1 6 0 D O C S . 1 6 4 , 1 6 5 N O V E M B E R – D E C E M B E R 1 9 2 3
164. From Gustav Stresemann[1]
Berlin W 8, 30 November 1923
After your having graciously declared your willingness to place your knowledge
and experience at the service of the Foreign Office’s cultural
work,[2]
I herewith ap-
point you as a member of the Cultural Advisory Panel at the Foreign
Office.[3]
Provided the overall circumstances should permit it, I intend to convoke the pan-
el in January or February next year for its first meeting.
Further information about the day and location of this gathering will be trans-
mitted to you in a timely fashion.
Stresemann
165. To Elsa and Ilse Einstein
[Leyden,] 3 December 1923
Dear Else,
A letter from you seems to have gotten lost, namely, the one that got sopping wet
that you wrote about on the newspapers. Today Ehrenfest departed for California,
from where he will return only at the end of
April.[1]
Beforehand, it was agreed that
Tanichka may become engaged to van Ardenne, whom she seems to
want.[2]
I still
have to stay here a bit, because on the 13th the medal award in Amsterdam is taking
place.[3]
But I do think I’ll be back home for Christmas. I am just busy writing an
important article for the Academy, a good little patch for my long
absence.[4]
Planck wrote very kindly to Ehrenfest and
me.[5]
I didn’t give any recommendation
to Chapiro. In his letter to me he boasted so tastelessly that I can’t bring myself to
recommend that braggart to
Warburg.[6]
This week I’m lecturing in Ehrenfest’s
stead so that the students also get something out of me. I’m glad that I don’t have
to do this year in, year out. It’s not impossible that I will enter into a relationship
with a major local incandescent-lamp
factory[7]
like the one with Mr.
A.[8]
One
does have to prepare in advance, so that no vacuum forms at an eventual collapse
of the Berlin position. In the event of political problems in Germ[any], I can get a
position in Amsterdam that is similar to the one I now have in Berlin. So, provisions
are firmly in place, just in case, and nothing need be feared. At all events, I don’t
need to go “truly” abroad. Over here it’s a very quiet, leisurely life, just right for
thinking and working. You actually can’t imagine such a thing at all. Before I come
back to all of you, I’ll be accompanying de Ridder, in whose office I spend most of