einstein

Caputh
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
TURNING FIFTY
1929–1931
Einstein’s house in Caputh near Berlin
Einstein wanted some solitude for his fiftieth birthday, a refuge from publicity. So in March 1929 he fled once again, as he had during the
publication of his unified field theory paper of a few months earlier, to the gardener’s cottage of an estate on the Havel River owned by Janos
Plesch, a flamboyant and gossipy Hungarian-born celebrity doctor who had added Einstein to his showcase collection of patient-friends.
For days he lived by himself, cooking his own meals, while journalists and official well-wishers searched for him. His whereabouts became a
matter of newspaper speculation. Only his family and assistant knew where he was, and they refused to tell even close friends.
Early on the morning of his birthday, he walked from this hide-away, which had no phone, to a nearby house to call Elsa. She started to wish him
well on reaching the half-century mark, but he interrupted. “Such a fuss about a birthday,” he laughed. He was phoning about a matter involving
physics, not the merely personal. He had made a small mistake in some calculations he had given to his assistant Walther Mayer, he told her, and
he wanted her to take down the corrections and pass them along.
Elsa and her daughters came out that afternoon for a small, private celebration. She was dismayed to find him in his oldest suit, which she had
hidden. “How did you manage to find it?” she asked.
“Ah,” he replied, “I know all about those hiding places.” 1
The New York Times, as intrepid as ever, was the only paper that managed to track him down. A family member later recalled that Einstein’s
angry look drove the reporter away. That was not true. The reporter was smart and Einstein, despite his feigned fury, was as accommodating as
usual. “Einstein Is Found Hiding on His Birthday” was the paper’s headline. He showed the reporter a microscope he had been given as a gift, and
the paper reported that he was like a “delighted boy” with a new toy. 2
From around the world came other gifts and greetings. The ones that moved him the most were from ordinary people. A seamstress had sent
him a poem, and an unemployed man had saved a few coins to get him a small packet of tobacco. The latter gift brought tears to his eyes and was
the first for which he wrote a thank-you letter. 3
Another birthday gift caused more problems. The city of Berlin, at the suggestion of the ever-meddling Dr. Plesch, decided to honor its most
famous citizen by giving him lifelong rights to live in a country house that was part of a large lakeside estate that the city had acquired. There he
would be able to escape, sail his wooden boat, and scribble his equations in serenity.
It was a generous and gracious gesture. It was also a welcome one. Einstein loved sailing and solitude and simplicity, but he owned no weekend
retreat and had to store his sailboat with friends. He was thrilled to accept.
The house, in a classical style, was nestled in a park near the village of Cladow on a lake of the Havel River. Pictures of it appeared in the
papers, and a relative called it “the ideal residence for a person of creative intellect and a man fond of sailing.” But when Elsa went to inspect it, she
found still living there the aristocratic couple who sold the estate to the city. They claimed that they had retained the right to live on the property. A
study of the documents proved them right, and they could not be evicted.
So the city decided to give the Einsteins another part of the estate on which they could build their own home. But that, too, violated the city’s
purchase agreement. Pressure and publicity only hardened the resolve of the original family to block the Einsteins from building on the land, and it
became an embarrassing front-page fiasco, especially after a third suggested alternative also proved unsuitable.
Finally it was decided that the Einsteins should simply find their own piece of land, and the city would buy it. So Einstein picked out a parcel,
owned by some friends, farther out of town near a village just south of Potsdam called Caputh. It was in a sylvan spot between the Havel and a
dense forest, and Einstein loved it. The mayor accordingly asked the assembly of city deputies to approve spending 20,000 marks to buy the
property as the fiftieth birthday gift to Einstein.
A young architect drew up plans, and Einstein bought a small garden plot nearby. Then politics intervened. In the assembly, the right-wing
German Nationalists objected, delayed the vote, and insisted that the proposal be put on a future agenda for a full debate. It became clear that
Einstein personally would become the focus of that debate.
So he wrote a letter, tinged with amusement, declining the gift. “Life is very short,” he told the mayor, “while the authorities work slowly. My
birthday is already past, and I decline the gift.” The headline the next day in the Berliner Tageblatt newspaper read, “Public Disgrace Complete /
Einstein Declines.” 4
By this point, the Einsteins had fallen in love with the plot of land in Caputh, negotiated its purchase, and had a design for a house to build upon it.