9 0 D O C . 1 0 7 S E P T E M B E R 1 9 1 9 Don’t you get any gray hairs, now, but enjoy the rest of your vacation. Every- thing will straighten itself out somehow. You are still a far cry from the necessary nonchalance your nerves lie much too bare, without any cushion of fat![8] Best regards to you and your wife, as well as our mutual friends,[9] yours, A. Einstein. 107. From Walter Dällenbach Burgdorf, 19 September 1919 Dear Professor, This summer in Zurich I told you a bit about the political experiments in which I was participating.[1] What we were planning fell through. We wanted to build bridges between the most important representatives of the opposing political views in our country, i.e., create mutual trust between them that could serve as a basis for concerted action.[2] We hoped such a united group of the most well-known politi- cians of all stripes would constitute a force that would be in a sure position to move the most capable professionals of the country into abandoning positions they had hitherto been upholding and under consistent leadership get them to work on ne- glected duties of the state. Up until the moment when developments were brought to a standstill by destructive events, these hopes were being legitimized. It was pos- sible to unite on a panel of approx. 25 members the princial representatives of all political parties and all classes of the population. The inner cohesion within this panel was already so strong that the Social Democratic members went against their party line in support of the Reform Alliance, despite suffering bitter attacks launched in the press by their party’s leadership. This group’s power had already grown so much that the general’s almost notorious national strike memorandum was placed before this committee by the Federal Council for an opinion, even though not long beforehand the Federal Council had refused to release the docu- ment to Parliament and to the Military Court of the 3rd Division.[3] The initial short yet steep climb in the chain of developments came to an abrupt halt with the Wildboltz Affair.[4] Seen from the outside, the bond of trust proved to be still too weak against party conflicts, which were greatly exacerbated by the po- sition that necessarily had to be taken in response to this issue. The deeper reason is that the leader of the commission, who as secretary had clinched and fostered the bond of trust between the commission members and who was the driving force be- hind the whole organization, had not gained the experience and caution necessary for the job.
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