121. František Lehar, “Praha zapomíná na Einsteina,” Mladá fronta 25 (18 April 1969): 1. The obituaries were delayed—as in the Soviet Union—by the difficulty of categorizing Einstein ideologically. See, for example, Jiří Vrána, “Albert Einstein,” Pokroky matematiky, fysiky a astronomie 2 (1957): 320–333.
122. Zdeněk Guth, “Einsteinovi a Smíchov,” Neděle s Lidová demokracie 31, no. 15 (12 April 1975): 9–10. See also Rudolf Kolomý, “Albert Einstein a jeho vztah v Praze,” Pokroky matematiky, fysiky a astronomie 17 (1972): 265–272.
123. Hugo Bergman, “Personal Remembrances of Albert Einstein,” in Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky, eds., Logical and Epistemological Studies in Contemporary Physics (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1974), 388–394, on 394n1; Bergmann to E. Kolmann, 3 November 1974, reproduced in Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe, 2:702.
124. Libor Pátý, “Pamětní deska Albertu Einsteinovi v Praze v Lesnické ulici,” Československý časopis pro fyziku A29 (1979): 311.
125. Martin Černohorský and Jiří Komrska, “Pocta Einsteinovi—Praha 1979,” Československý časopis pro fyziku A29 (1979): 309–311.
126. Jiří Bičák, ed., Einstein a Praha: K stému výročí narození Alberta Einsteina (Prague: Jednota československých matematiků a fyziků, 1979). The main Czech physics journal produced a special issue to memorialize the occasion, which included several historical articles: Brdička, “Einstein a Praha”; Jiří Bičák, “Einsteinova cesta k obecné teorii relativity,” Československý časopis pro fyziku A29 (1979): 222–243; and Jan Fischer, Review of Jiří Bičák, Einstein a Praha, Československý časopis pro fyziku A29 (1979): 296–297.
127. Nancy M. Wingfield, Flag Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); Michaela Marek, “Baudenkmäler im tschechoslowakischen Grenzland nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: Strategien der (Wieder-) Aneignung,” in Höhne and Udolph, Deutsche–Tschechen–Böhmen, 193–229.
CONCLUSION: PRINCETON, TEL AVIV, PRAGUE
1. Max Brod, “Unmodernes Prag,” Die Aktion 2 (1912): 944–949, on 944.
2. On Charter 77, see H. Gordon Skilling, Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981). On the events of 1989, see Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague (New York: Vintage, 1999 [1990]). On the challenges of understanding what happened, especially in Czechoslovakia, as “dissidence,” see Jonathan Bolton, Worlds of Dissent: Charter 77, The Plastic People of the Universe, and Czech Culture under Communism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).
3. Annotation in Karel Plicka, Prag: Ein fotografisches Bilderbuch (Prague: Artia, 1953), Princeton Rare Books and Special Collections (Ex) DB2620.P56 1953q.
4. Carl Seelig, Albert Einstein und die Schweiz (Zurich: Europa-Verlag, 1952), Princeton Rare Books and Special Collections (Ex) QC16.E5S33 1952.
5. On Einstein’s postwar antipathy to speaking German with Germans, though he gladly did so with Russians, Hungarians, Americans, or others, see Michael D. Gordin, Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), ch. 7.
6. Biographical information is drawn from assorted documents preserved in her personal papers, including an affidavit to the West German government requesting compensation for forced emigration and the back of a library catalogue card where she jotted down additional information. The details do not always agree. The relevant documents are a certificate of citizenship in the Czechoslovak Republic for Otto Fanta and his wife Jana Bobaschová; Mr. Kalies of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Wiedergutmachungsbescheid to the application of Frau Hanna Fanta, Bonn, 8 January 1958; and information written on the back of a discarded library catalogue card; all in HFC C0703, Box 1, Folder 4. Almost nothing has been said about the Einstein–Fantova relationship in the scholarly literature; a rare Czech newspaper article has the general outlines correct but includes numerous errors of fact: Marie Homolová, “Einstein očima Johanny z Čech,” Lidové noviny (15 May 2004): 20.
7. Jan Havránek, “Materiály k Einsteinovu Pražskému působení z Archivu Univerzity Karlovy,” Acta universitatis Carolinae—Historia universitatis Carolinae Pragensis 22, no. 1 (1980): 109–134, on 114.
8. G. Kowalewski, Bestand und Wandel: Meine Lebenserinnerungen zugleich ein Beitrag zur neueren Geschichte der Mathematik (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1950), 249.
9. Translation of a document by Dr. Zámiš, head of the Criminal Department at the Police Headquarters in Prague, 9 December 1938, HFC C0703, Box 1, Folder 4. Fanta’s passion for handwriting analysis prompted him to do one for Max Brod in a Festschrift and a “controlled experiment” using a sample from his mother. See, respectively, Otto Fanta, “Die Handschrift,” in Felix Weltsch, ed., Dichter, Denker, Helfer: Max Brod zum 50. Geburtstag (Mähr.-Ostrau: Julius Kittls Nachfolger, 1934), 102–107; and idem, “Die Kontrollanalyse: Ein Beitrag zur Verifizierung graphologischer Gutachten,” Die Schrift 2 (1936): 91–121.
10. Einstein to Elsa Einstein, [7 January 1921], CPAE 12:11, on 31.
11. Einstein to Humboldt-Film-Gesellschaft, 1 June 1922, CPAE 13:212, on 325. Einstein clarified in an interview in the Berliner Tageblatt that he had nothing to do with the film: “On the ‘Einstein Film,’ ” CPAE 13:213, on 327. For details on its release at the Frankfurt Trade Fair in April 1922, see the editorial comments at CPAE 13 on 325n1. I would like to thank Devin Fore for sharing with me a copy of an extract of the film containing the animations.
12. E. Gehrcke, Die Massensuggestion der Relativitätstheorie: Kulturhistorisch-psychologische Dokumente (Berlin: Hermann Meusser, 1924), 45.
13. “Der Einsteinfilm,” Die Umschau 26, no. 16 (16 April 1922): 247–249, on 248.
14. Hanna Fantova, Introduction to “Gespräche mit Einstein,” undated, HFC C0703, Box 1, Folder 6, p. 3. The complete phone logs are still unpublished, but a summary of them can be accessed in Alice Calaprice, “Einstein’s Last Musings,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 65, no. 1 (Autumn 2003): 51–64.
15. Einstein to Fantova, 31 October 1938, HFC C0703, Box 1, Folder 5.
16. Einstein testimonial, 15 December 1938, HFC C0703, Box 1, Folder 5.
17. Hugo Bergmann to Luise Herrmann, 14 January 1941, reproduced in Schmuel Hugo Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe, 2 vols., ed. Miriam Sambursky (Königstein: Athenäum, 1985), 1:550; Georg Gimpl, “Wäre dieser Krieg nicht gekommen! Hätten wir unser glückliches Leben vor 1914 weitergeführt!,” in Gimpl, ed., Weil der Boden selbst hier brennt … : Aus dem Prager Salon der Berta Fanta (1865–1918) (Furth im Wald/Prague: Vitalis, [2000]), 275–371, on 312.
18. Hanna Fantova, Introduction to “Gespräche mit Einstein,” 6.
19. Robert F. Goheen to Johanna Fantova, 27 June 1966, HFC C0703, Box 1, Folder 4. See also William Dix (Librarian of Princeton), September 1954, in HFC C0703, Box 1, Folder 4.
20. Hanna Fantova, Introduction to “Gespräche mit Einstein,” 11.
21. Einstein to Besso, 8 August 1938, in Albert Einstein and Michele Besso, Correspondance 1903–1955, ed. and tr. Pierre Speziali (Paris: Hermann, 1972), 321.
22. Other Czechs also found him in Princeton. For the story of Rudi W. Mandl, an amateur scientist who had emigrated from Czechoslovakia, and the idea for gravitational lensing that he discussed with Einstein, see Jürgen Renn and Tilman Sauer, “Eclipses of the Stars: Mandl, Einstein, and the Early History of Gravitational Lensing,” in Jürgen Renn, Lindy Divarci, Petra Schröter, Abhay Ashtekar, Robert S. Cohen, Don Howard, Sahotra Sarkar, and Abner Shimony, eds., Revisiting the Foundations of Relativistic Physics: Festschrift in Honor of John Stachel (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2003), 69–92; and Jürgen Renn, Tilman Sauer, and John Stachel, “The Origin of Gravitational Lensing: A Postscript to Einstein’s 1936 Science Paper,” Science 275, no. 5297 (10 January 1997): 184–186.
23. Diary entry of 9 November 1946, reproduced in Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe,
1:705.
24. Bergmann to Luise Herrmann, 7 January 1949, reproduced in Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe, 2:10.
25. Bergmann to Paul Amann, 11 August 1956, reproduced in Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe, 2:222.
26. Diary entry of 29 November 1966/67, reproduced in Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe, 2:515. On his learning that Frank was dead, see the diary entry of 21 January 1967, reproduced in Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe, 2:522.
27. Diary entry of 23 October 1969, reproduced in Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe, 2:588. He only learned of Kraus’s death a few years later: diary entry of 11 March 1972, reproduced in Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe, 2:657–658.
28. Bergmann to Robert Weltsch, 14 January 1967, reproduced in Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe, 2:521.
29. Diary entry of 4 May 1967, reproduced in Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe, 2:530.
30. Carolyn Abraham, Possessing Genius: The Bizarre Odyssey of Einstein’s Brain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002).
31. Josef Nesvadba, Einsteinův mozek (Prague: Mladá Fronta, 1960), 5; Jakub Arbes, Newtonův mozek (Prague: J. Otta, 1877).
32. A final, rather peculiar recent story can serve as a bookend for the fading—and occasional resurgence—of Einstein’s Prague moment. Ludek Zakel was born in the city on 14 April 1932. As he told a reporter for the New York Times in 1995, he was Albert Einstein’s biological son—at least, so he had been told. The woman who raised him, Eva Zakel, claimed that when she was about to give birth at St. Apollinarus Hospital in Prague, she came across Einstein’s second wife, Elsa Einstein, who was ostensibly there having a tumor examined. According to the story, she was secretly pregnant, and neither she nor Albert wanted to risk having a child in Germany given the way politics were moving. When Eva Zakel’s own newborn died a day after the Einstein child was born, Elsa gave hers to Eva. Ludek Zakel became a physicist and bore some vague physical resemblance, at least judging by photographs, to Albert Einstein, but the story does not seem plausible. Setting aside any speculations about conjugal relations between the Einsteins at this point in their marriage, the fact remains that Elsa would have been 54 years old in 1932 (she was three years older than Albert), an unlikely age for a pregnancy. There is also no evidence that at this time Elsa was anywhere other than at the cottage in Caputh, outside Berlin, with her husband. Michael Specter, “Einstein’s Son?: It’s a Question of Relativity,” New York Times (22 July 1995): 1, 5. One writer has speculated that while the Elsa part of the story is not true, maybe this was a love child of Einstein’s with the Viennese woman Margarete Lebach, with whom he was known to be having an affair. Michele Zackheim, Einstein’s Daughter: The Search for Lieserl (New York: Riverhead, 1999), 208–209.
Index
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.
Abraham, Max, 47, 68–73, 75, 76, 253
Adler, Friedrich, 42, 119
Adler, Paul, 165, 167
Afanas’eva, Tatiana, 184
Afghanistan, 254
Die Aktion (periodical), 165
Albert Einstein (Schilpp), 121
Albert Einstein und die Schweiz (Seelig), 256
alchemy, 6, 17, 306–7n26
Althoff, Friedrich, 188
Annalen der Physik, 24, 63, 65, 68, 71, 72
anthroposophy, 8
Anti-Dühring (Engels), 242
anti-Semitism, 39, 172, 178–79; in academia, 198, 222, 235; in antirelativity movement, 135, 137, 139; Einstein’s suspicions and denunciations of, 42, 210–11; after First World War, 133; under Habsburgs, 190–91; opposition to, 117, 202, 210–11
Apologia Tychonis contra Ursum (Kepler), 156
Arbes, Jakub, 264
Arnold Beer (Brod), 157
Association of Architects and Engineers in Bohemia, 218
atomic spectra, 48
Auschwitz, 173, 209
Austria-Hungary, 28, 33, 100; chemical industry in, 18; formation of, 190; German-speakers in, 16; urbanization in, 35
Austrian economics, 132
Baer (“Ursus”), Nicolaus Reimers, 154–56, 164, 165, 167, 168
Balkans, 100
Baltics, 28
Barbara (Werfel), 174
Bar Kochba, 192, 193, 194, 197, 209
The Bartered Bride (Smetana), 161
Battle of White Mountain, 31
Bauer, Felice, 168–69
Baum, Oskar, 173
Bavaria, 28
Benda, Milan, 250
Beneš, Edvard, 90, 171, 231, 235, 236, 237, 245
Benešová, Božena, 102–3
Ben Gurion, David, 202
Bentham, Jeremy, 131
Berger, Julius, 197
Bergmann, Else (Fanta), 93, 94, 193, 194–95, 260
Bergmann, Hugo, 8–9, 19, 94, 100, 114, 196, 202, 209, 234, 238, 258, 260, 263–64; Brod and, 150, 160; death of, 254; Einstein memorial and, 250; Einstein’s lectures audited by, 93; Einstein’s view of teaching recalled by, 54; Jewish identification of, 192–95, 197–98, 199; Oskar Kraus recalled by, 139; in Palestine and Israel, 173, 195, 200–201, 203, 262
Bergmann, Peter Gabriel, 225, 251
Bergson, Henri, 114
Berlin, 3, 7, 12, 17, 35, 184–85, 186, 195–96
Bern, 88
Bernhard, Lucian, 101
Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, 174
Besso, Michele, 56, 86, 119, 143, 205, 233, 261
Betrachtung (Kafka), 168
Bičák, Jiří, 10, 251, 304n129
bilingualism, 15, 28, 33, 36, 190, 199
Blumenfeld, Kurt, 196, 198
Bobasch, Johanna (Fantova, Hanna), 211, 256–61
bohemianism, 5, 180
Bohr, Niels, 201
Boltzmann, Ludwig, 41, 112, 114, 227
Bolzano, Bernard, 112, 193, 246, 263
Born, Hedwig, 147
Born, Max, 147, 199, 200
Bosnians, 100
Brahe, Elisabeth, 154, 155, 156
Brahe, Tycho, 18, 45, 145, 152–64, 168, 226
Brandenburg, 28
Brauner, Bohuslav, 220
Braunschweig, 28
Brecht, Bertolt, 231
Brentano, Franz, 93, 112, 129–31, 134, 139–40, 192–93, 203, 263
Brezhnev, Leonid, 247, 248, 249
Brit Shalom, 199, 201
Brno (Brünn), 25, 105, 203, 221, 256
Brod, Max, 7, 19, 79, 95, 196, 197, 202, 209, 253, 263–64; A Czech Serving Girl, 101–3, 151, 161; death of, 149, 177, 254; early years of, 149–50; Einstein–Kepler link disclaimed by, 169–70; Einstein’s correspondence with, 171–77; Fanta and, 93, 94, 258; Jewish identification of, 150, 151, 156, 157, 163–64, 166, 169, 172–76, 192; Kafka and, 148, 150, 168–69, 172, 192; Karl Kraus vs., 165–67; memoirs of, 167–68, 169; in Palestine and Israel, 172–73, 195; prolificity of, 151; scientific and philosophical interests of, 126–27, 149, 151; self-effacement of, 161–62; Tycho Brahe’s Path to God, 146–49, 151–71, 173, 174, 177; as Zionist, 150, 151
Brod, Otto, 173, 291–92n50
Brownian motion, 24, 57
Brubaker, Rogers, 16
Buber, Martin, 157, 180, 199; Brod and, 150, 192; in postwar Germany, 212; Prague lectures of, 192, 194, 211, 238, 262
Büchner, Ludwig, 129
Buek, Otto, 258
California Institute of Technology, 66, 205
Calvinists, 32
Carnap, Rudolf, 112, 124–25, 127, 139, 141, 225
Carolinum, 30, 31, 37, 250
Carpathians, 236
Caspar, Max, 157
The Castle (Kafka), 6, 101, 148
Catholic League, 31
Catholics, 30–31
Central Association of Germans of the Jewish Faith, 196–97
Česka, Zdeněk, 250
Cesta (periodical), 164
Chamberlain, Neville, 233
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, 26–27, 28, 29, 37, 235
Charles Bridge, 80, 81
Charles University (Charles-Ferdinand University), 27–31, 115, 140, 221, 234–37, 24
4
Charter 77, 254
Clement V, Pope, 31
Clementinum, 30, 31, 37
Cohen, Robert S., 248
Collection of Czechoslovak Chemical Communications, 220
communism, 237, 241–42, 244–45, 249, 251, 252, 253
Cooper, Frederick, 16
Copernicus, Nicolaus, 145, 153, 175
Council of Constance (1415), 30
Counter-Reformation, 31
Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 94
Crosse, Felix Warren, 159
Crusades, 189
Curie, Marie, 47, 49, 78, 98, 104–5
Curie, Pierre, 52, 98
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 217–18, 246
Czechoslovakia: dismemberment of, 66, 171, 217, 232–33; dissolution of, 254; formation of, 84, 150, 171, 202, 213–14, 217; Germans in, 123, 125, 171–72, 236–37; prewar encirclement of, 230–31; romantic notions of, 220–21
Czecho-Slovakia, 141, 171, 232, 260
Czech Polytechnic, Brno, 225
A Czech Serving Girl (Brod), 101–3, 151, 161
Czech Technical University in Prague, 34, 218
Czech University, Prague, 21, 37–38, 53, 218, 221–22, 225
De astronomicis hypothesibus (Ursus), 154–55
Debye, Peter, 45, 125
Dehmel, Richard, 166
Delmedigo, Simon, 174, 175
Denmark, 28
Deutsche Arbeit, 45
dialectical materialism, 242–44, 246
The Dialectics of Nature (Engels), 242
Dialogue Concerning Two Chief World Systems (Galileo Galilei), 175
Diesseits und Jenseits (Brod), 173
Einstein in Bohemia Page 44