D O C . 3 5 D E F E N S E T H R O U G H K N O W L E D G E 2 9 7
Though the tone and some emphases in this document differ markedly from those in the preceding
one, structural similarities and parallel formulations make it likely that both were intended for the
same publication. The most probable candidate is the Jewish-owned Berliner Tageblatt, in which
Einstein had made his political debut some months earlier (see Einstein 1919h [Doc. 30]) and which
emblazoned in its articles the assimilated German Jew’s faith in the triumph of truth over prejudice
(see, for example, the article “Antisemitismus und Demokratie,” Berliner Tageblatt, 2 November
1919, Morning Edition, pp. [1–2]). If the first version of Einstein’s article was accepted and emended
by the political editor of the Berliner Tageblatt, Paul Nathan (1857–1927), a prominent member of
the CV who had also written many articles on the plight of Jews in Eastern Europe and actively sup-
ported a Jewish cultural presence in Palestine (see, e.g., his report on pogroms in Vilnius and Ukraine,
Berliner Tageblatt, 29 October 1919, Morning Edition, p. [1]), and Nathan, P. 1914), most probably
the paper’s chief editor, Theodor Wolff (1868–1943), a man who sought to minimize “even undis-
guised anti-Semitic attacks” (“[s]elbst unverhüllt antisemitische Angriffe”; see Wolff, T. 1984, p. 43),
would have found the harsh tone of the first version unacceptable and insisted that the second version,
more accommodating to the assimilationist position, be substituted.
For evidence that Einstein’s conciliatory attitude to the CV was short lived, see Doc. 37, as well
as Einstein to Association for Combating Anti-Semitism, 14 September 1920, in which he reiterated
his opinion that direct action does not contribute to the fight against anti-Semitism. For a general dis-
cussion of the tension between German Zionists, whose views Einstein embraced soon after the war,
and the CV, see the editorial note, “Einstein and the Jewish Question,” p. 225.