Einstein

by Philipp Frank

  But since a criterion of race that was not based on a religious confession was still wanted, it was finally decided to consider as related to the German race every other race that lived in “compact settlements” and not, like the Jews, scattered in separate cities and commercial centers.

  The definition that had been so anxiously awaited was thus successful, and the universities were thoroughly purged according to this pattern. At first there were still several exceptions. All those professors were retained who had been appointed by the Imperial German government and not by the Republic, because it was assumed that the latter had favored the Jews. Furthermore, all those were allowed to remain who had fought for Germany or her allies in the World War of 1914–18.

  In time, however, all these exceptions were dropped and the purge became more rigorous. Soon a further step was taken, and all teachers were dismissed whose wives were non-Aryans according to the official definition.

  The “racial” purge was accompanied by a simultaneous political purge. But the principles upon which it was based were much less distinct. The professors who were dismissed included all those who had taken an active part in the work of the Social Democratic and Communist parties, or who had belonged to the Freemasons or to a pacifist organization. All other principles were vague. This purge was even more baffling than the racial one, since in the latter case the individual’s fate was predestined and he could do little to improve it. On the other hand, by means of good behavior anyone could hope to make good any previous political sins. Thus many professors who were formerly known as “democrats” now began to express in a very obtrusive manner their sympathy with the racial purge and with other catchwords of the ruling party. Or one saw such democratic sinners engaged in studying the application of the race theory to such fields as mathematics, chemistry, and so forth. On the other hand, many former supporters of the old nationalist and monarchist groups assumed an attitude of reserve toward the new masters. Actually some of those who had been victims of the first political purge were later reinstated after they had shown signs of “improvement.”

  In order to make the change even more thorough, advantage was taken of this opportunity to pension off, because of age, many older professors who were not suspect on either racial or political grounds. It was believed that they would be unable to adapt themselves to the new regime. As a result of all these measures it was possible to appoint many new teachers whom the government considered reliable and who it was believed would teach in the light of the new philosophy.

  4. Hostility toward Einstein

  When the purge began, Einstein was fortunately not in Germany. It was immediately evident, however, that the hostility of the new rulers to certain scientific groups was concentrated to an astonishing and even frightening degree against Einstein. Just as the general enthusiasm for Einstein’s theory is an amazing phenomenon in the history of science, so the persecution of a man who advanced such abstract theories is likewise very puzzling.

  His opponents may have said: “He is a Jew and became world-renowned as a creator of new ideas. This is not in accord with the views of the new rulers on the intellectual sterility of the Jewish race. He is a pacifist and sympathizes with the efforts for international co-operation.” Nevertheless, this does not suffice to explain the intensity of the antagonism to Einstein. Here as well as in the growth of his fame a process of crystallization was involved. Hate is added to hate, and fame to fame, just as new crystals arise by forming around already existing crystals.

  This development finally reached a point where the National Socialists believed that Einstein was the chief of a secret movement, sometimes described as “communistic,” sometimes as the “Jewish International,” which was working against the new government.

  Actually Einstein has always steered clear of actual politics. The National Socialists, however, not only set about to attack Einstein’s purely theoretical remarks on politics, which were in general academic, but they also tried to show that there was something “Bolshevistic” and “Jewish” about his theories.

  As we have seen, the modest beginnings of these attacks were already evident at the end of the war in 1918. Now, however, the leaders of the campaign against Einstein felt that their time had come. Now they could come out into the open with their sincere opinions, while Einstein’s defenders were no longer allowed to reply to them. Thus in May 1933 Lenard, Einstein’s old enemy, published an article in the Völkische Beobachter, the chief organ of the National Socialist Party. Here Lenard could finally speak without having to restrain himself in any way:

  “The most important example of the dangerous influence of Jewish circles on the study of nature has been provided by Herr Einstein with his mathematically botched-up theories consisting of some ancient knowledge and a few arbitrary additions. This theory now gradually falls to pieces, as is the fate of all products that are estranged from nature. Even scientists who have otherwise done solid work cannot escape the reproach that they allowed the relativity theory to get a foothold in Germany, because they did not see, or did not want to see, how wrong it is, outside the field of science also, to regard this Jew as a good German.”

  Two years later this same Lenard delivered an inaugural address at the opening of a new physics institute in which he said:

  “I hope that the institute may stand as a battle flag against the Asiatic spirit in science. Our Führer has eliminated this same spirit in politics and national economy, where it is known as Marxism. In natural science, however, with the overemphasis on Einstein, it still holds sway. We must recognize that it is unworthy of a German to be the intellectual follower of a Jew. Natural science, properly so called, is of completely Aryan origin, and Germans must today also find their own way out into the unknown. Heil Hitler.”

  Proof that Einstein’s research was characteristically “Jewish” was obtained by producing a definition of “Jewish physics” that contained all the characteristic features of Einsteinian physics. Thus it was regarded as particularly “Jewish,” if a theory was very “abstract”; that is, if it was connected with the immediate sensory observations only by long trains of thought and did not lead to immediate technical applications. All this was now considered “Jewish.” It had been completely forgotten that innumerable adherents of the Nordic doctrine had proved that the Aryan spirit hovers in the heaven of speculation, while the “non-Aryan” is at home in the material world which is the only one that he comprehends with his “inferior mind.”

  The demand that science occupy itself with immediate practical necessities is not uncommon in a new regime that must develop the resources of a country as rapidly as possible, whether it be for a policy of conquest or reconstruction. We find similar features at the beginning of the Soviet regime in Russia.

  In 1934 Hermann Göring, the second leading Nazi, said:

  “We honor and respect science; but it must not become an end in itself and degenerate into intellectual arrogance. Right now our scientists have a fertile field. They should find out how this or that raw material that we must import from abroad can be replaced equally well at home.”

  And the Minister of Education Bernhard Rust said briefly and succinctly: “National Socialism is not an enemy of science, but only of theories.”

  Herewith not only Einstein himself, but actually an entire science, theoretical physics, was condemned. At about this time an outstanding representative of this science in Germany who had been spared in the purge remarked to me jokingly: “You must know that Einstein has compromised our entire science.”

  Only a few years previously the German physicist Wilhelm Wien, who was rather sympathetic toward German nationalism, in a conversation with the great English physicist Ernest Rutherford, had said: “The relativity theory is something that you Anglo-Saxons will never understand, because it requires a genuine German feeling for abstract speculation.” And the nationalistic French physicist Bouasse said: “The French spirit with its desire for Latin lucidity will never understa
nd the theory of relativity. It is a product of the Teutonic tendency to mystical speculation.”

  As I have said, when the great purge began, Einstein was still in America. Upon learning of the events in Germany he went to New York and communicated with the German consul. In accordance with his official duty the latter told Einstein that he need have no fear to return to Germany. A “national” government was now in power there, which would do justice to all. If he was innocent, nothing would happen to him. Einstein had decided, however, not to return to Germany so long as the existing regime remained in power; and he said so quite openly at the consulate. After the official conversation was at an end, the consul’s deputy said to him privately: “Herr Professor, now that we are speaking as man to man, I can only tell you that you are doing the right thing.”

  Numerous reporters wanted to hear Einstein’s opinion on the recent events in Germany. But he repeated what he had always said: he had no desire to live in a state where freedom of expression did not exist and in which racial and religious intolerance prevailed. He did not enter into any concrete discussions, however.

  He sailed for Europe, and in the spring of 1933 took up his residence in the Belgian sea resort Le Cocque, not far from Ostend. From the beginning he knew that his connection with the Prussian Academy must cease. The only question was whether he should resign of his own accord or wait until the Academy expelled him. The leading person in the Academy at this time was Max Planck, the man who had first “discovered” Einstein, who had declared him to be the Copernicus of the twentieth century, and who, despite all conflicts, had supported him all the time that he was in Berlin. One can imagine that this man did not want to exclude Einstein from the Academy. And in turn, Einstein wanted to spare him this unpleasant step. He wrote briefly and to the point that under the present government he could no longer serve the Prussian state and therefore resigned his position.

  At first the Academy beat about the bush, and there were great discussions about what should be done. On one hand was the desire to retain the reputation of the Academy as an impartial scientific body, on the other the desire to avow the idea of the national government. Nernst, who was always something of a liberal, said at one session: “Why should one demand of a member of the Academy, who is a great mathematician, that he should also be a nationally minded German? Were not d’Alembert, Maupertuis, and Voltaire members of our Academy, of whom we are proud even today? And these men, moreover, were Frenchmen.” He repeated over and over again, when he met an academician: “How will posterity judge our Academy? Won’t we be regarded as cowards who yielded to force?”

  But since the newspapers of the ruling party were already full of attacks against Einstein and accused him of agitating against his own country abroad, the Academy finally decided to publish a statement, characterized by a certain dolefulness, in which they denied having any connection with Einstein. “We have no reason to regret Einstein’s resignation,” it said. “The Academy is aghast at his agitational activities abroad. Its members have always felt in themselves a profound loyalty to the Prussian state. Even though they have kept apart from all party politics, yet they have always emphasized their loyalty to the national idea.”

  Einstein who was unaware that he had been actively engaged in agitation abroad, answered the Academy in a letter on April 5:

  “I am not aware that I have spread so-called ‘atrocity stories’ about Germany abroad. And, to be honest, I have not ever noticed that any ’atrocity reports’ were being circulated. What I have noticed is that the statements made by members of the new German government have been repeated and commented upon, especially the program for the destruction of the German Jews.… I hope that the Academy will transmit this letter to its members and will also do its part to spread it among the German public; because I have been libeled in the press, and the Academy by its communications to the newspapers has assisted this libel.”

  Since the Academy could no longer assert that Einstein had invented “atrocity stories” and spread them abroad, it retreated to the statement that while Einstein had not invented any stories, yet he had made no effort to oppose energetically those that were in circulation and to defend his fatherland.

  On April 7 the Academy wrote to Einstein approximately as follows:

  “We have awaited with confidence for a man like you, who was for so long a member of our Academy, to range himself at the side of our nation and without regard for his political sympathies to oppose the flood of lies that has been let loose against us. In these days when filth is hurled at the German nation, partly in a common, partly in a ridiculous manner, a kind word for Germany from the mouth of such a famous man as you would have had a great effect abroad.

  “Instead, your remarks were still another instrument for the enemies not only of the present German government, but also of the entire German people. This was a bitter disappointment to us. It would have led to a parting of our ways under any circumstances, even if we had not received your resignation.”

  Einstein now saw that a continuation of the correspondence would have no further purpose. On April 12 he wrote a farewell letter to the Academy, with which he was linked by so much work in common. In it he said:

  “You write that a kind word on my part concerning the German people would have had a great effect abroad. To this I must reply that such a ‘kind word’ would have been a denial of every concept of justice and freedom for which I have fought all my life. Such testimony would not have been, as you put it, a ‘kind word’ for the German people. On the contrary, such a statement would only have helped to undermine the ideas and principles by means of which the German people have acquired an honorable place in the civilized world. By such a testimony I would have contributed, even though indirectly, to the barbarization of morals and the destruction of cultural values.

  “Your letter shows me only how right I was to resign my position at the Academy.”

  Einstein had voluntarily resigned from his position at the Academy in order to spare a man like Max Planck the painful and shameful act of expelling from the Academy at the behest of a political party a man whom he himself regarded as one of its most valuable members. Max Planck was one of the German professors who repeatedly asserted that the new rulers were pursuing a great and noble aim. We scientists, who do not understand politics, ought not to make any difficulties for them. It is our task to see to it that as far as is possible individual scientists suffer as few hardships as possible, and above all we should do everything in our power to maintain the high level of science in Germany. At least envious foreigners should not notice that a lowering of the level is taking place anywhere in our country.

  The idea that the many brutalities practiced upon individuals and institutions were only temporary attendant phenomena of the “revolution from the Right” was widespread among men of Planck’s type. One of the outstanding scientists of the University of Berlin approached Planck and told him that he would like to leave Berlin immediately and look about for a place to work abroad. He felt that one day he would become a victim of a later purge. To this Planck replied: “But, my dear colleague, what strange ideas you have! If you do not find present conditions at the universities congenial, why don’t you take a leave of absence for a year? Take a pleasant trip abroad and carry on some studies. And when you return all the unpleasant features of our present government will have disappeared.”

  At the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, of which he was president, Planck likewise endeavored to retain non-Aryan scientists in their positions. He believed that in this way he would be able to prevent those people whom he valued from suffering hardships. As a result the research work of the institute and the fame of German science would, he hoped, remain undamaged.

  He was helped by the circumstance that non-Aryans were tolerated somewhat longer in the field of research than in the teaching profession. Thus Planck succeeded in retaining several of these research workers even after the general purge in Berlin. But when the purge finally
did hit them, they were in a particularly poor situation. It was more difficult for them to leave Germany and to find positions abroad.

  Planck once tried by personal intervention to convince Adolf Hitler that the mechanical application of his “non-Aryan definition” to the organization of education and research would have an unfavorable effect. Planck’s meeting with Hitler was the subject of much discussion in Berlin university circles at this time. Planck had but little opportunity to present his arguments. The Führer spoke to him in an argumentative manner as if he were spreading agitational propaganda at a mass meeting, and not as one speaks to a single visitor in an office. Among other things, Hitler said that he would give the Jews some opportunity to work if they were not all Bolsheviks. When Planck timidly objected that this certainly did not apply to a man like Haber, Hitler said: “Believe me. Those that are not Bolsheviks openly are so in secret.” Furthermore said the Führer decisively: “Do not think that I have such weak nerves as to let myself be diverted from my great goal by such petty considerations. Everything will be carried out to the last letter.”

  As we have seen, Einstein had spared the Prussian Academy the embarrassment of having to throw him out, but he did receive an official letter from the Bavarian Academy of Science informing him that he was expelled from its ranks.

  Einstein’s villa at Caputh was searched by the political police. It was believed that the Communist Party had hidden stores of arms there. Such accusations were a result of the fantastic ideas regarding Einstein’s role as a political leader or conspirator.