D O C U M E N T 1 6 8 O C T O B E R 1 9 2 0 2 8 5
[Technische Nothilfe], which this enclosed stack of paper
addresses.[3]
The man
who called this Emergency Technical Aid to life is a friend of mine named
Lummitzsch; and I find that you and he are the only two people to have created any-
thing of note and of international significance in Germany in recent
years.[4]
That
is why I would like to get you interested in helping Mr. Lummitzsch in
Holland.[5]
The help would consist in finding a man in Holland who would take an enthusiastic
and avidly profound interest in the cause of this Emergency Technical Aid and al-
low himself to be associated with this enterprise in Holland, as is the case in Den-
mark, Sweden, and Norway, following the German model. The Emergency
Technical Aid over here would then turn to this man in order to get in touch with
Dutch circles and to prepare the way for international communication in this area,
which is just as essential as the Red Cross was and still is
now.[6]
Your daughter
told
me[7]
that you are going to Holland right now, and if you find someone there
who meets these qualifications, then please write one of your postcards, which al-
ways particularly delight me, and do not be indignant that I want something again
from
you.[8]
I do think, though, that you could help; for what, ultimately, do you do
with all that relativity, when in the wintertime Lummitzsch does not prevent an ab-
solute shortage of gas, water, and electricity for you in Berlin, which no gravitation-
al potential can alleviate, or even any arbitrary curvature of space can improve?
With hearty greetings to you and your dear wife, your friend,
Haber
168. From Arnold Sommerfeld
[Munich, 7 October
1920][1]
Dear Einstein,
Yesterday I was talking to Geiger, a philosopher
colleague[2]
who is very close
to me. He had received and declined an invitation by a “Working Association
1920” to give a speech; they want to ask you for a lecture as well. Whether the uni-
versity will unlock its halls for this is doubtful. This syndicate involves younger li-
terati (Jewish, as Geiger stresses, who himself is a Frankfurt Jew) of a kind of
Bohemian type; one of these, of the name of Holländer, I believe, is possibly the
same one who distinguished himself in the [Bavarian] Soviet
Republic.[3]
Hence
this lecture cycle does smack of sociopolitics, contrary to Mr. Weyland’s direction,
of
course.[4]
Geiger had the quite correct feeling that if you spoke in Munich, you
would want a lecture without such a tinge, on a purely scientific podium, which all
of us would most heartily welcome. He declined for himself because he does not
favor the fusion of science with the trends of the day.