einstein

Haber’s son in math. 45 But when they signed a petition defending Germany’s militarism, he felt compelled to break with them politically.
The petition, published in October 1914, was titled “Appeal to the Cultured World” and became known as the “Manifesto of the 93,” after the
number of intellectuals who endorsed it. With scant regard for the truth, it denied that the German army had committed any attacks on civilians in
Belgium and went on to proclaim that the war was necessary. “Were it not for German militarism, German culture would have been wiped off the
face of the earth,” it asserted. “We shall wage this fight to the very end as a cultured nation, a nation that holds the legacy of Goethe, Beethoven,
and Kant no less sacred than hearth and home.” 46
It was no surprise that among the scientists who signed was the conservative Philipp Lenard, of photoelectric effect fame, who would later
become a rabid anti-Semite and Einstein hater. What was distressing was that Haber, Nernst, and Planck also signed. As both citizens and
scientists, they had a natural instinct to go along with the sentiments of others. Einstein, on the other hand, often displayed a natural inclination not
to go along, which sometimes was an advantage both as a scientist and as a citizen.
A charismatic adventurer and occasional physician named Georg Friedrich Nicolai, who had been born Jewish (his original name was
Lewinstein) and was a friend of both Elsa and her daughter Ilse, worked with Einstein to write a pacifist response. Their “Manifesto to Europeans”
appealed for a culture that transcended nationalism and attacked the authors of the original manifesto. “They have spoken in a hostile spirit,”
Einstein and Nicolai wrote. “Nationalist passions cannot excuse this attitude, which is unworthy of what the world has heretofore called culture.”
Einstein suggested to Nicolai that Max Planck, even though he had been one of the signers of the original manifesto, might also want to
participate in their countermanifesto because of his “broad-mindedness and good will.” He also gave Zangger’s name as a possibility. But neither
man, apparently, was willing to get involved. In an indication of the temper of the times, Einstein and Nicolai were able to garner only two other
supporters. So they dropped their effort, and it was not published at the time. 47
Einstein also became an early member of the liberal and cautiously pacifist New Fatherland League, a club that pushed for an early peace and
the establishment of a federal structure in Europe to avoid future conflicts. It published a pamphlet titled “The Creation of the United States of
Europe,” and it helped get pacifist literature into prisons and other places. Elsa went with Einstein to some of the Monday evening meetings until
the group was banned in early 1916. 48
One of the most prominent pacifists during the war was the French writer Romain Rolland, who had tried to promote friendship between his
country and Germany. Einstein visited him in September 1915 near Lake Geneva. Rolland noted in his diary that Einstein, speaking French
laboriously, gave “an amusing twist to the most serious of subjects.”
As they sat on a hotel terrace amid swarms of bees plundering the flowering vines, Einstein joked about the faculty meetings in Berlin where
each of the professors would anguish over the topic “why are we Germans hated in the world” and then would “carefully steer clear of the truth.”
Daringly, maybe even recklessly, Einstein openly said that he thought Germany could not be reformed and therefore hoped the allies would win,
“which would smash the power of Prussia and the dynasty.” 49
The following month, Einstein got into a bitter exchange with Paul Hertz, a noted mathematician in Göttingen who was, or had been, a friend.
Hertz was an associate member of the New Fatherland League with Einstein, but he had shied away from becoming a full member when it became
controversial. “This type of cautiousness, not standing up for one’s rights, is the cause of the entire wretched political situation,” Einstein berated.
“You have that type of valiant mentality the ruling powers love so much in Germans.”
“Had you devoted as much care to understanding people as to understanding science, you would not have written me an insulting letter,” Hertz
replied. It was a telling point, and true. Einstein was better at fathoming physical equations than personal ones, as his family knew, and he admitted
so in his apology. “You must forgive me, particularly since—as you yourself rightly say—I have not bestowed the same care to understanding
people as to understanding science,” he wrote. 50
In November, Einstein published a three-page essay titled “My Opinion of the War” that skirted the border of what was permissible, even for a
great scientist, to say in Germany. He speculated that there existed “a biologically determined feature of the male character” that was one of the
causes of wars. When the article was published by the Goethe League that month, a few passages were deleted for safety’s sake, including an
attack on patriotism as potentially containing “the moral requisites of bestial hatred and mass murder.” 51
The idea that war had a biological basis in male aggression was a topic Einstein also explored in a letter to his friend in Zurich, Heinrich
Zangger. “What drives people to kill and maim each other so savagely?” Einstein asked. “I think it is the sexual character of the male that leads to
such wild explosions.”
The only method of containing such aggression, he argued, was a world organization that had the power to police member nations. 52 It was a
theme he would pick up again eighteen years later, in the final throes of his pure pacifism, when he engaged in a public exchange of letters with
Sigmund Freud on both male psychology and the need for world government.
The Home Front, 1915
The early months of the war in 1915 made Einstein’s separation from Hans Albert and Eduard more difficult, both emotionally and logistically.
They wanted him to come visit them in Zurich for Easter that year, and Hans Albert, who was just turning 11, wrote him two letters designed to pull at
his heart: “I just think: At Easter you’re going to be here and we’ll have a Papa again.”
In his next postcard, he said that his younger brother told him about having a dream “that Papa was here.” He also described how well he was
doing in math. “Mama assigns me problems; we have a little booklet; I could do the same with you as well.” 53
The war made it impossible for him to come at Easter, but he responded to the postcards by promising Hans Albert that he would come in July
for a hiking vacation in the Swiss Alps. “In the summer I will take a trip with just you alone for a fortnight or three weeks,” he wrote. “This will happen
every year, and Tete [Eduard] may also come along when he is old enough for it.”
Einstein also expressed his delight that his son had taken a liking to geometry. It had been his “favorite pastime” when he was about the same
age, he said, “but I had no one to demonstrate anything to me, so I had to learn it from books.” He wanted to be with his son to help teach him math
and “tell you many fine and interesting things about science and much else.” But that would not always be possible. Perhaps they could do it by
mail? “If you write me each time what you already know, I’ll give you a nice little problem to solve.” He sent along a toy for each of his sons, along
with an admonition to brush their teeth well. “I do the same and am very happy now to have kept enough healthy teeth.” 54
But the tension in the family worsened. Einstein and Mari exchanged letters arguing about both money and vacation timing, and at the end of
June a curt postcard came from Hans Albert. “If you’re so unfriendly to her,” he said of his mother, “I don’t want to go with you.” So Einstein canceled
his planned trip to Zurich and instead went with Elsa and her two daughters to the Baltic sea resort of Sellin.
Einstein was convinced that Mari was turning the children against him. He suspected, probably correctly, that her hand was behind the