534 DOCUMENT 451 JULY 1913 451. To Elsa Löwenthal [Zurich, 14? July 1913][1] Liebe Elsa! Deinen lieben Brief habe ich noch nicht beantwortet. Dafür hab ich aber jetzt was Rechtes zu sagen. Letzter Tage hatte ich Besuch von Planck und Nernst, die sichs nicht nehmen liessen, eigens von Berlin zu kommen, um mir eine Stelle an der Akademie anzutragen.[2] Längstens nächstes Frühjahr kom- me ich also für immer nach Berlin. Es ist eine kolossale Ehre, die mir da zu- teil wird denn ich werde Vant Hoffs Nachfolger.[3] Ich freue mich schon sehr auf die schönen Zeiten, die wir zusammen verbringen werden! Sage keinem Menschen etwas von der Sache. Es bedarf noch eines Beschlusses des Ple- nums der Akademie,[4] und es würde sich schlecht ausnehmen, wenn etwas davon vorher unter die Leute käme. Es küsst Dich Dein Albert. Herzliche Grüsse an Onkel und Tante[5] ALS. [72 307]. [1]Dated by the reference to the visit of Planck and Nernst. [2]Max Planck and Walther Nernst, accompanied by their wives, left Berlin for Zurich on the night train of 11 July at the suggestion of Leopold Koppel, whose partial underwriting of Einstein's position at the Prussian Academy of Sciences (see Doc. 445, note 2) may have over- come what seems to have been some reluctance on Einstein's part to accept the offer. After Einstein mulled it over and the visitors made a Sunday excursion (13 July), Einstein met them at the train station in Zurich and indicated his acquiescence by a prearranged signalemdash the wav- ing of a white cloth. The Nernsts and Plancks left Zurich for Berlin on the night train of 14 July and arrived home on the morning of the 15th (see Emma Nernst to David Hilbert, 7 August 1913, GyGöU, Cod. Ms. D. Hilbert 277, Beilage 5, pp. 3 and 4, and typescript of Emma Nernst's reminiscences, n.d., GyErBun, pp. 4 and 5). For varying accounts of the Zurich visit, see Seelig 1960, pp. 244-245, Clark 1971, pp. 166-168, and Mendelssohn 1973, p. 75. In addition to the question of membership in the Prussian Academy, Planck and Nernst pre- sumably also explored Einstein's interest in the directorship of a still-to-be-established Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics (see Doc. 478), and in a position at the University of Berlin with- out teaching obligations (see Docs. 453 and 484). [3]Jacobus van 't Hoff had, in 1896, been granted the first research professorship in the Prus- sian Academy with an annual salary of 10,000 marks and an honorary professorship at the Uni- versity of Berlin, free of all teaching obligations (see Vierhaus and vom Brocke 1990, p. 87). His chair had been vacant since his death in March 1911. The normal annual honorarium of a member of the Prussian Academy was 900 marks. [4]The plenum elected Einstein on 24 July (see Doc. 455, note 6) after he was formally pro- posed for membership on 12 June (Doc. 445). At the beginning of July the physical-mathemat- ical class had voted twenty-one to one in Einstein's favor (see the minutes of the meeting of the class, 3 July 1913, GyBAW, II-V, Vol. 132, item 2) and a week later the plenary session debated the issue (see the minutes of the meeting of the plenum, 10 July 1913, GyBAW, II-V, Vol. 89, item 10). [5]Rudolf and Fanny Einstein, Löwenthal's parents.