Einstein,Albert b. March 14, 1879; Ulm,Wurttemberg d.April 18, 1955; Princeton, New Jersey
The most eminent physicist of the twentieth century of German Jewish background, Albert Einstein emigrated to the United States in 1933. He revolutionized physicists’ understanding of space and time with his special theory of relativity (1905) and general theory of relativity (1915).
His light quantum hypothesis (1905) contributed largely to the establishment of quantum physics and revolutionized the wave and particle theory of classical physics.After conflicts with the authoritarian German school system, Einstein left Germany for Italy at age fifteen and in 1895 he went on to Switzerland, where in 1896, he finished school in Aarau, Switzerland, and entered the Technical University of Switzerland (ETH) in Zurich to study physics and mathematics. Upon graduation in 1900, Einstein failed to secure an academic career. He worked instead as a substitute teacher. From 1902 to 1909, he was employed as an evaluator for the Patent Office of the Swiss government in Bern. During these years, Einstein defended his first and second doctoral (Ha- bilitation) dissertations, in 1905 and 1909, respectively. In 1905 he published three ground-breaking papers on the lightquantum hypothesis, the Brownian motion, and electrodynamics. These publications paved the way for his academic career. In 1909, Einstein was appointed extraordinary professor of theoretical physics at the University of Zurich. In 1911, he accepted a full professorship at the German University of Prague. From 1912 to 1914, Einstein taught at the ETH. Invited by leading German physicists in Berlin, he moved there in 1914. In Berlin, Einstein became a full member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and was made director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics in 1917, which freed him from teaching obligations. The Berlin years were the peak of Einstein’s scientific and social recognition.
However, he also became the target of political and antisemitic attacks by German right-wing and racist politicians. When Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933, Einstein, who was giving guest lectures in the United States, decided not to return to Germany. Opposing the new political system, Einstein cancelled his membership in the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Until his death, he remained in the United States and worked as a fellow at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.After a British solar eclipse expedition in Africa confirmed essential parts of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, he quickly became world famous and also attracted the attention of scholars on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Yet, his first trip to the United States was connected not to his scientific achievements but to the Zionist cause. In 1921, Einstein traveled with Chaim Weizmann to the United States to collect donations for the Zionist movement and for the founding of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. During this visit, he received his first honorary doctorate
Albert Einstein receives from Judge Phillip Forman his certificate of American citizenship, October 1, 1940. (Library of Congress)
from Princeton University. He also met influential American scholars such as Robert Andrew Millikan, the most important U.S. physicist at that time. It was Millikan who invited Einstein at the beginning of the 1930s for several research stays at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena (Cal Tech).
Although he held the scholarly climate in Berlin in high esteem, Einstein had thought about leaving Germany since the beginning of the 1920s. The political climate of the Weimar Republic, right-wing trends, and increasing antisemitism were responsible for his growing alienation from German society. In the summer of 1932, he had readily agreed to accept an appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
The industrialist Abraham Flexner had founded the institute to give scientists the opportunity to pursue research projects without teaching obligations. This appointment allowed Einstein to keep his position in Berlin and spend the winter semester at Princeton Institute. When the Nazis seized power, Einstein was in Pasadena working at Cal Tech. He immediately denounced the new political system and pointed out the persecution of Jews and of political dissenters in his home country. In his resignation letter to the Prussian Academy of Sciences (April 5, 1933), Einstein wrote that he would not live in a country where citizens could not enjoy equality in the face of the law, nor freedom of opinion and teaching. Einstein was one of the very few German scholars who immediately attacked the Nazi dictatorship.After a short stay in Europe, Einstein returned to the United States in the fall of 1933. From his exile in the United States, Einstein continuously criticized the political terror and antisemitic propaganda of the Nazi system. He used his position as a recognized scientist to help persecuted and exiled colleagues. During World War II, Einstein also served as a scientific adviser to the U.S. Navy. In 1939 he supported the initiative of Leo Szilard and Eugen Wigner, two emigres from Berlin, to inform President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the possibility that Nazi Germany could develop an atomic bomb and to suggest that Americans should begin a similar project.
Einstein was not involved in the Manhattan Project partly because of his lack of expertise in nuclear physics and partly because the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) felt that he might be politically unreliable. It concluded its investigation of Einstein in the summer of 1940 with this evaluation: “In view of his political background, this office would not recommend the employment of Dr. Einstein on matters of a secret nature, without a very careful investigation, as it seems unlikely that a man of his background could, in such a short time, become a loyal American citizen” (Jerome 2002, 39).
The FBI was suspicious of his German past since “in Berlin, even in the political free and easy period of 1923 to 1929, the Einstein home was known as a Communist center clearing house. Mrs. and Miss Einstein were always prominent at all extreme radical meetings and demonstrations.” These baseless accusations were not new to Einstein. The political police in Germany and the right-wing press had come to the same ridiculous conclusion during the 1920s.Freedom and civil liberty were central to Einstein’s political convictions. He not only attacked Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia for their annihilationary policies, he also criticized the state of civil liberties in the United States. The McCarthy era reminded Einstein of the right-wing extremism of the 1920s. His support of the civil rights movement in the United States made him a hero in liberal circles and a villain to conservative, right-wing politicians. Some of the latter even wanted to take away his U.S. citizenship and throw him out of the country since he did not hide his left-leaning, humanistic opinions. For instance, in the 1930s, he took the side of the Popular Front government of Spain and supported the “Friends of the Lincoln Brigade,” who fought in the Spanish Civil War against Francisco Franco. His uncompromising anti-Nazism and support for any anti-Fascist organization, including Communist and pro-Soviet groups, did not make him many friends within the American establishment. Einstein met public resentment when he aligned with the civil rights movement and engaged together with the singer Paul Robeson and the ethnologist William du Bois in the antilynching movement. All these activities made Einstein a political outsider who became the target of Secret Service investigations at the beginning of the 1950s.
After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Einstein demanded a ban on nuclear weapons. He favored the creation of a world government that would find peaceful solutions to conflicts between nations and states.
He became one of the most vocal critiques of the ensuing cold war and was one of the authors of the Russel-Einstein-Manifesto that became the basis for the Pugwash movement, a movement that since 1957 brought together scientists from different countries and political backgrounds to discuss the dangers of nuclear weapons, general disarmament, and world security. However, the FBI was less concerned with Einstein’s position on international problems and more with his statements concerning domestic policy. Einstein criticized the judicial system, which was based on the idea of equality but sometimes failed to meet that ideal. Racism was the “worst American disease” to him. In particular, he criticized the activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy and branded his investigations as a modern-style Inquisition. The FBI considered Einstein a danger since his prominence could compel other Americans to follow his example and to speak out against the injustices of American society. J. Edgar Hoover was personally involved in the attempt to prove Einstein’s Communist leanings. He considered him to be the lynchpin of a supposedly Communist spy network that he wanted to uncover. In the end, it was his prominence and the lack of conclusive evidence that saved Einstein from becoming another victim of McCarthyism.
Dieter Hoffmann
See also U.S.-German Intellectual Exchange;
Wigner, Eugen(e) Paul
References and Further Reading
Folsing, Albrecht. Albert Einstein: A Biography. New York: Viking, 1997.
Jerome, Fred. The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret War against the World’s Most Famous Scientist. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002.
Pais, Abraham. “Subtle Is the Lord”: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Sayen, Jamie. Einstein in America: The Scientist’s Conscience in the Age of Hitler and Hiroshima. New York: Crown, 1985.