LOT RR Auction  /  RR Auction Quality Autograph Auction 387  / 

238

Albert Einstein

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:25,000.00 - 30,000.00 USD
Albert Einstein

Bidding Over

The auction is over for this lot.
The auctioneer wasn't accepting online bids for this lot.

Contact the auctioneer for information on the auction results.

Search for other lots to bid on...
Auction Date:2012 May 16 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS in German, signed “Einstein,” one page both sides, 8.25 x 10.75, September 19, 1932. Letter to Wander Johannes de Haas (1878-1960), a German physicist who had married Hendrik Lorentz's daughter, and a friend of Einstein for many years. In full (translated): “I thank you greatly for the letters from both of you. The happier I am to be able to pass the time so cheerfully and closely with your wife, the more it makes me sorry that you had just gone away. Ehrenfest makes me very sorry that he is so depressed through his feeling of insufficiency with regard to his post, which is objectively unjustified. I actually believe that there are few people who will be as well orientated as he will in our ‘law of the jungle’ department. Still, for everybody there is a limit where ability to learn comes to an end. I find that a special teaching post for atomic mechanics would be necessary in our universities; much more necessary than a teaching post for physical chemistry. Meanwhile, I also suppose that, for the present, the shortage of funds is making the creation of a new post, even for a limited duration, extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. I even took the trouble to try what I could, so that these objective and psychological difficulties might be removed. It is impossible for me personally to jump into this gap. First, being an old boy, I already have enough on my back, and secondly I am much too little receptively skilled to be able to be serviceable to others at this time by the transmission of bits of knowledge.

I would not be able to transplant the thick Partner. Here, it is yet more difficult than with you, and I also have no kind of influence with the new ‘Governors.’ It is even doubtful whether I do not altogether end my connections here. In any case, I have made myself quite independent, so that I may face anything that may come here with all composure. I regret the things that have happened to me from general human standpoints; what will there be as results, if the military economy starts again here!

We feel our helplessness more than ever. Still, there are still good friends and fine people, so that we can feel at home on this earth. Hearty greetings to you both.” In fine condition, with central horizontal and vertical fold and a bit of trivial creasing.

Einstein contemplates leaving Germany in this letter to his friend and colleague, Johannes de Haas. After the 1932 elections, the Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag, and Einstein confides his feeling of “helplessness” under “the new ‘Governors.’” That year also saw the Geneva Disarmament Conference, when Einstein saw his years of campaigning for peace threatened by the largely toothless League of Nations. “If the implications weren’t so tragic, the Conference’s methods could only be called absurd,” Einstein said of the ineffective summit.

At the time, he was serving as the Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics and was a professor at the University of Berlin, and naturally would advocate for a “special teaching post for atomic mechanics.” In 1933, Einstein would end his academic career in Germany when he emigrated to the United States after Hitler’s rise to power. Shortly thereafter the German government banned Jews from holding official positions, including teaching at universities, and Einstein’s books were targeted at Nazi book burnings. A host of other German scientists also fled to America and Einstein found himself working among them. "In my whole life I have never felt so Jewish as now," he wrote. An exceptional personal and lengthy letter in which the famed physicist considers his fateful eventual departure from his homeland.
Sign In to Bookmark Lot