "I am the sort of horse that cannot be har-
nessed in a team," he once said. He knew what advantages
he could draw from this independence and indifference, but
he also knew what he was missing. He explained the whole
problem at length in one of his rare examinations of con-
science which he called The World as I See It: "I feel deeply
conscious, but without regret, of the barriers to my under-
standing with other human beings. A man of my type will no
doubt lose some of his carefree spontaneity, but he will gain
on his fellows in independence of opinions, habits, and judg-
ments, and he will not be tempted to establish his peace of
mind on such fragile foundations."
120
Chapter VII
THE real German defeat came with a sort of delayed action,
and with disastrous repercussions throughout the country,
in the years that followed the signing of the peace treaty. It
bore no direct relation to the military defeat. Pre-1914 Ger-
many did not die on the battlefields, or in that revolution that
never really took place; it was swept away by the tide of in-
flation. Conquered Germany had not, however, encroached
upon its resources to the point of being unable to recover;
she was to prove, after a second, far greater defeat and a
more spectacular destruction with a far greater drain of her
resources, her almost miraculous capacity for recuperation.
But after the Versailles Treaty the true rulers of Germany's
economy, the chiefs of heavy industry, the Ruhr magnates,
had no intention of allowing German recovery to be rapid,
or total.
One of the most serious consequences for Germany and
therefore for the whole world was caused by a conflict of
interests. It resulted from the fact that the Allies and their
- 121
economic advisers were unable to agree on the final sum
of German reparations. Their ignorance of the machinery of
economics and their even more serious ignorance of psycho-
logical laws warped the international situation from the start.
Only a part of the German reparations was agreed upon, but
no measures had been taken for even that part to be absorbed
by the world economy without unsettling it or for Germany
to pay without injuring her neighbors by her exports. More
disastrous still was the floating limit to the other part of the
reparations, which was dependent on Germany's ability to
pay, a sort of bonus granted to insolvency.
The profiteers of German defeat seized upon this bonus
with glee. Germany never knew, and the German masses
never knew, that their hardest trials, their profound misery,
were due to the egotism of private enterprise, to a deliberate
act of national sabotage. The first collapse of the mark was
the work of the magnates of German industry. They were
not interested in an increase of production or in national
enrichment, as long as the sum of reparations was not fixed,
just as there is no interest in accumulating great profits be-
fore knowing how heavily they will be taxed. They were not
interested, either, in maintaining a healthy rate of exchange.
Owing to devaluation, they could scrap their debts and can-
cel mortgages, they could acquire deficient enterprises, build
up the most powerful trusts in the world, and prepare for
international dumping. One of the most spectacular swindles
of history was carried out under the cloak of patriotic duty.
With the cynicism of the all-powerful, Ruhr magnate Hugo
Stinnes admitted the deliberate nature of the devaluation of
the mark, brandished it as a scarecrow at the meetings of
interallied experts; he even boasted of it in front of French
122
representatives. But these "apprentice sorcerers" had not
foreseen the power of the movement they had unleashed.
Moreover, it did not personally affect them. They continued
to buy factories for a loaf of bread; they scrapped debts and
mortgages, and acquired property for a sum which the next
day represented the price of a pair of gloves.
Inflation submerged Germany, like the rising water in a
stream, or more accurately like the lava of a volcano. It swal-
lowed up fortunes, swept away incomes and pensions, and
destroyed the means of existence, first in the course of a
month, then in a week, finally in a day.
On his return from one of his journeys, Einstein found
Germany like a quicksand. His own family had been drawn
into the whirlpool of disaster. His colleagues continued to
live in luxurious apartments on the scale of their previous
salaries. But they had to let rooms, accept as boarders the
adventurers that came swarming to Berlin from all the
countries of the world; they wore their frock coats to threads
and snipped off the fringes of their starched cuffs with scis-
sors. Somewhere in corners of these too vast apartments
old men died deaths of which they were ashamed. The pen-
sioned and the retired disappeared, too horrified by what was
happening to them to complain. The middle classes, the
Mittelstand, who had been the very backbone of Germany,
were losing ground and were never to recover their old
stability.
The young rebelled against destiny in their own way.
The older ones tried to continue their studies in the univer-
sity, driving taxis by night and still wearing the dyed uni-
forms that smelled of misery; but others carried their resent-
ments into extreme organizations and joined clandestine
123
military groups and skirmished in Silesia or in the Baltic
provinces; still others adjusted themselves to the times, sold
commodities that they did not own, offered for sale houses
and castles that they had never seen, and built up in one day
fortunes that they lost the next day.
With the devalued mark went everything traditions,
morals, the desire for a stable and simple life, the respect for
spiritual values and from this catastrophe were to emerge
one day those unfortunate misfits whom the inflation had
deprived at the same time of the future and of the past.
Einstein was alarmed by the state of mind of the youth of
the country, by the falling standard of education, by the
material pitfalls that accompanied all disinterested work, all
work without immediate practical application. "When scien-
tific research begins to lag," he wrote, "the spiritual life of a
nation also fails and with it dies the possibility of future
development."
In these alarming years Einstein was invited to join the
International Committee of Intellectual Co-operation. The
idea of a body for the international exchange of knowledge
originated with the future director of the Institute of Intel-
lectual Co-operation, Julien Luchaire. L6on Bourgeois sup-
ported it eloquently at the League of Nations and it was
accepted by the Assembly at the autumn session in 1921.
It was at the start a technical body, on the lines of the
International Labor Organization, with a modest sphere of
action, aiming at the re-establishment of contacts interrupted
by the war and the facilitation of intellectual activities. In
contrast to the body born after the Second World War,
UNESCO, or to that "Dictatorship of Reason," which was
Einstein's dream at the moment when the atom scourge was
124
released on the world, the Committee of Intellectual Co-
operation was not meant to launch an inquiry into the rea-
sons why international hatreds led to war, nor did it have to
prepare a program for peace; it was limited in its scope by
national susceptibilities to a task still to be defined, which
was merely "to submit to the Assembly a report on the meas-
ures to be taken by the League to facilitate intellectual ex-
change between nations, particularly as regards the commu-
nication of scientific information."
But, limited as the aims of the Committee were, they
represented a fundamental need of the time. Einstein himself
in 1922, when the Committee met for the first time, made a
vehement speech for an "Internationale of Science." He said
that true scientists had always known and believed that
science was necessarily international, but in troubled times
they felt isolated among their more mediocre colleagues.
Einstein attacked violently this indifference of the scientific
world, the trahison des clercs occurring at the moment when
their loyalty was most needed. "During the war and in all
the camps/* he wrote, "the majority of the men who enjoyed
great credit betrayed the sacred mission conferred on them."
He wondered what the men of good will, free from the emo-
tional impacts of the moment, were doing now to recover
what had been lost. He foresaw that a lot of work, many
isolated efforts, and much patience would be needed in the
future: they would have to ignore difficulties and rebuffs,
particularly from official declarations, which were always
more intransigent than individual opinions, for, he said:
"Senatores boni viri, senatus autem bestia"
When Einstein was appointed to the Committee of Intel-
lectual Co-operation, Germany was still beyond the pale of
125 -
civilized nations, and even scientific congresses excluded
representatives of ex-enemy countries from their organiza-
tions. It was indeed impossible, as the Belgian Jyles Destr6e
remarked at the first session of the Committee, in spite of
all the good reasons one might have, to re-establish relations
with the enemies of yesterday, "to make light of feelings
which were still very painful/* But it was in an individual
capacity that the appeal was made, according to the official
declaration, "to eminent personalities in the different
branches of human knowledge," and the members of the
Committee remained "completely independent as regards
their governments, which they in no way represent/'
Personal repute was indeed the principal criterion in the
choice of Henri Bergson, who was chairman of the Com-
mittee, and of Madame Curie, and it was in the same spirit
that Einstein was appointed, although he was a German, as
was the director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, who was
an American, although the United States was not a member
of the League.
Einstein was absent from the first session. He apologized
on the grounds of having a scientific work to finish. Besides,
he was on the eve of his journey to Japan. But neither was
he present at the second session in Geneva in July 1923. He
handed in his resignation. It was done on impulse, for he was
influenced by the state of mind that reigned in Germany after
the occupation of the Ruhr. "I have formed the conviction
that the League has neither enough power nor enough good
will for its task. As a convinced pacifist, I do not think I can
continue to have any relations with the League/' he wrote.
Einstein, who had never submitted to the neurosis of the
war, allowed himself to be shaken by the wave of indignation
126
that had spread in Germany. In occupying the Ruhr, France
had acted as a Shylock; the sinister character of its behavior
was accentuated by the abstention of England, an eloquent
enough condemnation of an ally. The angry reaction was
authentic, but its exploitation was part of the fraudulent
game played by the magnates of the Ruhr. The passive re-
sistance of the occupied region was also a spontaneous move-
ment born among the workers, a class struggle against
foreign imperialism, but it was exploited not only by an
incompetent government, endowed for a brief moment with
a false heroic glory, but also by the supporters of militarism
and revenge who were concealed in the darkness of the Ger-
man situation. The mark was reduced to nothing. Millions
and milliards turned into billions. The collapse was breath-
takingly rapid. Prices rose not only from day to day but from
hour to hour. Resistance became active. Saboteurs were sub-
stituted for workmen and charges of dynamite were officially
supplied by the Wehrmacht Young people, unbalanced by
the postwar atmosphere, found a field for their exploits in
the Ruhr. Blood flowed. A saboteur called Schlageter was
executed by the French. His name became identified with
resistance. He was to be the martyr of tomorrow the first
hero to whom Nazism in power hastened to erect a monu-
ment. Albert Einstein understood that his own sincere reac-
tion of indignation had been used for ends the importance of
which he had not foreseen. Had he had the smallest vestige
of personal vanity, he might have considered himself as the
prisoner of his gesture. But he remained detached toward
himself as he was toward others. He knew when he was in
the wrong and when others had led him astray. He knew that
he could not identify himself with the profiteers of the Ruhr.
127 -
The same impulsiveness that led "him to make mistakes made
him admit them. The idea that such an admission might
diminish his reputation never occurred to him. To go back
on a decision when he realized he was in the wrong had
never embarrassed him. He wrote to the Committee of Intel-
lectual Co-operation that he had been badly advised, that the
League remained one of the hopes of peace, that, having
resigned, he obviously could not return to the Committee,
but that he held himself at its disposal for any useful end.
Henri Bergson, after reading this frank letter, so humble
and so straightforward, shook his head and murmured: "I
am surprised that a man like Einstein could have written
such a letter/* He seemed almost irritated with him for being
so human. The secretariat of the League hastened to appoint
him once more a member of the Committee. At the fourth
plenary session, which took place in Geneva in 1924, Berg-
son, in his capacity as chairman, introduced two new mem-
bers. He praised, in his flowery language, the encyclopedic
knowledge of an Argentine professor and journalist, whom he
also extolled as a great poet of Latin America; then he "wel-
comed Monsieur Einstein, both as a new and as an old mem-
ber/* His voice became slightly acid as he went on: "He
was appointed a member of the Committee, like all the
others, without having solicited it. He was reappointed at his
own request, therefore he belongs to it doubly/* The audi-
ence exchanged embarrassed glances. Bergson acclaimed
Einstein's work as one of the most powerful efforts made by
man to liberate himself from the limitations of human knowl-
edge, but he also added: "You have had the remarkable luck
that, with theories so difficult that there are not more than
a dozen men in the world capable of understanding them,
128
PROFESSOR AXD MRS. EINSTEIN IX THEIR BERLIN APARTMENT
ON THE HABERLANDSTRASSE, 1027
". . . like all the neighboring houses, uniformly ugly and unpreten-
tiously comfortable."
MARGOT EINSTEIN
"Early in life she had discovered she had a talent for sculpture.'
you have acquired universal fame.** The tinge of malice
brought a smile to all lips, but it was repressed, for Einstein
was there, pulling at his pipe. He appeared so serene that,
were it not for a spark of amusement in his eyes, one might
have believed that the meaning of the words addressed to
Tifm had not reached Trim. Faced by such massive and natural
calm, the audience seemed to become suddenly aware of the
true nature of the greatness of Albert Einstein.
That same session saw the foundation of the Institute of
Intellectual Co-operation in Paris. The offer of the French
government was met with mixed feelings, which Einstein
expressed with an almost brutal frankness, softened only
by his usual good nature. He stressed how arduous the task
of the Committee was, how difficult the resumption of rela-
tions, particularly since "unfortunately scientists and artists
allow themselves to be guided by narrow nationalistic tend-
encies far more easily than men in practical life." The great-
est obstacle the Committee had encountered in its work was
the lack of confidence in its political objectivity. There was a
certain danger in the fact that if the Institute was established
in Paris, with a French director and a French chairman of
the Committee, the impression might be given of a prepon-
derantly French influence. Personally Einstein had no fears
in that direction, but he wanted the Committee to bear in
mind these circumstances and the existing psychological situ-
ation. "Dm et salvavi animam meam" he concluded with the
smile that took away any sting from the things he had said.
Einstein began to follow with great interest the work of
the Committee. He intervened in the course of successive
sessions in favor of proposals, some of which were technical
and belonged to his own domain, such as, for instance, the
- 129 -
project for a universal synchronization of comparative astro-
nomic measures, as well as proposals for the needs of telegra-
phy, etc.; or the proposal for the creation of an international
meteorological office, which he undertook to examine with
Professor Lorentz and Madame Curie. He also supported the
suggestion of an international university, because he thought
the teaching of history was not inspired by a sufficient broad-
mindedness. Historians were not yet rid of their prejudices
and it was necessary to create an institution which would
be free to recruit men on their merits and regardless of their
political opinions. On another occasion he demanded facili-
ties for scientists and students traveling abroad, who often
had difficulty in obtaining the necessary visas. But he did not
often intervene in debates. He was content to follow them
with rapt attention. There was nothing about him of the
scientist lost in his thoughts. Among famous men, none knew
better how to listen. His prominent eyes burned with in-
tensity; there was a smile of anticipation on his lips, as
though he was preparing to enjoy a particularly apt expres-
sion. This man, so sober in his words, had an artist's taste for
the mot juste, the correct formula.
He was listening one day at an intimate dinner party to
Albert Thomas, telling about his recent experiences. His
beard bristling, his hair seeming to stand on end, the direc-
tor of the ILO let the torrents of his eloquence loose upon
the League s inertia, Einstein leaned across the table, listen-
ing to him, admiration written on his face, clear as a mirror.
I was certain that he approved of what was being said, but
what he enjoyed most was the dynamic delivery. In an inter-
val of silence, his voice was heard to exclaim in wonder:
"How lucky you are, you Frenchmen. You come to interna-
- 130 -
tional assemblies so magnificently armed. You maneuver with
guns, while we play with bows and arrows.**
In spite of the difficulty he found in expressing himself,
he was by no means so helpless when faced with political
intrigues as one might have expected firm to be. He was
strangely versed in the ruses of underground warfare, in the
pulling of strings from afar. He answered back astutely and
on occasion he threw himself into battle with unsuspected
resources.
Such an occasion occurred when the secretariat of the
League replaced in 1925 an Italian member of the Commit-
tee, an enemy of Mussolini, with the Fascist Minister of
Justice, Rocco. The members of the Committee were power-
less as regarded these nominations, which were made inde-
pendently of them and which were increasingly dominated
by politics. Some of them, indeed, shared more or less con-
cealed Fascist sympathies. They gave some proof of this
when it was suggested that Rocco should replace his anti-
Fascist compatriot on the board of the Institute, which had
sprung from the bosom of the Committee. The moment for
an open battle had come. Madame Curie opposed the nomi-
nation on the ground that a minister in exercise of his func-
tions could not sit side by side with independent scientists.
Einstein was even more explicit and protested against inclu-
sion on the board of the minister of a country where liberty
of opinion was strangled and intellectuals were persecuted.
To defeat the nomination he proposed himself as a member
of the board. His smiling determination threw into confusion
a meeting at which the diplomacy of compromise was gain-
ing more and more ground. The usual threat was used to
curb the rebels: Italy, in her resentment, might retire from
131
the League, After the customary pressure the matter was
settled by nominating a supplementary member. To Einstein,
the Institute and the Committee seemed more and more
paralyzed by political pressure, hampered by the influence of
various parties in power, torn by mean personal rivalries. He
was painfully aware of the impotence of good will in face of
these obscure forces, the Great Bogy of Peer Gynt, as he
called it. He then sought refuge among friends and the com-
fort of being among people with identical interests.
One night, after a particularly trying session, he and
Madame Curie happened to sit together on a bench by Lake
Geneva. Dusk was slowly drawing in. A street lamp shone
by the shore, its silvery reflection dancing on the surface of
the mauve, rippling water. They watched idly, in silence, the
ripples of the light on the water. Suddenly they started to
talk, but their voices were now calm and unruffled. "Why
does the reflection break on the water at this spot and not
at another one?" asked Einstein. He was once more gripped
by his curiosity in daily phenomena. Marie Curie's dry voice
acquired some of the warmth that rang in the meditative
tones of Einstein. They exchanged formulae, figures, quoted
kws of physics. They were both-so it seemed to me-pro-
ceeding across the silvery bridge toward a better world of
immovable kws, removed from the confused restlessness of
man.
Music was another method of escape for Einstein, and
always an infallible one. His contempt for social conventions,
and his total indifference to the impression he created, made
him indulgent toward his own attempts at escapism.
One evening the Committee went to dine in a restaurant
at Les Eaux Vives. The conversation ran on the events of the
132
day, avoiding the dissensions that had made themselves
apparent. A band played a soft accompaniment to the noise
of voices and the clatter of plates. Einstein was listening. He
was oblivious to what was being said. Music was his supreme
refuge. Suddenly he got up, spoke for a moment to the vio-
linist. He took the violin from him and started to play. A smile
reappeared on his face, his features relaxed as though he
were abandoning himself to a dream. He gave no thought to
the spectacle he made on the platform of a fashionable res-
taurant, with all eyes riveted on him. He was alone and he
was playing, as though cleansing himself from all the accu-
mulated bitterness. The waiters went around in circles,
trying not to make too much noise with their plates. The
band rested, and the musicians lolled about with the vacant,
weary air of men suddenly interrupted in their work Conver-
sations were resumed once the first moment of curiosity was
over. It was late. A dance band had come to replace the more
serious music. Young couples arrived, hurriedly taking their
seats; they had come to dance and they stared impatiently
at the violinist with his air of an old virtuoso who lingered
alone on the platform. They began to indicate that he was no
more than a nuisance. Einstein went on playing, impervious
to his surroundings. When somebody finally ventured to tell
Tiim that it was late and time to go, he returned the violin to
the musician with a smile of apology, and walked away, still
with the air of a sleepwalker.
The Committee of Intellectual Co-operation was a mirror
that reflected in its restricted sphere all the fundamental
vices of the League. Einstein was put off from the very
start by the spirit of compromise that warped all relations,
the hypocrisy that maintained a fiction of justice and equity.
133
But Geneva still enjoyed at the time the prestige of being
the theater of the world. Its fundamental vices could still
pass as growing pains.
It was as yet an incomplete body. Germany was still a beg-
gar at the gate and the U.S.S.R. was absent. There was rea-
son to believe that the U.S., which had entrenched itself
behind a policy of abstention, was having a change of heart.
The League offered the only field propitious to great interna-
tional gatherings. The general climate was one of obstinate
hopes, of long-lived illusions. It was a time of optimism,
especially in Germany. The new stability of economic and
social conditions seemed to justify the birth of great and
daring dreams. Germany had experienced almost overnight
the miracle of the stabilization of its currency. Nnfhfng excep-
tional had taken place, there was no special reason why the
mark should have received the touch of the magic wand at
Just that moment and been transformed from worthless pa-
per to real money. It might just as well have happened the
day before or the day after. . . .
The instigators of the collapse simply realized that things
had gone too far. They also became aware that the resistance
of the Ruhr was a blind alley into which the country had
strayed. Germany had found in Stresemann a politician who
had enough courage, the rare courage of unpopularity, to
undertake the liquidation of the defeat. It had also survived
an attack that might have caused the collapse of the Weimar
Republic, still weakened by the economic crisis. The putsch
that had broken out in Munich had failed, revealing the
weakness of an absurd leader who had abandoned his troops.
This leader, covered with ridicule, a colorless and grotesque
individual, was serving his punishment in a fortress and pre-
- 134
paring a large, vulgar, and pretentious book Mein Kampf.
The trial of Adolf Hitler revealed a classic case of mytho-
mania. An American student of psychiatry in Munich, H. R.
Knickerbocker, happened to be present Fascinated by this
pathological case, he found that politics offered a krger field
of observation than any clinic for mental disease, and it
was as a newspaperman that he made a brilliant career in the
American press. Rid of a maniac and of his crazy following
of sexual perverts and drug fiends, rid of them forever, so
one hoped, Germany was to live through several years of
startling prosperity.
Einstein followed all that was happening with immense
interest. He had always been intensely curious about day-to-
day events. His escapism had nothing in common with being
au-dessus de la melee. He was, as we said before, strangely
in his element in matters of economy and finance. He liked to
meet experts and put pertinent questions to them. This acute
interest in the mechanism of economics was the interest of
a technician in complicated machinery, in short, in all
machinery. He also followed political developments closely.
He knew, of course, the majority of the men in power, some
of the political leaders had become his friends, and when he
discussed topical events with them it was more from a feeling
of personal responsibility than from mere interest. But the
game between the parties and the maneuvers of the politi-
cians only aroused his amusement.
One day during a government crisis the composition of a
parliamentary majority was being discussed. Stresemann ex-
plained the changing relations of political forces and their
influence on the formation of a new cabinet. The British
Ambassador, Lord D'Abernon, spoke with the weight of his
- 135 -
long experience on the importance of economic factors.
Einstein was silent, his well-shaped fingers cIaspJBg,the arms
of the chair, his sparkling eyes moving from one person to
another they had completely forgotten him in the animation
of their discussion. Suddenly he burst out laughing. "Now I
know what happens in Cabinet crises/* he said. "I remember
a game I played as a child. The chairs stood in a row, one
chair less than the number of children. The children hustled
around, each trying to get a seat" He laughed, pleased at his
discovery. The lorgnette view of the world had served its
J * ,x .. A^^
purpose once more. After a pause, the politicians could not
help joining in his laughter.
Einstein's interest in the social plans of the times, as well
as economic conditions and political incidents, increased
with the years, The individual is becoming more and more
conscious of his dependence on society," he wrote, analyzing
the difference between man the solitary human being and
man the social human being, who tries to establish an equi-
librium between the desire to leave a lasting memory of
himself and the desire to ameliorate the life of his fellow
beings. "It is quite possible,** said Einstein, "that the relative
force of these two tendencies is, fundamentally, determined
by heredity.** But this relation between man and society was
changing all the time. This evolution this transference of
stress constituted, according to Einstein, "the very essence
of the crisis of our times.** The individual no longer looked
on his dependence on society as a positive factor, an organic
link or a protection, but more as a menace to his natural
rights or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his social
position was such that the egotistiq tendencies of his being
were constantly pushed f orwarcl, while his social tendencies,
136
originally weaker, progressively deteriorated. Einstein out-
lined this dark picture in 1949. But the disappearance of the
social conscience, which he then observed with such regret,
had been clear to him even in the years when nothing
seemed to endanger man's security or conspire against his
dignity.
A time of prosperity always accentuates innate selfishness
and the desire for immediate enjoyment. Berlin had become
an opulent city, in which poverty no longer disturbed the
conscience of the wealthy; it was a city proud of its spiritual
progress. But amid this intense intellectual activity moral
principles weakened. As if by reaction, however, to this in-
difference born of well-being, this blunted social sense, the
sense of individual responsibility became stronger still in
Einstein. This man, isolated in thought, this man, free from
personal emotion, experienced with the passage of years a
growing feeling of fellowship with other human beings.
"Man can only find a meaning in a life which is so brief and
perilous by devoting himself to society /*
137
Chapter VIII
IT WAS a new quarter of Berlin, even more lacking in per-
sonality than the other parts of this town which, except for
the center, was stamped with an impersonal ugliness. It was
inhabited by civil servants and prosperous tradesmen, but
its anonymous character also attracted quite a number of
"kept women/* mistresses of high officials or big business-
men. This aura of illicitness removed some of the respect-
ability from the otherwise solidly bourgeois atmosphere and
lent to the very name of the quarter Bayrisches Viertel a
faint flavor of sin.
The Haberlandstrasse, quiet and lined with trees, looked
so much like all the other parallel streets that it was always
necessary to read the signs to be sure one was in the right
place. No. 5 was like all the neighboring houses, uniformly
ugly and unpretentiously comfortable. Einstein's flat cannot
have been very different from the one on the top, or the one
at the bottom, the one opposite or the one next door. The
large front rooms were full of sun; the old solid family furni-
139
ture so popular in Germany contrasted with the pale walls*
The reception rooms, the large sitting room, dominated by
a grand piano, reflected the taste of an epoch rather than the
aesthetic standards of the occupants; the need for comfort
was stronger than the desire for personal touches. Perhaps
it seemed all the more colorless because it served as a
background to the impressive figure of Einstein, The un-
distinguished proportions of the rooms accentuated the
picturesque effect of his person, and the light-colored walls
magnified his broad, easy gestures in the same way that they
echoed his loud laughter.
The dining room, dark like most Berlin rooms, had the
warmth that intimate rooms usually have; it resounded with
the good-natured gaiety of family meals. Elsa's two daugh-
ters lived with them. Nobody really knew that they were not
Einstein's daughters. They called bfm Albert, but in the way
one would address a young father, with the indulgent,
slightly condescending tenderness of the new generation.
Einstein treated them with the affection of a father who was
also a friend. They both looked very frail, with excessively
slim and supple waists, narrow shoulders, necks that were
too slender. The elder, lisa, reminded one of a plant reared
with too much care and easily affected by a change of tem-
perature. She looked, even after her marriage, like an anxious
young girl; her face, with its delicate features, was revealing
in its extreme mobility and at the same time mysterious. She
asked for tenderness and protection, but there was a reserve
in her that created a barrier, as though everything, even love,
might offend her. She was the idol of her mother and sister,
who showed their affection in the endless care with which
they surrounded her.
140
The younger, Margot, smaller and even more frail, was at
that time completely overcome with shyness which the anx-
ious expression on her face betrayed. Early in life she had
discovered she had a talent for sculpture. One would have
thought that in the comfortable circumstances in which she
lived she would have found no difficulty in developing her
gift. But it was precisely this that hindered her. She was
reluctant to show her work. If her mother forced her to do so,
she watched the reactions of the spectators suspiciously. She
kept asking herself if she was being praised for being the
daughter of Einstein or for the merits of her work. If she had
been poor and unknown she would have been quicker to
reveal her gifts. Her sense of humor, inherited from her
mother, was a strange contrast to her extreme sensitivity.
She had also inherited the dominating feature of the family,
the almost passionate desire for self-rfEacement. She needed
j. -^i l ^,^^^*"^
the shock of a great joy or great grief to fulfill her promise.
Margot could easily have passed as Einstein's daughter, for
in spite of their very different physique there was a family
likeness between them, a similarity in their attitude toward
human beings and things; they both felt out of their element
in this world. Einstein had always had a special affection for
the silent child, and liked to have her near him, ethereal as a
floating shadow; he kept on his writing desk one of her
strangely expressive, austerely molded statuettes.
Of all the things Einstein had ever done for her, Elsa was
most moved by the affection he showed her daughters. She
was, perhaps, a mother before everything else, a passionate,
intense, anxious mother, who tried with great effort to con-
trol this passion, as she controlled her natural exuberance.
She had allowed herself to age prematurely, either through
* 141
laziness or resignation, as though she had deliberately
wanted to put an end to her life as a woman. Her face had
grown heavy, her hair gray before its time. She who re-
proached her husband for the carelessness of his appearance
was equally open to reproach herself. Tousled gray wisps of
hair hung over her face; she pushed them back as one chases
away a fly., and casually flung on a hat, flattening it with a
friendly tap of her hand. "Nobody pays any attention to me/'
she would say, with satisfaction in her voice.
Only her eyes, slightly lost against the background of her
fair skin, had kept their vivid blue, a very young blue that
was surprising in the prematurely old face. But her expres-
sion was vague and uncertain because of her extreme short-
sightedness. Her glance groped around people and things,
remembering more than it actually took in. Her disability
created imaginary terrors around her. She advanced with
bent head toward people she did not recognize, stumbling
against furniture; at meals she peered at her plate with a
lorgnette. An American humorist has told the story that one
day at a banquet she started to cut up the orchids lying on
her plate. Einstein, in spite of his excellent" eyesight, knew
the depths of fear that his wife had to go through. He was
always beside her when she came down the stairs. He did
not say, as many people do to the shortsighted: "Just put
your foot there, it will be all right, one step is exactly like the
other." He would slip his arm gently under hers, reassure her
with a slight pressure when she stumbled, and when the
stairs came to an end, smile down at her as though realizing
her relief and complimenting her upon her exploit.
The haze in which she lived added to her shyness, and
possibly her isolation was deliberate. It seemed that she
142 *
found shelter in her weakness, that she liked this blurred
world that concealed from her some of the ugliness and
greed of the real world. She confirmed this suspicion by re-
fusing to wear spectacles and using an old-fashioned lor-
gnette, though she had abandoned all coquetry. Her kindness
was also deliberately shortsighted. A merciless observer, she
really knew all that was being hidden from her: often a
gleam of malice would appear in her blue eyes, only to be
dispelled by her natural indulgence.
She was fully conscious of having been favored by destiny
in being allowed to share Albert Einstein's life; but she did
not draw any personal pride from the fact, or attribute any
merit to herself. She had surrendered herself to him com-
pletely, and had no other care but her children and his well-
being. But her love was in no way an unconditional, devout
admiration. She knew better than anyone else some of the
great man's weaknesses, and certain dark sides of his great
qualities. Perhaps she admired more than anything else his
faithfulness to himself, a faithfulness that very often alarmed
her. The stories she most liked to tell about him were those
that illustrated his disregard of convention and his refusal
to compromise. Einstein deliberately gave himself a lot of
trouble to make his family as happy as possible. In The
World as I see It, in which he questions the reason for our
brief passage on this earth, he says: "From the point of view
of daily life and without going deeper, we exist for our fellow
men, and particularly for those on whose smiles and well-
being all our happiness depends."
But Elsa knew that Einstein could belong to no one com-
pletely. She knew his subconscious fear of all that might
interfere with his need of absolute independence. She knew
143
that he did not want to get excessively attached to any hu-
man being. If he did become so, it was almost against his
will. He was vulnerable, and sensitive, but his sensitivity was
in bondage to his thought. Elsa knew that even in his deep
attachment to her he gave her only a share of his presence,
that he was never completely hers. Einstein found in his
private life the happiness which, according to his own defi-
nition, depended on the happiness of those around him. The
light that emanated from him was the light of their lives. He
liked to see his wife and his stepdaughters laugh. I have
rarely seen so relaxed an atmosphere as the one in their
home, an atmosphere protected from the outside world by
a secret conspiracy of gaiety. They were never solemn. A
charming foreign artist who had come to sculpt Einstein was
so moved by being in his presence that she spoke of him all
the time as der Genie (the Genius), instead of das Genie,
using the wrong article in German. They found this very
funny. Not only because she pronounced the word with an
accent, but because of the idea that their darling Albertle
as Elsa called him in the Swabian way could be burdened
with such a grandiloquent name in ordinary life. For a long
time the family went on asking whether The Genius was
back home, what The Genius would have for dinner ... A
visitor might have heard himself announced as someone who
had come to see The Genius and would wonder why every-
body laughed, Einstein himself louder than all the others.
In those peaceful years Einstein worked a lot at scientific
research. He worked in his own way, pursuing an idea with
the tenacity of a man endowed with a rare, a terrible power
of concentration.
One day Paul Valery, with the acute curiosity he had
144
about people, asked Einstein to describe tow he worked.
Einstein looked at him with open surprise. Valery repeated
his question. He wanted to know whether Einstein used a
writing pad or little bits of paper to put down his ideas. "I
don't use anything," said Einstein. "Ideas are rare things,
you know.**
In 1924 Langevin sent Tn'in a manuscript, a doctoral thesis
in which Prince Louis de Broglie had set down the ideas that
were to form the basis of the new wave mechanics. "I re-
member so vividly," wrote Einstein years after, "the pleasure
and excitement with which he talked to me about it and I
also remember following his explanations with hesitation and
doubt." But having read the thesis, he realized at once how
important it was. He published a memorandum in January
1925 in the report on the sessions of the Prussian Academy
of Science in which, quting_aLJthe same time the recent
work of an Indian scientist, Bose, he formulated statistics
applicable to a group of particles which are impossible to
distinguish one from the other. "In drawing attention to this
new idea of wave mechanics," Prince de Broglie wrote later,
"^Einstein's article undoubtedly helped enormously to hasten
its development."
Einstein himself was now setting out on a new path, whose
branches might lead to spectacular discoveries, but which
itself led only toward the unknown. It was to separate him
later from most of those who until now had followed him in
all his discoveries. It was the beginning of the drama that
was to make of Tifm an increasingly solitary figure, challeng-
ing alone even the intellectual universe he had himself cre-
ated. It was perhaps one of the greatest dramas ever experi-
enced in the realm of human inspiration, a drama of which
145
we have not yet seen the end and which, tomorrow, like
every inaccessible pinnacle, may suddenly be illuminated by
the sim or wrapped in darkness.
Professor Inf eld was able to extricate the main features of
Einstein's work and make it understandable to the lay mind.
He stresses the point that the theory of relativity was the
creation of one man. Its principles have remained unchanged
until this day. But it is by comparison only a small part of
the common effort of all physicists who are trying to work
out a consistent theory of nature's phenomena. The revolu-
tion that has changed the physics of our era is not that of
relativity but that of the quantum theory. Though at the
start the quantum theory was independent of the theory of
relativity, though the work of Planck preceded the first pub-
lications of Einstein, one cannot, according to Infeld, con-
ceive of it without the part that relativity played in its
development. De Broglie's work was influenced by relativity
as much as by Einstein's corpuscular theory of light. A whole
generation of physicists has been inspired not only by Ein-
stein's main work but also by his subsidiary research. This is
what Infeld had to say about it: "There is a certain irony in
the fact that Einstein assumed the part of champion of the
great revolution because later he turned his back on this
revolution, which he had helped to create. As time went on
he withdrew more and more from the young generation of
scientists, most of whom pursued their research chiefly in the
domain of the quantum theory."
Infeld recalls a conversation that lends a particular poign-
ancy to this discord. "I once asked Einstein: c Why do you
regard the quantum theory and its development with such
disapproval when it was after all your own work that brought
146 -
it to life?* Einstein replied: 1 may have given it its impetus,
but I always considered these ideas transitory. I never be-
lieved that others would treat them more seriously than I did
myself/"
In examining all the objections to the attitude that he had
adopted, all the criticisms coming even from his most de-
voted collaborators, Einstein explained that he fully appreci-
ated what the statistical theory of the quantum had done for
the development of theoretical physics. He did not disap-
prove of the theory but to put it more subtly it no longer
satisfied him completely. The reasons for this were deeper
than those he mentioned in his conversation with Infeld.
They were not only the reasons of a theoretical physicist but
also those of a man whose persistent object was to reach a
concept of the whole of the universe reasons closely linked
with his way of thinking, his tendency to synthesis, reasons
buried in his very nature, deriving from his particular type
of sensitivity. Probably the sweeping range of his mind is
conditioned as much by his scientific logic as by the moral
standards which govern him, and which nothing but abso-
lute perfection can satisfy. Speaking one day of the Danish
physicist Niels Bohr, Einstein said that the unique instinct
and the sensibility that enabled Bohr to discover the essential
kws for spectral lines and the electronic states of atoms, as
well as their importance in chemistry, always seemed a mir-
acle to him. And he ended his appreciation with this reveal-
ing sentence: "This is sublime harmony in the realms of
thought/* Einstein has, all his life, searched for this "sublime
harmony,** and he is still searching for it now.
In the years when he became more and more conscious of
this fact, his scientific efforts acquired both greater scope
147 -
and depth. One of the results of this was that mathematics
began to play a larger part in his work. A colleague quoted
one of his characteristically caustic remarks: **Since mathe-
maticians have invaded the theory of relativity, I myself
have ceased to understand it." He knew, however, that this
^invasion" was necessary, that his ideas had to be developed
along mathematical lines. During his studies he had in a way
neglected mathematics in favor of physics. In what he called
his "obituary" notes, he wrote: "When I was a student, I did
not realize that access to the principal concepts of physics
is linked with the subtlest mathematical methods."
More and more frequently he chose his assistants from
mathematicians. One of the chief of them at that time was
Professor Walter Mayer, a small, round individual who, at
first sight, seemed crushed beneath the personality of Ein-
stein. Einstein's family called him Mayerle and this Swabian
diminutive suited him to perfection. But in Mayer's self-
effacement there was more affection than respect. He gently
contradicted Einstein, interrupted hi when necessary, fol-
lowed up an argument and smiled a little mysteriously, his
head on one side, as he watched the figures drawn up in front
of him. "It is he who produced all my calculations; his skill
is fantastic, you know," Einstein used to say.
Einstein's confidence in mathematics increased all the
time. At one moment he considered it the "true creative
principle." He was convinced that with purely mathematical
constructions one could discover the ideas and the laws that
govern them which would give us the key to all natural
phenomena. This knowledge of natural phenomena would
not, however, open up a complete, a final vision of the world.
Only pure speculation could help to co-ordinate it As years
- 148 *
went by, Einstein reached the following conclusion, which
he has recently made public; "A theory can be proved by
experiment, but no path leads from experiment to the birth
of a theory." It was this conviction that turned his mind to-
ward philosophical speculation. One of Einstein's colleagues
heard Professor Harnack declare in a lecture at Berlin Uni-
versity: "We complain quite wrongly that our generation has
produced no philosophers. The fact is that today's philoso-
phers sit in another department their names are Planck and
Einstein/* Einstein himself has not always been conscious of
the philosophical importance of his scientific research. He
had a mistrust of metaphysics, he often spoke of the risk that
"thought should degenerate into metaphysics or 'empty
verbiage/ ** At Princeton in 1921, he said: "I am convinced
that philosophers have impeded the progress of scientific
thought by removing certain fundamental concepts from the
empirical domain where they were controlled and carrying
them toward the intangible heights of the a priori."
This almost instinctive rejection of a philosophical inter-
pretation of his ideas was, in the years when he was first
subjected to public curiosity, more a defense against the in-
vasion of amateurs and facile interpretation than an estab-
lished attitude. His actual starting point was as much that of
a thinker as of a physicist. Hans Reichenbach, now professor
of philosophy at the University of California, repeated a par-
ticularly revealing conversation he had with Einstein: "Once
when I asked Professor Einstein how he had arrived at his
theory of relativity, he replied that he had discovered it
because he was so firmly convinced of the harmony of the
universe.** This faith was and still is the very foundation of
his scientific effort. But a creed is not a philosophy. "Ein-
- 149 -
stein's work contains," added Reichenbach, however, "more
implicit philosophy fhan do many philosophic systems.**
Gradually Einstein came to realize this himself. Now he is
certain of it. He has often repeated to Infeld: "I am more of
a philosopher than a physicist." Philosophers have examined
his work in order to define the system projected in it, which
he himself has not constructed, leaving to others apart from
certain indications, like road signs the task o interpreting
it. On the occasion of his seventieth birthday, the Library of
Living Philosophers, an American series of publications sup-
ported by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Council of
Scientific Societies in Washington, devoted its seventh vol-
ume to Einstein, with contributions by all the greatest phi-
losophers and physicists. The physicist Philip Frank defined
Einstein's philosophy as "logical positivism." Reichenbach,
trjfttig to qualify the "philosophical significance of relativity,'*
found that Einstein's was more a philosophical attitude than
a philosophical system, characterized chiefly by the depar-
ture from Kant's a priori method of argument. "Let us hope
that this evolution of thought will continue," he wrote, "and
that even those philosophers who today still defend the
aprioristic philosophy against the attacks of the mathemat-
ical physicist will adhere to it." This interpretation did not
meet with Einstein's approval. When he was asked to give
his opinion on the articles in the symposium, on the state-
ments, objections, and criticisms that it contained, he ex-
plained his position in an article called "Answer to Critics."
This reply is preceded by a remark which betrays a bad
humor that is rare with him. "After a few vain efforts I dis-
covered that the mentality behind some of the essays was so
radically opposed to mine that I find it impossible to say
150 -
anything adequate on the subject." This bad humor is chiefly
directed against those who maintained the finality of the
quantum theory. To the question as to whether he consid-
ered that Reichenbach's statements were close to the truth,
he replied with a sort of mental pirouette: *I can only reply
like Pontius Pilate: what is truth?"
Although he refused to discuss his own attitude, Einstein
nevertheless refuted Reichenbach's criticism of Poincare's
conventionalism and the confusion that the latter was sup-
posed to have created. He refuted it in a dialogue in which
he made Poincare discuss the matter with his opponent. The
dialogue ended with a statement by an anonymous non-
positivist. Einstein also gave a lot of his attention to another
article in the symposium, written by Henry Margenau, a
physicist at Yale University, under the title ^Einstein's Con-
ception of Reality." Margenau affirmed that there was an
apparent contradiction in Einstein's thought, an underlying
current of empiricism on one side and on the other the asser-
tion that fundamental principles are "free inventions of
human intellect." This remark, said Einstein in his "Answer,"
was perfectly justified and he would like to analyze this
obvious fluctuation. A logical conceptual system becomes
physics when its concepts and assertions are brought into
relationship with a world of experience. In this case the
attitude of the scientist is empirical. But in fact there is no
logical path from the empirically given to that conceptual
world, and recognizing the logical independence of a system,
the scientist turns toward rationalism. "The danger of such
an attitude," wrote Einstein, "lies in the fact that in search-
ing for a system one can lose all contact with the world of
experience. It seems impossible to me not to waver between
the two extremes."
* 151
In this explanation Einstein gave as precise a definition o
his own position as possible. He replied at the same time to
the oft-debated question of his dependence on Kant, which
Margenau had greatly emphasized "I did not grow up in
the Kant tradition. It was only much later that I understood
how valuable his doctrine was, apart from the errors obvious
today. It can be summarized in the sentence: Reality is not
given to us, but put to us."
With this answer Einstein clarified the affiliation of his
ideas. He also opened up the possibility of establishing the
time when he became conscious of them himself which
was rather late in his development. He was no longer afraid
of being reproached with what he called "the metaphysical
original sin." His mind was now firm, sure of itself, and
nothing could affect it any more.
There was another occasion when Einstein allowed the
functioning of his mind to be seen in action, as though dis-
playing his spiritual tools to the world. Professor Hadamard,
in his Essay on the Psychology of Invention in the Mathe-
matical Field, written in 1945, asked several scientists to ex-
plain the mechanics, the process, of their mathematical
research. Einstein gave him the following answer: "The
words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not
seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The
physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought
are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be
Voluntarily reproduced and combined. There is, of course,
a certain connection between those elements and the rele-
vant logical concepts. It is also clear that the desire to reach
finally logically connected concepts is the emotional basis of
this rather vague pky with the elements I have mentioned
152
above. But taken from the psychological viewpoint, this com-
binatory play is the essential feature in productive thought."
The words "emotional basis" are the most revealing in
describing Einstein's work. He never ceased to underline the
emotional stress that enters into scientific research. In a
speech he made on Planck's sixtieth birthday, he analyzed
its stimulating effects. He believed with Schopenhauer that
one of the strongest motives leading toward Art and Science
was escape from everyday life, with its painful crudity and
its hopeless dreariness, and escape also from the fetters of
our ever shifting desires. But there was another, more power-
ful motive beside this negative one. The same motive too
and this is characteristic of Einstein's thoughtas the one
that animates the painter, the -poet, the philosopher, and the
scientist who try to form a comprehensive and simplified
image of the world in order to rise above the world of
physical experience: to create a substitute for it with this
spiritual construction. Into this image and the formation of
this image, Einstein then said, "man moves the center of
gravity of his sentimental life and looks for the calm and
balance that he cannot find in the too narrow circle of his
personal life/*
He himself moved all his human happiness toward tins
center, broke all his ties with human matters, in order to
belong completely to this image of the world. This voluntary
immolation, this total transference have, with Einstein, the
same quality as religious fervor. They are, in fact, his reli-
gion. "It would be difficult to find," he once wrote, "a scien-
tific mind which penetrated into the depths of all things and
did not have its own religion."
Like so many men of his generation, whether Catholic,
153 *
Protestant, or Jew, Einstein had freed himself from his faith
quite naturally, without friction or conflict, as if overcoming
growing pains. But in contrast with many freethinkers of
his time, he did not become either frantically atheist or anti-
clerical. In this, as in so many other things, his clear-minded-
ness enabled him to keep a sense of proportion. He denied
that science and religion need necessarily be irreconcilable
enemies. This conflict belonged, according to him, to a stage
in science which had long been surpassed namely, when
reason rebelled against religious terror. Science, embracing
larger and vaster horizons, had now left flat rationalism be-
hind. The real conflict between faith and science revolved
around the concept of a personal god. Einstein refused to
admit a God who would reward or punishjthe beings that he
himself created, a God who could be reached by prayer or
angered by the neglect of some jgcular rite. But he recog-
nized the existence of a force superior to our petty lives,
which follow their course between the limits of what is pos-
sible, illuminated only by the light of knowledge. *TThe
knowledge of what exists" wrote Einstein, "does not auto-
matically teach us anything about what should exist. The
knowledge of truth as such is a wonderful thing, but it is so
little capable of serving as a guide that it cannot even prove
the justification and the value of the aspiration to know the
truth."
Einstein calls this superior force that orientates our life
and gives it its superpersonal content cosmic religion. It is
this religion that has taken the place of the ethics of a reli-
gion of fear, that has based morality on man's consciousness
of the nobility of his aims and on his sense of dignity. This
faith became firmer and deeper with Einstein as the years
* 154
went by. It was this faith that caused him to say in 1940:
"Science without religion is lame; religion without science
is blind.'* Religion as he understands it reveals on the one
hand the immovable laws of the universe and on the other
the precariousness of all mortal things. But it also has for
him, increasingly, a mysterious element. He said one day:
"The man who is not familiar with this sense of the mysteri-
ous, and who has lost the faculty of wonder and veneration,
is a dead man/' It is as if his consciousness of the mysterious
grew with the number of new laws of the universe that were
revealed to him, the laws that direct the nebulae and the
atoms.
One might have expected to find in a man who had
reached so far beyond the limits of knowledge the pride in
speculative power and the superiority of an experienced trav-
eler who returns from a difficult expedition smiling at our
hesitations when faced with a hitherto unknown path. But
what happened was the opposite. At every stage in his life
Einstein experienced a secret wonder and the feeling that
he was facing a remarkable adventure. He seems to have
only just started the exploration of man and of the universe.
One day I spoke to him about something I had seen in a
paper on the existence of a human fluid, the possibilities of
which were now under examination. I did not know whether
the matter should be treated seriously; it seemed to be linked
with the obsolete theories of human magnetism and spirit-
ualistic research. To my surprise Einstein did not shrug his
shoulders. "It is possible that there are human emanations of
which we are ignorant. You remember how skeptical every-
one was about electric currents and invisible waves? Science
is still in its infancy/' He refused to consider everything
155 -
mysterious as alien to exact science. In his "Answer," written
on the eve of his seventieth birthday, he illustrates this con-
viction with a brief conversation he had one day with a
theoretical physicist: "He: I am inclined to believe in telep-
athy. I: This has probably more relation to physics than to
psychology. He: Yes."
In his voluntary solitude, new horizons opened up in front
of him, beyond the things that our obtuse senses can take in
today. His great dream was to discover a physical science, a
new science, capable of penetrating the mystery to which
our brief passage on this earth is subordinated.
One of his colleagues, Sommerfeld, asked him one day:
*Is there a reality outside us?"
Einstein replied: "Yes, I believe there is."
He believes also that with the exploration of this reality
outside us a new era would begin for humanity.
156
Chapter IX
"THE moral urge," Einstein said one day, "is the most valu-
able traditional endowment of humanity." He makes it clear
that this imperative is not necessarily connected with auster-
ity, with privations, or with accepted sacrifices: "Moral
behavior does not simply consist in giving up certain pleas-
ures in life, but rather in taking an interest in a happier fate
for all men."
It is in keeping with this feeling of moral imperative that
Einstein lent the prestige of his name and association to an
enterprise which he warmly acclaimed the foundation of
university courses in Davos. Though he had always been in
perfect health himself, he was particularly sensitive to the
misery of young people removed from the circle of the living
for any length of time through disease. In the fresh air and
brilliant sunshine of high altitudes, they recoveredor at
least they had a hope of recovering their health. But the
magic mountain meant to them a break with their former
environment, months or years lost as far as their studies were
concerned. With an understanding rare among the healthy,
Einstein realized how much a young human being, preoccu-
pied with his physical condition, loses his vitality, and how
much the necessity for a total effort in the struggle for life
becomes blunted, making the return to normal life difficult.
He believed that to continue their studies, so far as their
physical condition allowed them to do so, would be a strong
stimulant to the young invalids. In his enthusiasm for the
scheme, Einstein agreed, at the beginning of the year 1928,
to deliver some lectures at Davos himself.
His generous gesture, however, had almost fatal conse-
quences. The high altitude proved dangerous to him: his
heart was unable to stand it. He was taken down from the
mountains a very sick man. Einstein looked upon his con-
dition with the same detachment as he did upon all that
happened to him. The proximity of death had no more mean-
ing to him than that of life. For Elsa, however, the shock was
terrible. Even when perfectly fit, her husband always seemed
fragile to her, a precious being, constantly surrounded with
multiple dangers. She never forgot the months she spent
then, trembling for his life. Later her happy moments were
always haunted by those months of anxiety. She watched
him., furtively, because he did not like to be the object of
attention. She looked for the signs of fatigue on his face, the
dark patches under the eyes; she trembled whenever he was
late for an appointment, but dared not tremble in front of
him. When the waiting had been too long, she would say,
with her face lined with anguish but forcing a smile to her
lips: "You are a little late, Albert. . . /' From then on the
tragedy of Elsa Einstein was continuous, torn as she was be-
tween her feelings as a mother and her excessive concentra-
158
tion on the man she loved, with her constant fear for his life.
Albert Einstein was condemned to absolute immobility.
He spent several months in bed and was convalescent for a
long time. He was an impossible invalid. As soon as his
strength returned he refused to be careful. He avoided the
vigilance of the doctors; and also, though with greater diffi-
culty, the vigilance of Elsa. Very soon he demanded his pipe,
which had been strictly forbidden. As though to show his
powers of self-control, he would pull at his extinguished pipe
before lighting it. Every pipe he lit was like a dagger thrust
into Elsa's heart.
"How many have you smoked already?" she asked timidly.
"This is the first," he invariably replied.
"But I saw you just now . . /*
"Well, it might have been the second.**
"The fourth at least," continued Elsa.
"You're not going to tell me you're better at mathematics
than I am/* said Einstein, laughing.
The moment came when he refused to consider himself an
invalid any longer. "It's all over/' he said. "We won't talk
any more about it." Once more he radiated health. His air of
vibrating vitality, his sense of fulfillment, made everyone
around Trim appear almost corpselike. Only pretty women,
with their make-up, the sparkle of their eyes, and their easy
laughter, managed to make themselves felt in his presence.
The illness served almost as a youth cure. He returned to
work, in his quiet way, as though he had been storing away
in peace the harvest of long solitary thoughts. He. spoke
about it as little as he had always done and only his intimate
associates were allowed into the secret. But suddenly every-
body learned that he was very soon to publish an important
159
work. The news crossed the ocean. Journalists and American
publishers showered cables upon him and offered astronom-
ical sums for a short precis, or at least an indication as to its
contents. In the quiet Haberlandstrasse cars waited from
morning till night Journalists from all countries crowded
around the house. Photographers directed their cameras
upon the front door. Einstein retreated in horror in face of
the first journalists who assaulted him. "I don't understand!
What is all this fuss about?" He really seemed not to see the
least relation between the work he was producing and the
curious crowd that knocked at his door.
His thesis, published in the reports of sessions of the Prus-
sian Academy, covered no more than five pages. When it
was transmitted to an American newspaper it proved to be
quite incomprehensible to the ordinary mortal. But the pub-
lic did not dare show its disappointment It found, on the
contrary, a magic quality in this series of equations and
geometrical formulae, as it might have done in the abraca-
dabra signs on amulets. Einstein's celebrity was now such
that everything that concerned Tifm acquired "news value."
The little manuscript was instantly bought by the admin-
istrators of Wesleyan University and deposited, as a treasure,
in the Olin Library.
As for the scientific world, Einstein's thesis appeared to it
as a revolution. His "Theory of the Unified Field** sum-
marized in a series of equations the laws that govern the two
fundamental forces of the universe, gravitation and electro-
magnetism. Einstein tried to identify the attraction of gravi-
tation and to reduce it to an electromagnetic phenomena.
His attempt was a logical consequence of his preceding work,
the search for a synthesis that would embrace the universe.
- 160
THE EINSTEIN HOUSE IN CAPUTH, NEAR BERLIN
house rose in front of m innnnnrrnmieV -mnA**-**
MRS. ELSA EIXSTEIX IX THE HOUSE AT CAPUTH
tc . . . she had provided Swabian dishes, fried liver pasties with small
egg noodles/'
He said later on: "The idea that there should exist two struc-
tures in space, independent of one another the gravitating
space and the electromagnetic one is intolerable.** His
thesis, the first insurrection against this duality, has been
qualified by certain physicists like Professor Frank as a "work
of great logical and aesthetic perfection for the initiated.**
But his theory could also, according to Planck's terminology,
be considered as a deviation toward metaphysics. In fact
Einstein later rejected as unsatisfactory the results at which
he arrived in 1929. He realized that he had been wrong. But
this rejection did not affect the direction he had followed. In
the eyes of young physicists, however, the road to which he
was now obstinately to adhere seemed to lead toward a
nebulous unknown, certainly a problematic one. It was at the
moment when his success was most startling, most spectacu-
lar, that Einstein began to branch away from contemporary
physics.
The sensation produced by his first attempt at a synthesis
was due to elements some of which have little relation to
scientific criticism. From the moment he emerged from ob-
scurity a subtle combination of events took place around
him, which created a special emotional tension. There was
a tendency, so to speak, to push him onto a platform and
make him the target for attack He was always the center of
attention, and usually reluctantly so. The publication of his
theory on the unified field coincided with his fiftieth birth-
day. It seemed a providential coincidence. Everybody was
filled with admiration, whether it was because he was only
fifty and had been famous for so long, or because, his youth
left behind, he was still brimming over with activity, as
though all the promises of life were still in the future. In the
- 161 -
eagerness to celebrate liis birthday, there was a desire to
identify oneself with him, the pride of living in the same era
with him, of having known him or of being in the position
to know him.
The Weimar Republic, preparing to celebrate this day
with all the pomp it deserved, seemed to be celebrating its
own success at the same time. Germany was still on the crest
of the wave little did she know how short a time it was to
last A feeling of well-being is particularly conducive to
celebrations and these had an especially unanimous flavor.
Germany seemed to share with the whole world in exalting
its national hero, who symbolized bloodless victories in the
realms of thought. The rich Jews felt they were the richer
because he was one of them: to every persecuted Jew he
stood for the possibility of a revenge on destiny. He was at
the same time far above people and very near them: he was
a familiar figure both to the privileged who had had him as
their guest at one time or another and to the little shopgirl
who had seen his picture in the paper and was proud of re-
membering what he looked like. Without knowing much
about him, the man in the street knew that he was human
because of a few anecdotes that illustrated his sense of hu-
mor and his kindness. In the whirlpool created around his
birthday the conviction that he belonged to everyone, be-
yond classes and frontiers, was the chief impulse. And this
was perhaps the key to his celebrity: this capacity for oblit-
erating social barriers, for breaking down man's solitude by
making him join in the same faith, the same spiritual exalta-
tion.
Greetings arrived from all parts of the world; telegrams
came in such numbers that they were delivered in laundry
- 162
baskets. Masses of presents arrived together with the baskets
of telegrams. There were luxurious presents, exotic ones, and
eccentric onesgifts from millionaires and offerings from the
humble. Friends were asked to help unwrap the parcels. No
sooner had one present emerged from its case than Elsa
rushed to inspect another one. "After all, I must tell him what
he has received,** she kept repeating. For Albert Einstein
took no part in the chaos that had invaded his flat. He had
escaped a few days before and found refuge in the country.
Only his wife, who was to join him later, knew where he was.
On the great day she was wakened early by the telephone.
"How nice of you to call me, Albert.**
There was no telephone in the house where he was living.
Tit's important,** said Einstein; "there is a mistake in the cal-
culations I gave to my assistant." And he begged her to see
that they were corrected at once.
"But I wanted to tell you, Albert . . .** Elsa interrupted
him. One could feel him growing impatient on the other side
of the line. "Don't you know what day it is today?"* his wife
asked him at last.
He did not know, he had forgotten what he had run away
from. When his wife reminded him, he burst out laughing.
"Such a lot of fuss about a birthday. But don't forget what I
told you.** And he put down the receiver.
When his wife arrived in the afternoon, her arms filled
with gifts, he looked at her with astonishment. He had again
forgotten the morning's conversation. He was wearing his
oldest suit. "How did you manage to find it?** groaned Elsa.
"I had hidden it so well to prevent you from putting it on
again!**
"Ah, I know all about these hiding places!** Einstein re-
163
plied triumphantly. Elsa pointed accusingly at a tear in the
side. "The people who come to see me don't come to look at
my suit/' Einstein declared peremptorily.
He was very much amused when his wife told him, with
her gift for description, of the excitement she had had to face
alone. He was enjoying the cakes. Early spring was in the
air. He listened as if the story concerned someone else. He
was pleased, but not because his vanity was satisfied. He
seemed surprised by the incongruity of the interest mani-
fested in him and the futility of the occasion, as if he were
listening to a jester's bells in the fragrant sunny air. It was in
the same gay spirit that he composed the verses on the fol-
lowing page for those who had congratulated him.
The climax prepared for the anniversary ended, however,
in a pathetic comedy. The municipality of Berlin wanted to
show itself as generous as the atmosphere of the celebration
demanded. It was known that one of Einstein's passions was
sailing and that he escaped from town at every opportunity.
It was also known that his favorite lakes were the Havelsees,
which stretch sinuously between flat shores and sparse pine
forests rising from a sandy soil, like a softly dimmed silver
mirror under a milky sky. Berlin thought it could not do bet-
ter than give him a villa situated in a park by the lake. But
they had forgotten which was strange for so conscientious a
bureaucracy as the German one that the inhabitants of the
villa, which belonged to the city of Berlin, had been prom-
ised it for life. Slightly disconcerted, the municipal coun-
cilors offered Einstein a site in the same park. Under these
circumstances, he would have to build a house himself. He
discussed the matter with Elsa. She knew how much he
wanted to live in the country. A part of their savings could
- 164
H4**Cc.^c-*-*v --vw ?*. o^L*c.
y^-^c-o^S^*
^lAU *6^t *-4^-^^
*^*- * tfdc^t. /*--/ *i^est.
*&*-*'
Today it seems that all have tried
To show me their most pleasant side;
Friends from far and near have sent,
In touching words, their compliment.
On my undeserving head
Gifts they pour, unwarranted
Every single thing they can
Think of for an aging man.
With joyful note they make their way
To greet me on this festive day.
Would-be spongers one can see
Singing songs of praise to me;
Lauded, esteemed as ne*er before,
On eagle's wings my spirits soar.
Now as the day draws to an end,
I send my thanks to every friend;
The sun sets on a perfect day
Remarkable in every way.
be spent on that: they would build an unpretentious house.
They consulted an architect They stressed the fact that they
wanted it unpretentious. The estimate seemed satisfactory,
the plans appealed to their simple tastes. They were already
imagining themselves living in the house. But the municipal-
ity had promised more than it could do. Sabotage on the part
of the small officials continued. The park had also been re-
served for the exclusive use of tibe Inhabitants of the villa. A
third site was offered to Einstein. But at the moment when
the agreement was going to be signed, it transpired that the
deeds to the Berlin municipal property were not at all secure.
News of the ridiculous situation spread outside Germany.
The foreign newspapers commented on the vicissitudes of
the gift. The municipality now offered to buy any site that
might strike Einstein's fancy. Elsa undertook to look for it
She had such a deep knowledge of her husband that she
would know exactly what degree of solitude, what combina-
tion of water and forest would be to his taste. On returning
from one of her explorations she had fallen in love with a site
in the village of Caputh. There was a mail bus that ran from
the village to Potsdam, from which there was good train
service to Berlin. Einstein never contemplated, of course,
having a car. Elsa's description was so enthusiastic and vivid
that the forest already rose behind the plans on paper and
they both could see themselves breathing air in which the
scent of pine trees mixed with that of the water.
But they were to face another disappointment. At a meet-
ing of the municipal council, a future Nazi questioned
whether it was opportune to make this offer to Einstein. The
debate was threatening to become stormy. Einstein's pa-
tience had come to an end. He had no suspicion yet that just
167
as he was planning to grow deeper roots in the German soil
the ground was opening under his feet. He who had for so
long had a sense of the precariousness of life ought to have
drawn the appropriate conclusions from the warning he had
received. But all he felt was anger. He wrote a letter to the
mayor, one of those brief and incisive letters dictated by
temper, refusing all gifts. Albert and Elsa had decided,
moved by the same indignant impulse and already absorbed
in their dream, to buy the site themselves. They discussed the
matter at length with the architect, in the hope of bringing
down his estimate to the strict Tnirrimmn. All their savings
would be swallowed by it, but they believed they had
reached the very heart of paradise.
You had only to see Einstein in a small sailboat to realize
the strength of the roots that bound him to a simple open-air
life. Wearing sandals and an old sweater, his hair ruffling in
the breeze, he would stand upright rocking gently with the
motion of the boat, completely at one with the sail he was
maneuvering. The sun in his eyes and the wind on his cheeks
made him screw up his face, and as he tugged at the sail,
with his muscles protruding like cables, he shouted some-
thing at us which the wind carried away. He looked Ithe com-
plete pagan he might have belonged to the age of the sea
gods or pirates. At such moments he looked like anything in
the world but a scientist. He was absurdly happy as soon as
he reached the water.
Caputh was not easy to reach. The train journey was
quick, but the mail bus was infrequent It left the passengers
at the beginning of the village, and the village was so sleepy,
deserted by day, dark at night, that it didn't seem to have
ever heard of any methods of travel There was quite a dis-
168
tance to be covered on foot. The road was bad, stony, and
full of ruts, like the bed of a stream. Even on dry days one
could not help stumbling. The villa was called Landhaus
Einstein. It was not truly a villa, but a bungalow of the most
modest sort, a plain cube attached to another, lower one,
with a terrace on the top. The whole thing was as simple as a
mathematical formula. It was just the sort of house you
would have expected them to have.
In October 1929 the building was not quite finished. Ein-
stein had sent me very precise instructions for a visit which
were, in fact, rather complicated. "You must get up very
early,** he underlined. Having read this letter, I decided with
the friend who was to accompany me to take a car. The
house rose in front of us, incongruously modern at the edge
of this Brandenburg village, in which the other villas bore the
usual signs of resort architecture. A bare interior harmonized
with the exterior cube, plain but for the faintly protruding
white window frames. The large living room was lined with
the cheap, smooth wood that is used for blinds, and the house
smelled of fresh wood, like a sawmill The large room had the
temporary feeling of a mountain chalet where one camps for
a night. But in the middle of the room arose an incongruous
Japanese wooden sculpture, an exquisite piece of work, mi-
nutely detailed as an ivory sculpture, a bibelot for giants.
The naked walls enhanced its richness: it looked like a Gothic
portico attached to a steel construction. This work of art had
been given to Einstein by an eccentric admirer who probably
imagined that the scientist lived in a castle. There was no
room for it in his bourgeois apartment. At Caputh it seemed
even more out of place. It clashed with the dry landscape
around, the rickety trees of the garden, the sparse group of
pine trees, the poor light. But the surprise soon wore off.
Elsa was gaily fussing around us as though this solitude in
which she lived with her husband had given her a second
youth. The friend who accompanied me came from the same
town as she did, Hechingen in Swabia. In honor of the
"home town," she had provided Swabian dishes, fried liver
pasties with small egg noodles, called in the broad dialect of
the country Tittle sparrows/* She was an excellent cook and
Albert particularly appreciated this heavy bourgeois cuisine
of South Germany that produces fat and placid people.
I remember this first day spent at Caputh like a ray of
light in a sky in which clouds were gathering. The friend
who had come with me, a Socialist deputy of the Reichstag,
was aware of the threatening storm. He ought to have been
reassured by the recent German elections that had brought
his own party to powe^ but in the course of the summer, in
answer to a letter in which I urged hum to come to see me
in Paris, he replied: *lt is quite possible that I will come to
France. I can even foresee that I may settle down there per-
manently when a menagerie for wild animals is firmly estab-
lished on the other side of the Rhine." The humor of this
remark struck me at the time even more than the startling
prophecy. We spoke of it during that visit to Caputh. We dis-
cussed at length the causes of the uneasiness that had spread
over Germany, the phenomenon of the evil that was to cor-
lode it, the failure of international efforts to establish peace.
But we were rather like children who tell each other ghost
stories, without succeeding in frightening anyone because
nobody really believed in them. Perhaps we were simply too
happy to be all together there. In the presence of her ''com-
patriot" Elsa recovered the thick Swabian accent and all her
talents as a comedian. Einstein, shaking with laughter, bent
170 -
forward, his hands resting on his knees; his obvious jaie de
vivre went to our heads like wine. When we left the house,
still visible for a long time at the turning of the road, ap-
peared to us like a lighted haven against the dark Branden-
burg night, a harbor of peace. But beside me, our friend was
murmuring, as though speaking to himself: "It has been writ-
ten: 'Neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed . . . but all
your days ye shall dwell in tents; that ye may live many days
in the land where ye be strangers/ "
Albert Einstein himself was more and more disturbed
about the international situation, and particularly concerned
by the failure of all efforts at disarmament. "The technical
development of our times," he wrote, "has created a problem
of life or death for civilized humanity; to participate actively
in the safeguarding of peace has become a question of con-
science that a man of integrity cannot elude/* Like all those
who believed in a mobilization of mere good will in the post-
war years, he believed in the possibility of regulating the dif-
ferences of the future by a tribunal of international arbitra-
tion. He was clearheaded enough to know that this would
mean a great change in the life of humanity, a considerable
moral effort, and a conscious departure from deeply rooted
traditions. "In days gone by a man became a social asset
when he managed to liberate himself even partially from his
personal egotism; today, he is required to overcome both a
class egotism and a national egotism," he wrote. He was not
a dreamer talking about the possibility of disarmament. He
knew that it was tied to the problem of security a problem
particularly acute for France but he also knew ( as he wrote
to a French friend) that if disarmament did not materialize,
nothing would prevent Germany from rearming, and then
- 171
"each French military slave would be faced with two Ger-
man military slaves, which would certainly not be in France's
interest/*
He foresaw this eventuality all the more clearly because
Stresemann's death left the path free for the ambitions of a
revengeful Germany. He had often met Stresemann and, as
he wrote later on, "no one could escape the fascination of
his conversation, which was inspired by the consciousness of
his high mission and by a healthy optimism.* He had seen at
close quarters Stresemann's bitter struggle to bring about the
Treaty of Locarno and to calm the resentment of people who
had been defeated in the war, hurt in their pride, deprived
of their usual prerogatives. He had also watched in Strese-
mann the gradual discarding of the narrow-minded environ-
ment in which this bourgeois Berliner was born, of the in-
tellectual bourgeois atmosphere in which he had grown up,
of the national prejudices which had been his for such a long
time all in order to devote himself to the struggle for an
idea. *ln my opinion," wrote Einstein, "his greatest achieve-
ment is to have won over to a grandiose plan of European
reconciliation large political circles whose instinct led them
in the opposite direction.**
When he gave this brief portrait of Stresemann the day
after the latter's death, Einstein asked himself if these same
circles, deprived of this great leader of men, would not now
follow their natural instincts. On the very eve of Stresemann's
death, Einstein had had an unpleasant personal experience.
He could not go to Geneva for a session of the Committee of
Intellectual Co-operation. He had suggested in his place a
man of great culture, a convinced cosmopolitan and good
democrat, Count Kessler. But the year before, when he was
172
ill > he had been replaced by the director of the Prussian State
Library, Dr. K , who from then on acquired a reputation
as an expert on international affairs. At first sight, K had
nothing of the high Prussian official about him: he was jovial,
even obsequious on occasion, and as his wife was English, he
often spoke of his close ties with foreign lands. His ambition
was to play an important part on the Geneva scene; it was an
ambition he cherished both for himself and for Germany, to
the detriment of the Institute established in Paris. One of his
first interventions, though politely made, showed his mistrust
of French influence. Contact between the Institute and the
Committee would be difficult to establish, he said, the dis-
tance being too great between Geneva and Paris. There was
also a general feeling, he added, that it would be difficult to
maintain the international character of the Institute, since
the intellectual atmosphere of the country where the Insti-
tute was located had an extremely pronounced personal char-
acter.
Several years before this, Einstein himself had expressed
the fear that French preponderance might arouse suspicion
as to the absolute objectivity of an international organization.
But times had changed there had been Locarno and Thoiry
and Einstein had seen the Institute at work. He had never
doubted the perfect good will of his French friends, like
Painleve and Madame Curie. Moreover, the intellectual
atmosphere of Paris had never seemed to Tifm to introduce
any special danger through a too pronounced national char-
acter. The maneuver of his successor sounded like a disfig-
ured echo of his own words, a caricature of his ideas. It
irritated frfrn profoundly, though he did not yet see what it
was aiming at. The plausibility of the man was disturbing. **I
- 173 -
have no confidence in him, 1 * lie kept repeating. He intervened
in order to prevent his nomination for the 1929 session, but
came up against the opposition of the bureaucrats of the
Wilhelmstrasse, who, knowing that Stresemann was dying,
were already following the new trend of affairs. Einstein was
terribly upset. He feared that Dr. K might be taken as
the mouthpiece of his ideas. He went so far as to write a con-
fidential letter to Painlev6 to warn him about his "stand-in/*
But when Dr. K came to Geneva, this letter, which was
to have remained very secret, was, either out of carelessness
or malice, passed on to him by one of the French members
of the Committee. The fifth column was already at work.
Eleven years kter, Dr. K appeared in Paris as a repre-
sentative of a victorious Germany. He laid claim to the Li-
brary of Strasbourg. Vichy immediately agreed to his de-
mand. But the professors of the University of Strasbourg,
now moved to Clermont-Ferrand, which was to become a
center of the Resistance, objected, saying that such a measure
was more a matter for a peace treaty than for an armistice.
Dr. K insisted. He had a great knowledge of French
treasures. He threatened in the event that his demand was
not met to help himself to the Bibliotheque Nationale. It
was said later that he also sent a few trucks one day to the
Library of Sainte Genevieve to remove books and treasures.
He finally took possession of the Strasbourg Library, whose
librarian, Serge Fischer, tried to save the most valuable vol-
umes by taking them away himself in suitcases and sacks
across the snowbound countryside. But Privy Councilor
K had a full inventory of it and he had the Gestapo at
his disposal. He had risen very high under the Nazi rule. He
claimed all that was due him. His sinister shadow haunted
174
the world he knew so well Julien Cain, director of the Biblio-
theque Nationale, a wounded veteran, was arrested in Paris
and later on deported to Buchenwald, where he met Serge
Fischer.
K was received in Berlin with great honor.
As international problems became more acute, the impo-
tence of the League became more apparent. The interna-
tional organization continued to exist as though by the force
of inertia of the enormous bureaucratic apparatus that it had
set in movement. The escape from reality, the cautiousness
of the speeches, the halfway resolutions, the reams of paper
that this gigantic machine continued to emit, created an
opaque, artificial fog around it The air became insufferable.
"Geneva, what a remarkable extinguisher,** Briand sighed,
spreading his arms in a helpless gesture. One of the most
intelligent officials of the League told an incorrigible idealist:
Tn order even to get as far as the committees, problems have
to be smooth and round as billiard balls.** And Einstein him-
self remarked: "There is a type of conciliatory attitude that
is a crime against humanity and they are trying to pretend
that it is political wisdom.**
Political wisdom was indeed made the god of the day by
the conciliators of Geneva. They were easily satisfied with
themselves. They calmed down impatience as best they
could. "Ten years have passed since the armistice, without a
war is that not already a great change?** Gilbert Murray, the
chairman of the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation, de-
clared contentedly, with that British frankness which, ac-
cording to a prominent English journalist, had taken as a
motto: "Give the wolf a chance and play fair with the rattle-
snake."
- 175
In this year, 1929, the cornerstone was laid for the Palace
of the League, which was, in fact, to be its mausoleum. Ein-
stein suggested that the following words should be engraved
at the entrance: "I support the strong and reduce the weak
to silence, without bloodshed.**
At the plenary session which took place in August 1930,
Einstein attended in person to support a proposal that was
close to his heart. Painleve had broached the subject of pri-
mary education, though he knew better than anyone how
much it irritated both national and party susceptibilities. He
knew that this question dominated everything else. **The
Committee will not fulfill the hopes of public opinion unless
it takes an interest in this problem," he said. Madame Curie
supported him with her usual vigor. The reason why this
problem did not figure in the program of the Institute was
because it had been formally banned at the start: the Com-
mittee was not allowed to interfere in matters which, in cer-
tain countries, depended on government decisions.
Einstein knew that the Committee was being put to the
decisive test in this battle which he had launched with his
French friends. A new program of action had just been
planned, but when he examined it, Einstein exclaimed in his
usual vivid language: *1 feel as if I were looking at a house on
fire where people were trying to save the furniture but
weren't taking the trouble to choose the most valuable
pieces." He was also aware that in fact the "problem in ques-
tion, put simply, means that education should be, generally
speaking, considered as a method of keeping the peace.** Be-
fore coming to Geneva he had taken care to study the ques-
tion, to sound out opinion in different countries, and he be-
lieved that the Committee could go ahead, "without fear and
176
without waiting to be stopped, if stopped it should be. In
any case it should not stop at the very start.** He concluded
by saying that the problem was the most important of all
those to be examined and if success could be obtained on this
point a task of great importance would already have been
achieved.
In fact this problem became the stumbling block of two
worlds. The Italian member of the Committee, Rocco, who
was at the same time the Fascist minister of the meager and
expeditious justice of his country, harshly opposed the pro-
posal in the name of all totalitarian states, present and future.
He thought the eventual establishment of an international
authority was inconceivable. The question, he said, had noth-
ing to do with intellectual or international co-operation it
belonged to the individual competence of each country.
"Universities, perhaps,** he added, ready to make concessions
on this point, since it would affect men in whom, he thought,
one could by then have confidence, men already ensnared
by the regime. Youth, on the other hand, was the valuable
malleable material which allowed nations to be led astray,
and Rocco defended it against this pacifism which was to be
inculcated into it with all the energy and indignation ex-
pected from him by his government. *The danger in broach-
ing such a subject is explained by the fact that the education
of a child is considered as one of the fundamental attributes
of state sovereignty." The Committee, according to "him,
ought to busy itself with problems that presented less diffi-
culty at the moment and abstain from touching upon reli-
gious, moral, and political questions. As this was Geneva and
he wished to appease the unrest he felt to be spreading, he
added, by way of consolation, that the time for those latter
- 177
problems would come in fifteen, twenty, or fifty years. "The
League has all the future it wants in front of it" and the
gravedigger of the League smiled amiably around him. Ein-
stein, red with anger, pulled fiercely at his extinguished pipe.
Painleve returned to the attack. Intellectual co-operation had
been defined from the beginning as one of the most efficient
methods of bringing about the mutual understanding of
peoples. Primary education, he said, was at the moment of
the greatest importance. "Universities," he replied to Rocco,
"already had at their disposal a considerable number of inter-
national organizations. But in France at least primary educa-
tion was the only education received by a great majority of
children. Therefore the character given to this education
would have the greatest influence on the pacific or aggressive
development of modern civilization.** The warning was clear.
However, this assembly in Geneva did not consist only of an
impetuous Fascist without any international prestige on one
side and three of the greatest scientists of the world on the
other. If it had, the battle would have been unequal and
might have been won without more ado. But pressure was
exercised upon the majority of the Committee, pressure from
men with more or less suppressed Fascist sympathies, from
politicians used to the Geneva scene and wanting to avoid a
break at any price, from disappointed liberals to whom insti-
tutions meant more than a cause. The great tragedy of the
League unrolled itself, in smaller doses, at the meetings of
the Committee.
Another question was raised at this session, "full of the
approaching storm,'* as Painleve called it, that of "coexistence
on the same territory of populations belonging to different
civilizations.'* The agenda submitted to the session defined it
- 178
as: "Intellectual problems outside of Europe." It was in par-
ticular the future Asiatic caldron that was in question and
there was still a tendency to deny its state of fermentation*
But the same problem of coexistence, remarked Einstein,
affected the ethnic minorities of European peoples and con-
stituted "one of the most serious aspects of the state of affairs
which is currently poisoning European relations." Like the
problem of primary education, this one of the cultural inde-
pendence of ethnic minorities was to be swallowed up by
subcommittees "for more careful examination"; they were
both to be milled so fine in passing through the various ma-
chines designed for this purpose that there would be nothing
left of them but dust.
Though the permanent members of the Committee were
elected on their personal merits and independently of their
governments, topical matters reached the Committee only
after having been filtered through national committees
which, in many countries, represented only an official atti-
tude* Einstein left Geneva in disgust. He decided to hand in
his resignation. He wrote a letter to an Undersecretary of the
League, director of the section of Intellectual Co-operation.
This post had, by process of rotation, fallen to a German
diplomat. This diplomat, descendant of Huguenot refugees,
bore a French name. But, like so many people who are
troubled by their own origin, he was a nationalist, ill at ease
in an international atmosphere. He had taken care not to
interfere in the debate, in his determination to be discreet,
but he was definitely on the side of the "extinguishers.**
Albert Einstein wished to give a precise, detailed explana-
tion of the reasons for his withdrawaL "Experience has un-
fortunately revealed to me that the Committee has no serious
179 -
desire to bring about any tangible improvement in interna-
tional relations. It seems to me rather an incarnation of the
principle of ut atiquid -fieri victeatur. From this point of view
the Committee appears to be on the whole even worse than
the League." He numbered his grievances: "The Committee
has given its blessing to the suppression of cultural minori-
ties in some countries by creating one 'national committee/
one official link between the intellectuals of that country and
the Committee. It has also of its own accord renounced the
duty of serving as support to national minorities against all
cultural oppression." Recalling the recent debate, Einstein
expressed his indignation that "in the struggle against chau-
vinistic and militaristic tendencies manifested in some coun-
tries, the Committee has taken so lukewarm an attitude that
one cannot expect any serious effort from it in this most im-
portant of all spheres.** He also reproached the Committee
for never having supported the individuals or associations
who had undertaken independently the task of working for a
legal international order and against the military system. The
indignation arising from his encounters with Rocco was still
alive in him when he stated that the Committee had not re-
fused to admit among its members men whom it knew to
represent other tendencies than those it was its duty to repre-
sent. He concluded: "If I had any hope left, I can assure you
that I would not have taken this step." With these sad and
disappointed words, Einstein's participation in the work of
the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation came to an end.
The failure of a hope was for Trim only the beginning of the
failures which human aspirations toward a cultural unity
were to undergo. He wrote later: "As far back as the seven-
teenth century, the scientists and artists of the whole of
- 180 -
Europe were so closely united by a common ideal that tibeir
cooperation was scarcely influenced by political events . . *
today we look back upon such a situation as upon a lost para-
dise. Nationalist passions have destroyed the community of
spirit and Latin, the language that formerly served to unite
all, is dead. Scientists, having become the strongest repre-
sentatives of national tradition, have lost their solidarity."
181
Chapter X
THREE great powers reign over the world: stupidity, fear,
and greed. This was the conviction Einstein had reached
after repeated disappointments. But he also wrote: **We can-
not despair of humanity, since we are only human ourselves. 9 *
And as he expected nothing more from the wisdom of the
governing classes, from the courage of international assem-
blies, he addressed himself to men directly: to the pacifists of
all the world, to the students, and to the masses. The years to
come were to be chiefly occupied by his struggle for peace, a
struggle to which he surrendered himself entirely. His paci-
fism was deep-rooted; it was the first conscious reaction of an
adolescent abandoning his nationality. His invectives against
the militarism he loathed rang with passion "the worst mon-
ster born of the gregarious instinct/* In one of his "confes-
sions,** to which he gave, in 1930, the title of The World as I
See It, Albert Einstein wrote: "Anyone who can take pleas-
ure in march ing in formation to the strains of a band is once
and for all an object of contempt to me; his great brain has
183
been given to him by mistake, a backbone was all he needed.
This shame on civilization should be obliterated as soon as
possible. Heroism by order, insane violence, vainglorious
patriotism; how intensely I hate them, how despicable and
mean war is to me! I would rather be hacked to pieces than
take part in such a revolting business."
Einstein did not arrive at this belief in pacifism through
any process of reasoning, perhaps not even through compas-
sion for human suffering. The horror of war lived in him and
burned in his blood with the force of an elemental emotion.
In the ordered universe of thought that he had built, there
was no room for war. In his private religious world it was an
offense to his deep faith in man, the archenemy of everything
immortal in creation.
The struggle against war is the main principle of Einstein's
life. The struggle for peace has the same importance for "hfm
as his scientific achievements. Much of what he does is only
understandable in the harsh light of his hatred for war and
his love of peace. He now reached what he called active paci-
fism: "A pacifism that does not actively oppose the rearma-
ment of nations is and will remain impotent." He threw him-
self into a crusade in favor of conscientious objectors. He
believed that if in every country only a small part of those
who were called to fight refused to be conscripted, an irre-
sistible movement would spring up throughout the world. He
threw himself into the battle with all the prestige of his
name, addressed numerous appeals to friends in all countries,
mounted the platforms which he had always avoided, spoke
to students, took part in large demonstrations, launched ar-
ticles in newspapers, and wrote letters on the eve of disarma-
ment conferences.
- 184
His efforts were based on the calculation that if only two
per cent of the men called up would refuse to join the ranks
there would never be a war. In fact a movement in that di-
rection began to spread and this figure of two per cent be-
came something of an insigne. Einstein himself led this
"Internationale of objectors to war." He launched a per-
sonal appeal to all potential soldiers, asking them to declare
that they would refuse to serve the cause of war or prepara-
tions for war. "I asked them to notify their governments in
writing, and put this decision on record by informing me that
they have taken it. I have authorized the inauguration of an
international fund for those opposed to war, the Einstein
Fund." He himself supplied this Fund with considerable
sums which he obtained by accepting for this cause the per-
sonal offers he had always hitherto refused. This active cam-
paign threatened the leisure he needed for his work. His per-
sonal life, so fiercely protected against all intrusion from
outside, was now invaded by an unusual animation. He
received emissaries from all countries, militant pacifists from
all parties, idealists ready to sacrifice everything for a cause,
men of experience and unrepentant dreamers.
In the place of inventors suffering from mythomania, in
place of the misunderstood geniuses who used to storm his
door, it was now cranks who besieged him with their pana-
ceas for universal peace. He was not even beyond the reach
of madmen and maniacs, for, spurred on by the sense of an
impending menace, he was ready to use everything and
everyone, **One never knows from where the spark might
come,** he replied to those who reproached him for wasting
his time. But he had not many illusions about the efficacy of
the forces he had thrown into battle. He replied one day to a
185
letter suggesting nationalization of the armament industry
and expressing the hope that Einstein's intervention would
result in its success. ""The armament industry is, indeed, one
of the great threats to humanity." Nationalization might
avert the danger. But Einstein foresaw the innumerable ob-
stacles and did not share his correspondent's optimism about
his own intervention. ""You believe that a word from me
would help to achieve something in this direction? What an
illusion! People flatter me as long as I do not embarrass them.
If I make suggestions that embarrass them they immediately
resort to insults and calumny in order to defend their inter-
ests. And those who have no interests side with those who
have out of sheer cowardice."
Einstein's lack of illusions about the weight of his name
must never be underestimated: his perseverance in his
struggle in spite of this revealed the powerful impulse that
forced Trim to action in spite of everything and everybody,
and with only a faint hope of success.
The need for action, however, seemed to Trim more and
more obvious. It became increasingly important to proceed,
for he saw the restlessness that was rapidly spreading in Ger-
many and intensifying the threat to peace.
The world economic crisis had sensational repercussions in
Germany. The transition from prosperity to a critical eco-
nomic situation was abrupt It came almost overnight; but its
repercussions were visible only gradually, as though ways of
thought were slower to establish themselves than economic
realities. The report of the American expert on the Repara-
tion Commission, Parker Gilbert (published, i I am not mis-
taken, toward the end of 1928), still drew extremely optimis-
tic conclusions on Germany's economic and financial capacity,
186 -
surprised admiration in the face of the German miracle. This
miracle was, in fact, imaginary. Germany, thrown into a
dizzy whirlwind, into an economic expansion that made one
gasp for breath, was building tremendous highways, renovat-
ing all its industrial equipment, increasing its means of pro-
duction. Every German town was erecting luxurious town
halls, all too vast sports grounds, all too sumptuous hotels
for the modest visitors in transit. This revival was condi-
tioned by American loans; loans to the state, to the munici-
palities, to industrialists, to any bold enterprise. America had
discovered in Germany a most profitable ground for invest-
ment. American money seemed to be chasing after every
German, an irresistible temptation to even the most cautious
and conservative* At the moment when this flow began to
ebb, when the loans were reclaimed after the American
slump, this artificial prosperity crumbled like a house of
cards. Suddenly everything seemed to have gone wrong.
Germany was suffering from the counterblow of the world
crisis so acutely because she had ventured further than the
others in her faith in an unlimited progress. But the dismay
was general. Everything that seemed to promise a better
future, all the great conquests of the inventive spirit and the
solid virtues of labor, had succeeded only in leading human-
ity to disaster. "Today, everything that has been acquired
with such effort seems in the hands of our generation like a
razor in the hands of a child of three," wrote Einstein.
With the sharp and rather unexpected interest he showed
in economic matters, he examined the problems of the world
crisis. He not only discussed it with economists, financiers,
politicians, but also wrote articles and addressed public
meetings. He found in the chaos that reigns among experts
187
the justification for his interference in an unfamiliar domain.
He discerned in the present crisis an element that lent it a
new character and made it differ from other cyclic crises: the
rapid progress in methods of production which allowed the
indispensable needs of consumers to be satisfied, while en-
gaging only an infinitesimal fraction of the available labor.
It soon became a vicious circle. Unemployment lowered the
buying capacity, the impossibility of absorbing the commodi-
ties led to a stoppage of production, increased unemploy-
ment, and restricted production even more. Einstein exam-
ined one by one the principal arguments raised by experts
to explain the crisis. "Overproduction? 7 * he wrote. "This can,
I suppose, be applied to motorcars and American corn; as for
the rest, overproduction is only an apparent cause, for it is
not the need that is lacking among the consumers but the
buying capacity. Reparations? They obviously weigh on the
debtor countries and force them to dump their exports, which
also affects the creditor countries. But the fact that the same
crisis is taking place in the U.S. weakens this argument."
After going into all the other alleged reasons and demon-
strating their futile nature, Einstein reached the conclusion
that a directed economy was logically the simplest method of
remedying the evil that scourges the world. Being in advance
of his time, he did not conceal the risks of the measure he
proposed, or the resistance that it was sure to encounter. He
asked at the least for the control of free economy by three
methods: through the reduction of working hours, to allevi-
ate the scourge of unemployment; through the establishment
of minimum salaries to prevent the fall in buying capacity;
and through state control of prices.
The egotism o private interests appeared to Einstein more
- 188 -
and more clearly as one of the principal factors responsible
for the present ills and the future disasters. Like many others
who foresaw the worst with a secret hope that it would not
materialize, he was deeply shattered by the first sign of the
defiance of international ethics the Japanese occupation of
Manchukuo. He knew the League to be impotent but did not
believe it so ready to capitulate. Could not the United States,
which had remained outside the League, and was so power-
ful economically, play a pacifying role? He asked an Ameri-
can diplomat why an economic boycott was not applied to
Japan to prevent that country from continuing its policy of
aggression. The American shrugged his shoulders resignedly
and replied frankly: **Our commercial interests are too
strong.
**What can one do with people who agree with such state-
ments?" Einstein added when repeating this conversation.
Now the road was wide open to arbitrary violence. At the
end of this road, which began at the moment when civilized
humanity was still in full possession of its means of defense,
came Pearl Harbor,
In Germany itself, Einstein saw looming ahead a danger
to which most observers were still blind. The sudden halt
in production and the eclipse of prosperity hit the young
most of all. Einstein saw the havoc this wrought in universi-
ties. Students proceeded with their studies without any hope
of being able in future to apply their knowledge in any way
or to find even the most modest means of making a living.
Many of them had severed all links with their original, often
humble, environments and had gained their independence at
the price of personal and family sacrifices. Now they found
themselves with their pride in possible success and their am-
189
bitions frustrated. They had become outcasts of society, with-
out roots, and they were searching for a scapegoat.
A macabre joke circulated in Berlin at the time to illustrate
the distress that reigned in university circles. Four hungry
students drew lots to decide which of them was to sacrifice
himself and commit suicide to allow his friends to survive,
Two of them took the corpse to the morgue with the idea of
selling it to the medical faculty. After a time the friend who
had remained on the watch saw them return, dumfounded,
carrying the corpse on their backs. ""They had no use for it.
Now they only take full-fledged doctors with diplomas."
Anxiety about their survival weakened the moral fiber of
the young and made them ready for any adventure so long
as it gave them hope. Einstein said later on: "Nazism was
born on an empty stomach.** Industry and commerce, which
were as overcrowded as the liberal professions, were also
closed to the young. "Hopeless!" This word was itself the
negation of everything that was young: it was a challenge
to the right to live. The title of a book in which Hans Fallada
described vividly this daily distress became the cry of alarm
on every lip: Little Man, What Now?
A journey to the United States allowed Einstein to inten-
sify his struggle for peace as well as his campaign for con-
scientious objectors. It was ten years since he had been there.
Tliis time he did not go to ask material help for a cause, as
on his preceding journey. The mission he had undertaken
was to stir slumbering consciences. But in fact it was as a
scientist that he was invited by the California Institute of
Technology and Mount Wilson Observatory, where his
theory of fields was to be experimentally checked.
His departure was fixed for the end of the year. Einstein
* 190
lingered on in Caputh, liis favorite refuge, his safest escape
when distress followed him too closely. He refused to go to
Berlin, even when the autumn brought its rains and winter
approached. He had, however, much to do in town, and
when the Einsteins both spent the day there they used to
return to the country in the dead of night, always without a
car. "It looks so unpleasant and inhospitable in the dark,**
complained Elsa. But she consented to these late returns
(although even when helped along by the strong hand of her
husband the uneven road seemed to her haunted with ter-
rors) because she saw Einstein throw oflE all his worries and
troubles as soon as the acrid smell of the wet soil reached
him. He returned to this brand-new house like a traveler
rediscovering his old home.
Their absence was to last the whole winter. Each depar-
ture was a wrench for Elsa, because of the separation from
her daughters. Her thoughts kept returning to them for a
long time; she worried about every detail of their personal
lives, about lisa's precarious health and Margot's acutely
sensitive nature. Generally so communicative, she concealed
her troubles when she saw her husband enjoying every mo-
ment of the relaxation provided by the crossing. They went
to California by way of New York and Havana.
The calm that lulled him during the long voyage did not,
however, soften his pugnacious spirit. From the boat he sent
a message of greeting to the United States which was, in fact,
a challenge to the intellectual forces of the country. "On the
eve of landing,*" he cabled, "one idea only occupies my mind,
or rather only one hope: that the forces that work under the
surface in the country should come out into the open in order
more effectively to fight against professional militarism, dart-
191
gerous and strong as it is.** He knew where the principal
enemies of the great desire for peace were to be found. He
did not hesitate to chastise them in one of his addresses: *1
have still enough faith in humanity to believe that these
ghosts would have disappeared long ago had the common
sense of nations not been systematically corrupted by com-
mercial and political interests through education and the
press."
He pursued his activities against the idyllic Californian
background, and though the young responded to it, some of
his colleagues were still so far away from everything that
disturbed Europe that his propoganda seemed like the idee
fixe of an idealist just slightly less harmless than his bohe-
mian love of music.
However, his fame was so great that any eccentricity was
forgiven him. Examples of his widespread fame ranged from
the ridiculous to the touching. In gratitude for "a life devoted
to the service of humanity," an Einstein medal for humani-
tarianism was struck off, which was to be bestowed every
year upon an American who, like Einstein, had devoted him-
self to the good of humanity. But he was also asked to give
his old shoes to be exhibited together with those worn by
Hollywood stars and candidates for the presidency of the
United States. . . .
The most striking proof of his prestige was given when he
went to New York. That city, though swarming with various
nationalities and religions, had remained, in spite of its
adoration of success and material values, rigorously loyal to
religious rites. At the time when the Riverside Church was
being built, its learned pastor decided to have the fagade
decorated so that it should be a lesson to the faithful, a lesson
* 192
in facts. In imitation of the churches of the Middle Ages, it
was decorated with several hundred figures, but instead of
the exuberance of Roman and Gothic fagades, the statues
followed one another and the bas-relief ran like the stills of a
film. Saints, kings, philosophers, precursors of Christ, and
others were lined up in order. In this abridged encyclopedia
in stone, the pastor, born in a country where the cult of the
inventive spirit stood very high, wanted to include fourteen
of the greatest scientists of the world. In order to choose the
immortals wisely he turned to the most eminent scientists of
America. In the lists that they compiled, certain names like
Archimedes, Euclid, Galileo, and Newton figured invariably.
But on every list was also found the name of Einstein. On
the bas-relief of the scientists he is the only one still living.
He must be the first living man since the end of the Middle
Ages to be able to gaze at himself on the front of a church.
The minister himself wished to show Einstein his effigy in
o/
stone. Einstein searched for it with an air of surprise and
finally discovered the very conventional image. The moment
would have been a solemn one even for the most illustrious
of beings. But his sense of humor had the upper hand. He
burst into laughter and, winking at himself over the portico,
turned to the pastor, who was slightly disconcerted by this
unexpected gaiety: "I might have imagined that they could
make a Jewish saint out of me, but I never thought I'd be-
come a Protestant one!"
On his return to Berlin Einstein found that the economic
crisis had increased, with all its political repercussions. He
was personally affected by the distress that reigned in the
country. Their family, especially Elsa's close relations, had
fallen into almost complete penuiy. They had, most of them,
* 198 -
been immensely rich,** wrote Elsa, "but at the moment they
are almost incapable of resuming the struggle for a living;
the older ones in any case. 7 *
These people whose lives had been warped, these old
women who were unable to understand what had happened
to them, came to pour out their sorrows in the Haberland-
strasse. The younger people, with the defenselessness o
charming and spoiled children,, besieged their famous uncle
and expected some impossible miracle from him. Einstein
made great financial sacrifices to relieve their .immediate
distress. All the personal help given by Einstein and Elsa,
sometimes without each other's knowledge, the pensions they
secured, the education they paid for, the so-called loans they
made that would never be paid back, amounted to a large
sum. "Where will all this lead to?" Elsa asked anxiously. The
poverty of her family was only a reflection of the general
confusion, spectacular and incomprehensible. The construc-
tive mind of Einstein could not adjust itself to such impo-
tence of thought before so catastrophic a situation. His innate
sense of order revolted against the muddled interpretations,
the half measures, the provisional compromises, the selfish
defense of private interests that only served to aggravate the
economic sores. The human intelligence that had solved so
many universal enigmas ought to have been able to under-
stand where the wheels of the economic machinery had gone
wrong and restore them to movement. "My Albert spends
much time in thinking what could be done to improve the
state economy," Elsa wrote, and added with the sense of
humor she kept even at the most difficult moments: "He ex-
plains to me, poor me, the solution that he has found for each
problem. I am convinced each time that it is the only path to
194 -
take and try to persuade him to go and explain it to Luther
or Briining. *What good would it do?* tie replies, and sinks
back once more into his equations."
More and more he needed to take refuge in his work to
regain his balance. National Socialism began to win its first
victories: and the scapegoat for the general resentment was
found. Groups of young men rushed about the streets with a
song of hatred on their lips: "Awaken, Germany! Death to
the Jews!'*
The Nazis only ventured stealthily by night into the work-
ing quarters, where gunshots were met by gunshots, and
knives by knives: but by day, with their swastika flags flying
in the wind, they marched through quarters welt known to
these sons of good families; it was in tie Bayrisches Viertel
and the peaceful Haberlandstrasse that this angry clamor
for Jewish blood ~which has to spurt from under the knife"
resounded.
In these troubled times Albert Einstein also had to undergo
a painful personal ordeal He had always remained in dose
touch with his sons. The elder seems to have inherited from
his father his robust common sense and his love of practical
things. The Swiss environment in which he grew up, his
profession, which brought him closer to the soil (he studied
agriculture and is now professor of engineering in a univer-
sity in California), his position as the father of a family, had
all contributed to make him a thoroughly balanced person.
The younger son, with his sallow skin, his fine eyes,
and the sensual lips of his father, inherited from him his
interest in science and his passion for music. He came from
time to time to Berlin and when Einstein allowed his glance
to linger upon Trim one could read in it a great tenderness
195
and pride, which was rare in him. He was amused to find
himself so vulnerable. During one of young Einstein's visits
to the Haberlandstrasse, I once heard him play the piano in
the next room. He had an absorbed look on his face, as
though, like his father, he was divorced from his surround-
ings while playing. But I also caught a glimpse in it of a far-
away expression, irreparably sad In the bo/s relationship
with his father there was passionate admiration mingled
with unexpected rebellion, which was like a secret resent-
ment. Perhaps it was an impotent gesture of revolt in reaction
to an exaggerated idealization. His precarious state of health
made his adolescence painful This frail body and this un-
trained brain were full of great ambitions. Suddenly letters
began to arrive from Switzerland, incoherent letters in which
the desire to affirm a weak personality through grand lan-
guage alternated with outbursts of despair; they were pa-
thetic, unhinged letters. Einstein was deeply upset by them.
He could not understand these figments of an overexcited
imagination. Suddenly young Einstein's passion for his father
turned to hatred, expressed itself in bitter recriminations and
vehement accusations the feverish confessions of a sick
Albert Einstein loved his younger son as much as he was
able to love any human being. The boy's lack of mental bal-
ance was a cruel blow for him. He suffered from it as he per-
haps had never suffered before in his life. For a certain time
he was, as every father would be, deeply overcome with
grief, a grief which he tried to control. This sorrow is
eating up Albert. He finds it difficult to cope with ft, more
difficult thai> he would care to admit,*' wrote Elsa. "He has
always aimed at being invulnerable to everything that con-
- 196 -
cerned him personally. He really is so, much more than any
other man I know. But this has hit him very hard."
Einstein emerged from this solitary battle with his grief
with hardened features and eyes often obscured by shadows.
He had remained astonishingly youthful for a long time. On
his return from Zurich, where he went to visit his sick son,
he seemed changed. It was not that he had grown older, but
he had lost his broad sense of humor. He was more detached
than ever and his serenity seemed more absolute with the
years. The way he rose above this trial showed that the in-
vulnerability of which Elsa spoke demanded the renunciation
of happiness as well as suffering.
197
Chapter XI
THE winter here can bring us nothing but sadness," wrote
Elsa. "Anyway, we intend to go away for a long time (though
we don't want to)/* Long journeys still meant a temporary
respite for them, a screen protecting them from the stress of
the time. At the beginning of December they sailed again
for California. They spent the winter in Pasadena. Their
return to Berlin coincided with what was considered to
be a lull in Germany's race toward suicide. The hope of
German democracy was incarnate and what an incarna-
tion! in Hindenburg, the winner in the election for the presi-
dency of the Republic. The old marshal refused to see Cap-
tain von Roehm, one of Hitler's most active propagandists,
and commented on his peculiar habits with a soldier's strong
language. He refused to have anything to do with Hitler
~this Czech sergeant/* he said contemptuously. Chancellor
Briining believed he could proceed on his tortuous route,
reassuring liberals on the one hand and on the other yielding
now and then to what was called an irresistible national
- 199 -
movement. All measures of force were repellent to this
secular monk who had strayed into politics.
In fact the German situation could still have been saved.
One of the high officials at the Ministry of the Interior, Dr.
Carl Spiecker, in charge of the repression of Nazism, pro-
posed a measure of great cunning to the Chancellor. Hitler
was not yet a German citizen. Spiecker made out an order
for the expulsion of the undesirable foreigner. At the same
time he informed the Brown House of this measure through
a counterspy. Hitler, with the spasmodic courage of a neu-
rotic, started packing at once. Carl Spiecker, who not only
knew his history but was also a courageous and clear-minded
democrat, foresaw a repetition of Boulanger's flight. National
Socialism and the Fuehrer would have been covered with
ridicule in the same way; but Chancellor Briining, after hesi-
tating for a time, refused to approve the order of expulsion.
Germany remained scrupulously legal. The counterspy, by
name George Bell, was one of the first to be shot by the Nazis
when they came into power. Carl Spiecker, who had at-
tempted in vain to fight the disaster, took the road to exile.
At the very hour when Germany's destiny was being
played out, sordid private interests helped to end any chance
of saving the situation. National Socialism was rapidly los-
ing ground At the elections in November 1932, it was to lose
two million votes. It had never really gained more than thirty-
seven per cent of the votes. But a shady maneuver called
Osfhilfe was intended, in spite of the growing poverty of
the country, to restore the riches of the big landowners in
Pomerania. If Hindenburg failed to understand anything
about this new world that offered itself to his fading glance,
he understood very well the interests of his class, particularly
200
the interests of his son, who was a Pomeranian landowner.
And the only loyalty this old man had ever known was
to his past. Chancellor Briining, who was opposed to the
Osthilfe, was dismissed like an indiscreet valet who had dared
to interfere with his master's affairs. One of the authors of
that maneuver was about to succeed him. So unexpected was
this succession that when in the middle of the ministerial
crisis General von Seeckt telephoned to a friend to ask him
about the choice of the new Chancellor, he thought he was
being made the victim of a joke: "Are you pulling my leg?
Papen? It is not even funny." The effects of the bad joke,
however, were only to be felt much later. Germany had a
few months of respite. Tlie menace had still taken no definite
shape.
Albert Einstein was spending time in a sort of monastic
retreat at Christ Church, Oxford. Elsa was preparing for the
summer move to Caputh. She knew that her husband was
in a hurry to return to the Tittle house/* as he called it, and
to his sailboat. She too always looked forward to these
months when she had her husband more to herself than
anywhere else. "But this time, I feel uneasy about it," she
wrote. *ls it wise to stay here in these troubled timeswho
can tell? I feel very anxious at heart."
She consoled herself with the thought that the people in
the village were fond of them. Einstein was still a great cen-
ter of attraction in their sleepy lives. Elsa recalled that in
the autumn of the preceding year, on his way to Berlin, her
husband had boarded one day, as he usually did, a third-
class carriage on the small train. Two young men sitting
opposite had swastikas in their buttonholes. They had recog-
nized him, nudged each other, and started to whisper. Then,
- 201 -
stealthily, they had tried to remove the insignia. Elsa was
dear-minded enough, however, to admit to herself that they
prohably would not have done so at this time. But she also
knew that nothing would prevent Albert Einstein from going
home.
I went for the last time to Caputh in May 1932. 1 had seen
General von Seeckt the day before. He had insisted: **Warn
all your Jewish friends that they would be well advised to
leave Germany. Warn Einstein particularly. His life is not
safe here any longer."
On this bright May day these sinister forebodings seemed
like phantoms of the night that vanish in broad daylight.
The sky was veiled, as if the water rising off the lakes had
clouded it, the invisible sun gleamed, and in this unreal light
the tops of the apple trees had the transparency of white
glass. The rare passers-by walked leisurely along the sandy
road. The village seemed sunk in lethargy.
I found Elsa Einstein alone in the large living room, lean-
ing against the window sill. She had a preoccupied expres-
sion and lackluster eyes. She was deeply upset. They had
been visited by an American, Abraham Plexner, who, thanks
to a large donation, had founded in Princeton the Institute
for Advanced Study, a center for research and experimental
study. In a book published in 1930, Universities: American,
English, and German, Flexner had given startling examples
of the decline in standards of university education, quoting
for instance the thesis submitted to the University of Chicago
on The Comparison in Time and Movement of Four
Methods of Washing Dishes." Flexner's idea was that the
Institute in Princeton should link up with the traditions of
the Continent and create a real scientific community. Scien-
202
tists, badly paid in most American universities, were to pur-
sue their studies there, unhampered by material need and
without being interrupted by the preparation of lectures. At
the same time they could form a new team of research work-
ers among the students. "It would just suit Albert/* Elsa
said to me. "Xo obligation to teach and at the same time the
possibility of remaining in contact with the young people
who interest him. It is up to him to make his conditions.
Albert mentioned a sum which he thought would be too high,
but Flexner only smiled, it was so very modest/*
"Does that mean that he has accepted?** I was immensely
relieved.
"No. He cannot resign himself to a final departure/*
"But this is madness. You can't allow him to refuse." I
almost shouted in my anxiety, as though she had been deaf.
"I did what I could, but you know . . /* Everything in
Elsa seemed shattered and bruised, her glance, her voice, the
broken gestures of her wrists. I was frightened, very fright-
ened, as though danger were already around the corner. I
spoke very fast I told her all I knew about the unavoidable
horrors in preparation, of the dangers that threatened Ein-
stein. My fear rose in a rush of anger, my words came quicker
than my thoughts. I went so far as to say to Elsa that to leave
him in Germany was to perpetrate a murder. This word
stung her to the quick. She sank in her chair. "Murder,*" she
repeated. "But all this is not definite. Flexner is staying
another day or two in Berlin." The white, stiff lips hardly
moved. Her eyes seemed colorless, as if glazed. Their blind
glance traveled around the large room, as though clinging
to the pale walls, to the table laid for a meal, to the strange
Japanese sculpture, in order not to abandon them forever.
203 -
Elsa was parting with this refuge she had loved so much. I
was miserable in the knowledge that I had hurt her. But
across my misery a voice kept hammering in me: He must go
away. . . .
Einstein's large form filled the doorway. He wore a shirt
open at his sunburned neck, an old sweater under the baggy
white suit, and his bare feet were in espadrilles. He radiated
health and well-being. Elsa hastened to tell him about my
warnings. But faced with his peaceful strength, I did not feel
so convinced any more. "Murder," she kept repeating. Her
lips rounded in horror, as she uttered the word in German:
Mord a round and swift word like a ball flung with great
force. It affected even Einstein's detached attitude. When he
danced at me, his eyes suddenly grown dark, I knew that the
same thought had occurred to him as welL
The maid came in. She stopped as though wanting to say
something. She had been in their service a long time.
"What is it?" Elsa encouraged her.
"I won't go to our baker any more. He's saying nasty things
. . .** She hesitated. **. . . He's been saying he can't make
out how it is I can live in a Jewish house the horrid creature.
* . ." She was trembling with rage. "No, no, nothing can
happen to the professor," she replied to Klsals question.
They all love him here. It's only this scoundreU" She looked
thoroughly ashamed.
There may be others like him/* I said. She glanced at me
anxiously, suspiciously, and walked out of the room in si-
lence.
The evening dragged on, heavily. The miracle of a familiar
environment, the great silence of the country around us,
204 -
worked on us after a while. Hie horror of the morrow be-
came blurred.
"All the same, you will go and see Hexner," said Elsa.
"Yes, it is perhaps better to take some precautions"
Einstein had already accepted the situation; one might al-
most say that he was already pulling up his roots. A line of
Goethe flashed through my mind: "to build on a hard rock or
to live in a tent/* Einstein was one of those who carry a tent
with them. Nothing could overcome his serenity and his
ability to adapt himself to a situation. Gradually Elsa re-
covered her cheerful self* Later, our conversation reminded
me of one of those old-fashioned quilts made up of odd bits
of material squares of black set among light blue patches.
Einstein accompanied me along the dark and slippery
path. It was a thick, black night Hie house with its lighted
windows looked like a brave little ship launched into dark-
ness. From the road I could watch it float for a long time in
its short luminous wake. I suddenly gripped Einstein's arm.
I knew that I would never see this bright hull of peace again.
The last bus appeared on the road. I walked faster, relieved
by the abruptness of this parting. Einstein had turned back,
walking in his quiet and peaceful way. His white coat stood
out like a milky target in the night
At the Potsdam station where I was tramping up and down
the platform waiting for the train, everything seemed to me
absurd and unreal I had behaved like a madwoman. A few
passengers, peaceful and drowsy, passed by me. Red and
green lights flickered in a purple sky. The night was closing
in around the silence of slumbering towns. "Absurd," I be-
lieve I said to myself aloud. These mad words I had uttered
205 -
. . . Mord ... It was hard to believe that their echo was
true in this peaceful night
Suddenly a group of young men emerged noisily onto the
platform. They all wore swastikas in their buttonholes. They
called each other by their Christian names, shouted gaily,
swore abundantly. Their voices were slightly high-pitched,
they were all a little drunk. I decided suddenly to make
my way behind them into a first-class carriage one of those
German carriages without compartments, the seats separated
by a passage in the middle. The young men still lingered at
the windows, exchanging, amid loud bursts of laughter, epi-
tibets like "dirty swine" and "drunk.' 7 The train moved out in
the din of their young voices. I was alone, about 1 A.M., with
about a dozen young Nazis. "A German woman does not use
any make-up," said the Volkischer Beobachter. I had just put
on a little lipstick. A German woman doesn't smoke. I had
lit a cigarette. I had an hour to experiment in. I was not too
sure what was going to happen.
From my corner in the carriage I observed the young
Nazis. Most of them had bright, open, smiling faces. Sons of
solid bourgeois families, well turned out, some of them with
clean starched collars, even on this summer night. Well-kept
hands, unspoiled by manual labor. Healthy, pampered chil-
dren, the pride of their families. The first thing that struck
me coming from those innocent pink lips was their language,
a language I had never heard before, that I had known only
as the language of the trenches from Remarque's book. Sordid
swear words thrown out with an open smile, ugly words
uttered with a touch of tenderness. Well-modulated voices
that tried to sound tough. These mothers* sons spoke like
slum children. They pkyed havoc with grammar, accent, and
- 206
meaning. If a proper word slipped out by mistake they cor-
rected themselves and instantly replaced it with a vulgar bit
of slang.
"Why didn't that slut of a sister of yours turn up yester-
day ?" a fair-haired boy was asking.
"Dunno. I beat it early this morning," a dark, dreamy boy
replied.
'TThat little f bitch of a Marie didn't come either/*
someone said.
"Females *s the only thing you bastards can think of!"
exclaimed a redhead sitting in a corner, in the abrupt tone of
a leader.
"That's a lie," the blond one retorted. "We on these
females." He threw a coy glance at me from under his long
lashes.
They talked about their families; one young cherub raged
about his bitch of an inquisitive mother; a pimply youth
fumed about his unaccommodating bastard of a father. But
they did not add any stress to these words. They smiled at
each other with friendliness, and as I have said, they had all
had a little too much to drink. They were sleepy, like children
are when they have been in the fresh air too long. They tried
to keep awake to show that they were grown up. From the
far corner of the carriage resounded the words: "Swine of a
Jew, 7 * followed by the name of the police superintendent of
Berlin.
The fair-haired boy opposite me gave a wry smile. "He
won't last long, well take care of him, well see that he gets
what he deserves soon." The police superintendent was
turned into their whipping boy. The conversation became
general and concerned the treatment which ought to be in-
* 207 -
flicted upon that swine of a Jew who imagined he could curb
them. The boys with the bright faces were outbidding one
another in cruelty. The superintendent was not the only one
for whom they reserved unimaginable tortures. His wife was
not going to be spared. They enumerated the parts of a
woman's body with gross detail. They exchanged lewd re-
marks at the tops of their voices, used words of which I could
only guess the meaning. They promised themselves to prome-
nade her naked and set fire to her. They laughed uproari-
ously. They created an unreal atmosphere, with this mixture
of subtle sadism and innocent childish malice. One would
have said that the images they invoked did not penetrate
their minds. At the same time, hell seemed to have opened
up at their feet to vomit fire, blood, and sulphur.
Suddenly the redhead got up and crossed to the other side
of the carriage, making his way toward me. His mouth was
slightly contorted as though he was still masticating the
horrors he had uttered. He stopped in front of me. I must
admit that my heart stood still. "May I ask you for a light? 5 *
His voice suddenly became cultured. He was staring at me
with curiosity and thanked me with exaggerated politeness.
I knew the superintendent and his wife. She was a hand-
some, dark woman with large, questioning eyes. I was able
to attach a body, features, a glance to the unleashed imagi-
nations of my traveling companions. Other names of high
officials or prominent Jews rolled in the mud of their con-
versation. The verb "to kilT had become its thread. The
slang word for it, kitten, cracked like a whip, Wird gekittt
resounded like the theme of a song. Gekittt, Gekittt. The
young voices choked with sensual delight The wheels them-
selves were hammering the word. The Berlin station, wel-
208
coming the train with its lights, seemed to me a true release,
I pounced on the telephone early next morning to tell Elsa
Einstein of my experience. The phantom had become a
reality. A clear and smiling face beaming around an infamous
word. I continued my arguments in an urgent letter. I begged
Einstein to accept the American proposal.
A few days after my departure to Paris, Elsa replied to
me: "Your letter caused me a lot of sorrow, though it was
also a joy to me. Joy because you love us it showed so
strongly in your letter. Sorrow because it means we have
to leave this place. It isn't so simple for Albert. He is so at-
tached to his Caputh. Nowhere is he so divinely happy as
here. He declares that for the moment nothing will make fa'
budge. He does not know the meaning of fear. 5 *
In fact, she herself was hesitant and uneasy. Usually the
lightning conductor of every alarm, her senses had become
blunted by security. "Today I do not know whether I am
right in chasing him by force from this solid ground, Tlie
villagers are devoted to him. Even the local Nazis greet him
with respect." She knew that I no longer had any faith in the
good intentions of the Germans. She hastened to reassure
me: "He does not go walking alone any more. If there is no
one else, his secretary goes with him."
The whole letter showed her uneasiness. *1 would like
him to keep silent for the moment, not sign any manifestoes,
and devote himself solely to his own problems. 3 * From afar,
the echo of Elsa's insistent voice bouncing against her hus-
band's impenetrable obstinacy reached me. She went on:
^Yesterday he said to me: Tf I was what you want me to be
I would not be Albert Einstein/ "
Her pride in her husband overcame her anxiety. She also
* 209 -
told me that slie was constantly worried about him when he
was in America. His pacifist speeches had upset American
public opinion. And over there, wrote Elsa, "everything is
more violent, frenzied, ferocious.**
Einstein had, in principle, accepted the American offer,
but in the way that one takes out a life insurance policy
without expecting an imminent death. In any case in July
he went to Brussels to take part in a congress. He remained
several weeks in Belgium and Holland, longing to be back
in Caputh. He missed the simple, untroubled life. He was
particularly nostalgic about his little boat, the boat that
was so much a part of him. There seemed to be a lull in the
German situation. The upsurge of Nazism appeared to have
been arrested. Again the little village breathed perfect peace.
"Was it really so necessary that I should go?" he teased his
wife. He must have also made fun of me, but Elsa never
spoke of it
The house was full of visitors: his son, his daughter-in-
law, his grandson. The autumn was a particularly flam-
boyant one. Elsa's letters brought vivid descriptions of
these blurred autumn days, sad because of their mellowness,
with that silvery background behind the pillars of the trees.
Toward the end of September, Albert Einstein still went
sailing daily. tt He is obsessed with it," Elsa wrote, It's as
though he wanted to saturate himself with joy for the whole
year." Did he akeady realize that he was never again to
see this liquid mirror of water, the sails filled with the lazy
autumn wind and the pale sun behind the light screen of
mist? Was he consciously tearing himself away from his most
treasured belongings: solitude and peace?
Elsa's premonition as to the American attitude was con-
210
finned. The Woman Patriot Corporation addressed a petition
to the American government asking that Einstein be refused
entry to the U.S., as "a Communist and a menace to Ameri-
can institutions." Einstein saw in that no indication of a
change of attitude toward Trim; it only tickled his sense of
humor. He burst out laughing. And he was still shaking with
silent laughter when he wrote his "Reply to American
Women 77 : "Never yet have I experienced from the fair sex
such an energetic rejection of all advances; or if I have, never
from so many at once. But are they not quite right, these
watchful citizenesses? Why should one's doors be opened
to a person who devours hard-boiled capitalists with as much
appetite and gusto as the Cretan Minotaur in days gone by
devoured luscious Greek maidens and, on top of that, is
low-down enough to reject every sort of war, except the
inevitable one with one's own wife? Therefore give heed to
your clever and patriotic women and remember that the
capital of mighty Rome was once saved by the cadding of its
loyal geese."
Einstein's departure for America was marked by this com-
bative good humor. It was nothing like a final departure.
In fact, they were going away, both of them, as they did
every year, to spend a winter in California in the familiar
surroundings of Pasadena. The ferocious growth of Nazism
might wane it seemed so absurd, so inconceivable in the
long run. The little home in Caputh would be waiting for
them. The permanence of inanimate objects seemed more
real than the confusion of ideas. But cling though she did
to the idea of a temporary measure, Elsa was upset. Their
departure for America was complicated by the illness of her
younger daughter, Margot. She had recovered, but the ill-
211 -
ness had accentuated even more her extremely fragile ap-
pearance, the transparency of her face. She was convalescing
in a nursing home and Elsa was greatly worried at the idea
of leaving her alone. She said to herself that her daughter
needed her more than her husband. The tragic conflict of her
life was approaching its climax. In normal conditions, on a
shorter journey, she would have let Einstein go alone. In
spite of all the arrangements she was making, she seemed
to doubt whether this was one of the usual journeys in their
wandering life. Yet everything remained as it was, both in
Caputh and in the Haberlandstrasse. Everything was waiting
for their return.
They left on December 12, 1932. Langevin journeyed from
Paris to see Albert Einstein. There was a wonderful under-
standing between them, based on a concurrence of opinion
as well as on their common scientific interests: '"They had a
lot to say to each other," Elsa wrote to me on the day they
left. ""You will soon hear what these two fellows have con-
cocted,** They were never to meet again.
Elsa Einstein, who had the gift of living in the present,
already had her mind fixed completely on the journey. They
sailed on a ship of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, the Oakland.
The ship was going direct to the Panama Canal, then along
Guatemala, and the Mexican coast to California. They had a
suite on the upper deck and had stocked themselves with
numerous books for their long journey. *lt will be like living
in paradise," wrote Elsa; ^everything would be perfect but
for the pain of the long separation from my children."
She did not seem to realize that there would be no return
from this journey.
212
Chapter XII
THE accession of the Nazis to power took Einstein by sur-
prise in the sunny peace of his California!! refuge. Surprise
is the right word to explain what happened. Like many
German intellectuals, he must have, in spite of his usually
dear judgment, underestimated the power of stupidity and
bestiality. In any case, like Elsa, he was mistaken about the
speed with which events were talcing place. Elsa's daughters
were in Germany with their husbands. Nothing had been
planned in the way of immediate steps, except the return to
Berlin* "The little home" was waiting for them, as well as
the house in the Haberlandstrasse where everything was
standing in the same place the furniture, the silver, the bric-
a-brac that had followed them all their lives and had a senti-
mental value. Even their money was all in their bank account
in Berlin.
Einstein was returning home by sea when the first news
reached him about the situation in Germany and the meas-
ures of ''purification* that had already begun. He did not,
- 213
even for one moment, envisage the possibility of going there,
or even of letting Elsa make a quick journey to Berlin to
save some of their property if anything could still be saved
at the time. When they landed in Antwerp, he had no roof
over his head, almost no money; he had indeed been caught
napping. Another man would have been dismayed, would
have wanted to temporize before making a decision, as so
many, in fact, did. But Einstein's reactions were swift and
definite. He lived completely in the present. There is a
trace of Hamlet in each of us, ready to emerge at critical
moments, but in Einstein there was no hesitation. He did
not wait to examine both sides of the question he was grap-
pling with. There was no time lag between his thought and
his actions. He had made his choice as he walked down the
gangway and was consequently perfectly calm.
His first refuge was a students* hostel in Belgium. The
first offer of hospitality came from the Belgian royal family.
The King wrote him a long letter in his small, regular hand-
writing, saying what an honor it would be for Belgium if
Einstein decided to settle down in that country. King Albert
may not have been an intellectual, he may not always have
been the brightest of conversationalists, but his offended
sense of justice, his disgust at what was taking place in Ger-
many, on this occasion enabled him to put his thoughts into
words that were infinitely moving in their dignity. It was not
in the least neutral, this letter written by the king of a small
country; he did not spare his neighbors* feelings. Considera-
tions of state did not make hfm less generous in his sympathy
with the victims. Many great men might have been proud to
have written such a letter at such a time. A pressing letter
from the Queen came at the same time. Letters and tele-
- 214 *
grams arrived from all parts of the world offering asylum to
Einstein or urging him to return to America. One or two
ridiculous suggestions introduced a humorous element into
the tragedy.
Einstein decided to stay in Belgium. He was naive enough
to believe that he could preserve his anonymity. He and Elsa
avoided large towns and popular seaside resorts. They chose
a picturesque summer residence on the coast which suited
their modest tastes and w r hich was still quite deserted, as it
was not yet the season. The tiny house they found appeared
by its very remoteness the ideal refuge in the storm that was
breaking out around them. As soon as he arrived on Euro-
pean soil, Einstein made the following declaration:
*As long as I have any choice, I will only stay in a country
where political liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens
before the law are the rule. Political liberty implies liberty
to express political opinions orally and in writing, and
tolerance implies respect of individual opinions. At the
present moment these conditions are non-existent in Ger-
many. People who have worked for international understand-
ing are persecuted there, and among them are many great
artists. Social organisms, like individuals, can be stricken
with psychological trauma, especially when times are diffi-
cult. Nations usually survive such afflictions. I hope that
Germany will soon recover her sanity and that in future men
like Kant and Goethe wiH not only be remembered from time
to time, but that the principles they taught will prevail in
public life and in the conscience of the people."
This declaration, although made in very restrained lan-
guage, was especially well fitted to unleash the fury of the
Nazis. The tone of ralm superiority, with the tinge of sar-
- 215 -
casm concerning the transitory character of the German
eclipse, exasperated the rulers of the Third Reich, who
dreamed of a millennium of domination. Newspapers all
over the world published Einstein's declaration.
At the same time lie sent in his resignation to the Prussian
Academy of Science. The Academy responded with all the
zeal of neophytes of the official doctrine. It declared that it
had learned with, indignation through the newspapers of
Albert Einstein's participation in the atrocity campaign
launched in France and America and that it had immedi-
ately asked for an explanation. It added that its members
were "bound by the closest of ties with the Prussian State
and that, notwithstanding the discretion required of them in
the political sphere, they have always served and safe-
guarded the national idea. The Academy therefore has no
reason to regret Einstein's withdrawal." This was Bow the
Prussian Academy parted with its most eminent member.
Einstein replied at once, declaring that he had never partici-
pated in what they called "atrocity-mongering" and that he
had not been aware that such a campaign existed anywhere.
There had been reports and comments on the measures and
official declarations of responsible members of the German
government as well as on the program concerning the ex-
termination of German Jews Tby economic methods." He
gave a detailed explanation of his first declaration to the
press. *1 explained the present state of Germany as a mental
aberration of the masses and made a few remarks upon the
causes of this condition." He mentioned another declaration
made to the International League against Anti-Semitism,
not intended for publication, an appeal ~to all people of
intelligence to remain loyal to the ideals of a threatened
216
civilization, to do everything in their power to see that the
mass hysteria which was being displayed in so terrible a
fashion in Germany did not spread further*" He added that
the German press had "distorted his remarks, as might have
been expected from a muzzled press." He demanded that the
Academy should bring his declaration to the knowledge of
its members and concluded: *1 am ready to stand by every
word I have published.**
The altercation between Einstein and the Prussian Acad-
emy caused a great stir and provoked much argument The
first hasty step of the Academy must have aroused opposition
among its own members. One could not part with a man of
Einstein's reputation so casually. The Academy was torn,
like so many German intellectuals of that period, between
the desire to fit in with the policy of the government at home
and at the same time to reconcile public opinion abroad. It
was typical of the neophytes of the new regime, who threw
a cloak of tolerance over Nazi crimes in the name of na-
tional unity and at the same time tried to apologize for
their cowardice abroad, by stressing the necessity of inter-
national co-operation. Violent, malicious declarations written
in a bad new German appeared constantly in the servile press
at home while pathetic reproaches were published abroad. In
a direct answer to Einstein, made through the intermediary
of its Dutch correspondent, the Academy completely
changed its tone:
*Tf the Academy deeply deplores the turn events have
taken [the same Academy that had declared that there was
no reason to regret his departure!] it is chiefly because a
man of such high scientific authority, after spending so many
years of work in the midst of the Academy, among Germans,
- 217 -
years in which he must have become closely acquainted with
the German character and habits of thought, should have
now joined the party of those abroad who, partly out of
ignorance of true conditions and facts, spread false and un-
founded accusations against our German nation."
The Academy made another appeal to Einstein, not be-
cause it hoped to shake his decision, for it knew that it would
have been forced to expel him even if he had remained
silent (it hinted at that in the letter), but because it wished
to deceive public opinion abroad as to the character of the
regime to which it had so willingly submitted. "How great
would have been the effect abroad if your voice, your voice
in particular, had been raised in defense of the German
people at a time when such monstrous and ridiculous calum-
nies were being spread against them. We have been cruelly
disappointed that your testimony has been used by those
who, not content with opposing and slandering the present
German government, are also enemies of the German peo-
ple."
Einstein thought this "academic'* correspondence most
significant and revealing. He knew that such declarations
went far beyond his personal case, startling though it was.
They contained all the elements of the tragedy that was to
disrupt the world and ruin Germany. In April 1933 Nazi
barbarism was already all-powerful. To do it justice, it never
tried to pass for what it was not. It left this contemptible
task to the more respectable Germans, to high officials who
had good reputations abroad, and to famous scientists. In
this April 1933 the concentration camps, which afterward
appeared to the civilized world like visions from the Apoca-
lypse, were already at work Jews, Communists, Socialists,
- 218
and pacifists underwent tortures that were performed with
a refinement in the art of human degradation hitherto un-
known. A fugitive from Dachau brought to Paris 180 names
of victims written on the lining of his coat.
The Prussian Academy of Science counted among its mem-
bers the greatest brains of Germany, including several win-
ners of the Nobel Prize, and this same Academy branded the
warnings of the civilized world as "monstrous, and often
ridiculous, calumnies," The great names of its members were
to help deceive the world, which one day paid heavily for
having believed German lies.
"You have declared," Einstein replied to the Academy,
"that my voice raised on behalf of the German people would
have had a great effect abroad. I have to reply that such an
act would have been equivalent to a denial of all the ideas of
justice and equality for which I have struggled all my life.
In fact, far from being a voice raised on behalf o the Ger-
man people, it would have been on behalf of those who are
destroying the ideas and principles that have given the Ger-
man people a place of honor in world civilization. In doing
this, I would have contributed, though indirectly, to the de-
struction of all our cultural values."
At the same time the Bavarian Academy intervened to
declare its support of the Prussian Academy and wished to
know Einstein's attitude toward the Bavarian Academy, in
the light of the events that had taken place. Einstein replied
that he wished to have his name struck off its list of members,
"It is the chief task of academies to protect the scientific life
of a country, German scientific societies have, as far as I
know, allowed without protest a considerable number of
German scientists and students, as well as members of other
219 *
professions with academic degrees, to be deprived of the
opportunity to work and live in Germany. I could not belong
to a community which adopted such an attitude, even if it
did so under external pressure."
There was something magnificent about the calm of Ein-
stein's declarations. He wrote them in the heat of the mo-
ment, but every word was carefully weighed. He had his
anger under control and he was using his favorite weapon
irony. His thunder seemed to descend from behind the
clouds. But he was living in an atmosphere of great anxiety:
Elsa's daughters were still in Germany. They could not help
reading daily the abuse showered upon Albert Einstein, the
incitements to assassination. The house in the Haberland-
strasse was searched. lisa happened to be there when the
state police came. Her nervous system never recovered from
the shock. The Tittle house** in Caputh was also searched.
The garden was dug up in a methodical way, in search of
arms. An obliging neighbor supplied Hitler's stooges with
spades. Tte Nazi machinery had not yet reached the stage
of perfection for the weapons in question to have material-
ized. Einstein's accusations against the servility of the Ger-
man spirit were met with the absurd accusation of an armed
plot, with police measures. Even a sense of humor had died
under the terror.
Einstein's bank account, the only source of income for
Elsa's two sisters and her younger daughter and her son-in-
law, had been confiscated. The family spent every night wait-
ing for the sinister knocks at the door which had become so
familiar. Elsa was almost suffocated with anxiety. When I
saw her a few months later she was still a nervous wreck, as
a result of these months spent in mortal terror for her chil-
- 220
dren. A long letter in April, which it took her days to write,
described her tragic life. "My husband has not allowed
himself to be silenced. Nothing could stop hmi from speak-
ing out his mind. He has remained faithful to himself. And
my children were over there, almost distraught with anxiety.**
At the time she was writing, lisa was already with them and
Margot was expected momentarily. lisa's journey had been
kept very secret, for she intended to go back to Berlin, to
dismantle the flat in the Haberlandstrasse and the little
house in Caputh. Above all she did not want to abandon
her husband, a former director of a German monthly. Jew-
ish journalists were being liquidated" rapidly, but he hesi-
tated about leaving because of his father who, with the
obstinacy of old age, refused to leave Germany.
Many future tragedies could have been avoided but for
the numerous halfway decisions and divided loyalties. The
German Jews imagined that they could still build for them-
selves peaceful little lives, remote from the storm, though the
Nazis had already made their program public with merciless
clarity, and the Nuremberg laws were beginning to operate.
lisa, still deeply upset by her recent experiences, was
caught between her loyalty to her husband and her respect
for Albert's convictions. One of them must surely be wrong.
Her husband's cautious arguments were so plausible, and
Albert's opinions might be merely the extravagances of a
genius. She never recovered from the strain of that conflict.
TTiere she was, trembling and fragile, her narrow face wear-
ing an expression of painful surprise that never left it; deep
shadows lay under her eyes, she jumped at every bang on
the door. Tears rush to my eyes when I look at her," wrote
"God grant that she decides not to go back. But she is
221 -
adamant at the moment" lisa very soon went back, secretly,
terrified that a chance indiscretion might reveal that she had
been visiting a man who was considered a traitor in the
whole of Germany a traitor even in the eyes of the German
Jews.
One of the darkest spots of this first period of confusion
was the reaction of many German Jews. Thousands of them
paid with their blood for the kind of attitude they showed
toward Einstein. They blamed him for the blows that fell on
them. They explained as reprisals the scrupulously executed
clauses in the Nazi program. I have never seen a bird fas-
cinated by a serpent, but that image corresponds exactly to
the paralysis of the German Jews faced by Nazism. Had
they become so totally absorbed in the German nation? Were
they Germans more than they were Jews, in spite of being
rejected by the new Germany? "Anti-Semites often talk of
the malice and cunning of the Jews," Einstein wrote kter
on, "but has there ever been in history a more striking ex-
ample of collective stupidity than the blindness of the Ger-
man Jews?"
Only the smallest fraction of them escaped in time and
they were mostly intellectuals, aware not only of the danger
that threatened them personally but also of the danger to
their liberty of thought. They were, with few exceptions,
poor Jews who withdrew, like dust on the road, leaving
nothing behind them, searching for a better fate for their
children and a more dignified life.
"Jewish solidarity, 9 * Einstein said, "is another invention
of their enemies. 9 * His mouth dropped faintly at the corners
in what in anyone else would have been a smile of bitterness.
**At its best it can be compared to the generosity of a man
. 222
throwing alms from the top of the stairs to a beggar to the
spongers crowding at the back door.** Then he laughed out-
right, without malice. A German Jew was present at that
conversation. "We, the German Jews,** he said, "were fright-
ened by the influx of Polish and Russian Jews during the
pogroms and prided ourselves on being different. Now, for
the French Jews we are the Jews from the East . . .** And
he shrugged his shoulders in resignation.
A Committee of Aid to German Jews was formed in Paris
in May 1933. This first wave of emigration, composed of poor
intellectuals and small tradesmen, disturbed the French Jews
considerably. I had just published several articles in the
Excelsior on German terror and its victims, on the exodus of
writers and scientists, who were the first to bring the fruit
of their research abroad. I was invited to a meeting where
the problems of thfe growing emigration were to be discussed,
in the house of a rich French industrialist. "We are ready to
welcome this Jewish elite,** our host said, and I interrupted
him:
"It is not only a Jewish elite, there are also non-Jews, clear-
thinking Germans among them, who are leaving a country
where there is no longer any liberty of thought. Besides, the
struggle against Nazism is not a Jewish question. The Jews
are only the Nazis* first objective."
TBut it is the Jews who are occupying our minds. What
are the elements that form the present Jewish emigration?
What can we do for them? 7 * I was asked. "We should avoid
admitting those who can create competition for the French,**
our host went on. ^Immigration of this sort might provoke
anti-Semitism in France, though of course this could not
mean anything like persecution on the German scale. . . .**
223 *
*lt couldn't happen here 9 * words repeated everywhere at
that time "national interests"; "non-interf erence with the in-
ternal politics of a country"; Trance mustn't provoke Ger-
many"; "justified as our humanitarianism may be, it should
not make us blind to our true interests."
The conscience of the world lay spread out before us on
the oriental carpet of this luxurious house. How terribly
familiar it all was!
When I told the story to Einstein, he said: *lt is not a
purely Jewish conflict, it is part of a social conflict of* far
greater importance. The haves are getting together to defend
themselves against the have-nots."
Slavery to comfort accentuated the tragic drama that was
beginning. Against all evidence, the rich Jewish bourgeoisie
was clinging to its fortunes, to its houses, to its furniture. I
called it the complex of the cupboard which was too heavy to
transport abroad. Thousands of them were to die horrible
deaths because they had been unable to part with their now
meaningless property. In their servility to material things,
they had lost all clarity of judgment and all human dignity.
*Tflie greatest tragedy in my husband's life," Elsa wrote in
April, "is that the German Jews make him responsible for all
the horrors that happen to them over there. They believe he
has provoked it all and in their resentment have announced
their total dissociation from him. We get as many angry let-
ters from the Jews as we do from the Nazis. And that when
he sacrificed everything for them, he who has always been
fearless, who has never failed them! How tragic that the
same people who idolized him are now flinging mud at him!
They are so cowed and frightened that they publish one
declaration after another that they are treated well and have
224 *
nothing and will have nothing in common with Einstein.
Read the contemptible pronouncements of the Central Com-
mittee of German Jews, the Jewish Consistory, and other in-
stitutions, dictated to them by despair and fear. They are all
in the same condition; they misinterpret their situation so
thoroughly that one can do nothing for them. Not one of
them realizes what is really happening. They have burned
every single photograph of my husband. But he never no-
ticed these photographs at the time when he was acclaimed
and that is why he is invulnerable today."
Albert and Elsa Einstein were installed at Le Coq in Bel-
gium. I went there on an almost official mission. De Monzie,
then the French Minister of National Education, had asked
me to offer Einstein a Chair at the College de France, vacant
after the death of Charles Andler. I knew that Einstein was
submerged with offers from all countries, but I also knew
that he would have liked above everything to teach at the
College de France. Suddenly a doubt flashed across my mind.
It was a German Chair. The College de France alone could
alter that, not the Minister. TVe talked to Joseph Bdier. He
came today to confirm the resolution of the College," De
Monzie reassured me, and urged me to secure Einstein's con-
sent At the first mention of it, Elsa replied that her husband
had already accepted the offer of the Institute at Princeton,
that he had had commitments in Oxford and Leiden for
years, and that he had agreed to lecture for a month every
year in Madrid, as well as in Brussels in gratitude for Belgian
hospitality. Tie must accept the Chair at the College de
France, 7 * De Monzie insisted impatiently.
The spring was slow in coming that year. A gray, wintiy
sun hung over the coast. The silvery dunes were swept by a
- 225 -
sharp wind. Leaden waves beat against the shore; there was
something desolate in the salt air that irritated the lungs.
Le Coq gave one that impression of transition and solitude
that most seaside resorts give when they are deserted and
do not live a borrowed life.
The Einsteins lived in a small house in the center of the
village. There was a living room and a kitchen on the ground
floor, and three little rooms on the second floor. Margot lived
with them, as did Mademoiselle Dukas, Einstein's loyal sec-
retary. In his bedroom a plain table by the window served
Einstein as a desk. The little house echoed with the sound of
voices and the creaking of the boards on the stairs, the noise
of the dishes in the kitchen and the hammering of the type-
writer. It was one of those temporary houses that brings
sadly to -mind the space and comfort of homes one will never
see again. But Einstein stood at the door with a broad, wel-
coming smile. As usual, everything around him was reduced
to a mere background.
~Of course I accept. Ill have to run through the course
very rapidly. I don't know how I'll manage about the rest. I
feel like a peddler: *Would you like some nice new socks?
Would you like a bit of obscure science?* " He was laughing
with his usual boisterous laughter. I often said to myself: if
a great tree could have laughed, shaking its powerful
branches, this is how it would laugh.
The French press had already released the news of the
offer made to Einstein. It was accompanied with flattering
comments and warm words of welcome. Einstein gave me a
special statement for Excelsior. He spoke of the French
people's strong sense of responsibility, of the moral principles
in politics and culture which Europe owed to France. He
- 226
said: "I know that these moral forces are still alive in France
and that today on the Continent of Europe they form the
stronghold of traditions of spiritual and political liberty, so
imminently threatened. The idea of serving science together
with my French friends fills me with great joy, no less *b*tt>
the cordiality with which French authorities and the French
people have welcomed my nomination.'*
De Monzie, who had just gone to Belgium to inaugurate an
exhibition of James Ensor's works, was delighted at Einstein's
acceptance, and went to Le Coq to express his gratitude to
him.
Einstein left for America in the autumn, planning to return
to Paris in April 1934 In January he asked me to let him
know whether the term started in April, as he wanted to
arrive at the last moment; he was reluctant to part too soon
from his collaborator, for whom he had obtained a lifelong
position at Princeton. Elsa and he had planned not to settle
down in Paris, where they had too many friends and ac-
quaintances. Einstein had a fancy for the mellow background
of the He de France; he needed peace and the large horizons
of the country.
The Chair at the College de France never materialized.
De Monzie had been too impetuous. Joseph B6dier, too, had
been too hasty in committing himself without first ensuring
the consent of the College de France. The latter refused to
transform Andler's German chair into a scientific one. De
Monzie asked the Financial Committee of the Chamber of
Deputies to create a new one, but the demand was refused.
For a long time I could not get over this ridiculous situation.
I believe Einstein learned of it through the newspapers. Elsa
tried to console me: **He has forgotten all about it. Bear the
- 227 -
French a grudge? What an idea! It is all to the good. He will
be less rushed in his work."
The fury of the Nazi pack against him became more and
more violent. Among the propaganda literature I received
from Germany (I had asked for it to be sent to me, though
it was nauseating) was an illustrated brochure, by an author
whose name I have forgotten, with the title: "The Jews Are
Watching You." It was a collection of most unflattering pho-
tographs of Nazi enemies, baptized in the Jewish faith for
the occasion, such as the Communists Thaelmann and Mun-
zenberg and the Catholic Erzberger, who was killed by the
precursors of the Nazis. This booklet was simply an incite-
ment to murder. Einstein's photograph headed the list. All
the malice of the photographer had not succeeded in altering
the distinction of his features and the confidence of his
glance. There was a caption underneath: "Not yet hanged."
The sinister words contrasted stardingly with the calm ex-
pression of superiority on his face.
I had the photograph and the caption reproduced in Ex-
celsior. It was published on the front page. I saw people in
the bus start when their eyes fell on it. With the help of this
document I was able to impress the good French bourgeoisie
with a type of barbarity inconceivable to the Latin mind.
The brochure must have had great success in Germany. I
received a second edition, but this time without Einstein's
portrait. The young Third Reich was still self-conscious
about the impression it created abroad.
I went back to Le Coq in August The season was at its
peak and the little village was full of people, like a fair-
ground. Einstein's house was swallowed up by the perpetual
coming and going of visitors, but he lived among all the
228
noise more inaccessibly than ever. One morning I found Trim
in the room on the ground floor sitting at a large table with
his assistant, Professor Mayer. They were both hard at work.
I could hear the typewriter hammering above. "Elsa is dic-
tating letters/* said Einstein. "She hasn't many more to do.
Sit down and wait a moment, you are not disturbing me in
the least." I went over to a corner of the room by the window
and took a sheet of paper, intending to write a letter. My pen
remained in the air.
"No/* Einstein was saying with determination, "this is the
way to do it." Then came a series of formulae; his firm voice
sounded like that of a man thinking aloud.
"Don't you think . . ." went on Mayer, and out came a
row of figures which he put down on paper. The words I
caught here and there had no meaning for me; they might
have been talking Chinese. But I was embarrassed, as though
I were committing a grave indiscretion: I had surprised
Einstein at work. Mayer sat with his back to me, but I could
see Einstein's face in the hard morning light. I hardly dared
look at him, but I soon realized that he did not see me. His
eyes did not have their usual brilliance; he seemed mentally
a vacuum. But at the same time there was a fixity in his gaze
as if he were deciphering a hieroglyph. He could see what he
was saying. He was thinking with his eyes. It was a strange
impression. These abstract formulae which he enounced with
slow assurance were for him something visual, which I too
might have seen if the language he spoke had not been un-
familiar to me. They were something tangible, too, for from
time to time he spread his hands and made signs and curves
in the air with them. Mayer followed him with bated breath.
He spoke fast, as though trying to catch up with him. Not
229
blindly. He protested, listened greedily to the explanations,
shook his head; then his face lit up. I could see the sweat
stand out on his forehead though it was not hot in the room,
Einstein rose and walked around the table. His hand wrote
something on an invisible blackboard. He stopped. He
pulled at his pipe. A shadow flitted across his face, vanished
in the smoke. His voice once again was raised as if for dicta-
tion. He stopped for a moment. **Yes, that's right," he said,
and kughed happily. "I told you so!" His features grew hu-
man, lit up by an expression of boyish, slightly arrogant mis-
chief. Then again his face withdrew as behind a transparent
wall, so great was the concentration around him. His com-
pact, solid form, leaning heavily against the table, made one
think of a modern sculpture, of thought expressed in stone.
**Yes," he told me later, "I can work anywhere, in any sur-
roundings." He carried his world with him. His faculty of
concentration or of abstraction, rather isolated him com-
pletely. All his past seemed to have crumbled behind him,
strewing its debris upon the present. Never had his strength
been so remarkable as it was now; I am tempted to call it
superhuman. I wonder whether he found it within himself, in
some deep faith to which he subordinated all the petty trou-
bles of this earth. His serenity was certainly the serenity of a
believer. I suddenly realized that, after having known Tifm so
well, I really knew very little about him.
The first wave of German emigres had fled their homeland
in confusion. The house at Le Coq became a shelter for the
wreckage. As soon as they began to arrive, Elsa wrote to me:
"From morning till night our house is invaded by people who
need help. We have here an asylum for the unfortunate." But
it was not only for material aid or for advice in rebuilding
230
their lives that people came to him they came searching for
guidance in the general shipwreck of ideals, or simply to
inhale a breath of faith.
Other visitors mingled with the crowd of Emigres. Belgium
was dangerously near Germany. There was a rumor that
Goering's brother had come to Le Coq. Men with foreign
accents asked too many questions about Einstein. Suspicious
individuals roamed around the house. The murder of Theo-
dor Lessing showed how precarious could be the security of
exile and how powerful St. Vehme.
Elsa went through terrible anxiety. "I can't sleep," she
wrote. "I stretch myself out on the bed without undressing.
I take every noise to be the approach of danger. It is said in
Berlin that they have settled a price of twenty thousand
marks on his head. Even if that isn't true, this rumor is bound
to attract the attention of fanatical young men. 5 * She begged
her husband to be careful, and not to take part in public
demonstrations. "We have had violent arguments. He has
reproached me for being a contemptible coward, for having
no sense of dignity."
Danger lurked in the peaceful nights. Alarming warnings
reached the Belgian royal family. They upset Queen Eliza-
beth deeply. She too vainly exhorted Einstein to be prudent.
King Albert took more immediate measures. He had the little
house surrounded with armed police. Two men shadowed
Einstein and never left him for a moment. The two plain-
clothes policemen made one think of characters out of a
detective story. At the very moment of my arrival at Le Coq
I saw one of them rush into the room. He was wiping his
purple face and pulling at his long whiskers. His eyes were
231
popping out of his head and the heavy pocket of his coat was
flapping.
"Where is the prof essor?" he shouted in despair.
"He is resting upstairs," Elsa replied calmly.
"He isn't there my friend has just been to see he's
gone ..." His despair was so comical that Elsa, in spite
of her fears, could not help laughing. c WeTl try to find
him. . . . Never have I had so hard a task. He slips out of
our fingers like an eel. . . . His Majesty's orders were so
very strict," he grumbled. He crunched the gravel angrily
under his feet.
Tou shouldn't have behaved like that, Albert," Elsa said
to hiTn an hour later.
"Hm . . . didn't I give them the slip?" Einstein looked at
us, shaking with laughter, his eyes shirring with triumph.
One day Einstein received a letter asking for an interview
on a very confidential and urgent matter. He was not at Le
Coq at the time and Elsa received the man in Margot's pres-
ence. He asked to speak to her alone. I got a six-page letter
describing this conversation; Elsa had been greatly upset by
the revelations of the stranger. She did not know whether
she was dealing with a counterspy or with a traitor who was
ready to sell himself to the highest bidder; not knowing what
else to do, she sent him to see me in Paris.
When he arrived I saw a man whose eyes were those of a
fanatic, blazing with hatred. His hair was closely cropped
in the Prussian manner. He was a member of a titled German
family. He offered to sell for a high price information on the
Nazis* preparations for a world war. I feigned a smiling dis-
belief. They have nothing to gain from a war." I must have
carried off my little act of indifference well, for he tried
232 -
vehemently to persuade me that he was right. He spoke of
rearmament plans, of Nazi ambitions concerning North
Africa, of a spy ring that was to spread over the world, and
of the decision of the Nazis to exterminate everybody who
stood in the way of their domination. "They want to assas-
sinate King Albert, for they will never get him to agree with
them." He spoke of experiments made with a particularly
powerful explosive, at which he said he had been present
with Goering. He was ready to hand over all the secrets and
the formula of the explosive for a large sum of money, of
which he claimed to be in need. I suspected some dark story
of rivalry, some fear of reprisals behind the hatred in his
eyes. "Is it possible that Jewish organizations lack the few
hundred thousand francs that would enable them to learn
things which might save thousands and thousands of Jews?
What I bring to them is sufficient material to overthrow the
Nazis." There was a strange note of contempt in his voice,
as though he were really indignant and my indifference only
helped to exasperate him. He pulled papers out of his suit-
case, proving that he had been ordered by Goering to assist
at experiments with explosives. "It is easy to fake such
papers," I said to myself. But they seemed to me, I could not
say why, convincing and authentic.
During this visit I remained torn between contradictory
feelings. This was not the first undercover agent the Nazis
had sent to me. I had seen many a spy, both pathetic and
dangerous, and they usually betrayed themselves during
conversation. But Herr von K. made me shudder with fear.
(I admit that when he opened his briefcase I expected him
to aim a revolver at me. ) And at the same time he inspired
a peculiar confidence. He left me disappointed when I said
233
that no Jewish organization would offer him the money he
asked two or three hundred thousand francs, if I am not
mistaken. Elsa was right when she said that the man looked
hunted. That was what I thought as I saw him walk, stoop-
ing, down the path in my little garden. I immediately in-
formed the Suret6.
A few days later he wrote me a letter., signed with his
name, which I also passed to that organization. They prom-
ised to make inquiries, hut I never heard the man's name
again. Either the police had not taken my warning seriously,
or he had escaped them. The high official whom I had in-
formed had been intensely interested, but later on he became
a prominent figure in the Vichy government perhaps he al-
ready belonged to the fifth column. Einstein had, in his turn,
warned King Albert. Though the death of the King of the
Belgians that great friend of France was later considered
to have been accidental, I could not help thinking of those
fanatical eyes in the face of a man who spoke of the King's
death as though he were seeing it happen.
Neither Einstein nor I have ever made up our minds
whether we had had to do with a traitor or a lunatic, or
whether we had missed the opportunity to learn a great deal
about the Nazi menace from someone who knew.
In the autumn of 1933 the Einsteins left for America. **It
was hard to part with the children," Elsa wrote from the
boat *This happens every year I ought to be used to it, but
every time the rift is the same." lisa Kayser had come to
Antwerp with her husband; Margot alone had remained at
Le Coq in the now silent little house, to finish a wooden
Madonna she had started during this eventful summer.
234
The long journey on the ship was a miraculous relaxation
and Einstein found ideal conditions for work at Princeton.
"The whole of Princeton is one great park with wonderful
trees/' Elsa wrote to me. The autumn was revealing all its
splendor, the trees were flaming with red and golden tints.
They lived far from the turmoil of American life. "We might
almost believe that we are in Oxford and when the bells ring
and they ring so often here it makes us think of West-
minster, of the heart of England. I have never seen a place
in America that looks so un-American.** She was also de-
lighted with the house that had been reserved for them an
old patrician house at No. 2 Library Place surrounded by
a big garden and with large, airy rooms, furnished with taste
and care. After the camping life at Le Coq, this beautiful
house seemed like a palace in a fairy tale. Einstein's assistant
joined them, as did his secretary, who was the first to adapt
herself completely to American life. A new existence full of
comfort began for them. New ties of friendship came to
soothe the wounds of disloyalty. Elsa's letters began to sound
optimistic again. She had even recovered some of her vitality.
**We are very happy here," she repeated. But she could not
bring herself to be egotistical enough to enjoy the present
fully, for she added at once: ^perhaps too happy." In her
heart she was still tormented. "Sometimes one has a bad con-
science. One thinks that everything has its compensation and
that logically all this must end someday."
She rarely got news from her daughters, not often enough
to allay her anxiety. The "compensation," as she called it,
turned out to be terrible. She was summoned to Paris in May
1934. Usa was there, seriously ill. She had let her mother
know only when she felt her condition to be critical. Margot
235 -
was with her. On the ship bringing her back to Europe, Elsa
knew, in spite of all precautions that had been taken to con-
ceal the truth from her, that she was arriving too late. In her
despair she reproached herself for negligence. TBoth children
have undergone terrible trials and they must have needed
me. Why, oh, why did I not go earlier?" she wrote during the
crossing.
In a furnished apartment in the Rue du Docteur Blanche
she found the emaciated body of a young woman: a face of
which nothing remained but the eyes with a gray misty look
of surrender in them. Margot, exhausted by anxiety and her
vigil, looked strangely like her dying sister. lisa was taken to
a nursing home in St. Cloud and Elsa summoned a Berlin
doctor, French doctors came and went. It was tentatively
diagnosed as an inoperable cancer, but in fact this was an
incorrect diagnosis. But for her refusal to live she might pos-
sibly have been saved. All she asked was not to suffer. Only
when she died did a smile appear on her face, giving it bade
suddenly all its youth and beauty. We brought her coffin
from St. Cloud to Paris on a sultry summer day. Margot
looked stunned: she was like those cripples who keep grop-
ing for the absent limb. As I drove in the car following the
coffin on a road bathed in a dazzling sun, I felt that I was
accompanying not only a girl who had died before her time
but also a mortally stricken mother.
It was a long time before I had news from Elsa. "Since my
child is no more, I no longer write, 5 * she said at last in a letter.
She had had the courage to resume the thread of life, deso-
late as she was. "I did all I believed I ought to do to please
Albert and Margot.** She even spared them the spectacle of
her suffering. But she was always aware of an irreparable
236
loss, that was like a wound that refused to heal. "I never stop
longing for her." Her handwriting showed her deep distress.
She drew some comfort from the fact that Margot had re-
covered a certain calm in her work and, having regained
strength under her mother's care, seemed to have risen above
her grief.
Elsa's principal source of strength came, as usual, from her
husband. Albert Einstein had been greatly upset by lisa's
death and his wife's grief. He reacted as believers do, with
an increased ardor in his own religion, with a new creative
effort of thought.
Elsa spoke to me about it in the same tender and joking
tones which the unknown regions of the mind always in-
spired in her. "Albert has produced something outstanding.
Nobody will recognize it, nobody believes in it, but perhaps
one day when he is no more people will realize all that he has
created. It appears that his new discovery is so bold that he
will not see his idea realized during his lifetime."
They spent the summer in Connecticut, where they found
a house that Elsa compared to Paradise. "We have allowed
ourselves an incredible luxury this year. We have rented a
real estate twenty acres of land, groves and fields, with all
the marvels of summer around us. There is even a tennis
court and a swimming pool. We are so far from everything.
There is such peace here. A silence such as I have experi-
enced only once in the mountains.'' There were a few
touches of her old humor in the letter: "Everything is so
luxurious here that the first ten days I swear to you we ate
in the pantry; the dining room was too magnificent for us."
Again she reproached herself: "One feels ashamed to live so
happily. . . .* One idea predominated in her: that she had
237
been unable to give lisa all that she had reserved for her in
compensation for her suffering. The shadow of tier dead
daughter threw a cloud over the splendor of the summer.
"She has been sacrificed," Elsa wrote to me. She never failed
to reproach herself.
Einstein loved the solitude that surrounded him. Visitors,
however, found their way there in spite of the remoteness of
the White House of Old Lyme. One day Pirandello came to
see him. They sent me a letter, signed by all of them. They
understood each other from the first. "When he winks at you
so gently you feel how well he understands you,** Elsa wrote.
I could imagine Pirandello's eyes, both penetrating and
weary, occasionally lit up by a sudden gleam. They were
candid eyes, the eyes of a tired child through which another
man sometimes looked with a wise and cruel gaze.
Elsa increased her efforts to surround her husband and
daughter with every possible comfort and luxury. She was
anxious about her nephew and about both her sons-in-law,
who were waiting for their American visas and for whom a
new life had to be built. The Einsteins bought a house in
Princeton, on Mercer Street Builders worked at it all the
summer. Elsa worried as to how they would get on in their
absence. She was obsessed by perfection, as though she
would have liked to make up to the living for her concentra-
tion upon the dead.
They returned to Princeton and the move to their new
house began. The moving vans still stood at the door when
Elsa felt a swelling in her eye. It was an edema on the retina.
She realized at once that it was serious, but she went on super-
vising the installation for several days. She believed that no
238
one but she could find his way in the labyrinth of dismantled
furniture which they had been able to rescue from Berlin.
The New York oculist confirmed Elsa's presentiment. The
accident to the eye was only a symptom of a serious disease
of the kidneys and the heart. But she refused to go to the
hospital in New York. She did not want to part with Albert,
or with this home where she had at last been able to collect
the scattered pieces of her life. She was surrounded with
great care. Her family concealed from her the diagnosis of t^e
doctor and she in her turn concealed from them the serious-
ness of her condition. Margot went to spend a few days in New
York. Her mother telephoned her every day to reassure her
and urge her to prolong her visit. When she returned home,
Margot found her mother so changed that she almost fainted.
"Yes, it looked grim," said Albert; "she almost let out the
secret. 5 * He could still joke, but his eyes never lost their look
of anxiety and he was very pale.
She underwent a drastic cure that demanded total immo-
bility. After a few weeks she broke her doctor's regulations
and dictated in a whisper a long letter to me. Though inca-
pacitated by her illness, she never stopped worrying about
her family. The lovely house that she wanted to set up for
them was now living under the shadow of her illness. That
was one of her principal regrets. She was also distressed to
be unable to do anything for those members of the family
who were coming to America. She could not bear to fail in
the responsibilities she had assumed.
The doctors noticed an improvement in her condition. She
was making plans, those tentative plans made by people
seriously ill. But I do not think she had any illusions as to her
condition, A sentence had slipped into the long letter, a sen-
239
tence that chilled my blood. TE so much want to speak to
you. Do try to come. But don't delay your arrival for too
long, so we may still be able to meet."
I wanted to go at once, but Margot wrote that her mother's
condition was not hopeless. She also said that she feared that
my arrival might upset Elsa too much. There was, in fact, a
halt in the progress of the disease. I had a letter from her. It
was the first that she was able to write herself, with one eye
closed, and her hand trembling, as she outlined one letter
after the other. ^This trembling," she wrote, "is part of the
'general picture of the disease/ What a pompous phrase!"
But she spoke chiefly of her husband, of his concern about
her, his preoccupation on her account. "He has been so upset
by my illness. He wanders about like a lost soul. I never
thought he loved me so much. And that comforts me." Not
even her illness had given her that sense of importance that
invalids often get, which makes them think they are the cen-
ter of the universe. On the contrary, she showed more than
ever that strange humility so characteristic of her.
Albert's fifty-seventh birthday was approaching. She spoke
of the magnificent richness of his work. "He is in very good
form. He has accomplished a lot lately. He himself believes
his ktest work to be the best he has ever done."
This was almost Elsa's last message. Her last days were
brightened by a great hope. Albert Einstein had rented a
lovely house for the summer, two hours from Montreal. Elsa
felt better. Everybody said she would recover in this house
at Saranac Lake, where Albert Einstein once more returned
to his beloved sailboats. She was delighted at the idea of the
journey, as though hoping that new horizons and surround-
ings would change the dismal trend of her thoughts. In her
240
last letter she told me: "I am certain to get better there. If
my lisa walked into the room now, I would recover at once."
In fact she survived her daughter by only two years. I do
not know what the doctor's diagnosis was, but I know that
she died from the cruel conflict between her passionate
motherhood and her love for her husband.
241
Chapter XIII
"IN THE flash of lightning that lights up our stormy sky,
men and things appear in all their nakedness/* Albert Ein-
stein wrote in 1933. "Nations and human beings clearly re-
veal their designs, their strengths and weaknesses, and their
passions too. Routine and conventions have become mean-
ingless in these rapidly changing conditions.'*
Men and nations were, indeed, to show what they were
worth in this hour of trial. Einstein knew he had known it
from the start that the seizure of Germany by the Nazis was
not merely a deplorable, ephemeral incident; nor was it a
purely internal movement, as fascism pretended to be for a
time. He knew that fundamental human values were in dan-
ger and he also knew that people were far from realizing
this danger. Their blindness alarmed him. He was also
alarmed by the absence of the most elementary reaction
against injustice the reaction that is man's only protection
against a return to barbarism. This absence of reaction meant
not only more or less deliberate, more or less selfish blind-
243
ness, but also sympathy with the methods employed, a nos-
talgia for order, even if based on violence. He knew how
deceitful and how pernicious arguments based on the fatality
of evolution could be, and he often quoted Lorentz* reply
when he was told during the First World War that in history
force had always triumphed over right. "I cannot refute the
truth of your argument, but I know that I would not care to
live in such a world.**
In the decisive years when Nazism was still progressing
slowly, when persecutions were executed by installments and
seemed to affect only a small ethnic and political group,
when the victims of tomorrow were still able to say: "This
does not concern me, only my neighbor/* the world also was
becoming accustomed, by installments, to moral decadence.
For Einstein it was the beginning of a great problem of
conscience that he shared with many others. How should
he react against this decadence, and what would be the con-
sequences of his reaction? His problem was different from
that of many Jews, uneasy about their Jewishness, wondering
whether their reactions were conditioned by resentment,
emotion, or the fear of tomorrow. Some of them even thought
it necessary to show sublime impartiality, which may have
been only another symptom of their inner uncertainty. For
Albert Einstein, though he knew that anything he said would
appear suspect from the very fact that he was a Jew, that
problem did not exist. He saw anti-Semitism in its historic
role as a catalyst of rancors, and described it as a "process by
which hatred of a given individual or group is diverted to-
ward another individual or another group, who are incapable
of adequately defending themselves.**
Neither did the problem of identification exist for him,
244 -
as it was absolute and total. "It should be the concern of
every Jew when another Jew is hated or treated unjustly
anywhere/* Einstein never accepted the idea that he should
be treated differently, the attitude adopted by more or less
secret anti-Semites in regard to Jews "of quality" or to those
among their Jewish friends who were "different from the
others.** At the moment of crisis the most humble of the per-
secuted Jews was his brother. He realized the contagious
character of a movement which, owing to the apathy of the
world, was able to spread so widely and acquire such vio-
lence. In 1934 he recalled this fact to all the Jews who, de-
luded by the apparent stability of democratic institutions,
believed themselves to be safe. "Such diseases and neurotic
disorders in the minds of nations are not kept at bay by
oceans or national frontiers, but develop in the same way as
economic crises and epidemics.**
But if anti-Semitism, even on a universal scale, was merely
a diversion of hatred and rancor, it was also a means and not
an end. The most burning problem for many Jews and non-
Jews at that moment was the choice of the lesser evil. Even
those who deplored the havoc caused by German anti-Sem-
itism, who criticized the persecutions and sympathized with
the victims, asked themselves whether the maintenance of
peace in the world was not worth the sacrifice however re-
grettable it might be of an ethnic minority. Einstein never
envisaged this aspect of the problem. Like some other clear-
minded men in those early days, he knew that there was no
question of choice, that every sacrifice and capitulation was
only a prelude to heavier sacrifices and more shameful capit-
ulations. From 1933 only one question haunted him: How
can Europe be saved from disaster? He was involved in an
245
inner conflict when he replied to himself and to others: "We
must even face battle when it becomes necessary to safe-
guard law and human dignity.** In envisaging that possibil-
ity, Einstein denied all his past, the main principle of his life
the maintenance of peace.
But the situation changed- It became more acute year after
year, month after month, and made this battle unavoidable.
When National Socialism first made its appearance in Ger-
many, the mobilization of liberal ideas could have stopped
it. In the following years, when Germany was rearming or at
the time of the reoccupation of the demilitarized zone, a
mere menace of military mobilization at worst an expedition
on a small scale could have arrested Hitler. Perhaps even at
the moment of the Anschluss Germany might have with-
drawn before a concerted action of the Great Powers. But
every sign of weakness, every concession, served to increase
not only Germany's power but also its certainty of victory.
"The pseudo success of political adventurers dazzled the rest
of the world,'* Einstein admitted bitterly.
He had gone to America in the hope of explaining to those
who professed their attachment to democratic institutions
what was taking place in Germany, but he came up against
the shortsightedness that is born of prosperity, the lack of
imagination that blinds men of good will to evil, and the con-
federation of egotisms that paved Hitler's way throughout
the world. As soon as he arrived in the United States he
became the loudspeaker of the victims of persecution, a sort
of unofficial ambassador of all those who had escaped, or
could still escape, from the German hell as long as another
country agreed to give them asylum. He tried to find jobs
for his scientist friends at the universities, approached poli-
246 -
ticians, and tackled industrialists and bankers for financial
guarantees. Mademoiselle Dukas, his secretary, spent most
of her time typing letters of recommendation to various
authorities concerning prominent intellectuals, or poor
wretches waiting to be liberated. "There would be room for
innumerable refugees on this continent/* wrote Elsa, <c but
the Jews here are opposed to it; it is the replica of what once
happened in Germany when the Eastern Jews invaded it/*
But the number of victims grew, the persecutions brought
new floods of refugees Jews as well as non-Jews, particu-
larly in the countries adjacent to Germany. The problem
became too vast for charity institutions, for national organi-
zations. Einstein tried to solve it on a world scale. He dis-
cussed the matter at length with influential Americans, he
pleaded for the victims with the emotional force character-
istic of him and the competence of a man who had seen
individual disasters with his own eyes and pondered over a
solution. The response he got sounded promising. But the
results were mediocre. The insidious influence of the Third
Reich prevented any large-scale operations. "Nazi propa-
ganda has gained a lot of ground here/* wrote Elsa. "One
must admit that those people are very clever/* Einstein's
hopes were now concentrated on President Roosevelt. The
first interview with him left a deep impression because of the
understanding he found, the direct and human approach
with which Roosevelt always charmed anyone who came to
see him. Einstein felt that this was the man capable of influ-
encing the destiny of his country and thus causing America
to influence the destiny of the world.
Convinced that the monstrous Nazi machine that had been
set in movement would inevitably lead to war, Einstein was
247
alarmed to see the democracies so ill prepared for an armed
conflict. Their reluctance to realize the importance of what
was at stake was not simply a proof of selfishness or lazy
conscience but an expression of the same horror of war that
he had once tried to awaken in all hearts, the gospel of paci-
fism which he had preached. In adapting his ideas to a
changed world, and so repudiating his own past, Einstein
had to break with many of his pacifist friends, who did not
realize that their enemy was now a different one, that their
efforts were mistaken in their goal. Some of them who never
noticed the turning of the road were to follow their mistake
to the end and supply the Nazis in the future with uncon-
scious accomplices and even collaborators. War had lost
nothing of its horror in Einstein's eyes. The barbarism of the
massacre revolted him just as it had at the beginning of his
conscious life. But something different was now at stake,
something even more precious than life, "that one wished
to see defended at any price." Death was no worse than this
life of humiliation that is granted to the victims.
If hatred of war was bom in Einstein from his love of life,
if destruction appeared in all its horror because the world
was so beautiful, the urge to live takes a different form in a
world destroyed, in which the sources of life are contami-
nated and the human being deprived of all that was divine
in him. Conscious as he was of the change of values that had
taken place, Einstein was reluctant to part with what had
been, only a short time ago, the principal object of his life.
He had to destroy what he had created and disappoint those
who had followed him with such courage and at the price of
such sacrifices in his battle against the idea of war.
In the declarations he published in 1934, he whose frank-
248
ness was usually unequivocal, at times brutal spoke in a
curiously embarrassed tone. But his conclusions were clear
and definite. In totalitarian states the refusal to fight would
mean martyrdom and death and be only an ineffective indi-
vidual revolt which could be quickly suppressed, while in
democratic countries this refusal would mean "a weakening
of the power of resistance of those parts of the civilized
world that have remained sane/* In taking this attitude, the
only one he could take at this tragic hour for mankind, Ein-
stein entered upon the principal tragedy of his life. He was
still ignoring it when he wrote: "No reasonable being would
today support a refusal of military service anyway, not in
Europe, surrounded as it is at this moment with danger." He
also said: "Other times, other measures,** and defined his new
revised attitude as that of a hardened pacifist.** The destroy-
ers of democracy, the future collaborators who navigated in
troubled waters under the banner of pacifism, were to brand
him, as they did other men of the same type, as a "war-
monger.**
When the Spanish war broke out he immediately under-
stood its "dress rehearsal** character, that it was a trial of
potential strengths. Einstein followed the vicissitudes of the
struggle with passionate concentration. When Infeld an-
nounced to him one day a Republican victory, his eyes lit up.
"This sounds to me like 'Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,* ** he
said, and Infeld was struck by the unaccustomed joy and
emotion he showed. Einstein also realized that the policy of
non-intervention, though compatible with democratic neu-
trality and capable of success if it were tried out in the void
like an experiment in a laboratory, encouraged international
fascism and secured its future victory. He was distressed by
249
the weakness France showed in regard to the "menace facing
the Republic from the south," and tried to discover its rea-
sons. "The cause of this weakness seems to be chiefly the fear
of British disapproval," he wrote to me, "though everyone
ought to hiow that England will without any doubt come to
their aid tinder any circumstances and not only for the sake
of Marianne."
The interest in international events shown by Einstein in
these years put him in the limelight, often against his wish.
His sense of responsibility, always acute, became even more
so when so much individual distress surrounded him. He
experienced the same guilt as does the sole survivor of a
shipwreck the feeling that tormented Elsa when she
thought their life too easy and comfortable. He did not want
to refuse any of the demands showered upon him, however
absurd they often were. People came to him for help in the
name of great causes as well as of shattered lives. He and
Thomas Mann, who was then at Princeton, started a cam-
paign in favor of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the Ger-
man pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who had been imprisoned
and tortured by the Nazis. Einstein was prepared to do any-
thing he considered useful, in ways he would not have tol-
erated before. He made an appearance at a concert and was
rather proud to have collected six thousand dollars for Jew-
ish refugees. He seemed not to mind wasting his time, as
though recognizing that every man in need had a right to it.
He agreed, for example, to let an Emigre German painter
paint his portrait when persuaded that this would add to the
painter's prestige.
His letters of recommendation lost their impact because
they were too numerous. On one occasion he recommended
250
four radiologists for the same position in a hospital. Later, he
was unable to understand that anyone could reproach him
for this abuse of generosity: "Yes, I did recommend four
radiologists, all for different reasons, which I explained. All
they had to do was to make their choice among them, which,
in fact, they did/* Sometimes mere poverty was sufficient to
establish the claims of total strangers. He intervened for
refugees not only in America but also with his friends in Eng-
land and France. His disappointments were many, his mor-
tifications often repeated. One day the French police found
one of his letters of recommendation in the home of a quack
doctor whom they had come to arrest. "His mother was in
such despair when she came to see us," said Elsa. Sometimes
Einstein, faced with a demand that was too brazen, exercised
temporary caution, and people often remembered the excep-
tional occasions on which he refused help, rather than the
innumerable ones on which he gave it.
In the turmoil that surrounded his name, recent resent-
ments mingled with old jealousies, the voices of friends, or
thwarted admirers, with those of his enemies. "Most of the
time," said Einstein in a brief outline written in 1936 and
called "My Portrait," "I act as my nature forces me to act."
And he added: "It is embarrassing sometimes to be sur-
rounded with so much respect and admiration, but there
have been vicious darts flung at me too. They have never
affected me, belonging as they did to a world with which I
have -nothing in common."
If Einstein, like so many others in those years, was forced
to reshuffle his friends, he continued to be the target of at-
tacks from the same side only the motives had changed. It
was again the nationalists, the American isolationists who
251
had once pursued hi for his pacifism, who now reproached
him for wanting to drag America into the war; it was the
patriotic women who rose against him, because his appeals
risked exposing their sons to death.
In these years, in which his lucid mind foresaw the night-
mare of the future, he repeated his warnings, although he
knew them to be futile; these years were poisoned by the
realization of his impotence; he became more and more of a
recluse. The death of Elsa severed the strongest tie he ever
had with a human being. Nobody knew, for he never men-
tioned it, what this loss of the only companion of his life must
have meant to him. It was as though a glass screen had sud-
denly isolated him from the rest of mankind. He became at
the same time more tangible and yet more inaccessible.
When Elsa died it became clear how great her part of inter-
mediary and interpreter had been, as though she had had the
secret power to reach him by translating human language to
him. He continued to live in the beautiful house that was
Elsa's last work, in a way her testament the house she had
dominated with her modest presence and in which she has
remained alive until this day.
Death kept creating a void around him the death of peo-
ple dose to him in thought, like Painleve or Madame Curie.
"It had been my good fortune," he wrote, "to be associated
for more than twenty years with Madame Curie, associated
in a cloudless friendship.'* Many of his friends, Austrian or
German Jews, were dying self-inflicted deaths, victims of a
barbarism which they had not the courage either to face or
to flee. *lt so often happens now that men of high quality
depart from this life of their own accord that we no longer
find such an end surprising," he wrote with bitterness on
- 252
hearing about the suicide of one of his oldest friends, the
physicist Paul Ehrenf est. In the tragic end of Ehrenf est an-
other factor besides the devastating times played a part the
inevitable conflict of two generations of thought, a conflict
of conscience, as Einstein said, "which no university professor
over fifty can escape in one way or another." He said this
with resignation, for it was also his own conflict.
The drama that had colored his life very early, at the mo-
ment of his success and of his closest contact with contempo-
rary science, became more accentuated in these years, taking
on more and more of the accents of tragedy. It was not,
however, the usual rift that takes pkce between a new gen-
eration conscious of the audacity of its thought and an old
man who remains a survival of the past and an obstacle on a
path that leads toward the future. It was the case of an older
man who, in spite of his years, persisted in continuing on his
own way, which was becoming more and more deserted; for
most of his friends, and all the young men around him, de-
clared that the way led nowhere, and that he had strayed
into a blind alley. This tragedy became all the greater be-
cause the theories that were Einstein's starting point had
ceased to be a little island accessible only to the initiated.
Leopold Inf eld, remarking that in 1955 the theory of relativ-
ity would be fifty years old, attacked the obsolete assumption
that science was reserved for a few privileged minds, when
he said that "Einstein would not have been one of the few
who have influenced our century most strongly if his ideas
on physics had been understood by only a few.**
In 1950, when he wrote this, he declared that at least
twenty-five of his students already had a considerable knowl-
edge of the theory of relativity. Einstein's peculiar position
- 253
became more acutely controversial because in the process of
his separation from the present generation of physicists the
new generation caught up with what he had done up till
then. Owing to this, Einstein's influence on the contempo-
rary development of the quantum theory became almost
negligible. This was how Inf eld explained the contradiction
between Einstein's past and present: "The static character of
the quantum theory is regarded by many physicists as essen-
tial and it seems to them very unlikely that it will change
in the future. Einstein is almost isolated in his belief that it
will"
Prince Louis de Broglie, speaking of the innumerable at-
tempts made in recent years to complete the general theory
of relativity and transform it into a unified one, capable of
explaining at the same time the existence of forces of gravi-
tation and electromagnetic forces, noted that the efforts
Einstein himself pursued for more than twenty years had not
met with any decisive success, in spite of their incontrovert-
ible importance, and that they were landmarks on a road
that had not yet been cleared.
Max Born pointed to Einstein's aversion to modern phys-
ics; he recalled the objections he raised against wave me-
chanics, and added: "Remarkable investigations have paved
the way toward a new micromechanics, which physics at
large has accepted today, while Einstein himself stands aloof,
critical, skeptical, and hoping that this episode may pass and
physics return to classical principles/'
Albert Einstein, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday,
examined in detail the criticisms of his obstinate desire to
pursue his own way, in disagreement with modern physics.
He replied to Max Born and to Wolfgang Pauli, both of
254
whom had deplored his negative attitude to the quantum
theory. He declared that he fully appreciated the contribu-
tion made by the statistical theory of the quantum to the
progress of theoretical physics. ""What does not satisfy me in
this theory/* he explained, "from the standpoint of principle,
is its attitude toward what to me appears to be the program
and the aim of all physics: the complete description of any
real (individual) physical situation (as it supposedly exists,
irrespective of any act of observation or substantiation)/*
Einstein has a way of seeing both sides of every question
and, when he is writing, appears to hear the objections his
point of view is bound to raise, and to confront the opponents
of his ideas. "Whenever a modern physicist, with positivist
tendencies, hears a formula of this kind, his reaction is a pity-
ing smile. He says to himself: Here is expressed quite plainly
a metaphysical prejudice, void of all content, a prejudice
indeed whose conquest has been the main epistemological
achievement of physicists during the last quarter of a cen-
tury. Has any man ever conceived a 'real physical* situation?
Is it possible that any reasonable person should still believe
today that he can refute our fundamental knowledge and
understanding by conjuring up this bloodless ghost?" After
this long imaginary conversation, Einstein came to the fol-
lowing conclusion: '"Within the framework of the statistical
theory of the quantum, there is no such thing as a descrip-
tion of an individual system . . . ; but if one accepts the in-
terpretation that this description refers to a group of systems
and not to individual ones, all the 'skating on thfn ice* that
is performed in order to avoid the 'physically real* becomes
superfluous.** In examining the differences of opinion that
separated him from his colleagues and friends, he f ound that
255
most of the reasons were psychological. He declared that, ac-
cording to his long-established conviction, theoretical physics
would, after a lengthy and difficult path, develop in the sense
that the statistical theory of the quantum would take, within
the framework of future physics, position approximately
analogous to that held by statistical mechanics within the
framework of classical mechanics.
He then resumed his imaginary dialogue and made his
opponent, the theoretician of the quantum, say: ''True, I
admit that the theoretical description of the quantum is an
incomplete description of the individual system. I will even
go so for as to admit that in principle a complete theoretical
description is conceivable. But I consider as established that
the search for such a complete description is unnecessary and
pointless, because the order of nature is such that laws can be
formulated within the framework of our incomplete descrip-
tion." Einstein, as opposed to this theoretician, was not satis-
fied with this incomplete description. He believed that the
research that he was pursuing and for which he was being
reproached might one day complete it. He stated, in his
Preliminary Notes on Fundamental Concepts," which he
contributed to the publication in honor of Prince Louis de
Broglie's seventieth |fthday: "My efforts to complete the
theory of general relativity by a generalization of the equa-
tions of gravitation have their origin partly in the hypothesis
that a rational field theory in general relativity would per-
haps one day provide the key to a complete quantum theory."
But he added at once: "It is but a modest hope, in no way a
conviction."
For many years Einstein, first alone, then with Inf eld's col-
laboration, worked at a complement to the theory of rela-
256
EIXSTEIX SAILING ON THE LAKE AT CAPUTH
". . . wearing sandals and an old sweater, his hair ruffling in the
breeze."
EINSTEIN AND LEOPOLD INFELD IN THE STUDY AT PRINCETON
**. . . one of the few who have influenced our century most strongly."
EINSTEIN IN HIS STUDY AT PRINCETON, 1938
"We are very happy here-perhaps too happy."
tivity, the movement of double stars. The aim of this work
was to gain better understanding of the laws of movement
and to f ormulate them more completely and logically than in
Newtonian mechanics. The problem was purely abstract,
without any practical importance. As Infeld pointed out:
"For three years I concentrated on double stars without ever
having seen one." More years of hard work were to go by
before a theory was ekborated which seemed logically satis-
factory to Einstein.
Such partial successes and confirmations of bold ideas
formulated in the past as, for instance, the experiment of H.
E. Ives in the Bell Telephone laboratory in 1936, which con-
stituted, according to one of Einstein's biographers, * a star-
tling proof* of the delay in intervals of time, may have en-
couraged Einstein, but the principal source from which he
drew his obstinate determination was surely the magnitude
of the goal he pursued. The theory of the unified field was
the most ambitious his imagination had conceived. One of his
biographers, Lincoln Barnett, described its immense impor-
tance in these words: ". . . it promulgates a set of universal
laws designed to encompass not only the boundless gravita-
tional and electromagnetic fields of interstellar space but also
the tiny, terrible field inside the atom ... In its vast cosmic
picture . . . the abyss between macrocosmos and microcos-
mos the very big and the very little will be bridged. . . .*
The complex totality of the universe would thus be resolved
in one homogeneous movement in which matter and universe
could not be distinguished the one from the other. All forms
of movement, from the slow wheeling movements of the
galaxy of stars to the rapid flight of electrons, would appear
2ST
simply as modifications of the structure and degree of con-
centration of the original field.
Albert Einstein has himself revealed the nature of the
power that stimulated his efforts, his search for perfection
and his longing for the absolute. In a long essay, "Founda-
tions of Physics,'* written in 1940, he said: "Some physicists,
of whom I am one, cannot believe that we should accept the
idea that the rules of nature are like those of a game of
chance. Every man is allowed to choose the direction of his
effort and can draw consolation from the beautiful motto of
Lessing that the search for truth is more valuable than its
possession.**
No disappointment could make him reconcile himself to
an accessible imperfection. That does not mean that he was
not often discouraged, or that he never knew the distress of
those who have been disappointed in their own creative ef-
forts, who have been led up a blind alley by their desire for
perfection. Inf eld said in his book that Einstein himself, after
having written so many papers, would now look on some of
them as wrong or antiquated. He recalled this short and
poignant dialogue that revealed the tragedy inherent in all
human effort and which even the greatest brain of our times
was not spared: "When I discussed this very problem with
Einstein, he said to me: *Man has little chance/ **
Perhaps Einstein's real greatness is best illustrated by such
an admission. If today he is isolated in his efforts, he is not
the only one to be haunted by the longing for a perfect uni-
verse. Andre George drew this comparison between Tiim and
Louis de Broglie: "They both have a deep sense of the har-
mony of universal kws, of the decisions that rule the world.
They find it miraculous that it should be so, and that in the
258
light of our reason a human understanding of these cosmic
secrets should not be impossible. There is something aes-
thetic and almost religious in this feeling, in so far as it
comes from these two great agnostics whose belief is not that
man cannot and should not try to pierce the veiL"
Einstein has expressed the individual character of his faith
in one of those remarkable sentences of which he is such a
master. Speaking of his divorce from contemporary theoreti-
cal physics, he wrote to his friend Sommerfeld in 1944: "We
have gone to opposite extremes in what concerns our scien-
tific ideas, and in what we expect from science. You believe
in a God who plays at dice, whereas I believe in perfect laws
in a world of existing things, in so far as they are real, which
I try to understand with wild speculation/*
Einstein's friends often heard him utter this sentence:
"God does not play at dice. 7 * It is the final belief of his life.
This faith illumined for him the darkness that was then
enveloping the world, that miserable time when everything
seemed to be surrendering to arbitrary violence. His back-
ground of eternal values gave hi the strength to resist the
desolation of the present. "Science," he said, "is no more fh*m
the purification of daily thoughts." Such a purification was
particularly difficult in those years, but at the same time
more and more necessary. It was no longer possible for a
scientist to draw a definite line of demarcation between his
research and his everyday life. "The critical attitude of the
physicist cannot confine itself to an examination of concepts
in his own sphere," he wrote. He claimed for the scientist the
privileges hitherto reserved for the philosopher. The physicist
"cannot go forward without examining from a critical point
of view a much more difficult problem: the analysis of the
- 259
nature of daily thought** Under the pressure of events this
physicist-philosopher is also forced to examine the moral prob-
lem of our times, and discover the roots of the evil that is
consuming it. What was the principal cause of this decay,
Einstein wanted to know, of this victory of barbarous meth-
ods in politics? For 'him it lay in the obvious decline in moral
values. "It is the cult of success, rather than the value of
things and men in relation to the moral end and to a human
society, that now dominates everything in the press, as well
as in education, with its system of competition.** The "moral
degradation produced by an inhuman economic struggle**
was added to the havoc wrought by this cult. Can a man con-
scious of his moral responsibilities, really imbued with an
ideal Einstein put these questions to Americans enjoy
without self-reproach a privileged position, "a reward in for-
tune and advantages superior to what other men have ever
received 5 *? Can he remain outside the struggle for security
because his country is at the moment secure from a military
point of view? Can he remain indifferent to brutal persecu-
tion, to robbery, and to the massacre of innocents? It was the
moral wealoiess of the unconcerned and the indifferent which
"together with the terrific efficacity of the new technical
methods of battle,** encouraged barbarous proceedings and
made of them a "terrible menace to the civilized world."
Einstein felt this menace so intensely, so clearly, that it
"throws a shadow upon every hour of my present life,** he
wrote in 1939. He wrote this on his sixtieth birthday, re-
membering the summary of his concept of the world written
ten years before. "What I wrote then seems in its essence as
true as ever, but it seems nevertheless strange and remote.**
How could that be possible? lie wondered. Had the world
260 -
changed so profoundly in the course of ten years, or was it
because he was ten years older and saw everything in a
darker light? What were ten years in the life of humanity?
but these were "ten ominous years." Man's cultural inherit-
ance had been threatened and his sense of stability had van-
ished: "The conscious man has, no doubt, at all times realized
that life is an adventure, that it has to be ceaselessly torn
from the clutches of death." But today the whole of human
society was in danger.
In examining the last ten years in this way, Einstein antic-
ipated a future that still seemed remote. The peace of the
world in this spring of 1939 did not appear to be threatened
any more than it had been only too often in recent years.
Lazy consciences had acquired the habit of believing that
danger could always be warded off at the eleventh hour. The
men who were dying were far away. Hitler's massacres were
far away, and far away too the Jewish pogroms. Nightmares
vanished quickly under the influence of a summer sky. Po-
land was as far away as Czechoslovakia had once been. Why
die for Danzig if one did not die for Prague? Yes, the reprieve
could last forever.
Something happened during that summer of precarious
peace, a peace balanced between inertia and violence: it was
something so insignificant on the surface that even had it not
been very secret it would have passed unnoticed. It was,
however, an event of incalculable importance. Einstein was
visited in July by an migr6 physicist. The refugee scientists
in America were among his most frequent visitors. The Hun-
garian Leo Szilard, formerly of Berlin, now professor at Co-
lumbia University, had received an introduction to Einstein
through a compatriot, also a physicist at Princeton Univer-
261
sity. He had, like so many visitors before and after him, a
manuscript he wanted to submit to the great man. All the
circumstances surrounding this interview were ordinary and
conventional. But at the very moment when Einstein faced
his questioner and examined the contents of the manuscript,
the world was on the verge of a change.
Thirty-four years had gone by since the young employee
at the Bern Patent Office had published his five papers in the
Year Book of Physics. One of these papers made a mark upon
his time, but another one foretold the future revolution of
the world. In the eyes of the uninitiated this prophecy looked
like just another harmless equation. In the future the repeti-
tions and popularizations of the press were to make the pub-
lic familiar with it. This brief formula: "E=mc?" was to be
endowed with a magic quality, something like the signs
Faust used to draw to conjure up the Evil One. And, in fact,
like those magical signs, it unleashed the forces of hell.
In itself, however, it only established a relation between
mass and energy; E being the energy contained in a body at
repose, m its mass, and c representing the speed of light,
about 186,300 miles a second. The equation opened up the
possibility of liberating unsuspected forces. Later Einstein
was asked how it was that it had not been noticed before that
every ounce of matter contains such prodigious energy. "The
answer is quite simple," declared Einstein; "energy cannot
be observed unless it is exteriorized." And he added this pic-
turesque comparison: *Tf a fabulously rich man never spends
any money, no one can estimate the size of his fortune." Ein-
stein's formula not only upset all static laws, it also defied
the order of the world of yesterday, the world of classical
concepts, in which nature never takes leaps. Now the leaps
262 *
of nature had become unpredictable. An infinite perspective
o a new order o things was opened up.
As contemporary science pounced upon it, scientists in
every country were sent out in search of miracles. The imagi-
nation of the world was stirred. On the eve of the First World
War, H. G. Wells published a prophetic novel in which he
described the effect of an atomic bomb falling on Paris. But
Einstein himself, as he declared later, believed only in the
"theoretical possibility of the liberation of atomic energy/*
He did not in the least foresee that it might be liberated in
his time. But the fantastic nature of this theoretical possibil-
ity which he envisaged stimulated all minds as no other idea
had done before.
In 1935, in the speech made at the awarding of the Nobel
Prize, Frederic Joliot declared that on the strength of increas-
ing progress achieved by science we were justified in think-
ing that research workers, building and breaking elements at
their will, would be able to realize transmutations of explo-
sive character, real chemical chain reactions, and that the
enormous liberation of available energy would take place.
According to Einstein, it was an accident that finally
brought about the success of their research. The discovery
took place in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, formerly familiar
to Albert Einstein. A man and a woman who had worked
together for twenty years, the chemist Otto Haho, and Lise
Meitner, were employed in an experiment which was to
prove the theory put forward by Hahn and Strassman
namely, that the core of the uranium atom entering into
collision with a neutron could disintegrate into two radio-
active parts. Suddenly the atom disintegrated before their
eyes. An element emerged in the process, barium, the pres-
263 -
ence of which Hahn could not explain at the moment. They
both wondered whether there had been some mistake in
their experiment. Perhaps the explanation already dawned
then, more or less consciously, upon Use Meitner, that re-
markable woman whom Einstein used to call "our Madame
Curie." Perhaps she was too absorbed by what was happen-
ing in her personal life to give the explanation more thought,
to estimate the importance of this liberation of atomic
energy. The Third Reich had discovered that Lise Meitner,
not being fully Ayran, was not wanted in the sanctuary of
national research. However, she managed to leave. She set
off abroad, quite alone a woman past her first youth for
whom research was the principal object of life. She never
suspected that she was traveling toward fame, but she car-
ried with her her instinct and her secret knowledge. There
was a kind of ironic justice in the fact that it should have
been one of Hitler's victims, one whom he might have easily
destroyed, that it should have been an Austrian whose coun-
try he had only just overrun and sullied, who deprived him
of the secret which might have given him unequaled power.
Lise Meitner had, in fact, wrested a monstrous force from the
hands of a monster.
On her arrival in Stockholm, she learned through a letter
from Hahn that the experiment had been successfully re-
peated. She checked it herself once more and sat down to
make a report for a scientific publication in which she gave
all the details of the strange experiment. But she had seen at
close quarters the machine of destruction that the master
rape was erecting to dominate the world. She knew that the
force unleashed in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute would sooner
or kter let hell loose on humanity. Feeling that the whole
264
matter was extremely urgent, she wired to a friend a sci-
entist in Copenhagen, Dr. O. R. Frisch and gave Trim the
essential facts of the discovery. Dr. Frisch, son-in-law of the
greatest atomic expert, Professor Niels Bohr of the University
of Copenhagen, immediately realized the importance of the
news. His father-in-law, who had already heard from Lise
Meitner about the experiments taldng place in Berlin, was
absent. He was in fact in America in conference with Albert
Einstein in Princeton. Dr. Frisch repeated the experiment
tried out in Berlin. He came to the same result. He and Lise
Meitner decided to call the phenomenon "nuclear fission.* 9
Thus a phrase was born and with it a science of the future.
The news traveled with the speed of lightning. It crossed
the sea to disturb the minds of those who understood its sig-
nificance. Professor Bohr telegraphed it to Professor Enrico
Fermi.
The great Italian physicist was an anti-Fascist, also marked
down to be one of Hitler's victims. Like Einstein, he had
been forced to become an expatriate from his native land. He
had worked for a long time at the disintegration of the atom,
but, as one of his friends said later, at the moment when he
was working at the experiments that were to lead to the
atomic bomb, bombs were very far from his mind. Fermi and
Bohr both verified Lise Meitner's calculations, and came to
the same results. A conference of American atom scientists
was then held at Columbia University, where Enrico Fermi
had a Chair. They spent twenty-four hours in preparing the
experiment On January 29 a group of tired and anxious
men pressed a button. The experiment was conclusive.
By a remarkable coincidence, three days before a con-
ference of theoretical physicists, to discuss the latest research
265 -
into the possibility of disintegrating the atom, had taken
place in Washington. Professor Bohr opened the conference.
He was a tall, thickset man, with a massive head, a generous
mouth, and bushy eyebrows over a pair of piercing eyes.
He spoke in a low, deliberate voice with his hands, as usual,
in his pockets. But what he said made the scientists present
literally gasp for breath. Had the news been announced by
anyone else, they would not have believed it. They felt that
they were seeing the dawn of a new age.
Four years later, Bohr, another prospective victim of the
Nazis, succeeded in escaping in a sailboat from the occupiers
of his country, who were to install in it a regime of terror.
In that January of 1939 when the world, without knowing
it, was living through its greatest upheaval, scientific thinkers
could still join hands across the frontiers. Hahn and Strass-
man published the details of their discovery. Joliot-Curie,
still ignorant of what was happening in Denmark, tried the
physical experiment and obtained the same results as those
Hahn had achieved in his chemical one. He published his
report on it at the end of January, whereas Frisch's experi-
ment was not made public until two weeks later. The turmoil
of this great sensation remained limited, however, to the
scientific world. The events at the Washington conference
had aroused interest in the United States. Asked to make a
statement on the American radio, Professor Fenni gave a
summary of his previous work, which had been made pos-
sible by Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie's discovery of artifi-
cial radioactivity, a discovery made, by a strange coinci-
dence, in 1933, the year when Hitler came to power. The
audience understood but little of these highly specialized
explanations and lost interest in them completely when
- 266 -
Fermi concluded by saying that it was still impossible to fore-
see whether the knowledge acquired on the inner structure
of matter would have a practical importance or would remain
in the domain of pure science.
This "practical importance" was obviously very remote at
the beginning of the year 1939. Professor Fermi had con-
trived the slowing down of the neutrons, which allowed
energy to be liberated with, the maximum of efficiency. But
this "cosmic fire/* as the popularizers of nuclear physics
called it, was not yet to be mastered by man. Experiments
continued to be carried out in the silence of laboratories.
According to the news that came from Berlin, Hitler had
mobilized two hundred of the greatest German scientists to
follow up Hahn's experiment, the importance of which they
had finally realized from the echoes that came from abroad.
There are many examples in the history of science of these
races toward the solution of a mystery, or of simultaneous
discoveries of something sensational. But there was some-
thing ominous about these parallel experiments on the eve
of a world war. What was the real inspiration of the scientific
brains of America? Were they trying to gain time in the race
with Germany to harness atomic energy? Was it a sense of
danger, of rebellion, or of pity? Did their clear judgment
spring from the sufferings they had endured and a premoni-
tion of those the world was about to undergo? Above the
scene of chaos, in the passionless world of scientific thought,
a duel was fairing place betwen the participants in the com-
ing war between the executioner and his victims.
In the spring of the same year, Joliot-Curie and his assist-
ants proved by experiment that the disintegration not only
split the core of the atom in two parts but liberated supple-
267
mentaiy neutrons. Bohr, together with a physicist from
Princeton, supplied the theoretical explanation of the nature
of uranium which allowed specialists in nuclear physics to
move toward the stage of practical realization. Professor
Fermi pursued his experiments on the effective use of chain
reactions. In the summer he succeeded, with his colleague at
Columbia University, Leo Szilard, in mastering atomic
energy, and the manuscript Szilard took to Princeton was the
result of their research. It proved that it was possible to cap-
ture and reduce to the size of a bomb the greatest force of
destruction that the world had ever known. This result was
outside the understanding of ordinary minds. It needed ex-
ceptional sanction, and there was only one man with a great
enough name to bring an adventure of such scope within the
limits of the ordinary imagination.
In normal times the results of a discovery of this sort, with-
out precedent and as yet without means of control, would
have been a long time in approaching realization. In normal
times the Immense sum of money necessary for the first trials
of verification could have been collected only with the help
of wide publicity and long preparation. The troubled times
of the birth of this discovery demanded absolute secrecy and
exceptional measures to hasten its development. There was
one man, and one man only, who, though completely igno-
rant of nuclear physics, was quick to appreciate the language
of the extraordinary: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. When Leo
Szilard tried to reach Einstein he knew that the latter was
not only the person most competent to make a statement on
the subject but also the only person capable of making him-
self heard by the President of the United States. Everything,
at that moment, except the reality of the disintegration of the
268
atom, was a game of chance, but a game on a universal scale.
From an infinitely lofty sphere, the discussion on the thesis
of Fermi and Szilard descended to the most opportune way
of approaching Roosevelt: whether to solicit an interview or
write a letter as if it had been a matter of a recommendation
for a job or a personal request Never perhaps in the history
of thought and action had a new era started under such
matter-of-fact auspices. A conversation almost without wit-
nesses, a plain sheet of paper; and the atomic era was born.
We know even the exact date: August 2, 1939.
After long discussion the wording of the letter that was
to be handed to Roosevelt was agreed upon. This is approxi-
mately how this letter that made history, history without
precedent, ran: "The results of the research recently pursued
by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, submitted to me in manuscript,
have revealed that we may in the immediate future expect to
find the element uranium capable of being transformed into
a new and considerable source of energy. This new phenom-
enon may also lead to the construction of excessively power-
ful bombs. A single bomb of this type, transported by ship
and allowed to explode in a port, could destroy the whole
port and the surrounding territory."
Separated from their context, from the urgency dictated
by the occasion, from their link with ike bell that tollsnot
the one that tolls now but the one that will toll later such
words as "excessively powerful bombs," **the destruction of a
port and its surroundings,*' ^destruction of so many lives,"
have a sinister sound. Einstein was perfectly aware of the
tragedy that it should be he, the fervent pacifist, who had to
sanction the most terrible weapon of war ever at man's dis-
posal. But this tragedy was played out under the pressure of
his knowledge, or rather of his premonition of the horror into
which the world was to sink overnight. The parade of de-
struction across Poland was to start the next month, the tanks
would soon be rolling over France and hell would be let loose
over England, and soon, too, the sealed trains would be de-
parting with their cargoes of half -dead people and the smoke
from crematorium chimneys would sully the sky. The incal-
culable power of the atom could at any time fall into evil
hands. Soon the adventure of the "heavy water * would start,
the reserve of which was saved by the collaborators of Joliot-
Curie from occupied France and taken to England: while
the heroic battle raged on the ground and in the sky, while a
madman shouted himself hoarse and mumbled his threats of
secret weapons. What was actually taking place, at the be-
ginning of that August, was a collision between a man, the
most human of the species, and a beast, hidden behind a
semblance of human features.
Matter-of-fact as was the atmosphere in which this colli-
sion took place, Einstein never tried to wriggle out of the
terrible inner conflict that he underwent at the time. Later
he often explained his own actions. "I do not consider myself
as the father of the liberation of atomic energy. My part in
this was quite indirect," he said to Raymond Swing in 1945.
To tell the truth, there was nothing to guarantee the suc-
cess of the step he then undertook. President Roosevelt might
easily have disregarded the importance of Einstein's state-
ment, which was, in fact, still only on the border of the pos-
siblemaybe only the dream of a genius. If Roosevelt gave
credit to his words, he might be swept away in the whirlwind
of elections, the issue of which was uncertain. What if there
should be no Roosevelt tomorrow? What if tomorrow the
270 -
U.S., guided by an isolationist President with, no interest in
Europe, decided to remain outside the battle? One day Ein-
stein's letter, grown yellow with time, would be found in
some secret file, an insignificant paper like so many others
forgotten in their "strictly confidential*' file. "In fact, I simply
served as a mailbox. They brought me a letter and all I had
to do was sign it/" said Einstein as we recalled that time
several years later in his study in Princeton. The gray light
that shone through the large bay window brought out the
deep furrows on his face and the shadows under his eyes.
Silence fell, full of unasked questions.
Under the fire of the glance he threw at me, I said: "Still,
you pressed the button. . . .**
His glance turned away from me. It moved to the winding
valley, to the green lawn with its group of trees that masked
the horizon. And then Einstein, as though he was replying
not to me but to the top of those old trees on which his
glance lingered, said slowly, each word separate from the
other: "Yes, I pressed the button."
271
Chapter XIV
"THE war is won, but not the peace,** wrote Einstein at the
end of the nightmare. "The world was promised freedom
from fear; in fact fear has increased enormously since the end
of the war. The world was promised freedom from want; but
large parts of it are faced with starvation while others live in
abundance."
The balance sheet that he drew at the end of the war was
a balance sheet of horror. He had lived far from the ordeals
that had ravaged the countries of Europe which were occu-
pied or attacked. But the victims of bombardments, the men
and women tortured or dead, were not mere names or num-
bers to him; he knew their faces and many of them were his
friends. There had been a close tie between "him and Hilf er-
ding and Breitscheid, the leaders of the German Socialist
Party who were offered asylum in France and then delivered
by the Vichy government police into title hands of the Ge-
stapo. For him the spirit of a France that could make no pact
with the enemy was represented by someone who was very
dear to Trim Paul Langevin. The sinister names that the
world can barely utter for horror Maidanek, Auschwitz,
Buchenwald were familiar to him; they kept cropping up in
the letters he received from the rare fugitives of many unfor-
tunate families. Every name signified a living hell, the dread-
ful death of a friend or a relation, the loss of someone near to
Trim. His memories today are like a pilgrimage across a ceme-
tery, a cemetery of horror, for it was almost with relief that
he heard about those who died in their beds from a peaceful
illness.
"These last years," Einstein wrote to me at the end of the
war, "have produced more evil than the most inveterate pes-
simist could ever have imagined. But what is so strange is
that our sense of justice and fair dealing should have been
so impaired that the knowledge we have acquired of the
roots of evil should not have had an educational effect."
His revolt against evil and his indignation in the face of
unkept promises were enhanced by his anxiety about the fu-
ture. On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was tried out in
the desert of New Mexico near Alamogordo. The experiment
was watched anxiously by all those in the secret. One of the
official observers reported a conversation he had shortly be-
fore the event with one of the atomic scientists. "They told
me that they might not be able to arrest the explosion once
they had allowed it to take place, that it was possible that
it might go on and destroy the planet on which we live." But,
he added with a sigh of resignation: TPossibly human experi-
ence has been nothing but a mistake."
All those who were present in that summer dawn at the ex-
periment in the desert wondered, in fact, whether this was
not the last hour of their lives. A great storm, followed by
274
torrential rain, raged throughout the night, as though heaven
itself protested against the impudence of man. Certain parts
of the bomb, assembled at the last moment, stuck. The dan-
ger grew with every hour, with every minute. Then the lever
of the infernal weapon was thrown by a robot. Suddenly
there was a flash of light of unbelievable intensity, more
dazzling than a midday sun, a golden, purple, violet-gray
and blue light. Then there came a gust of wind, a gale that
followed the flash and blew the observers near the shelter off
their feet; and then the apocalyptic sound of many thunders,
"the terrible, long, persistent rumble of the Last Judgment, 9 *
as a general who was present described it, "a rumble that
made the poor little humans realize that they were blasphem-
ing in wanting to play with forces reserved until now to the
All-Powerful."
The war had come to an end in Europe. The victory of
civilization was made certain at the moment when, according
to Einstein, "the most revolutionary force was born since pre-
historic man discovered fire."
Einstein suggested that the capitulation of Japan should
be secured by a warning about this secret weapon. He tried
with all his persuasive powers to convince the authorities
that it would be sufficient to carry out a demonstration in a
deserted spot in front of representatives of the enemy in
order to put an end to the war, without bloodshed. He was
not the only one among those in the secret to protest against
the actual use of the atomic weapon. As Chancellor of the
University of Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins, explained
later, the Americans knew by then that the Russians were
going to declare war on Japan, that the Japanese towns were
devastated and the blockade operating efficiently, and that
275
consequently there was no necessity to use the bomb. But
the man who might have listened to Einstein's advice, and to
that of the scientists who shared his opinion, was gone, and
the military advisers of President Truman did not believe
that a warning by demonstration would be sufficient to make
Japan capitulate. They argued that it was more humane to
bombard a Japanese port than to conquer the enemy by in-
vasion; they weighed the price of blood and balanced the
lives of American and Japanese soldiers against the sacrifice
of the population of a town. "Einstein openly questioned the
opportunity and wisdom of an atomic bombardment of
Japan," wrote Virgil Hinshaw. He replied to political and
strategic arguments as follows: "Beside the realities of man's
true desires and the realities of man's danger, what are the
obsolete 'realities' of protocol and of 'military necessity*?"
The decision to bombard Japanese towns seemed dictated
by even less admissible motives. ""In fact," he said, "so much
money has been spent on making the atomic bomb that it is
necessary to demonstrate that these two billion dollars have
not been spent in vain." He never knew who exactly gave the
order to bomb Hiroshima.
The dreadful menace was let loose on the world The
lonely man in his study in Princeton was overwhelmed by
the immensity of the disaster. He had seen on paper the cal-
culations of the effect that would be produced, the letter he
had signed had mentioned bombs, a port destroyed, a terri-
tory devastated, but no human imagination could have en-
visaged the hell that was described by eyewitnesses. Sixty
thousand people died at Hiroshima. Clothes were torn off the
calcified bodies by the force of the explosion. Under the
dome of black dust that hung for a long time over the town,
276
the survivors scarlet, monstrously bloated, scorched, maimed
died in horrible agony. The infernal fire that had consumed
the town continued to smolder on the horizon. There was not
a tree, not a blade of grass left on a vast carbonized area.
People would go on dying for a long time in Hiroshima. "A
brutal attack by radiation is a new phenomenon in medicine,
known only since the explosion in Hiroshima. 9 * Even those
who survived perished slowly lost their hair, became blind,
and died of hemorrhages or infectious diseases which they
could not fight without the help of the white blood corpuscles
which had been destroyed, wrote the American scientist
Gerald Wendt in his illuminating book on atomic energy.
That August 6, 1945, was a dark day for humanity. "A sad
day for us/* said the director of one of the laboratories that
helped in the preparation of the bomb. "Let us hope that we
haven't put dynamite into the hands of children.** A black
day for Albert Einstein. He was now the prey of a bitter con-
flict: it was a silent conflict, but from time to time he allowed
parts of this painful soliloquy to appear in the press or the
radio, through his journalist friends. In November 1945 he
explained his point of view to Raymond Swing, whom he had
known since 1922, when the latter as a journalist in Berlin
had asked "him for an interview on the theory of relativity.
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new prob-
lem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solv-
ing an existing one. One can say that it has affected us quan-
titatively, not qualitatively. While there are sovereign nations
with great power, war is inevitable.**
At that moment there was still every reason to foster illu-
sions. The solidarity of a common struggle seemed to have
survived the end of the war; the division of the world into
- 277
two hostile blocs had not yet become apparent; the lassitude
of the exhausted countries was confused with the certainty of
peace. But Einstein with his usual clear judgment was not
deceived: "When I say this, I am not trying to foretell when
war will break out, all I am saying is that it cannot be
avoided." And he added: "This was true before the atom
bomb was made. All that has changed is the degree of the
destructiveness of war."
There is something like an attempt to elude the real ques-
tion in these declarations; to minimize the new danger by
linking it with the permanence of the old ones. But Einstein
could not deceive himself for long; he never avoided respon-
sibilities, either his own or those of others, particularly those
that were not without precedent. "Physicists today are in a
position similar to that of Alfred Nobel," he said. "Having
invented the most powerful explosive ever known, Nobel, to
atone for this and to relieve his conscience, established the
Peace Prize. Now the physicists who have participated in
forging the most formidable and dangerous weapon of all
times are disturbed by the same feeling of responsibility, if
not guilt.'* At that time he still said the physicists, but soon
he was to say: "We have helped to create this weapon to
prevent the enemies of the human race from doing so before
us, for if they had, given the mentality of the Nazis, incon-
ceivable destruction and the enslavement of the rest of the
world would have resulted." There Einstein touched upon
the real core of his tragedy. He told his friends confidentially,
"Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in pro-
ducing an atom bomb, I would not have lifted a finger. . . ."
But how was he to know? When he was signing the letter to
Roosevelt, he was convinced that the Germans were reaching
- 278
their goal. He knew that he was justified so far as his own
conscience was concerned, but this did not alleviate his tor-
ment. The anger of a man who had been duped surged up in
him. **We placed this weapon in the hands of the American
and British people** and it was deliberately that he said
"people" "as trustees of humanity and fighters for peace and
liberty. But so far we have seen no guarantee of peace, no
guarantee of the liberties promised to nations in the Atlantic
Charter."
In the meantime, a great ideal died without ever having
lived. Hitherto camouflaged dissensions appeared in broad
daylight. The atomic bomb was a menace to the survival of
humanity and by the next year, 1946, Einstein realized that
"to avoid this menace has become the most urgent problem
of our days." What were they to do, the scientists who were
more or less responsible for introducing this peril? **We must
never cease to warn, we must never relax in our efforts to
make the nations of the world, and particularly their govern-
ments, conscious of the inexpressible disaster which they are
sure to provoke if they do not alter their attitude toward one
another and toward the task of shaping the future."
Convinced that he had this mission to accomplish, Albert
Einstein found a meaning for the remainder of his life.
When he appeared in front of the crowds whom he ad-
dressed directly, or on television in front of millions of in-
visible spectators, with the halo of gray hair around his tragic
head, he looked like one of the great prophets of the Old
Testament, proclaiming Jehovah's terrible wrath. But he was
not only a voice nailing to heaven for revenge, he was also a
realist who understood all the various national susceptibili-
ties and ambitions and knew that it is not enough to throw
279
out warnings, however eloquent One must also offer a policy
in exchange. In a struggle against a conspiracy of egotism,
one must fight for a precise idea, a definite plan. This plan
was the establishment of a world government. He set about
it with such ardor that the memory of all the defeats suffered
by supranational organizations in the past did not succeed in
shaking him. He was no doubt fully conscious of the insur-
mountable difficulties with which his plan would meet. If he
persisted in propagating the idea, it was simply because he
saw no other way **of eliminating the most terrible danger
that man has ever had to face/' He knew also that "the aim of
avoiding total destruction has a priority over any other/*
The obstacles that were raised against the plan came from
all the interested parties at the same time. In 1945 Einstein
was still able to believe that the constitution of this world
government to which the United States would confide the
secret of the atom bomb could be negotiated <e by a single
American, a single Englishman, and a single Russian'* and
that the suspicion of the Russians might be dispelled suspi-
cion caused by the fact that the secret of the atom bomb was
concealed from them. But when he realized that the progress
of the plan so dose to his heart was too slow a(nd when in
1947 he tried to hasten it with an open letter to the United
Nations, he was already aware that he would have t to contend
with open hostility on the part of the Russians. In his letter
to the United Nations, he outlined the reform of that inter-
national organization. He demanded that the delegates to
the United Nations should be true representatives of their
people, elected directly by them and not designated by their
governments, and responsible only to their voters. "We
would thus be able to hope for more statesmen and fewer
280
diplomats," lie wrote. He also put forward an idea to which
the Russians were particularly hostile: a proposal to increase
the authority of the General Assembly by subordinating to it
the Security Council, which was paralyzed by the veto. He
demanded above all that the moral authority of the U.N.
should be reinforced by bold decisions, such as taking the
initiative in creating a world government Even if Russia
were to refuse to participate but only after all the efforts to
obtain her and her allies' co-operation had been attempted in
all sincerity the other countries should act alone, forming
faut e de mieux at least a partial world government.
This letter provoked great indignation among the Russians.
Four of the most eminent Soviet scientists, the physicist
Vavilov, president of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.,
the chemist Frumkin, Joffe, director of the Chemo-Physical
Institute of the Leningrad Academy, and Semionov, the
director of the Chemo-Physical Institute of the Moscow
Academy, addressed in their turn an open letter to Einstein
which was published in the New Times. They vehemently
opposed the "mistaken ideas of Dr. Einstein," which they
considered to be "positively prejudicial to the cause of peace
which Einstein so warmly espouses." They reproached Tifm
for playing into the hands of imperialists who used the idea
of world government as "a screen for unlimited expansion"
and who discredited the idea of national sovereignty in order
to establish the world supremacy of capitalist monopolies.
"It is an irony of fate," they wrote, "that Einstein should have
virtually become the supporter of the schemes and ambitions
of the bitterest enemies of peace and of international co-
operation." The reform of the United Nations he proposed
seemed to them as dangerous as his main project. At first
281
glance the election "by the people" which he suggested
seemed progressive and even radical, they admitted, but they
reminded him of the electioneering procedure, not only in
the colonies or countries financially dominated by imperialist
powers, but also in the United States, where "at the last eleo-
tions to Congress only thirty-nine per cent of the voters went
to the polls'* and where millions of Negroes in the Southern-
states were virtually deprived of the right to vote. The idea^
of reinforcing the General Assembly at the expense of the
Security Council was, in their opinion, nothing but "a desire
to transform the United Nations into a branch of the State
Department." They deplored that a man so respected as 3.
scientist and so deeply imbued with public spirit should have
allowed himself to be lured away by the mirage of a world
government. An argument started in which old grievances
and past dissensions were dragged up, far beyond the discus-
sion of the moment
Einstein's theories, or more correctly their philosophical
interpretation, whose incoherence was attributed to the in-
fluence of the philosopher Mach, had raised bitter contro-
versy in Soviet Russia. This at the very moment when in
Germany the extreme right newspapers, forerunners of
Nazism, had attacked his "bolshevik physics'* for being as
damaging to the mind of a German scientist as the Marxist
doctrine is to that of a worker. But ideological and political
considerations had been swept away by the respect for the
scientist whom the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia proclaimed
"the greatest physicist of our times/' Einstein had been re-
peatedly invited to visit the U.S.S.R., but had continually
refused to accept an official invitation, as though wishing to
retain a complete independence in regard to the ideas which
* 282 -
German nationalism blamed him for propagating. But while
abstaining from openly taking up a position, he did not
avoid a discussion on matters of principle. He replied to
American democrats who stressed the absence of liberty in
Soviet Russia that this reign of a minority which they so
deplored was a necessity for a nation deprived of political
education and a country that lacked a majority capable of
improving its disastrous conditions. Conditions of life in Rus-
sia, according to him, were not, as he said to Raymond Swing
in 1945, "a menace to the peace of the world in themselves."
And he added as an afterthought: "Had I been born a Rus-
sian I believe I could have adjusted myself to them."
In his analysis of Einstein's social philosophy on the occa-
sion of his seventieth birthday, Virgil Hinshaw also spoke
of his attitude toward Soviet Russia. According to him, Ein-
stein was not the kindly yet naive old man so many take
hi-m to be in that matter. His attitude was more like that of
the scientist Harold C. Urey, also a Nobel Prize winner and a
friend of Einstein's, who had recently declared: "I can't help
it if the Communists fellow-travel with me on the Spanish
line. I don't fellow-travel with them."
The attacks of Soviet scientists forced Einstein to give a
clear definition of his attitude. He deplored the fact that the
"cumbersome method of open letters" should have taken the
place of a free and personal exchange of ideas, of the direct
contact that creates an atmosphere of mutual understanding,
but he appreciated the fact that his Russian colleagues had
expressed their point of view with candor and without am-
biguity; ^mutual comprehension is only possible if you make
the effort to understand the thoughts, motives, and appre-
hensions of your adversary so completely as to be able to see
283 *
the world through his eyes.** In the letter of the Soviet scien-
tists, Einstein could see a defensive mentality which might
lead to unlimited isolation. Seen through Russian eyes, this
isolation was understandable after the suffering endured in
recent years, the invasions, the foreign interventions, "the
systematic campaign of calumny in the Western press and the
support given to Hitler justified as an instrument to fight
Russia."
It was in view of this defensive attitude of the Russians
that Einstein composed his reply, the reply of "a man who
tries anxiously to find a possible solution without deluding
himself that he knows 'the truth' or 'the right path/ " Ac-
cused by the Russians of serving capitalist interests, he
expounded the ideas he had always held namely, that capi-
talism, or, to speak more correctly, the system of free enter-
prise, never had been and never would be capable of main-
taining a healthy balance between production and the
buying capacity of the people, or of checking unemployment,
and he added: "The day will come when all nations (inas-
much as such nations will still exist) will be grateful to Russia
for having been the first to demonstrate tie practical pos-
sibility of a planned economy." He criticized, however, the
intolerance of fanatics who have made a sort of religion out
of a social system and consider the "infidels" as traitors and
evildoers. They were the same fanatics who, while passion-
ately opposing anarchy in the economic sphere, became
"equally passionate advocates of anarchy through unlimited
sovereignty in the sphere of international politics." Einstein
did not attempt to justify or even explain the policy of the
American government since the end of the war. "One can-
not deny, however," he wrote, "that the suggestions of the
284
American government concerning atomic weapons repre-
sented at least an attempt to create a supranational security
organization, that they could have at least served as a basis
for discussion. It was in fact the attitude of the Soviet gov-
ernment, partly negative, and partly dilatory, which rendered
it so difficult for people of good will in this country to make
use of their political influence as they would have wished
to do, in order to oppose the 'warmongers.* ?> And after re-
capitulating the arguments of the Soviet scientists with a
calm that clashed with their passionate outburst, Einstein
asked whether the differences of opinion expressed in their
strange exchange of letters should not be considered as "in-
significant trifles in comparison with the danger that we are
all facing 9 * a danger without precedent in history.
This note of alarm with which Einstein ended his letter
was to be the leitmotiv of all his interventions in the future.
In an article published at the beginning of 1946 in the New
York Times,, he could still express hope for the survival of
civilization, even after an atomic war would have destroyed
two thirds of the inhabitants of the globe. His apprehensions
increased as he saw the competition to find more and more
powerful means of destruction develop. The desire of the
United States to safeguard the secret of the atom bomb
appeared to Tifm from the start a dangerous illusion; the
refusal to declare it outside the law and the desire to use it as
a political weapon, an almost unpardonable crime. After the
end of the war he became convinced that the United States
would not remain long in possession of the secret. "I know
that it is considered that no other country has enough money
to spend on the development of the atom bomb, a fact that is
supposed to secure the secret for a long time," he told Ray-
285
mond Swing. "It is a frequent error in this country to measure
things by their cost; it is the men and the material, the will
to use them that counts, not the money/* In 1947 lie saw his
prophecy on the eve of fulfillment: "As to the so-called secret
of the atomic bomb, I expect that the Russians will have it, as
a result of their own efforts, without much delay. The race
toward total destruction is on. A race that might have been
prevented/'
Einstein's latent anger now burst out uncontrollably. To
the arguments of those who declared that any understanding
with the Russians was impossible under the present circum-
stances, he replied in 1946 that no serious attempt in this
sense had been made since the war. "It seems to me that it
is exactly the opposite that has taken place/* he wrote. In a
violent and bitter account he listed all of the things which
he felt had been done to increase the distrust of the Russians.
It was not necessary to produce new atom bombs without a
pause and allot twelve billion dollars in one year to defense
measures when no military danger existed in the immediate
future. "Not necessary either to defer the measures proposed
against Franco's Spain, nor to introduce fascist Argentina to
the United Nations in spite of the opposition of the U.S.S.R."
The world was still far from an openly declared cold war.
But Einstein saw the abyss grow not only with every year
but almost with every day. Hostile to all nationalism, he
feared, according to Virgil Hinshaw, the growth of nation-
alism in the U.S.A. more than in the U.S.S.R., "because he
observes among us a kind of mob hysteria unbecoming to a
nation otherwise so great. He also feels that his reaction to
our hysteria is more than justified by the fact of our techno-
logical superiority over the Russians/* The result, according
- 286 -
to Hinshaw, is that in Einstein's opinion the guilt of the
United States in regard to the present world situation is
greater than that of Russia. "Being the more powerful nation,
we are actually in control of the situation and if a crisis
should arise we would be more culpable than the U.S.S.R."
It was a bitter disappointment for Einstein to discover
once again in the country of his adoptionthe country to
which he owed so much because of the work it had made
possible by relieving him of all material worries his eternal
personal enemy, the militarist attitude of -mind. He found, as
he said one day, Potsdam transported to Washington. It was,
for America, a new attitude of mind. It had been born under
the influence of two wars. Einstein described it by saying that
"people place the importance of what Bertrand Russell so
aptly calls "naked power* far above all the other factors in-
fluencing the relations among nations." He recalled how the
Germans, misled by Bismarck's success, suffered the same
transformation of mentality, "as a result of which they were
totally ruined in less than a century." He criticized this mili-
tarist state of mind with the penetration of someone who
knows his personal enemy only too well, a state of mind that
considers non-human factors like atom bombs, strategic
bases, weapons of all sorts, raw materials, etc., as essential,
but psychological factors, like men's desires and thoughts,
as unimportant and secondary. He found that from the theo-
retical point of view it had a similarity to Marxism. "The
individual is degraded he is no more than an instrument,
he becomes mere human material, he loses the normal im-
pulses of human aspiration." This militarist attitude, accord-
ing to him, demands the sacrifice of the civil rights of a
citizen in favor of the state. "The political witch hunt, all
287
sorts of controls (for instance, of education, of research, of
the press, etc. ) seem inevitable and do not, for that reason,
meet with a resistance which, had it not been a matter of
militaristic mentality, might have offered a protection."
All this seemed in a way all too familiar to Albert Einstein,
a nightmarish "has-been," which he had thought he would
never see again. "I must frankly admit," he wrote in 1947,
"that the foreign policy of the U.S. after the war often re-
minded me, irresistibly, of Germany's attitude under Em-
peror William II, and I know that apart from myself, many
others have sorrowfully drawn the same comparison/*
Together with this disappointment and anger, Einstein was
overcome with fear. Since the production of the first atom
bomb, the destructive power of war had increased immeasur-
ably. At the end of 1946 the former Assistant Secretary of
War, John McCloy, declared that the first bomb was still
"primitive" and that according to specialists "it will be possi-
ble to produce bombs ten times as powerful as the first." He
also said: "If we use hydrogen as a source of energy we will
have a bomb about one thousand times more powerful."
In his book, Atomic Energy and the Hydrogen Bomb,
Gerald Wendt wrote that it was a challenge to humanity,
the most startling challenge since humanity had existed, and
he added that if ever a hydrogen bomb were made it would
be the most horrible invention of man, the very essence of
evil.
At the beginning of 1950 President Truman revealed that
he had "ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to continue
its research, particularly on what is called the hydrogen or
the super-bomb." The Atomic Energy Commission had in its
turn officially announced that it had submitted for study the
- 288
use of radioactive products to be dispersed in gigantic clouds
by the explosion of a hydrogen bomb, or scattered by air-
planes. "This radioactive gas/* wrote Einstein, "that would
spread over wide regions, would cause heavy losses without
damaging buildings." From a military point of view, this
method, wrote Wendt, "presented a particular advantage it
only attacked lije? Buildings, machinery, electric stations
would remain intact. Four scientists of the University of Chi-
cago, among them -Leo Szilard (who had presented Einstein
with the paper on the atom bomb), declared on the radio
"'that it was possible to disperse in the air a quantity of radio-
active dust sufficient to kill all the living beings on the earth.'*
In fact, once this weapon was put in operation, one could not
limit its destructive power. Another scientist present, Dr.
Harrison Brown, confirmed this, saying: "We are thus arriv-
ing at the paradoxical conclusion that it is easier to kifl the
whole world than to. kill a certain number of people.**
These new dangers aroused, especially among the un-
informed, the fear of a chain reaction powerful enough to
destroy a part or the whole of our planet. "But it is not
necessary to imagine that the earth will be destroyed like a
nova by a stellar explosion,** wrote Einstein, "in order to
realize that if another war is not prevented it is probable that
it will bring destruction on a scale that never seemed possible
before, which even now is difficult to conceive and after
which very little of our civilization would survive.**
Einstein knew that the United States was in particular
danger, more than any other country, "because of the vul-
nerability of its concentrated industry and its highly devel-
oped city life.** It was true, as Gerald Wendt wrote, that
America had never envisaged that it might be attacked,
- 289
even less that it might be seriously harmed. That was made
possible only because America had invented the atom bomb.
Every increase of destructive power increased the danger
to the United States. The hydrogen bomb, he added, instead
of being their ultimate rampart, constituted a much more
efficient weapon for the enemies of the United States than
for the United States itself.
American scientists, experts in nuclear physics, technicians
engaged in research on new weapons, never ceased to warn
the world of the nature of the danger it was running. Per-
haps it was precisely its quality of an apocalyptic vision that
made it surpass human imagination. The reaction to the in-
conceivable is not panic but a kind of resigned apathy.
Einstein was bewildered and disturbed by this phenomenon
of general indifference. "Having been warned of the horrible
nature of atomic war, people have done nothing against it
and have even in a certain measure disregarded the warnings
of their consciences/* He wondered what the reaction of the
world would be if, for example, an epidemic of bubonic
plague threatened it with extinction: experts would get to-
gether at once and submit their plans to their governments,
which would take immediate and general measures without
considering whether their people might be spared while the
neighboring ones perished. But there were passions which
prevented people from reacting as they would to the threat
of an epidemic. The real danger was the blindness caused
by hatred. "The real problem is in the hearts of men/' said
Einstein. Since the Hiroshima catastrophe he had not ceased
to make appeals to governments and political rulers, to all
those responsible for the decisions on which depended the
destiny of the world. He knew that his voice was not heard.
290
When still president of the Emergency Committee of Atomic
Scientists, lie supported the campaign which the Committee
had launched with the following telegram: "Our world faces
a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to
make great decisions, good or evil. The unleashed power of
the atom has changed everything, save our ways of thinking,
and thus we drift toward an unparalleled catastrophe. A new
way of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move
toward higher levels."
One should go beyond and above the rulers, the politicians,
the defenders of powerful interests, in order to make the
voice of reason heard. "In the final analysis," wrote Hioshaw,
summing up Einstein's ideas, "the decisions of the U.N. rest
on those made in village squares. It is to the village squares
that facts on atomic energy must be carried." But fear and
confusion reign also on village squares; there, too, the voice
of reason is lost amid turmoil and violence* "The mentality
of man, having grown accustomed to war, becomes corrupt;
the result is that intelligent, objective human action has very
little effect it falls beneath suspicion and is persecuted as
anti-patriotic."
Einstein felt that he, too, was under suspicion; his activities
were hampered by a distrust which only his fame prevented
from appearing too openly. He was often deeply discouraged
and tormented by the feeling of his own helplessness. Some-
times he despaired of man and his destiny. "It is easier to
change the nature of plutonium than man's evil spirit." Many
among those who had been close to him in thought now
turned away, either from opportunism or because they were
reduced to silence. This created a greater solitude around
him and could not but increase his depression.
291 *
In December 1946 Langevin died of heart failure; his
health had been failing after the ordeals of the occupation.
"The news of Paul Langevin's death has been a greater shock
to me than most of the events of the last years, so rich in
disasters/* Einstein, so restrained in his expressions when
they concerned his personal feelings, was moved as he had
rarely been in his life. Accustomed to self -analysis, he tried
to discover the reason for his deep distress. It could not be
the feeling of an incompleted life or of a premature death
that shocked him. Paul Langevin had lived to a great age;
he had found satisfaction in his creative work; he was loved
and respected; his life "appeared at the end as a work of
art/* No, Einstein's sense of loss was a personal one. "The
grief that the death of Paul Langevin has left me with is
particularly poignant because I have the feeling now of being
quite alone and deserted/* They had often explored side by
side the same spheres of scientific thought. He spoke of his
gifts: "A rare clarity and nimbleness of mind linked with an
intuitive vision, very firm on essential points.** But it was
above all the companion-in-arms that he missed in this
critical hour. It was Langevin's generosity of heart that made
him feel that his loss was irreparable, the generosity that
made of him primarily an inspirer of others, limiting his
own research to the stimulation of his disciples, "so that the
fruit of his labor appears in the publications of other scien-
tists more than it does in his own/* And it was to this man,
with his good-natured, intelligent understanding of hu-
manity, that Einstein was so deeply attached. "All his life,
Paul Langevin suffered from an awareness of the deficiencies
and iniquities of our social and economic institutions. But he
believed in the power of reason and knowledge.** Though
292
more skeptical and cynical, Einstein felt very close to the
man ''whose desire to help all men to enjoy a happier life
was perhaps even greater than his desire for pure intellectual
knowledge." They had many traits in common. "Nobody who
appealed to his social conscience went away empty-handed."
In those times of unrest and the deficiency of human thought,
Einstein felt even closer to the public-spirited Langevin than
he had when he had steeled himself against any interest in
human beings and against all personal emotions. This appre-
ciation of his dead friend was rather like an examination of
conscience. "There are so few men in a generation who com-
bine a clear understanding of the nature of things, an intense
realization of truly humanitarian needs and the courage to
fight for them." Like all real grief, Einstein's expressed itself
in simple words: "When such a man goes, he leaves a void,
unbearable for those who survive him."
Einstein now lived almost like a recluse in Princeton. The
town itself contributed to this. The train from New York
crosses the hideous landscape of a modern metropolis of
industry, with its gigantic chimneys belching black smoke
which rises in the sky. Somewhere on its way the train stops
on a shunting track. The train that winds its way on to
Princeton has a suburban air and stops suddenly on a plot
of green grass. It is the terminus of a journey that seems
to lead not only beyond space but beyond time. The gray sky
of that spring of 1948 gave to the Gothic buildings in gray
stone the tarnished polish of a silver mirror. Against the
walls and the sky, which merged together, the flowering
bushes stood out as multicolored waterfalls, the trees a vivid
yellow, a soft pink, an acid mauve, stretched out above,
luminously, as though they held a hidden light imprisoned.
293 -
Somewhere a bell tolled, the strokes followed one another
with a repeated echo. "There are so many bells ringing in
Princeton/* Elsa once wrote to me. Perhaps one hears them
more clearly because they are surrounded with a silence that
seems as though the town is holding its breath, after New
York.
Public squares with children playing in them, parks,
straight streets that seem to run on forever, lined with trees,
passers-by who are in no hurry. This imitation of an English
Gothic town, this stone effigy of Oxford or Cambrdge, re-
minds one in some way of a seaside resort out of season:
halfway between prosperity and neglect. Mercer Street is
very long. No. 112 is a house like so many others in Prince-
ton, in the parts farthest from the center. It has no style, no
period, and only the large trees in the background seem to
give it an individual character.
Mademoiselle Dukas, appearing in the doorway, had not
changed. Perhaps a little more energetic, more determined.
I found Margot as frail as ever, the same sensitivity bringing
shadows into her clear eyes. But the years had weighed
heavily on Einstein. He came to meet me with a step in
which I did not find the usual elasticity and silent movement.
True, it was a long time since I had last seen him; there had
been the years of exile, of war and mourning, in between.
But I was struck by his appearance. He was not yet seventy,
but his face was that of a great old man. His shoulders were
still robust, his bare neck strong and round. But time had
dug deep furrows on the plump cheeks, and the lips drooped
at the corners, as though dragged down by bitterness. His
high forehead was deeply wrinkled. Before, the wrinkles used
to show only when he was plunged in deep thought, when
294
he was angry, or when he laughed. Now they had come
to stay, darting in an irregular way from each side of the
powerful bridge of his nose. The most moving change, how-
ever, was in his eyes. The burning glance seemed to have
singed the skin underneath, the mauve and brown shadows
descended on the sallow cheeks, forming a strange pattern
crossed by the bluish line of the lips. The fringe of white
hair stood out as a luminous halo and created a background
for the dark pools of his eyes. The hair was as wiry as ever,
with that curious life of its own, but it was more vivid, more
crisp, more like silver flames; the eyeballs had become hidden
in the deep sockets, but the glance, the inextinguishable black
fire, was just as glowing. The face, paler, might be consumed
from within, undermined by sickness and suffering, the lines
of torment might have left scars on a flesh that had no longer
the same resilience, but his strength burst forth through the
eyes and triumphed over everything that was in decline. This
huge head had a remarkable power, a power purified, as it
were, of everything fleshly. It was the head of a visionary re-
mote from earthly contingencies. More than ever did one feel
his presence to be "only on a temporary loan**; it was distress-
ing to know it was precarious and threatened. But at the
same time it had a greater reality; he was closer to the con-
cerns of humanity, and more determined to survive.
The large bare room which was his study provided a sober
frame for this forceful personality. The walls were lined with
books, manuscripts, volumes of reference, and there was a
large, bare table in the middle, of dark wood, polished by
time, which had long ago reflected the dull lights of the
Haberlandstrasse. The bay window opened out on a long
view, as though the room continued into the landscape,
inviting the sky, the trees, the lawn, the valley to take their
part in the thoughts of the recluse. Einstein's glance turned
lovingly toward this view, as though to make sure that it
still existed, that it had resisted the destructive will of man.
But there is anguish, too, in this room. It seems to be Ein-
stein's only companion silently questioning him. He spoke
to me aloud, because I happened to be there, as he must, I
am sure, have often talked to himself in a low voice. He spoke
of Hiroshima, of the needless horror of that day. He spoke
of the race toward destruction and everything done to ac-
centuate it. He spoke of his personal experiences, of efforts
undertaken in vain, of unheeded warnings. He spoke of
man's folly, of his chosen blindness, of the fear of respon-
sibilities that haunted humanity. When he spoke of some
particularly disappointing conversation or absurd incident
he burst out laughing, as he used to do when something
incongruous tickled his sense of humor. But his laughter
was harsh and abrupt. It did not come from the heart any
longer it was a laughter that did not extend further than the
lips. "Yes, I am very frightened/' he suddenly said, in a low
voice. But instantly he threw his lowered head back, pulled
himself up, and squared his shoulders as though bracing him-
self against this fear that came over him.
I spoke to him of a demonstration which I witnessed in
New York in the Carnegie Hall, organized by an association
called One World. He had been the winner of the first award
and had been expected to appear- He had sent a message
which a colleague read in his place. The message was un-
equivocal. Einstein expressed his gratitude for the honor
bestowed on him, expressed his sorrow "that we, who want
peace and the triumph of reason, are forced to realize bitterly
296 -
how diminished is the influence that reason and good will
exercise today on political events/* The hour was a critical
one, an hour of decisions and consequences and he ex-
plained their importance. "The plan to militarize the nation
does not only present an immediate threat of war, it will
slowly but surely destroy the democratic spirit and the dig-
nity of the individual in our country. To say that external
events force us to rearm is untrue; we must resist that view
with all our strength. In fact, our own rearmament will create,
through the reactions of other nations, precisely the situation
on which the defenders of this view base their statements.
I told Einstein about the indescribable, overwhelming en-
thusiasm with which the crowd welcomed his message. He
shook his head, resignedly: applause comes easily to Ameri-
can audiences.
But knowing as he did the temporary effect of his words,
it did not discourage him. Only he spoke more rarely. He
did not sign manifestoes with the same readiness and refused
to add his name except in important cases. This spendthrift
of generosity now restrained himself, and though he had
often been reproached in the past for abusing the prestige of
his name, this restraint gave me a pang, as though making me
realize the measure of his renunciation.
He was quickly aware of my thoughts, as he had often
been in the past, before I had even put them into words:
"At a decisive moment, you know, my voice will only have
more weight. I am waiting for this critical moment to come.
Then I will shout with all the strength left in me." The in-
tensity he put in these words made me understand what this
cry, launched into the world, would be like. I also under-
stood that his resistance to grief and sickness, this struggle
9.07
with his own body and soul, were inspired by his decision
to be heard when the time comes. His was the sort of power
that husbands itself, and forces itself to survive in order to
spend itself in one outcry. I believe I never realized fully
the horror of the future until that moment when I saw Ein-
stein's features harden in fierce determination, the dark fire
of his eyes conscious of this hour of peril. A solitary man
facing tie folly of the world.
I walked down the steps, blinded and breathless. An old
woman passed me in the hallway, with dragging feet and
jerky gait, leaning heavily on the arm of a nurse. She dis-
appeared behind a door that banged. I caught sight of a
white face, with tragic features, very like those of Einstein's,
and the same gray hair. I had forgotten about Einstein's sister
Maya, who had come to stay with him, had had a cardiac
attack, and been unable to go back. She lived in his house
until she died. I had also forgotten how much she resembled
him. In the twilight it seemed to me that I had seen a ghost
goby.
From the top of the stairs, Einstein waved his hand. He
meant au revoir, but I knew it was good-by.
The abyss between Einstein and his time became deeper
and deeper the abyss between his sense of responsibility
and the egotism of general indifference between his need
of a spiritual order and the isolated, anarchic efforts of those
who adapt themselves to the present confusion: "I have
recently discussed the possibility of another war with a man
both intelligent and kindhearted, of a war that would
threaten the very existence of humanity, and I told him that
I believed only a supranational organization could offer pro-
tection against this danger," Einstein wrote in 1949, and
298
he continued: "To this my visitor replied calmly and coldly:
*Why are you so earnestly opposed to the disappearance of
the human race?* " Einstein was staggered. "1 am certain
that a century ago nobody could have made such a remark
so offhandedly." But such monstrous cynicism did not make
Tifm indignant. He, for whom man became more and more
transparent, who was used to seeing the world with the eyes
of his enemies, knew what misery was hidden behind such
exaggerated statements. The feeling they aroused in him
was one of pity. Such a statement could only be made by a
man who had vainly tried to achieve stability within himself
and had more or less lost the hope of ever achieving it. It was
an expression of infinite solitude and isolation which many
men suffer in our days.
In contrast to the neurosis of fear that becomes the nega-
tion of all human solidarity, in contrast to these attempts at
escape in order to avoid a common fate, Albert Einstein now
feels an increasing identity with his fellow beings, the feeling
of identity that creates revolutionaries and saints. Instead
of the selfishness of old age which usually isolates the sur-
vivors of another generation, he feels an increasing compas-
sion for human errors, a tolerance like the serenity of the
mystics. He recently said to Raymond Swing: "For me the
essence of religion is to be able to get under the skin of an-
other human being, to rejoice in his joy and suffer his pain."
Albert Einstein was very ill in 1949. He underwent a seri-
ous operation, so serious that there was great danger that he
would not survive. He is forced to be more and more careful
about his health. But under the mask of an old man whose
resistance is constantly undermined by physical afflictions
there still lives the same fierce strength preparing for a de-
299
cisive battle. In May 1949 lie said to Virgil Hinshaw: "Never
do anything against your conscience even if the state de-
mands it." He connected this imperative with the instructions
from the Apostles: "Then Peter and the other apostles an-
swered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men/*
Einstein's principal source of energy, which allows him to
defy the deterioration of his body, is the feeling of this
mission that he has still to accomplish. It is the fire that feeds
the flickering flame of his life, this mission he once defined
as the task of being the vehicle of expression for the con-
science of humanity. The man whose spiritual power has
penetrated the widest domains of human speculation has
given priority to ethics. "The moral qualities of great person-
alities are perhaps more significant for a generation and for
the course of history than purely intellectual accomplish-
ments/'
The universe of Albert Einstein is governed in the twilight
of his life by this moral obligation. He submits to a force
which he sometimes calls "reason displayed in life/* which
in its more intimate depths is inaccessible to man. More and
more often he calls it God. Not the personal and revengeful
god of his ancestors, but the God of the supreme order of
nature, who leaves nothing to chance. It is God who has
given him the faith that made him persevere in his research,
alone, and attacked even by those who were closest to him in
thought.
Posterity will judge whether the years of incessant effort,
of defeats overcome, of patient and obstinate reconstruction,
were in vain; it will judge whether the theory of the unified
field represents the triumph of human spirit over the chaos
of the universe. This triumph would be a triumph of faith,
300 -
a faith which across spiritual victories and defeats will re-
main with him while he is alive. One day in a conversation
Einstein summed it up in a sentence that made a great im-
pression on his questioners, for it seemed to be a beacon
capable of guiding searchers through the anguish of their
exploration of the universe, through their battle for truth.
This sentence expresses also the meaning of Einstein's strug-
gle against man's folly and for the survival of humanity. It is
now engraved over the mantelpiece of a room in Fine Hall
at Princeton: "God is subtle but he is not malicious.* 3
Index
Aarau, 29
Adler, Friedrich, 50-51
Adler, Victor, 50
Alamogordo, N.M., 274-75
Albert, Xing of the Belgians, 116-
17, 214, 231, 234
America. See United States
Andler, Charles, 225, 227
"Answer to Critics," 150-52, 156
Antwerp, 214, 234
Appeal to Europeans, 61
Argentina, 286
Arosa, 72
Astronomer Royal, 75
Atomic energy, 47, 263, 268, 270,
277, 291
Atomic Energy Commission, 288
Atomic Energy and the Hydrogen
Bomb (Wendt),288
Atomic era, birth of, 269
Bachelard (quoted) ,47
Baltic provinces, 124
Barnett, Lincoln, 257
Bavaria, 66
Bavarian Academy of Science, 219
Beauharnais, Josephine, 27
Bedier, Joseph, 225, 227
Belgium, 116-19, 210, 214, 215,
225, 231, 234, 235
Bell, George, 200
Bergson, Henri, 126, 128
Berlin, 16, 28, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62,
64, 65, 66, 74, 84, 93, 111,
113, 137, 139-40, 145, 149,
164-67, 175, 193-94, 199,
213, 216-19, 263-64
Haberlandstrasse, 139-40, 160,
194, 196, 212, 213, 220, 221,
295
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, 57,
263-64
Prussian Academy of Science,
57, 62, 74, 145, 160, 216-19
University of, 57, 64, 65, 93
Berliner Tageblatt, 98
Bern, 41-51, 262
Federal Patent Office, 41-51,
262
University of, 50
Bismarck, Prince Otto von, 287
Bohr, Niels, 147, 265-68
303
Bom, Max, 49, 56, 254
Bose, S. N., 145
Bourgeois, Leon, 124
Breitscheid, Rudolf, 273
Briand, Aristide, 175
Broglie, Louis de, 76, 145-47,
254, 256, 258
Brown, Harrison, 289
Brown, Robert, 46
Briim'ng, Heinricb, 195, 199, 200-1
Brussels, 116, 117, 118, 210, 225
Bund Neues Vaterland, 62, 63
Buridan's donkey, 30
Cain, Julien, 175
California, 192, 195, 199, 211,
212, 213
California Institute of Technol-
ogy, 190
Caputh, 167-70, 191, 201-2, 209,
210, 211, 212, 213, 220, 221,
234
Landhaus Einstein, 169, 203,
211, 213, 220, 221, 234
Carnegie, A., 102
Central Committee of German
Jews, 225
Chicago, University of, 79, 202,
275, 289
China, 115
Clermont-Ferrand, 174
College de France, 105, 225-27
Columbia University, N.Y., 261,
265, 268
Committee of Aid to German
Jews, 223
Committee of Intellectual Co-op-
eration, 124^33, 172-80
Copenhagen, University of, 265
^Cosmological Notes on the The-
ory of General Relativity,"
Cosmology, modern, birth of, 74-
75
Cracow, University of, 48
Curie, Marie, 62, 109-10, 126,
130, 132, 134, 173, 176, 252
Czechoslovakia, 216
D'Abernon, Edgar Vincent, Lord,
135
Danzig, 261
Davos, 157-58
Denmark, 265, 266
Destre'e, Jules, 126
"Does tie Inertia of a Body De-
pend on Its Energy Con-
tent?," 47
Double stars, 257
Dukas, Helen, 226, 235, 247, 294
Eclipse of sun, 75, 77-80
Eddington, Sir Arthur, 10, 77
Ehrenfest, Paul, 253
Einstein, Albert:
invitation to: Allies, urged to
force surrender of Germany,
74
aloofness, 15, 53, 119-20
American militarist attitude,
disappointment at, 287
anecdotes about, 10, 11, 14, 27,
28, 53, 82-83, 87, 90, 92,
118-19, 163-64, 190
appearance, 11-13, 168, 294-
95
astronomers, urged to interest
themselves in deviation of
light rays, 55
atomic bomb, letter to Roose-
velt concerning, 269, 271,
278; protests use of, 275;
views on, 275, 277-78, 279,
285-86, 290, 291
attitude toward: authority, 18;
304
fame, 9-11, 13-14, 26, 81,
85, 91, 93; Russia, 283-84
basic equilibrium, 86-87
Belgian royal family, friendship
with, 116-19, 231
Berlin University, invitation to,
57
biographical notes, 19, 25, 33,
80
birth, 16
California Institute of Technol-
ogy, accepts invitation to,
190
capacity for wonder, 45, 55,
155
characteristics, 31, 45
childhood, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21,
24, 28, 36; and children, 36-
37
College de France, accepts in-
vitation to, 106
Committee of Intellectual Co-
operation, joins, 125; with-
draws from, 179-80
Communist, labeled as, 211
compass, receives, 21
comprehension of life through
thought, 19, 21
conscientious objectors, crusade
for, 184
contemporary theoretical phys-
ics, divorce from, 259
convention, disregard of, 26,
27,28
Copernicus of twentieth cen-
tury, 48, 56
correspondence with: Prussian
Academy of Science, and
resignation, 216-19; Remain
Rolland, 61-62, 72-73; Rus-
sian scientists, 284-85
criticism of, 53, 147, 254, 281;
answer to, 150-51
Curie, Marie, friendship with,
252; views on, 110
curiosity as driving force, 103
decision to teach, 29
describes processes of scientific
work, 54-55
detachment from others, 13, 17 r
43-44, 47, 53, 92, 119-20,
127, 197, 204
differentiation between private
life and the world of thought
and science, 42-43
directed economy, advocate of,
128
disarmament, favors universal,
171
early interest in science, 21
economics, interest in, 135,
136, 187-88
education, views on, 20, 32-33,
37, 63, 157-58
Einstein Fund, inaugurates,
185
emphasis on thought, 19, 21,
42
English scientists, tribute to, 83
faith, 259, 301; in harmony of
universe, 149-50
family background, 15-16, 19
father, 16, 21, 23, 28; as father,
43, 72, 140, 141, 195-97,
238
fiftieth birthday, 161-64
first departure from Europe,
234
first encounter with fame, 83-
84
German classics, interest in, 22
German discipline, reaction to,
18, 19
German Jews, resented by, 222,
224
305
Einstein, Albert (Confd)
German national, 99; gives up
nationality, 24
Germany, urges Allies to force
surrender of, 74
God, definition of, 102
horror of unnecessary words,
17; of constraint, 18, 20, 33
humor, sense of, 9, 15, 36, 61,
84, 118, 193, 197, 211, 220,
296
identification with Jews, 244-
45
illness, 34, 46, 73, 158
independence, need for, 95,
120, 143-44
Institute for Advanced Study
(Princeton), accepts invita-
tion to, 210
"Internationale of Science," fa-
vors, 125
isolation in personal relation-
ships, 15, 16, 19, 21, 120
Israel, refusal to accept presi-
dency, 96
Jewish community, leaves, 24,
93
Jewish refugees, assistance to,
246-47, 250-51
Jews, German, resentment of,
222, 224
Jews, spiritual links with, 94-
95
jote de vivre, 43, 95, 171
Judaism, 19, 52, 95, 96
Langevin, Paul, friendship
with, 108-9, 212, 292-93
letters: to Roosevelt, announc-
ing atomic bomb, 269, 271,
278; to United Nations, 280
light rays, urges astronomers*
interest in deviation of, 55
manifesto of ninety-three intel-
lectuals, refusal to sign, 61
Marie, Mileva, marriage to, 43;
separation from, 58
marriage to: cousin Elsa, 67;
Mileva Marie, 43
material encumbrances, fights,
27-28, 91, 114
mathematics, gives up for phys-
ics, 30; interest in, 22, 29,
30, 31, 148
militarism, change from paci-
fism to, 246, 248-49
Munich, leaves, 24, 28
Nazis search home and confis-
cate money, 221
new phase of life, 103
Nobel, Alfred, views on, 278
Nobel Prize awarded to, 46,
115
opposed by Russian scientists,
281
pacifism, 60-61, 126, 183-85,
210, 248, 249, 269
parents, 16-17, 19, 21, 26
Paris, first visit to, 62
philosophy, interest in, 149-50
philosophy of life, 93, 137, 143,
144
politics, interest in, 135, 136
Prague university, call to, 52
precocity, 25
Prussian Academy of Science,
invitation to, 57
publishes: cosmology notes, 74;
general relativity theory, 71;
unified field theory, 180
quantum theory, defense of
negative view of, 254-56
realization of being German
and Jew, 18-19
recognition by fellow scientists,
48, 56, 76, 79, 146, 161
306
relativity, first paper on un-
noticed, 48, 49; general the-
ory, 71
religious education, 19, 20
religious views, 102, 154r-S5,
237, 259, 299-301
research, explanation of proc-
ess, 152-53
Roosevelt, letter to, 269, 271,
278
school years, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23,
29, 33, 34
scientist, 42, 45, 54, 70, 92,
144-45, 151
scientists, views on, 41, 42, 54,
61-62, 92, 125, 181
seventieth birthday, 19, 42,
150, 156, 283
social conscience, 86, 119
sons, 43
Sorbonne, invitation to, 27
Stresemann, views on, 172
struggle for existence, 26-30,
sublime harmony his goal, 147,
258
siims up his life, 42
Swiss national, 34, 58, 61
as thinker, and philosophy of
thought, 19, 21, 42, 43^44,
147, 149, 152-53
Third Reich, declaration
against, 215, 216
turning point in development,
21
understanding, passion for, 30
unified field theory, 180
United Nations, letter to, 280-
proposes reform to, 281-83
United States, first visit to, 31,
99-104; woman's club urges
he be barred from, 211
voltage measuring device, in-
vention of, 43
warmonger, labeled as, 249
woman's club asks he be barred
from U. S., 211
at work, 31-32, 43, 53, 229-30
world government, interest in,
280-82; plans foundation of,
280
world of thought, 37, 43-44,
55,71,75
Yearbook for Physics, contribu-
tions to, 45-46, 47, 48, 54,
55, 70-71
youth, 17-24
Zionism, conversion to, 97
Einstein, Albert (son), 195
Einstein, Eduard (son), 195-97
Einstein, Elsa (second wife), 26,
32, 33, 66-69, 72, 82, 85,
86, 87-89, 90, 91-92, 101,
105, 107, 113-14, 117, 118,
141-44, 158, 159, 162-63,
164-65, 167-68, 170, 191-
92, 194, 196, 197, 201, 202-
5, 209, 210, 211-12, 213-15,
220, 221, 224, 225, 227,
231-32, 235-37, 238, 239-
40, 250, 252
appearance, 66, 141-43
characteristics, 68-69, 86, 88-
89,240
illness and death, 238-41, 252
as mother, 66, 141, 158, 191,
234, 235-38; wife, 26, 67,
85, 86, 88, 89, 113-14, 118,
143, 158-59, 191, 237, 238,
239
place of birth, 15
Einstein, Usa (stepdaughter), 66,
140, 191, 220, 221-22, 234,
235-36
307
Einstein, Margot (stepdaughter),
66, 140, 191, 211-12, 226,
232, 234, 236-37, 294
Einstein, Maya (sister), 23, 298
Einstein, Mileva Marie (first
wife), 41, 52, 58, 67
Einstein Fund, 185
Electrodynamics, 46-47
"Electrodynamics of Bodies in
Movement, On the," 46
Electromagnetism, 160-61, 254
Elizabeth, Queen of the Belgians,
116-19, 214, 231
Emergency Committee of Atomic
Scientists, 291
England, 104, 106, 127, 250, 251,
270, 273
Ensor, James, 227
Erzberger, Matthias, 228
Essay on the Psychology of Inven-
tion in the Mathematical
Field (Hadamard), 152
Euclidean geometry, 22, 54
Excelsior, 223, 226, 228
Fallada, Hans, 190
Faraday, Michael, 47
Federal Patent Office, 41-51, 262
Fermi, Enrico, 265-69
Fischer, Serge, 174, 175
Flexner, Abraham, 202-3, 205
Foerster, Friedrich Wilhelm, 61
Foerster, Wilhelm, 61
"Foundations of Physics," 258
"Foundations of the Theory of
General Relativity, The," 71
Fiance, 65, 105, 106, 127, 171,
178, 216, 226, 227, 234, 250,
251, 270
Francis Joseph, Emperor of Aus-
tria, 52
Frank, Philipp, 50, 53, 81, 161
Frankfurter Zeitung, 38
Frisch, Otto, 265-66
Frumkin, A. N., 281
Gandhi, Mohandas K., 102
Geneva, 28, 134
League of Nations, 124^33,
172-80
George, Andre, 258
Germany, 15, 56, 60, 63-65, 71-
74, 85, 93, 97, 98, 99, 111-
13, 121-24, 125, 126-27,
134, 162, 170, 171, 172,
18S-87, 189-90, 199, 200-1,
215, 216, 217, 218, 228, 243,
246, 282
Gilbert, Parker, 186
Goering, Hermann, 223
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von,
73, 205, 215
Gravitation, 30, 54, 55, 70, 79,
160, 250, 254, 256
Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 282
Haberlandstrasse, 139-40, 160,
194, 212, 213, 22'0, 221, 295
Hadamard, Jacques, 152
Haguenin, Professor, 58
Hahn, Otto, 263-64, 266-67
Haldane, Richard Burdon, Lord,
104, 105
Harnack, Adolf von, 149
Havana, 191
Hebrew University, 103
Hechingen, 15-16, 170
Hibben, John G., 103
Hilferding, Rudolf, 273
Hindenburg, Paul von, 199, 200
Hinshaw, Virgil, 276, 283, 286-
87, 291, 300
Hiroshima, 276-77, 290, 296
Hitler, Adolf, 135, 199-200, 264,
265, 266, 267, 268
Hoesch, Leopold von, 27
308
Holland, 114, 210, 225
Hutchins, Robert M., 275
Hydrogen bomb, 288-90
Infeld, Leopold, 41, 45, 48, 49,
74r-75, 81, 146, 150, 249,
253^54, 256-58
Institute for Advanced Study
(Princeton), 202, 225
Institute of Intellectual Co-oper-
ation, 124, 129, 131, 132,
173, 176
International Committee of Intel-
lectual Co-operation. See
Committee of Intellectual
Co-operation
International Labor Organization,
124, 130
International League against Anti-
Semitism, 216
Israel, 96, 97
Italy, 23, 24, 28, 131
Ives, H. E., 257
Japan, 115, 127, 189, 275-76
Jewish Consistory, 225
Jews, 16, 19, 93-94, 95-97, 101-
2, 221, 222-25, 244-45, 247,
252
Joffe, A. K, 281
Joliot, Fred6ric, 62, 263, 266-67,
270
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, 57,
263-64
Kant, Lnmanuel, 150, 152, 215
Kapp Putsch, 98-99, 113
Kayser, lisa, 234; see also Ein-
stein, lisa
Kellennann, Bernhard, 74
Kessler, Count, 172
Khartoum, 79
Knickerbocker, H. R., 135
Laken, 117, 119
Langevin, Paul, 71, 106, 108-9,
145, 212, 27S-74, 292-93
League of Nations, 124r-33, 172-
80,189
Le Coq, 225-34, 235
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von,
70
Leiden University, 114, 225
Les Eaux Vives, 132
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 258
Lessing, Theodor, 231
Library of Living Philosophers,
150
Liebknecht, Karl, 112
Life of Emile Zola, The, 14
Light, 30, 45, 46, 55, 70
Light quanta, discovery of, 46
Little Man, What Now? (Fal-
lada), 190
London, 28, 79, 82, 118
London Times, 83, 84
Lorentz, Hendrik Antoon, 130,
244
Loria, Professor, 48
Louvain, 64
Luchaire, Julien, 124
Lusitania, 64, 72
Luther, Hans, 195
Luxemburg, Rosa, 112
McCloy, John, 288
Mach, Ernst, 282
Madrid, 225
Manchukuo, 189
Manifesto of ninety-three intellec-
tuals, 61
Mann, Thomas, 250
Margenau, Henry, 151, 152
Marie, Mileva. See Einstein, Mi-
leva Marie
Maxwell, James C., 47
Mayer, Walter, 148, 229, 235
309
Mein Kampf, 135
Meitner, Use, 263-65
Michelangelo, 13
Milan, 23, 24
Monzie, Anatole de, 225, 227
Moses, 102
Mount Wilson Observatory, 126,
190
Munich, 16-17, 23-24, 28, 134,
135
Munzenberg (German Commu-
nist), 228
Murray, Gilbert, 175
"My Portrait," 251
National Socialism, 127, 190, 195,
200, 206, 210, 211, 213, 218,
220, 223, 228, 232-33, 243,
244, 245, 246, 247, 261
Nebulae, red shift, 75
Nernst, Walther Hermann, 57
"New Definition of Molecular Di-
mensions, A," 46
New Times, 281
Newton, Isaac, 66, 70, 79-80
Newtonian mechanics, 257
Newtonian physics, 55
New York, N.Y., 11, 101, 191,
192-93, 265, 296
New York Times, 285
Nicolai, G., 61
Nobel Prize, 46, 115
Nuclear fission, 265-71
Old Lyme, Conn., 236-37
One World Award, 296-97
Ossietzky, Carl von, 250
Oxford, 201, 225
Painleve, Paul, 106-7, 173, 174,
176, 178, 252
Palestine, 96, 97, 99, 115, 116
Paris, 11, 27, 62, 72, 105-10, 129,
173, 174, 223, 225-27
Pasadena, Calif., 199, 211
Pauli, Wolfgang, 254
Pearl Harbor, 189
Photoelectrical effect, 46
"Physics and Reality," 39
Pirandello, Luigi, 238
Planck, Max, 56, 57, 70, 146, 149,
161
Poincare, Henri, 151
Poland, 261, 270
Potsdam, 168, 205, 287
Prague, 52-53, 261
University of, 52-53
"Preliminary Notes on Funda-
mental Concepts," 256
Princeton, N.J., 14, 33, 103, 105,
149, 202, 225, 235, 238, 265,
268, 271, 293-94, 301
Institute for Advanced Study,
202, 225
Mercer Street, 238, 239, 252,
217, 276, 29^-96
University, 103
Principe Island, 77-78, 79
Prussia, 64, 65, 216
Prussian Academy of Science, 57,
62, 74, 145, 160, 216-19
Quantum theory, 46, 56, 146-47,
151, 25^56
Rathenau, Walter, 94, 106, 111-
12
Reichenbach, Hans, 149-51
Relativity theory, 10, 46-51, 53,
70-71, 74, 83-84, 103, 146,
148, 149, 150, 253, 254, 256
Remarque, Erich Maria, 206
"Reply to American Women," 211
"Reply to the Anti-Relativist So-
ciety, My," 98
310
Riemann variations, 70
Roehm, Ernst von, 199
Holland, Romain, 61-66, 72-74
Roosevelt, F. D., 247, 268-69,
270, 278
Royal Astronomical Society (Lon-
don), 75, 79
Royal Society (London), 79
Rumbold, Sir Horace, 10
Russell, Bertrand, 287
Russia, 134, 280, 281, 282, 283,
284, 286, 287
Samuel, Sir Herbert, 116
Schaffhausen, 35
Schiller, Johann Christoph Frie-
drich von, 73
Schlageter, Leo, 127
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 153
Seeckt, Hans von, 201, 202
Semionov, N. N., 281
Shaw, George Bernard, 13, 104
Silesia, 124
Simon, Heinrich, 58-59
Sobral, 77-78, 79
Sommerfeld, Arnold, 69-71, 156,
259
Sorbonne, 27
Spain, 115, 225, 286
Spanish War, 249
Spiecker, Carl, 200
Spinoza, Benedict, 102
Steinach, Eugen, 84
Stinnes, Hugo, 122
Strasbourg, University of, 174
Strassman, F., 263, 266
Stresemann, Gustav, 134, 135,
172, 174
StiSrgkh, Karl, 51
Swabia, 15, 16, 64, 170
Sweden, 115
Swing, Raymond, 270, 277, 283,
286, 299
Switzerland, 29, 35, 41-51, 72-
74, 124-34, 157-58, 175-81,
196
Szilard, Leo, 261, 268-69, 289
Television, birth of, 46
Thaelmann, Ernst, 228
Thomas, Albert, 130
Treaty of Locarno, 172, 173
Truman, Harry S., 288
Tucholski, Kurt, 85
Ulm, 16
UNESCO, 124
Unified field theory, 160-61, 257,
300
Union of the New Fatherland,
62-63
United Nations, 280, 281, 282,
291
United States, 31, 97, 98, 99, 100-
4, 189, 190, 191-92, 199,
210, 211, 216, 227, 234, 235,
246-47, 282, 287, 290
Universities: American, English,
and German (Flexner), 202
University of
Berlin, 57, 64, 65, 93
Bern, 50
Chicago, 79, 202, 275, 289
Copenhagen, 265
Cracow, 48
Leiden, 114, 125
Prague, 52-53
Princeton, 103
Strasbourg, 174
Zurich, 35, 50, 51, 52
Urey, Harold C., 283
Val<ry, Paul, 144-45
Vavilov, Sergei, 281
Vevey, 65
Vienna, 51
311
Villeneuve, 73
Volkischer Beobachter, 206
Voltage measuring device, inven-
tion of, 43
Washington, D.C., 266, 28T
Wave mechanics, 145, 254
Weizmann, Chaim, 96, 97, 102
Wells, H. G., 263
Wendt, Gerald, 277, 288-89
Wesleyan University, 160
Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany,
57, 60, 288
Winterthur, 35
Witkowski, Professor, 48
Woman Patriot Corporation, 211
World government, 280, 281
World As I See It 9 The, 120, 143,
183
World War I, 51, 59, 60, 62, 63,
66, 71, 72, 74, 77, 244, 263
World War H, 270, 27S-80
Yearbook for Physics, 45, 47, 49,
54, 55, 70, 262
Zionism, 93, 95-98, 99
Zurich, 23, 29-30, 32-34, 35, 50,
56-58, 65, 197
Polytechnic, 29-30, 32-34, 50,
56-58
University of, 35, 50, 51, 5$
312
