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This short series of articles ‘Einstein in Berlin’ by Hendrik Lorenz is copyrighted to its owner OTA-Berlin GmbH. It may be reproduced or copied only with the prior written permission of OTA-Berlin GmbH.
Copyright © 2010 OTA-Berlin GmbH
Albert Einstein - www.foto-face.com
[ In this first of a 4 part series, 'History of Science' commentator Mr Hendrik Lorenz, discusses the time Albert Einstein spent in Berlin - important years in his own life and important years in the life of the metropolis of Berlin.
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Albert Einstein arrived in Berlin at the end of March 1914 to take up a scientific position. He left again in late 1932, headed for the USA and Princeton, just before Hitler took control over the German state – he never returned.
During his eighteen years in Germany Einstein became world famous even outside science.
In the 1920s, after an intricate observation of a solar eclipse by British astronomers that supported the general theory of relativity, he made headlines in major newspapers across the globe. Although he himself definitely opposed the motto ”everything is relative” his name was used to invoke the breaking of all kinds of norms.
Trendy people linked him to cubism in art, jazz, Charlie Chaplin movies, internationalism, radical pacifism, socialism, new forms of architecture, all in one sweep.
Conservatives and reactionaries targeted him as a dangerous and immoral man – some of them fixed on his Jewish background.
But all this was still to come, even he with his new theory of time – illustrated with images of flashing lights and trains speeding along different tracks – was unable to travel faster into the future to get a preview.
When he got off the train at Berlin Central Station (Hauptbanhhof) he had just come from Holland visiting Paul Ehrenfest and Hendrik Lorentz in Leiden to catch up with the latest news in physics on their horizon.
His real base however was Switzerland, having moved there in his late teens after renouncing his German citizenship in order to escape conscription in the German Imperial Army, and, of course, to study at the reknowned Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich.
Now he was 35 years old, ready to join the scientific elite in Berlin. Except for a year in Kafka’s Prague, he had spent about eighteen years in the Swiss cities of Zurich and Bern.
In a decade he had emerged from obscurity to become a star who was much in demand. He had revolutionized the concept of time, contributed to quantum theory and was now wrestling with his general theory of relativity.
Max Planck, the nestor of German physics, was keen to bring Einstein on board in an outstanding interdisciplinary network in Berlin. Otto Hahn and Liese Meitner were already there working on radiation and various radioactive isotopes. Meitner came to Berlin from Vienna to do postdoctoral work with Planck.
Her close collaboration with Hahn was to continue for thirty years – i.e., until, being of Jewish ancestry, she lost her Austrian citizenship after the ‘Anschluss’ – the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. She later found refuge in Stockholm, Sweden.
Hahn taught at Berlin University and worked in radiochemistry. In 1912 he was appointed head of the Radioactivity Department of the newly funded Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlhem, a sister institute to Fritz Haber’s in Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry.
The idea was that Einstein could stir up research in quantum theory, a new branch of science where Planck felt Germany should be the leader and the nation’s industry stood to gain.
In spite of Einstein’s bohemic distaste for Prussian militarism and bourgeois lifestyles, the package deal to entice the young man was hard to turn down: (1) a research position as professor of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, (2) a professorship at Berlin (now Humboldt) University with little teaching, and (3) a position as director of a new Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics (built in 1917), similar to the one Fritz Haber already headed for physical and electrochemistry.
Swiss citizenship freed him from military duty, and a fat salary subsidized by a rich capitalist far exceeded his normal material needs.
The first place where he lived was in Berlin-Dahlhem, an apartment in a house with several stories on the corner of Ehrenbergstrasse and Rudeloffweg. If you go there you will find a plaque on the building. It commorates Einstein’s time in Berlin. (A short walk from U-Bhf, stop Thielplatz U1).
Einstein -Gedenktafel Ehrenbergstr Dahlem Berlin - Foto Wikipedia - autor -OTFW, Berlin
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Coming In Part II of the ‘OTA-Berlin Constituency Blog’ series ‘Einstein in Berlin’
Einstein in Berlin – Arrival (Part II: fame, love and tears)
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Tags: 65 years Potsdam conference, einstein and nobel prize, einstein early life, Einstein in Berlin, history of science berlin, science berlin
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