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in October 1920 placed him at the center of public and private controversies and
occupied much of his energy. Although Swiss colleagues repeatedly tried to lure
him back to Zurich (Doc. 192), and although Ehrenfest suggested the possibility of
a full position in Leyden where Einstein always greatly enjoyed spending his time,
he stayed in Berlin. While some correspondents, among them Sommerfeld, had ap-
pealed to a sense of patriotism (see also P. Havel, 28 August 1920, in Calendar),
Einstein felt a responsibility to avoid the embarrassment and sense of betrayal that
such a departure might provoke in his Berlin colleagues, whose support he greatly
valued (Docs. 211, 239, and 245). And while Einstein himself played down the
newspaper reports published abroad (see Doc. 239), German officials viewed these
with some concern. The German envoy in London, Friedrich Sthamer, assessed that
the British press’s coverage of the “fierce attacks” against Einstein had made a very
unfavorable impression, particularly since “Professor Einstein is at the moment for
Germany a cultural factor of the first rank, as Einstein’s name is known in the wid-
est circles. We should not chase away from Germany such a man, with whom we
can make real cultural
propaganda.”[13]
The event at the Philharmonic came in the midst of other political turbulence. In
the aftermath of the reactionary Kapp Putsch in mid-March 1920 and a wave of rad-
ical rightist violence, pacifists and others portrayed as “traitors” to Germany be-
came targets of
violence.[14]
In May, Einstein signed an appeal of German academ-
ics supporting a republican constitution, and in June he expressed again his inter-
national orientation and identity (see Docs. 3 and 56). In the first elections under
the new constitution on 6 June 1920, the “Weimar coalition” was defeated, with
heavy losses to the Social Democratic Party and especially the German Democratic
Party, and political allegiances became increasingly
polarized.[15]
During the sum-
mer of 1920, pacifist academics in Berlin were threatened and intimidated. Hellmut
von Gerlach canceled a lecture and considered leaving Berlin because of threats
against his life. Emil J. Gumbel was beaten and targeted for murder, and there were
veiled assassination threats in the rightist press against Georg Nicolai, whom Ein-
stein had earlier
supported.[16]
As reflected in the present volume, nationalist and
reactionary tendencies also pervaded academic life elsewhere, such as at the Uni-
versity of Rostock (Doc. 12) and at the University of Tübingen (Doc. 38).
Einstein’s new fame led many organizations to seek his endorsement. In July
1920, he was approached by associations advocating peace, social justice, and in-
ternational student exchanges (Docs. 73, 74, 86, 87, and 141), and in October and
November, he intervened on behalf of József Kelen, a Hungarian engineer on trial
after the defeat of the Hungarian Soviet Republic (Docs. 186, 194, 200, and 202).