D O C U M E N T S 1 3 7 , 1 3 8 S E P T E M B E R 1 9 2 0 2 6 3
137. To Konrad Haenisch
Berlin, 8 September 1920
To the Minister of Science, the Arts and Public Education, Mr. Haenisch,
Berlin.[1]
Your Excellency’s letter of the 6th inst. fills me with a sense of sincere
gratitude.[2]
Quite apart from the question of whether I deserve so much benevo-
lence and high
regard,[3]
in these last few days I came to know that Berlin is the
place in which I am most deeply rooted through personal and professional ties. I
would follow a call outside of the
country[4]
[even to Switzerland] only in the case
that external circumstances force me to do
so.[5]
In utmost respect, Your Excellency’s loyal servant,
A. Einstein.
P.S. I would like to use this opportunity to call to mind a letter that I directed to Your
Excellency in favor of a budgetary appointment of the astronomer Prof. Buchholz
(at the University of
Halle).[6]
The ministry’s communication: “Through the press, particularly the foreign press, alarming re-
ports are repeatedly being made to the effect that Prof. Albert Einstein was thinking of leaving Berlin
and Germany in the near future and of following a call to a foreign university. In order to knock the
bottom out of these rumors, once and for all, which are being exploited in a biased way, particularly
abroad, we communicate here Albert Einstein’s reply to the publicized letter that Minister Haenisch
had addressed to him a few weeks ago. Einstein writes:”
138. From Hedwig Born
9 Cronstetten St., 8 September 1920
Dear Mr. Einstein,
When are you traveling to [Bad] Nauheim, and which days will you give us? We
shall tell no one about your being here; you are incognito here, if you wish. Paul
Oppenheim, Jr., still seems to be away. Please send a postcard with your
instructions.[1]
The vile squabblings that you are being harassed with sadden us
deeply.[2]
How
injured you were is proved by the atypical step you gave way to in your more than
justifiable irritation: the unfortunately very clumsy reply in the
newspaper.[3]
Those who know you are depressed by it, precisely because they can sense how af-
fected you were by this notorious incitement, and they suffer with you. And those
who do not know you get a false picture of you. This too is painful. Meanwhile,
though, you are the old Diogenes again, I hope, and are laughing at the beasts
driveling into your tub! It absolutely does not fit the image I have of you, which I
have placed, among other venerated holy men, within the shrine of my heart, that
people could still disappoint it or provoke it out of its tranquillity. You would not