INTRODUCTION TO
VOLUME
8
xxxix
As
luck
would have
it,
in
early
1917,
after Einstein had
apparently
exhausted his
efforts
to find Freundlich
greater
research
leverage,
Franz
Stock,
a
Berlin manufac-
turing
magnate
commits to the Kaiser Wilhelm
Society
the annual
interest
from
a
capital
endowment
of one-half
million
Reichsmark
toward the
operating
costs
of
a
physics
institute.
Immediately
capitalizing on
this
godsend,
Einstein
spends
the
spring
and
summer
of
1917
customizing
this
prospective
creation
to
his
specifica-
tions.
The institute will be
nothing
more
than
a
research
handmaiden
to
his needs.
In October
1917,
the
Kaiser
Wilhelm
Institute
of
Physics
opened
its
doors,
though
it
existed
only on paper.
Freundlich is to be
paid an
annual
salary
of
6000
Reichsmark,
but
arrangements
have
to
be made to
provide
him
a
workplace
and
grant
him
access
to
an
instrument
laboratory
at the Institute
of
Astrophysics
in
Potsdam. Einstein conducts business from his
private
residence,
while
paying
Ilse
Einstein
wages
of
50
Reichsmark
a
month for secretarial assistance.
The conventional
trappings
of
an
institute
never
held
any
attraction for Einstein.
Institutionalization
only
had
meaning
for him
if
its
concrete results
lent
themselves
to
his aims. Evidence for this
conjecture
lies in the
pattern
of
grant-giving
that
Einstein’s
institute made in its first
years
of
operation.
In the
years
covered in this
volume,
besides
the
money
doled
out
to
Freundlich,
the
only
other grant-to
Peter
Debye-was
a
function
of
Debye’s standing
in the
physics community,
and these
moneys were never spent.
It would be
a
mistake, however,
to
assume
that
Einstein is
selfishly opportunistic
in his administrative
dealings.
Economical
as
he is in his
ability
to concentrate
on
priorities,
Einstein nevertheless also
gives
the reader in these
pages a
glimpse
of
his
suppleness
in
dealing
with bureaucracies
on
behalf of
other individuals and insti-
tutions with whose
purposes
he
sympathizes.
In
a
brief
exchange
with Wilhelm
Wien
on
the future
of
the German
Physical Society,
in informal
negotiations
with
Zurich officials and
colleagues on a
question
of
academic succession
at
the Univer-
sity
of
Zurich
(the
Alfred Kleiner
succession),
in
mobilizing
well-connected
friends
(Fritz Haber)
to
help
a struggling young
colleague (Gunnar Nordstrom),
and
in the
matter
of
filling
two vacancies in
Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute
directorships
(Karl
Schwarzschild and Friedrich
Helmert),
Einstein demonstrates
considerable
tactical
subtlety.
One
of the
most
striking examples
is his
taking up
the
cudgels
for
former
colleague
and
friend
Friedrich
Adler,
who
is in
grave danger
of
being
sen-
tenced
to death for the assassination
of
the
Austrian
Prime Minister in autumn
1916. From
Berlin,
Einstein
shepherds a petition appealing
for
pardon
through
the
Physical Society
of
Zurich,
of
which both he and Adler had been members.
He
deliberates
on
how
best
to
play on
the
sympathies
of
the
Austrian court
(Docs.
310
and
331)
and
impresses
the need
for
haste
on
his friends in Zurich. The
appeal
for