l x x x i v I N T R O D U C T I O N T O V O L U M E 1 6 X. Einstein Turns Fifty Einstein marked his half-century birthday on 14 March 1929. Even if he himself was not keen to unduly fuss about this landmark event, his contemporaries did not intend to let it pass without fanfare. Einstein made plans to be absent from Berlin on this day well in advance. In December 1928, he informed Eduard that he needed to be away from home in mid-March, and later stated his need to flee the capital because otherwise he would “become seasick” (Docs. 340, 359). He indeed departed Berlin ahead of his birthday and spent the day at Plesch’s villa in Gatow. He told his friend Grete Lebach how he planned to celebrate: “Elsa, Margot, Ilse, and Rudi are coming […] to celebrate my birthday by solemnly eating huge amounts. They are bringing forks, knives, plates, and a roasted vulture.” He predicted the overwhelming outpouring of affection he expected to receive: “Now I will be drowned in proofs of friendship offered by those around me, who at such times are not usually inclined to think that life is a battle” (Doc. 431). Even though Einstein largely eluded journalists on the momentous day, at least one tracked him down and gatecrashed the celebration, culminating in the amusing headline “Einstein Is Found Hiding on Birthday” (Appendix L).[63] Einstein received a veritable deluge of mail around mid-March. He referred to the inundation in various ways, stating that the postman merely laughed when he dropped off his bundle and confiding to his close friend Michele Besso that he was “hopelessly buried under an avalanche of paper” (Docs. 444, 466). To deal with the flood of letters, Einstein composed a birthday poem to thank all his well-wishers and had the text printed on a postcard (Docs. 436, 435) to which he would add individualized greetings and, sometimes, amusing sketches (see Illustration 25). Birthday greetings came from family members, friends, and colleagues tributes arrived from organizations and institutions around the world. Einstein used a healthy dose of self-irony to cope with the adoring attention, quipping that he had been “officially thrown on the scrap heap with such festivity that I feel, God knows, rather important and marvelous” (Doc. 469). In reaction to the accumulated vener- ation, he wrote “Here I sit […] with 1,000 letters, signs of undeserved love” (Doc. 492). Some of the more noteworthy individual well-wishers were Carl Heinrich Becker, Kurt Blumenfeld, Berlin mayor Gustav Böß, Sigmund Freud, British Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz, American president Herbert Hoover, Otto Lehmann- Russbüldt, German chancellor Hermann Müller, and Franz Oppenheimer. Notable organizations that sent greetings and tributes were the Hebrew University, the Jewish community of Berlin, and the Zionist Organization of America, which