I N T R O D U C T I O N T O V O L U M E 1 5 l x i x harsh prosecution of the accused from the left.[37] The crackdown on left-wing political and cultural activities during the period of this volume preoccupied Einstein. In October 1925 he added his signature to an appeal against the State Court for the Protection of the Republic for its increasing prosecution of several left-wing artists and writers under the “Law for the Protection of the Republic,” which had been enacted in July 1922 (Doc. 83). In March 1926, he signed an appeal that demanded the expropriation of the for- mer German royal houses without compensation (Doc. 209). He had initially ob- jected to the phrase that the palaces and parks had been “the pleasure gardens for the mistresses of princes,” which the final version of the appeal omitted. In this noteworthy instance of Einstein’s advocating a nonconfrontational approach in the political arena, he opposed “the pointless exacerbation of antagonisms, which are, in themselves, necessary and productive. Excessive ranting does not win trust and educate people to become citizens of the Republic” (Doc. 206). In June 1926, he endorsed an appeal to benefit destitute children of political pris- oners (Doc. 301) and also protested the imminent ban of the pacifist film Battleship Potemkin by the “reactionary government of Württemberg” (Doc. 311). In August 1926, he cosigned a protest against “the white terror” of Communist activists in Poland that also demanded radical reforms of the Polish prison system (Doc. 344). The following month, he contributed a message for the protest meeting against the “bill for the protection of minors against obscene and pulp literature,” organized by the Vereinigung linksgerichteter Verleger. Even though he did believe there was “a literature that does indeed have a harmful influence on young people,” he deemed “the evils that such a law would entail [to be] intolerable” (Doc. 367). In October 1926, Einstein supported an appeal against the proposed censorship law and in favor of the abolition of the Reichsprüfstelle, the national censorship board (Doc. 380). The following month, he contributed to a publication of the Rote Hilfe in its efforts to draw attention to the “systematic persecution directed against a relief organization of German workers.” He opposed the “grim injustice” caused by the hampering of mutual aid efforts, but his criticism was tempered by a rather moderate stance that “painful hardships and injustices arise in this country out of a mutual unfamiliarity and lack of understanding among the classes,” thereby im- plicitly rejecting the view that the oppression was intentional (Doc. 416). In Feb- ruary 1927, he cosigned an appeal with Romain Rolland and Henri Barbusse decrying the threat to political liberties by violence in most countries, voiced op- position to “white terror,” and announced the establishment of a committee “to combat the wave of fascist barbarity” (Doc. 472).