Einstein: In His Own Words

Friday, Jul. 07, 2006

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After 1915, Albert Einstein continued to rely on his good friend Heinrich Zangger, a professor of forensic medicine in Zurich, to serve as mediator between him and his estranged first wife, Mileva. These three letters to Zangger, published here for the first time, allow us to track Einstein's fitful relationship with his elder son, Hans Albert, and his anxiety about the health on his younger son, Eduard (Tete), whom historians believe was suffering from the early stages of schizophrenia.

To: Heinrich Zangger
[Berlin,] 11 July [1916]
Dear Friend,
Your long letter, in which you informed me about how my boys are faring, pleased me very much, but it also filled me with a certain concern in one respect. Whenever my wife confided in any one of my friends, I almost always had to give him up for lost. ... So don't allow the slightest drop of venom into your subconsciousness. It would be such a pity on our fine relations. Surely not that I believed the woman would complain about me outright; it's a matter of indirect influence on the emotions, by which women so often get the better of us. My relations with the boys have frozen up completely again. Following an exceedingly nice Easter excursion, the subsequent days in Zurich brought on a complete chilling in a way that is not quite explicable to me. It's better if I keep my distance from them; I have to content myself with the knowledge that they are developing well. How much better off I am than countless others, who have lost their children in the war! Planck [physicist Max Planck, the father of quantum mechanics] also lost a son like that, the other one has been languishing in French captivity for almost 2 years. ... Concerning science, I'm only working on smaller things now, living a more contemplative life and appreciating the work of others. The general theory of relativity has now penetrated to the point where I can regard my task in this connection completed.

I shut my eyes as best I can to the insane goings-on in the world at large, having completely lost my social consciousness. How can anyone merge in such a social monstrosity if one is a decent person? A fleeting glance at the newspaper is enough to make one disgusted with our contemporaries. One can find solace only in certain individuals.

Cordial greetings, yours,
Einstein

To: Heinrich Zangger
[Berlin,] 16 February 1917
Dear friend Zangger,
Your letter about the condition of my youngest scares me less than you might think. Well-deserved punishment for my having taken the most important step in life so rashly. I begot children with a physically and morally inferior person and cannot complain if they turn out accordingly. Only they will accuse me one day when they are old enough; they will be only too right, unfortunately. So send my poor boy wherever you and Bernstein see fit, if you really think something of it. And even if you silently say to yourself that every [effort] is futile, send him anyway, so that my wife and my [Hans] Albert think something is being done against this evil. I am going to try to send 500 marks to Zurich. I would be very unhappy if I believed that I could have begotten valuable progeny with another woman. But if I look around among my own family and see the banal people, tolerably healthy though they are, then it seems to me that my contribution to this pitiful business mustn't be valued that highly, either. I console myself with the fact that life still goes on through the fruits of labor. The happy consciousness of having really acted productively and liberatingly in this way, and lastingly so, is a consolation for me that nothing can destroy. With this thought I will know how to bear the experiences of my children, sad though they may be; if only the cursed drive to beget children didn't aim to extend the misery into infinity! This drive, in concert with the medical arts to keep alive something that is not viable beyond the years of fertility is undermining civilized humanity. So it would be urgently necessary that physicians conducted a kind of inquisition for us with the right and duty to castrate without leniency in order to sanitize the future.
[EINSTEIN]

To: Heinrich Zangger
[Berlin,] 2 June 1917
Dear friend Zangger,
Your last letter makes me worry anew because I see that the upkeep of my sick family has acquired a ruinous quality. My net income (after deduction of taxes, etc.) has been reduced to 13,000 marks (this case has now in fact come to pass). From that I need for myself, in order to make at least an appearance of maintaining the kind of lifestyle rightfully expected of me, 5,000 marks. If I don't want to save up a single penny, what's left is 8,000 marks = 6,150 francs. More I cannot and will not give; and ways and means have to be found to make do with that. If there is a small overrun, the savings could be used. But that should only happen in case of emergency. For I don't know whether these small savings are going to have to cover the children's education, in the event of my early death. If I thought otherwise, I would simply be a heel. So it cannot even come into consideration that 10 francs per day (= 4,000 francs per year) be paid for Tete. Accommodations for him have to be sought that are suited to my financial situation, and the same applies for my wife. For this does not involve a transitory situation but a permanent one, as experience has unfortunately taught us.

It is not correct that I would have met my obligations better if I had stayed in Zurich. There it would not have been possible for me to accumulate any kind of savings for the benefit of the children until now either, especially considering that my wife has certainly not been frugal. I also have to say, frankly, that the goodwill I encounter among my professional colleagues and the authorities here obligates me to show the greatest gratitude. Everything that they are able to read in my eyes is simply being done. I am a good Swiss; but I make a distinction between political conviction and personal connection. Without these local colleagues I would surely have remained an "unappreciated genius"; I must constantly bear this in mind.

It's not true that I disappointed my boy by coming over only in July. When I suggested to him in spring last year that I might come and see him again in the fall, he acted quite negatively. Nor was a reappearance this spring either wished for or sensible, because we would not have known what to do with ourselves in the bad weather. Don't turn my boy into some saint! He is cheerful and happy-go-lucky and his letters happily reflect lightheartedness. He prefers to do things with his own age group rather than with a gloomy and venerable papa, thank God. Anyway, when I visit him nevertheless in July and go hiking with him, it will be more of a pleasure for me than for him; the love between parents and children is always somewhat onesided, but nevertheless not unhappy! But when I get preached to by Mrs. Besso and by you about love and conscience and am reminded of my gross infractions to paternal duty, then I can't suppress a smile.

I must confess that it weighs heavily on my mind that you are being burdened this way by me. This awareness haunts me all day long. I beg you sincerely to discuss with my sister how she can relieve the burden which is not suited for your already so heavily burdened shoulders. Help Miza [Mileva, Einstein's first wife] gain the necessary confidence in my sister so that she can take Albert, as would be the obvious thing under the prevailing circumstances. Don't give Albert the booklet; he isn't mature enough for it yet. His interest in such things is still playful, not actually intellectual, as suits his young age.

Cordial greetings, yours,
Einstein.