INTRODUCTION
TO VOLUME
8
xliii
While
it
is true that he is
prepared
to
help
mediate
between
colleagues
from
neu-
tral
Holland-H.
A.
Lorentz
and Paul
Ehrenfest-and
those in the Berlin
Academy
in
an
effort to
reverse
the
damage
done to international
solidarity by
the Manifesto
of
the 93
(Docs. 275, 276,
and
282),
Einstein’s
political commentary
in
the first
years
of
the
war
has
a
very
tentative
character,
as
if
he
were feeling
his
way
in
the
dark. He
compares
his situation to that
of
a
staff member
in
an
insane
asylum,
char-
acterizing
the
prominent pacifist
Romain Rolland
as an
"optimist"
for
his
attempts
to
cure
those in the
grip
of
madness
by
participating
in
a
Central
Organization
for
a
Durable
Peace
(Doc. 73).
Soon
afterwards,
he allows his
name
to be
put
forward
for
membership
in
the executive committee
of
a
related
organization
(Doc. 131).
He
is
unhappy
about
the
appropriation
of
his intellectual
property
for
German
chauvinist
ends
(Doc. 560),
yet
he
upbraids
Ehrenfest
in
Leyden
for
what he
con-
siders the
empty symbolism
of
Ehrenfest’s
rejection
of
an
invitation
by
Hilbert
to
attend
a
conference in wartime
Germany
(Doc. 503).
Such sentiments
give a
clear
picture
of
Einstein’s
disdain for the
empty slogans
of
patriotism,
which
sweep Germany
and the
other
European
nations
at war,
but
they hardly support an argument
for the
development
of
a
consistent
political
posi-
tion in his
early
Berlin
years.
Much
more
characteristic in this volume
are
indica-
tions
of
the
distance with which he views events
on
the world
stage
with
a
mixture
of
pity
and
disgust,
and,
as
he hastens
to
add
on
at least
one
occasion,
with
scarcely
a
discordant
note to
upset
him
(Docs.
34 and
219).
Aside from his initial
dealings
with the
Bund
"Neues
Vaterland,"
the Dutch
Anti-War
Council,
and the
Organization
for
a
Durable
Peace,
Einstein does
not
establish
any
contacts
to
reformist
political
movements
again
until 1918. His
cor-
respondence
about the
"Bund
zum
Ziel"
(Docs.
611 and
613),
the Association
of
the Like-Minded
(Docs.
264 and
391),
and the
Popular
Alliance for
Freedom
and
Fatherland
(Doc. 455)
is
more suggestive
of
Einstein’s
political leanings
than it is
of
any
commitment.
Much
more damaging
to the claim
of
such
commitment,
even
in
1918, however,
is the revelation in this volume that Einstein’s
prospectus
for
a
manifesto in the
spring
of
1918,
always thought
to have
come
from his
pen,
actu-
ally was
written
by
Nicolai
(Docs.
521
and
522).
Even
more importantly,
it
raises
further
doubts about Nicolai’s
public
claim
that he had drafted the Manifesto
to
the
Europeans
of
autumn 1914 “in collaboration” with Einstein
(Vol.
6,
Doc.
8)
and
certainly
calls into
question
the emblematic status
that
Nathan and
Norden
have
conferred
on
this document.
Viewed in the
light
of
Einstein’s casual attitude toward
political consistency,
his
apparent
indifference
to possible
military applications
of
his work
on gyroscopes
(correspondence
with Anschütz &
Co.)
and
on
airplane
design (correspondence
with Mercur Aircraft
Company,
Otto
Marx,
and Romeo
Wankmüller)
also becomes