4 2 0 D O C U M E N T S 4 4 0 – 4 4 2 J A N U A R Y 1 9 2 7 440. Aphorism on the Jewish People [1927] We Jews are, to be sure, not a chosen people, but rather a people filtered and hardened under millennia of pressure. Albert Einstein, 1927 441. Aphorism [1927] Ah, people want pleasure eternal, Mistaking the shell for the kernel. Albert Einstein, 1927 442. From Teodor Schlomka[1] Halle (Saale), Ziebenstraße 6, 4 January 1927 Dear Professor, To continue our Düsseldorf conversation[2] about “ghost charges”[3] and terres- trial magnetism, allow me to inform you of the following. You said then that an observer moving relative to the Earth’s surface must detect a different magnetic field than an observer at rest on the Earth’s surface you sup- posedly had already conducted an experiment to this effect in a Berlin suburban train, but it had yielded nothing [4] nor had captains of steamships sailing to America noticed this effect at all hence, the assumption that the Earth’s magnetic field is caused by the rotation of “ghost charges” seemed to be wrong. I have been considering this issue more closely and arrived at the result that it is not at all surprising that neither you nor ship navigators have detected the antici- pated effect up to now. However, there is another possibility to perform a really decisive test in this regard: If an airplane were flown at a speed of 30 m/sec from south to north, the airplane observer’s magnetic needle would have to indicate a north–south direction, which in our latitudes deviates by about 6° from the direc- tion that an observer at rest on the Earth’s surface measures.