1 2 8 D O C U M E N T 1 3 0 A P R I L 1 9 2 2 130. From Paul Block[1] Paris VIII, de Ponthieu Street, 4 April 1922 Esteemed Professor, The kindness of the administrator of the Collège de France made it possible for me to listen in on your first talk on March 31st.[2] Because this report, which I tele- phoned back to Berlin on the same evening and appeared on April 1st in the morn- ing edition of the Berliner Tageblatt, is the only one that became known in Germany, you may perhaps be interested in reading it.[3] Please excuse the mis- takes acoustical errors from two-way transmission by phone—Paris-Frankfurt, Frankfurt-Paris—aren’t always avoidable. I presume that my first letter was handed to you by Professor Langevin and that you could not find the time to reply to me. Permit me to inform you now by letter what I would have liked to tell you personally. There are about 200 Germans here in Paris right now—civil servants and mem- bers of the Reparation Committee[4] and of the Embassy. Besides their own profes- sional duties, they all have the often quite difficult task of bringing those French people they encounter around to a better opinion of Germany. All these fellow countrymen of yours were deeply pleased about the honors bestowed on you, ven- erated Professor. They would be happy if during his stay in Paris Albert Einstein also devoted half an hour to the Germans abroad, in order to tell them something about his theory. On the far too flattering notion that it would be my due as the most senior German journalist working in Paris to see you, I was given the mission to speak with you about such an entirely unceremonious event. Had you been so inclined, the German ambassador, whose letter was surely handed to you by the tracks,[5] would without a doubt have made one of the rooms at the embassy avail- able for this purpose at my request. This, esteemed Professor, I wished to say to you. With me, you would have been safe from journalistic pestering because I do not do such reportage and otherwise admire most highly the tactful reserve with which you avoid any political state- ments. In utmost esteem, respectfully, Paul Block, Correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt.
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