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Visser, consulted his Board of Supervisors (Commissie van Toezicht), who raised
reservations regarding the appointment of Einstein on the grounds of “his political
principles.”[22]
They sent the minister an article from a Dutch daily newspaper that
mentioned the recent student uproar during Einstein’s lecture at the University of
Berlin.[23]
The article identified Einstein as favorably disposed toward the Novem-
ber Revolution, a democrat, and
pacifist.[24]
De Visser then received from the Of-
fice of the Attorney General a notice stating that, “from the revolutionary side” a
certain “Dr. Eisenstein” would be sent from Germany to the Netherlands, traveling
with a false passport and with the intention of setting up a Bolshevist propaganda
service.[25]
Included was a secret military memorandum of 18 June 1919, which
stated that “Dr. Einstein (not Eisenstein) and Countess Olga von Hagen […] have
both lived in Brussels for about three years during the occupation of Belgium,
where Dr. Einstein has repeatedly tried to provoke the revolution among the Bel-
gians and Olga von Hagen often wrote under the pseudonym ‘The Red Countess.’
[…] Both persons are being closely watched and their departure for the Nether-
lands will certainly be promptly
reported.”[26]
The minister invited Cornelis van Vollenhoven, Secretary of the Leyden Univer-
sity Fund, and Nicolaas Charles de Gijselaar, President-Curator of the University
of Leyden and Mayor of Leyden, to a meeting on 26
March.[27]
After the meeting,
Van Vollenhoven wrote to the minister on 27 March that there had been a case of
mistaken identity: “Professor Einstein […] is married to a little Jewess who has the
same name as he does, does not consort with countesses, and has not lived or stayed
in Brussels during the
war.”[28]
Apparently, Einstein had been confused with Carl
Einstein (1885–1940), art critic and associate of the Soldiers’ Council of Novem-
ber 1918 in Brussels for which he had organized a press service; Countess Aga von
Hagen was his partner (Carl Einstein was not related to Albert Einstein).
A few weeks later, on 4 May, minister de Visser inquired of the Dutch Ministry
of Foreign Affairs whether indeed this was a case of mistaken identity. He asked
for a quick reply, given that Einstein was about to travel to the Netherlands, and the
same day, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs forwarded the question by wire to its en-
voy in
Berlin.[29]
Impatient with the delays in Einstein’s appointment, Kamerlingh Onnes tried to
speed up the process by intervening personally. On 10 May, he met with the Dutch
Minister of Education and later that day gave an account of the February uproar in
the lecture hall in Berlin. He was careful to point out that “Einstein […] finds that
communism is a
stupidity.”[30]
Despite the delays in his appointment, Einstein had nevertheless left Berlin on 6
May for Leyden, where he arrived a day later. It is from this trip that we have the
only extant letters from Elsa Einstein to Einstein during the period covered by the
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