l x x v i I N T R O D U C T I O N T O V O L U M E 1 5 After the two papers Einstein 1926v and Rupp 1926b were published in Novem- ber 1926, Lenard remarked to Wilhelm Wien that he had not heard or seen anything of these experiments, and neither had anyone else in his institute. “Mr. Einstein may be satisfied with this work,” he wrote, “I would not attach much value to it.” Moreover, Lenard added, Rupp had dismantled the experimental setup before leav- ing for Göttingen, “if it had ever been in a proper state at all” (Lenard to Wien, 9 January 1927, cited by Dongen 2007a, p. 113). Yet time and again Einstein stated that he was satisfied with the results. Whenever Rupp explained away criticism leveled against the work by James Franck (Doc. 354), Georg Joos (Doc. 391), or Robert d’Escourt Atkinson (Doc. 354), Einstein stood by him (Docs. 361, 395). Over the following years, evidence accumulated that there was something sig- nificantly wrong with Rupp’s data, but Einstein did not comment. Later repetitions of the experiments lead his contemporaries to conclude that Rupp had committed fraud (Dongen 2007a and 2007b). VIII. Zionism and the Hebrew University Although political and organizational anti-Semitism had become less pronounced in Germany than earlier, social and cultural prejudices against Jews became more salient during the period covered by the present volume. Anti-Jewish attitudes gained greater acceptance among the upper echelons of educated Germans. Stu- dents continued to be particularly susceptible to anti-Semitism, and anti-Jewish sentiment in the churches and among the Social Democrats was more pronounced as well. The number of violent acts against individual Jews decreased, but Jewish buildings and cemeteries continued to be desecrated.[43] For much of this period, the Zionist movement was in crisis. At the 14th Zionist Congress in Vienna in August 1925, a challenge against the leadership of Chaim Weizmann, president of the Zionist Organisation, and his General Zionist faction emerged from the right-wing, revisionist, and religious Zionist parties, who in- creasingly opposed his Palestine settlement policy, his collaboration with left-wing Zionists, his role in the planned expansion of the Jewish Agency, and his policies toward the Arabs in Palestine.[44] This opposition to Weizmann was emboldened by the massive wave of middle-class immigrants to Palestine, particularly from Poland, which eventually became known as the Fourth Aliyah. The Zionist Congress ended in an impasse, and, as a result, a new Zionist Executive was not elected, thus rendering the organization without an effective leadership.[45] The majority of German Zionists supported Weizmann and his General Zionist faction.
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