D O C U M E N T 3 6 9 S E P T E M B E R 1 9 2 6 5 8 3 [4]Georg Maschke (1866–?) was a retired businessman and investor in the Deutsche Luftverkehrs- Gesellschaft. For his recent proposal to collaborate with Einstein, see Abs. 580. [5]An allusion to Fanny Einstein’s terminal illness. 369. To Rabindranath Tagore [Düsseldorf,] 25. IX. 26 Verehrter Meister! Es thut mir leid, dass ich Sie hier in Düsseldorf nicht mit leiblichen Augen wie- dersehen sollte.[1] Aber als ich hörte, wie sehr Sie hier angestrengt gewesen sind, da wollte ich nicht unter denen sein, die Ihrer Ruhe und Sammlung im Wege sind.— Wenn Sie irgend etwas in :Deutschland besorgt sehen wollen, das von mir get- han werden könnte, so bitte ich Sie über mich zu verfügen, wann es auch sei. Nun ist es mir noch Bedürfnis, Ihnen zu sagen, dass ich darüber beglückt bin, Ihre persönliche Bekanntschaft gemacht zu haben, nachdem ich schon lange zu Ih- ren freudigen Bewunderern gehöre.[2] Ihnen und den Ihren[3] wünscht ein harmonisches Leben und Wirken Ihr A. Einstein ALS (Rabindra Bhavan, Santiniketan, India, via Sanjib Mukhopadhyay). [123 430]. [1]Einstein was in Düsseldorf to participate in the meeting of the GDNÄ, 19–25 September. Tagore delivered two lectures in Düsseldorf on 24 September (see Chatterjee 1997, pp. 124 and 170). [2]Einstein and Tagore had signed the appeal “Declaration of the Independence of the Mind” (“Un Appel: Fière Déclaration d’Intellectuels”), published in L’Humanité on 26 June 1919, which had been drawn up by Romain Rolland (see Adolf Schmidt to Einstein, 1 July 1919 [Vol. 9, Doc. 68] and Dutta and Robinson 1997, p. 528). Various colleagues and friends recommended that Einstein read Tagore’s works and, in 1921, Einstein was asked to contribute books to the library of Santiniketan, a town established by Tagore (see Conrad Hausmann to Einstein, [Vol. 12, Calendar, entry for 14 April 1921]). Tagore had left India to visit South America and Europe in May 1926. He stayed in Berlin 11–15 September. On 13 September, he lectured in English on “The Philosophy of the Indian People” at the Berlin Philharmonic. The event was attended by Einstein, the Prussian minister of culture Carl Hein- rich Becker, and various diplomats. The next morning, Becker invited prominent German intellectu- als, including Einstein, Erich Marx, and Friedrich Meinecke, and senior government officials to a breakfast with Tagore in the ministry’s reception hall. Later the same day, Einstein invited Tagore and his entourage to his apartment for tea (see Illustration 4). This was the first time the two met. Tagore later wrote that he first met Einstein in 1921, “during my first visit [to Berlin] after the war.” However, this was not the case (see Berliner Tageblatt, 14 September 1926, ME Vossische Zeitung, 14 September 1926, ME Dutta and Robinson 1997, p. 307 Tagore 2005, p. 519 and Mukhopadhyay 2014, pp. 2 and 11). [3]Tagore’s entourage during his meeting with Einstein at his apartment consisted of Tagore’s daughter-in-law Pratima Tagore-Devi, Bengali scientist Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, and his wife Nirmalkumari Mahalanobis (see Illustration 4 and Mukhopadhyay 2014, p. 11).