560
DOC.
541 MAY 1918
541. From
Georg
Nicolai
Eilenburg,
54
Torgauer
Street, 18
May
1918
To Prof.
Albert
Einstein,
Berlin W.
30,
5
Haberland
Street
Dear
and
esteemed
Professor,
Many
thanks
for
your
lines;
I
did want
to
say
to
you,
though,
that
you
very
much
underrate
yourself
in
thinking
you “ought
not be named in
this
connection”;[1]
because
you evidently
have
spoken out,
and nowhere
is
the
Appeal
to
Europeans;[2]
coauthored
by you, forgotten. Indeed,
it would
probably
never
have
come
to
light
if
you
had not
participated
in it.
I
believe,
at
least-such
an
“if”
can never
be
exactly
determined,
of
course-that
I
would have done
nothing
on
my
own.
You
are being
unfair to
yourself
in
something
else
as well,
I believe. You
are
absolutely
not to be “rebuked” for
sitting
in Berlin and
working;
if
anyone
has
the
right
to act
as a
second Archimedes toward
the
mercenaries, crying
out “noli
tangere
circulos
meos”[3]
then it
is
surely
you.
But
finally, you
are
also not
quite
right-in
my opinion,
at
least-on
a
third
point
either:
namely,
when
you
put
forward
your
Swiss
citizenship;
for it
is
only
in
the
second
place
that
citizenship
is
involved
here.
You
are a
German
(and
moreover
you
represent
a
piece
of German
culture
entirely
in
its
own
right),
and
then
you
are
also
a
European,
and it
is
this
which
must
be
emphasized
now
above
all.
I,
at
least,
am
much
more
strongly
convinced
today
than
at
the time
we were drawing
up
the
Manifesto
to
the
Europeans
that deliverance from
the
coming
cultural
collapse
will
only
be
possible
if
the
European
idea-pure
and
simple-can
be carried
through.
To be
precise,
this
idea
of
a
worldwide
cultural
organization must
inspire
the
masses
at least
as
much
as
the
idea of
Christianity
had
2,000
years ago.
A few
ideologues
standing up
for such ideas
will not
cure
the
world.
Mass
suggestion
must
be added.
But
just
because
the
danger
is
so
great
at
the
moment, just
for
this
reason,
I
believe
that
humanity’s
common sense
will
instinctively
understand
and
not
tolerate that this
fair
Earth
be
so
desecrated.
I
believe
that what
we are
advocating
today
as a
very
isolated
few,
will
tomorrow
be in
the
possession
of all.
Some
occasion-perhaps
a
very
banal
one-some
person-perhaps
a
very
foolish
one-will
come
along,
and
recovery
will
be
upon
us.
You
might
be able
to
say
now,
whoever
is
so
firmly
convinced
in
something
does not need to
fight
for
it
to
come
about.-You
are
entirely
right, I
also find it
quite
superfluous;
but then
again!
It
may
be
specifically my
act
that
provides
the
minimal
impetus necessary
to
tip
the
unsteady
balance and
supply
this
organism