Trudy Gold
Einstein, Rathenau, Haber: Entwined Lives

Trudy Gold - Einstein, Rathenau, Haber: Entwined Lives

- [Trudy Gold] Today I’m looking at three extraordinary characters who really did walk the world. Albert Einstein, Walther Rathenau, and Fritz Haber. What do I have to say about our Albert Einstein? Time Magazine made him the man of the century. He had his incredible when his three revolutionary papers changed the world. Walther Rathenau, the great industrialist, the son of an industrialist. His father created AJ. He was not only an industrialist, he was a writer, he was a poet, he was a thinker, and he was a politician. He was, he finished up as foreign minister in Weimar. And the third, Fritz Haber. Perhaps the darkest, most controversial of them all. Fritz Haber, a brilliant chemist who, with Bosch created the Haber-Bosch process, which fed half the world. And also in the First World War, gave everything to the German war effort, including creating poison gas. Was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1918 and yet Einstein didn’t even want to shake his hand. Yet their lives are so entwined. They came from that incredible milieu of Germany Berlin at the beginning of the 20th century. Can we see some photographs please, Judy? You see, this is turn of the century, Berlin. You see, of course, something we’ve just, we’ve looked at the great department stores. It’s a wonderful, exciting teaming city if you love the modern world. Can we go on? I think we’ve got some more, haven’t we? There’s the Friedrichstrasse. See the fashionable women? Beautiful, beautiful Berlin, except of course was it beautiful? As we’ve already established beneath the facade of modernity, there were many people who suffered greatly. And these three men were part of the intellectual milieu.

There were probably about a thousand of them and they, these three had a particularly close relationship. Let me, for example, I’m going to start with Albert Einstein because before we actually get onto Albert Einstein, I would never ever have the temerity to try and lecture on anything scientific. What I love about Einstein is Einstein, the man and what he had to say. I’m just going to give you some of my favourite quotes. He says this. By the way, he published 150 non-scientific papers, 300 scientific papers. He won the Nobel Prize in 1921, the Med and Lit Prize in 1921, the Copley Prize in 25, the Max-Planck prize in 29. And he was the Time “Person of the Century” in 1999. And it was Einstein who had a price of $5,000 on his head when the Nazis took power. One of one or two of the statements of Einstein, so that you understand why I think so much of him as a human being. He says, “Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupid stupidity. If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it. The difference between genius and stupidity. Genius has its limits. Anyone who has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new. I speak to everyone the same way. Whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.” I think these are wonderful lessons for life. “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” This is him being humorous. “Reality is mainly an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” “A clever person solves a problem, A wise one avoids it.” “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.” “I have no special talents. I’m only persistently curious.” “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” “You never fail until you stop trying.”

“What is right is not always popular and what is popular, it is not always right.” “It is not that I am smart, it’s that I stay with questions much longer.” And he says this, and I’m going to finish on, you can have great fun with Einstein’s quotations. The word is a da- “The world is a dangerous place to live in, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” “Peace can never be achieved by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” “The measure of real intelligence is the ability to change.” “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” And I think these are so important, lessons for the future. So the point about these three tarring characters, not only were their lives entwined, they were actually very close to each other. And I’m going to read a couple of quotes. This is on Einstein’s 50th birthday from Fritz Haber. On Einstein’s 50th birthday in 1929, Fritz Haber made the speech. They were they were colleagues at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. And this is what he said, “Of all the great things I’ve experienced in the world, the substance of your life and achievement touches me most deeply.” “In a few centuries, the common man will know our time as the period of world war, but the educated man will connect the first quarter of the century with your name.” And it’s interesting, isn’t it? Because if you think of the word genius, everybody talks about Albert Einstein.“ "As for the others, all that will remain will be whatever connection there was between us and the great happenings of our times. And in your biography, it won’t remain unnoticed that I was your partner.” “For more or less, the serbic comments about the business of the Prussian Academy with more or less bad coffee that allowed the meetings.”

“Plus, I served my own future fame and continued presence in history when for your 50th birthday, I begged you finally to take care of yourself so that you will remain healthy And so that I will be able to continue to mock people and have coffee with you, and indulge in quiet vanity because I count myself as belonging to the circle, which in a closer and more intimate sense lies with you.” So Haber absolutely adored Einstein. Now Rathenau, Walther Rathenau who was tragically assassinated, ironically as an elder of Zion, and I’m going to be talking about that later in the week, After his death, This is what, this is what Einstein wrote: “That hatred delusion in ingratitude could go so far, I still would not have thought it, but those responsible for the ethical education of the German people for the past 50 years.” “I want to call out by your fruits, you shalt know them.” And now this is a letter he wrote to Rathenau’s mother on his death. “His allegiances were contradictory. He felt himself to be a Jew, was internationally minded and was at the same time, as incidentally were quite a few Jewish intellectuals of that generation in love with Prussianism, its Yonkers and its military forms. He was far removed from the narrow-minded, militaristic attitude of almost all German intellectuals. Silly was strongly enough dependent on the recognition of men inwardly much in theory to him.” Let me repeat, this is terribly important. “He was strong, strangely enough, dependent on the recognition of men, inwardly much inferior to him and in all human qualities.” “Despite this curious kind of dependency, he took pleasure in poking fun at events in persons. A man of wit and sudden and con-subtleness.” Let’s go on and talk a bit about their biographies.

I think the best biography of Einstein is actually Walter Isaacson’s. And if you want to read about the three of them, may I recommend to you Fritz Stern’s brilliant “Einstein’s German world.” But there are lots of books on Rathenau and on Haber. But what I’d like to do today is to really bring them together because they all came from the same milieu. They came from Jewish families who were acculturating. They were all acutely aware of their Jewishness. They all three in their own way changed the world. And as I said, they knew each other. They operated together as a group. And the other point to make is in even in the Weimar years, or go back even before the first World War, those incredible soirees in the home of Jewish intellectuals, you would have found Einstein playing the violin quite often in a home designed by Mendelsohn, Erich Mendelsohn. And the audience would’ve been characters like this, an incredible milieu, a world that is lost forever, a world where German and Jewish culture fused or didn’t. Now this is a question I keep throwing at you and I find it absolutely fascinating. So let’s just look at some of his biography. I’m just giving you enough of the biography so they understand the worlds, they come from. Can we see the first slide, please, Judy? There you see, young Einstein, he was born in 1879. He was born in a Swabian town on the Danube called Ulm. He died in America in 1955. His parents were Hermann and Pauline. His parents were Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch. On the birth certificate, Einstein’s birth certificate. They belonged to the Hebrew face. On both sides, the families had lived in Wartenberg for generations.

They came from small towns. They were artisans, shopkeepers. Now, this particular family of the three of them, in many ways, Einstein is the least complex. He was complex, but I think he was the one that’s happiest in his own skin. And those of you who are interested in psychology, I really think it’s down to his background and what happened to him. Now, this is what Fritz Stern said about him. A year after his birth. By the way, the family moved to Munich, where because his father and his father’s brother started a water, gas and water installation business. Remember it’s modernity. And this is what Fritz Stern said about the family. “A loving mother presiding over a contented family. The father was an amiable failure. Always accommodating, People liked him.” And in 1881, a daughter was born, Maya who was very close to Einstein all his life. Now, the family were not observant, but the house was full of German literature and music. And if you can imagine the kind of gatherings, the father read aloud from the classics. His mother was very musical and he began violin lessons when he was six years old. And by the time he’s twelve, he’s playing Beethoven and Mozart with his mother. So, it’s a musical house. It’s a happy house. But if you want to know how to rear a genius, maybe on the way, there’s some very interesting pointers. There was an article in the Spectator last week about what creates genius and all about schools. And when I was working, doing some work on this presentation on Einstein, in a way, his life was a preparation for genius. And it’s fascinating. You know, he didn’t speak until he was three. He was never good at foreign languages. He hated school. He said he loathed the mindless drill of it all. He said the teachers in the elementary schools appeared as sergeants and the gymnasium teachers, lieutenants.

He hated anything to do with coercion and militarism. He did have a deep moment of quote, this is quoting him of “deep religiosity.” And he, this is, this is when he’s 13. He refused pot pork. He wasn’t bar mitzvahed. He didn’t learn Hebrew. Now, this is how you begin to create a genius. When he was 10, he found his first mentor. A family friend, and a young medical student called Max Talmud. Now, he saw the real cleverness in this rather shy young man. And he introduced him to popular works. He introduced him to philosophy, he introduces him to sciences. And he writes that “from the age of 12 to 15, I made myself familiar with elements of mathematics, including differential and integral calculus.” By 13, he had read Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason.” So he had a mentor. In 1894, the father’s business failed and the family decided to move to Italy. Now, they sold their villa and Albert witnessed the developers moving in and they’re already chopping down his beloved trees as they, as they drove away. And he never got over it. He always had a hatred of capitalism. But he- and it began of a sort of affinity with undogmatic socialism. The family had left him behind in Munich to complete his studies and he was to board with distant relatives. He was very, very unhappy about this. And later with a doctor’s certificate, he left Germany for Italy and avoided military service. He renounced his German citizenship for a number of years. He was stateless. In those days you didn’t need a passport to travel. Fritz Stern wrote “In those halcyon days, a passport was of little consequence.” In 1901, he becomes a Swiss citizen. He failed the first exams into into the college in Zurich he wanted to go to. He excelled in math and physics. And then he went to a school in Argyle, where he boarded with another very clever family called the Winterhalters. Very liberal, teaching him.

And he had his first love affair with a daughter of the house. And he had to write an essay in French. He helped him with his French. And he wrote, he cited his disposition for abstract and mathematical thought. And he believed he wanted to be a scientist. This is really the beginnings of the great leaps in science. Because his father’s business in Italy had failed, he was supported by wealthy relatives to complete his studies. And what he does in Switzerland, he develops a small circle of assimilated Jews who became his lifelong friends, including a new mentor, a man called Albert Stern, who was a historian and a student of rank. His father had been a very famous mathematician. 33 years older than Einstein, he took the young genius on and pushed him forward. Also, there was a young, a woman in the group called Mileva Maric. She was actually Greek Orthodox and a Serbian. And she was three years older than him. They had a mad love affair. Evidently, a daughter was born. We don’t know what happened to the daughter. They did marry against the wishes of the parents. Tragically, it was an incredibly unhappy marriage. They did have two children. Albert was born, one was born in 1904, the second in 1910. They finally separated in 1914 and divorced. Mileva was quite a tragic figure because we now know that she had quite a lot to do with helping him in his work. She was a very, very talented mathematician. But he, this is, this was the ruthless side of Einstein. He split with her. Until they finally split, he sent her letters on how she had to be around him. In many ways, that was the side of him that was quite cruel. But before, of course, whilst they’re still married, they lived in Bern, where through the good offices of a friend, he went to work in the patent office. And it’s there of course, he wrote the four papers that revolutionised modern physics.

And this is again a quote from Fritz Stern. “It was in this one year that a man of 26 years of age changed forever our view of the physical world.” And gradually he becomes to be recognised by all the scientists of the age as the great new thing. The great new thing. And then in 1908, he becomes an assistant lecturer at the University of Bern. In 1909, His work is, his work is spreading. He’s appearing in a lot of scientific papers. Later on, Edison takes the journey to the poll. And the headline was “Einstein Vindicated.” Now he, Professor Kleinert proposed that he should become an associate professor. And this is in Prague. Now, this is the proposal. He proposes that this professorship should be awarded to Einstein, quote, “who today ranks among the most important theoretical physicists. He has uncommon, sharp conception and pursuit of ideas, clarity and position of style. Kleinert’s colleagues, But they needed clarification. This is what they wrote back. "Here, Dr. Einstein is an Israelite. And since Israelites amongst scholars are ascribed in numerous cases, not without cause all kinds of unpleasant peculiarities of character, such as intrusiveness, impedance or a shopkeeper’s mentality in the perception of their academic position.” However, they decide to offer him a post. And he wrote, “ So now too, I’m a great school master, but I remain a simple man.” And he’s famous spreading max-planck in electric Colombia. He says this, “In its breath and profanity, this principle of relativity is comparable only to the revolution in the physical world occasion by the introduction of the Copernican system.” Now in 1910, a wealthy philanthropist, Franz Oppenheim gave him 5,000 marks a year for three years to allow him to concentrate.

And he becomes a full professor at the Carl Ferdinand University. But he doesn’t like it there. It’s full of racial tensions. Think about it. Prague, the third city of the Hapsburg Empire. He acquired a new assistant who wrote, “Einstein was completely alone in Prague. His intellectual milieu was completely Jewish. His fame grew and he became an international figure.” So basically in Prague, he and Mileva are incredibly unhappy. And yet in Prague, he mixes only with young Jews, acculturating Jews like himself, just as he did in, as he did in, when he was in Switzerland. And in 1914, he’s finally lured by Fritz Haber to the newly formed Kaiser Institute and Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, which had been funded by various plutocrats. Including Jewish plutocrats. It’s the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. It’s going to become the most important institute for sciences in the world. And it’s here, of course, that he develops a very close friendship with Fritz Haber. So can we go on to the next part? Yeah. Now let’s talk a little bit about Fritz Haber. He was born in Breslau in 1868. He dies in 1934. He came from a wealthy family. Both Haber and Rathenau come from wealthy, troubled families. Einstein, I hope I’ve given you the picture that he came from a very happy home. His father didn’t put much pressure on him. As Fritz Stern said, he was an amiable failure. Whereas with Haber’s father and with Rathenau’s father, you’re going to have people who put a lot of pressure on. He’s the, he’s the son of first cousins Siegfried. Think of the name Siegfried and Paula Haber. That was the name of his father, Siegfried. The father was a very, very important merchant working on dye pigment, pigments, paints and pharmaceuticals. The new world modernity.

Now, his mother died three weeks after his birth. And he had a very troubled relationship with his father who married again. And he got on very well with his half sisters. He went to a primary school that was mainly a Catholic school. And it’s then he goes on. His father had no problem sending- not sending him to schools which were primarily Christian. But they don’t go to synagogue but they are philanthropists to the Jewish community. He wanted, his father wanted him to go immediately into the business, but he wanted to study chemistry. He went to the University of Berlin. What is true of the three of them, they are all genius. They’re all incredibly smart. He was very disappointed with the tuition. So he moves to Heidelberg and he studied under Robert Bunsen. Those of you who studied even elementary science or know of the Bunsen burners. And then he returned to the technical university in Berlin. He then completed a year in the Sigfield artillery regiment. He received his doctorate cum laude. And he returned to Breslau but realised he wanted to know more and more. So he spent a term in Zurich. In his academic career, he was at the University of Jena. He decides to convert to Lutheranism to improve his chances of a better academic and military career. He doesn’t convert because he believes he converts because he falls in love with Prussia. And more and more research, He becomes a Professor Extraordinarious. And he publishes books on the cutting edge. 1906, professor in Karlsruhe. He goes to work with Bosch.

They create the Haber- Bosch process, which is a milestone in industrial chemistry. It’s nitrogen based products such as fertiliser, chemical feed stocks. It created much greater agricultural yields and actually has prevented billions of people starving to death. The food base for half the world was invented by the Haber-Bosch process. And it’s going to lead him to the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1918. In 1911 he goes to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. He actually sets it up. Now , I’m going to come back to him, but now I want to please turn to Walther Rathenau. Now I’m going to try and run the three of them together. Now Walther Rathenau. Another incredibly complicated family. His father, Emil, his dates are 1867 to 1922. His father Emil , wealthy Jewish family in Berlin. In fact, his grandparents had been part of the salon of Henriette Hertz. Do you remember? We looked at her a while back. I In 1865, his father, when a partner in a factory realised the possibilities of energy, electrical technology. And after the stock market crash of 1873, he’s in the great exhibition in Paris in 1881. He saw Thomas Edison’s invention and acquired the rights to manufacture products based on Edison with a huge bank loan. And by 1907, his company A A J, became the largest commercial company in Europe. And that is Rathenau’s father. The bank asked him to partner with his competitor, Werner von Siemens. Siemens would provide and sell generators and Rathenau would build power stations and lay the cables. 1884, Rathenau Sr. and the magistrates of Berlin signed an agreement for the electric vacation of Berlin City. And they got 10%, one of the richest men in the empire. He had married Mathilde Nachmann, the daughter of a Frankfurt banker, who really was the woman that Rathenau really loved. He had an incredibly complex family life. He was the younger of the two brothers. And tragically, his older brother died.

His mother absolutely doted on him. He was multi-talented. He was ambiguous about money, he was ambiguous about status and his Jewishness. When he was younger, he actually wrote a pamphlet called “Hear, O Israel!” and I’m going to read you a little bit. He was terribly troubled by his Jewishness. He doesn’t convert. “Let me confess at the outset. I’m a Jew.” And he goes on about the problem of being a Jew. And then he criticises the Jews. He says, “All you can ever do, we must not be Germans by imitation, but Jews of German character and education, look at yourselves in the mirror. That is the first step towards self-criticism. Nothing unfortunately can be done about the fact that all of you look frighteningly alike and that your individual vices are attributed to all of you.” And he talks about the fact that they are not erect like the great Prussian officers. And he says, “You rarely find a middle course between wheel wheedling, subservient, and vile arrogance.” Furthermore, he goes on to say, “Your women have forgotten their smile. Their laughter has become shrill and their beauty melancholy. If you understood their strange and exotic beauty, you would never choke it under bales of satin, clouds of lace, nests of diamonds.” Basically, he’s screaming out against what he saw was the new . Now he wrote, “I am a German of Jewish origin.

My people are the German people. My home is Germany. My faith is German faith, which studies stands above all denominations.” He wanted to learn business techniques. So he, he wanted to become, so he became a technical engineer. And because his brother had died, his father needed him in the business. So he joined the board of AJ in 1899. He was a brilliant entrepreneur. Within a decade, he’d established power stations. Remember, this is the modern world in Buenos Aires, Manchester, and in Baku, huge diversification. He has, I’m just giving you a few examples. He acquired a streetcar company in Madrid. He purchased British firms in East Africa. He was a brilliant company doctor. He could restructure and turn companies around. He increased standards in chemical development, such as the development of acetone. And he in the end was controlling 84 companies, wide world worldwide. He was also a talented writer and journalist. And he fearlessly exposes high level scandals. He is one of the richest men in the world. But he mixed in cosmopolitan circles of socialist writers. He’s very close to Albert Einstein. He had a very, very complicated private life. He was homosexual at a time when it was illegal and problematic. And he was attracted very much to the German officer class. And he, this is what Fritz Stern wrote of him. “He realised he’d come into this world as a second class citizen and almost no amount of ability could free him from it.” He was very troubled by the rise of racial antisemitism. Von Treitschke, who I mentioned to you last week, was the professor of history at the University of Berlin. All the general staff went to his lectures and he was the man who coined the phrase “The Jews are our misfortune.” So you can imagine how unhappy it made him, the officer class that he absolutely adored. Now, he mixed with the seriously wealthy. He also mixes with the cosmopolitans. There was no Jewish officers in the Prussian army because the Prussian officer class elected itself.

• On one level he loathed the militaristic state. But Rathenau, father and son, they do exemplify the network that existed between banking and industry. And he once wrote that there are 300 men all known to each other who control European business. He rather revelled in it. And later on, of course it’s going to come back and bite him. And when I talk about the protocols of the elder design, I’m sure many of you realise this, it all slips in together. So he’s a total paradox. He’s a captain of industry who excels in capitalism. He’s an employer of thousands who wants the emancipation of the workers. He worries about the materialism of modernity, which he identified with Jews. He was a complex, tortured creature. And he rejected conversion. He wasn’t a religious Jew, remember. He said it’s a form of opportunism. So he did, he dreamt of an international world. So that’s what so many marginal Jews found refuge in. If we lived in an international world, then our problem of identity would not really be so bad. And I think for those of us who live in Britain and America, it’s far, it’s quite difficult to actually understand this incredible tension of identity, which, you know, I’ve had the privilege over the years because I’ve mentioned this before. Because I taught in Hampstead in the seventies, I met many of these extraordinary German Jews or the children of. And this question of identity, it just didn’t resound in England to the same kind of level that it did in Germany or in the Hampstead Empire. He yet, at the same time of internationalism, he’s a proud German.

He called the Jews a people of fear who had only developed their intellectual faculties for their own protection. He even conducted an eight year correspondence course with a notorious antisemite. Robert Musil, the great writer used him as a, he used him as a character for Paul Arnheim, who’s the noble industrialist in “Man Without Qualities.” He had access to every circle, including the court. Kaiser Wilhelm II didn’t like Jews, but he didn’t mind rich Jews. He accompanied Germany’s colonial secretary, who was also a converted Jew to southwest Africa. And he often had conversations with Wilhelm the second. And yet at the same time he has friendships with Bohemians critics of the avant garde. He was one of the financiers and supporters of the German succession movement. He understood their fear of the spiritual decadence of modernity. So an incredible, incredible character. He befriended many poets. He was close to the incredible Max Reinhardt. Munche painted his portrait. He wrote philosophical essays. Now, let’s go on please. Yes, this is Einstein in middle-age and the next, can we see the next slide? There is the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, to which both, which Fritz Haber headed up and Einstein was lured to. And then war breaks out. In 1914, war breaks out. Can we, and, and what happens is, can we go on a slide please? Here you see Haber and Einstein. This is where they are diametrically opposed to each other. Einstein said the war was total madness. He was a pacifist. He was totally against it. Not only did Haber sign the petition of Fulda’s position, which I’m going to talk about What’s today? On Thursday, As I said, he joined the German army as an officer captain, and he was responsible for creating poison gas.

His wife was so distressed. His wife was an interesting woman. She was his first wife, was also a converted Jew, as was his second wife. They had a terrible quarrel and she committed suicide. Her 12 year old son found her. And a few days later, Haber went off to the front to practise on the, to practise with the troops on gassing experiments for the Russian front. Einstein and he didn’t speak for a long time. Einstein was absolutely horrified by this. But Haber, he said, “When your country is at war, you give everything to your country.” Now he’s the advisor. He actually set up a special troop in the German army for gas warfare. And he was an incredibly, he was, what can I say? He was a totally loyal German, and it’s quite his right. His first wife was actually an activist for female rights. She was, she was herself a very talented woman. But when she married, she gave it all up a desperately unhappy marriage, as was his second marriage. Now, can we go on please? When war broke out, although Rathenau loathes war, he does offer his services. Remember, he’s one of the most important industrialists in Germany. He offers his services to the to the German government. And he actually works on supply. And it’s been estimated, he probably kept Germany in the war six months longer than was necessary. He was brilliant at organisation. There, he leaves the, he leaves. There’s a sort of, there’s a real problem. And he leaves the army and he becomes more and more worried about the war. He, even just before the war, he’d warned against an aggressive foreign policy. He’d proposed back in 1913, a common economic market for the whole of Europe. In part to stave off the challenge from America. Remember, he believed that the solution to the Jew could be in internationalism. He was also very worried about the mediocrity of Germany’s political and military leadership. And he knew that his ability surpassed that of his fellows.

But his Jewishness held him back. Fritz Stern simply went as far as to say that Walther Rathenau really wanted to be the Jewish Israeli. His friends were aware of his intentions. And this is what Einstein said. “If one had offered Rathenau the post of Pope, he would’ve accepted. Technically, he would probably have done it quite well.” So he’s a fervent patriot. He’s opposed to the war. He had an idea of what modern welfare could be. And he warned the generals that a long war could be disastrous. And it was because of those warnings that he was brought in to deal with supply. He created these wartime enterprises. Private companies were charged with the production of specific goods. That’s exactly what America did in the second World War. That’s what made America so prosperous, ironically. When he resigned, he wrote in a private letter. “A private citizen, a Jew volunteered to help the state” and that would always be held against him. In 1915, his father died and he had to take over the chairmanship of AJ, which ironically made an absolute fortune out of the war. He was terrified by the outcome. He said this, “Mechanical things rule the world like a flock of sheep understanding nothing. We are driven into the unknown.” In 1917, he wrote a pamphlet called “Days to Come,” which was an attack on the Prussian nobility and their vulgar opulence. It sold 65,000 copies. He was begging for political reform. He dreamt of a free world. And in 1918, he writes a plea to Germany’s youth. “Realise the tasks that await you after the war, he’s going to become a target for the defeated right.” And after Versai, he founded the “League of Industry” as an offshoot of his internationalism.

He was one of the founders of the German Democratic Party. And the post-war chaos drove him even further to the left. He rejected state ownership of industry for greater work of participation. By 1920, Joseph Worth who was to the left of centre, is relying on him more and more. And he insisted he be added to the German delegation of the Spar conference, the discussion of repatriation, of reparations. His aim was to, because remember, he has a huge international reputation. His aim was to persuade the allies what Germany would comply to prevent the occupation of the rule. And it was in spar that another industrialist, Hugo Stumpf, who was very, he was a rejectionist. He said, “Rathenau has the soul of an alien race.” And Wentworth became chancellor. Despite huge opposition, he appointed Rathenau head of the Ministry of Reconstruction. And in January, 1922, he persuaded Rathenau to become the German foreign minister, even though both his mother and Einstein begged him not to do so. And he was, terrified for German science. He said, “and what was left of Germany’s greatness.” He spoke of the barely controlled destructive powers, which stir beneath the surface. He was bitter about what he called the allies vengeance. He said it was crap stupidity. But he wanted, he was a pragmatist. The right wing press, or he does a deal with the Soviets. The right wing press are having a field day. “Kill Walther Rathenau, the goddamn Jewish sal.” And by 1921, in Theodore Fritz’s hammer in Munich, he’s the representative of satanic people. “How long before we have Walther, the first of the dynasty of Abraham? The day is coming when the wheel of world history will put in reverse to roll over the course of the great financiers.”

And his accompanist is Fritz. Fritz goes as far as to say. That later on he’s a big supporter of the Nazi party as the man behind Bolshevism, even in Russia. Can we go on please? Now this is the, this is the horror of the First World War that so horrified Einstein and Rathenau. Can we go on please? Again, the war to end all wars, which just showed the destructive instincts of man. And as I said, I’ve said to this to you many times, if you want to understand the 20th century, you’ve got to understand the first World War. If you want to understand the 21st century, you’ve got to go back to this. There are so many lessons in these three people’s lives. Can we go on please? There you see Haber on the western front instructing German soldiers in the use of chlorine gas, the great patriot. Yes, go on please. This is Einstein at the end of the war, Einstein absolutely loathed, loathed the war. By the end of the war, he is becoming one of the most important scientists in the world. But when he gives lectures, he is barracked by the right because they see him as a Jew and as a socialist. Now Einstein, Einstein’s life becomes more and more complicated. Can you go on please? He becomes very close to Chaim Weizmann, another scientist. And he goes on a fundraising tour with him because after all, he said the Jews have got to have a state of their own. He becomes more and more interested in Zionism. And he of course is on the board of the Hebrew University. And he gives an, he gives the inaugural electorate at the Hebrew University. He goes on this huge funded raising tour of America, one the most famous scientists in the world. And he, although he’s an internationalist when it comes to the Jews, he said, we must have our own country. He was not uncritical, but he’s passionate about his Zionism. Haber begged him not to be involved.

Now, Haber invites him Haber and Einstein were very close. The real reason they were very close was when he was going through his terrible divorce from Mileva, he stayed with the Habers and it was Haber who went to the station with him in 1914 when Mileva and his two sons went off to Switzerland where she spent the war. Tragically, one of his sons had a complete nervous breakdown and was in a mental hospital most of his life. His other son became a professor. Einstein, you know, it’s interesting. Great men who do great things, their private lives are quite often, shall I put put it this way, they were complicated. Can we go on please, Judy? Now what happens is Walther Rathenau, foreign minister is driving from his home in Vannsee when a group of assassins, he’s driving in an open top car. There have been many threats against his life. He dismisses them all and he is shot. Can we see the next slide, please? He’s murdered. And here you see the state’s funeral of Walther Rathenau. And not only is he murdered, but the day after the deutschemark absolutely plunged. This is what Robert Boothby wrote of him, the British politician. “He was something only a German, a German Jew could be. Simultaneously a prophet and philosopher and a mystic. A writer and a statesman, an industrial magnet of the highest and greatest order, and the pioneer of what has become known as industrial rationalisation.” Stefan Zweig. The great Stefan Zweig.

And if, and I must keep reminding you to read “The World of Yesterday,” he was on vocation when he read of the death of his friend. Of course, he was part of that world. Zweig was a fascinating character. He was part of the Vienna Circle. He was close to Theodore Herzl, although he was not in favour of Zionism, but he was a close friend of Rathenau and of Einstein. And this is what he writes. “Now the real witches Sabbath of inflation started. To repair a broken window now cost more than a whole house would’ve cost before the inflation. A single book now cost more than a printing company with a hundred presses. Unemployment grows worse. People shake their fists at the profiteers and foreigners in their luxurious cars who brought whole rows of streets like a box of matches. Men align themselves with any slogan that promised order.” Now, after Rathenau’s assassination, the German police actually cautioned Einstein to leave Berlin for his own safety. He wrote to his sister, “I’m very reclusive here without noise and without unpleasant feelings. I’m earning my money independent of the state so I’m really a free man.” And also, he at this time joined a League of Nations initiative to promote relations between artists and scientists, which led of course to those incredible letters between Freud and Einstein on the need for war. Why do we have to go to war? And if you could find them on the net. Actually unfortunately, they were published in 1932 and it was too late that 1933 came to pass. This was a letter he wrote in 1921.

“I’m really doing everything I can for brothers of my race who are treated so badly everywhere.” So basically, Rathenau is assassinated. Can we go on the next slide, please? There is Vannsee. And the reason I want you to see Vannsee is that it’s beautiful. It’s about half an hour from Berlin. It’s where the rich had their villas. There’s a wonderful lake. And of course it’s infamous today because of the Vannsee house. But the great German artist Rathenau Great German artist, Liebermann had a home there. Rathenau had a home there, and it was a great place to be. Can we see another picture of Vannsee? There, you see the lake. Later on It was completely defiled, of course, by the, by the Nazis. The Vannsee house, where the final solution was written down, was actually a rest and recuperation home for the S-S. It was the home of a magnate that had been taken over by the state. Late Vannsee, extraordinary. I’ve always been fascinated by the juxtaposition of beauty and evil, and that’s where you really see it. Can we go on please, Judy? Now ,I’m going to talk a little bit more about Haber. Haber, of course, was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute during the twenties. Einstein travelled more and more and more, and of course became involved in all sorts of civil rights movements in the States. He is spending more and more time away from Germany. He has a boat. He loves sailing. He marries his cousin. He had very strange relations with women. He, no, I’m not going to go down that route. You can read the biographies. But he married his cousin who proved to be a much better mate for him. Anyway, Fritz Haber is in Germany. In 1933, Hitler comes to par. He is put in the extraordinary position of having to sack Jewish colleagues. So many of the physicists in Germany were of course, born Jewish.

And Hitler was only concerned about blood, not about belief. Now why wasn’t he sacked? Because, whilst Hindenburg, the President of the Republic was still alive, anyone who had awarded the Iron Cross in the First World War, be they Jew or Gentile, was safe. So Fritz Haber was not dismissed, but he was put in the position of having to dismiss many of his colleagues. And finally, of course, 1934 Hindenburg dies. And he, you know, the great winner of the Nobel Prize, the great Haber, who gave everything to the German war efforts, sold his soul to the devil, some might say. Ironically, one of the other products that his firm produced was Zyklon B, the pesticide, which later on was used in the gas chambers. Now, Einstein wrote to him a very cynical letter. “Why did you hold the blonde beast so close?” In the end, he’s heartbroken but he decides to accept a post where it’s his friend Weizmann, who he’d always quarrelled with over Zionism, not wanted Einstein to become involved. It is him. It’s Weizmann who offers Haber a place in Rehovot. In what later on, of course, after Weizmann’s death, it was the Sieff Institute. And after his death becomes the Weizmann Institute. He dies tough. He dies in Switzerland of a heart attack. Some might say a broken heart. Einstein, in 1933, the Nazis put a price on his head. So he’s in America and he goes to Princeton and of course he has the incredible glittering career, and he finally becomes an American citizen. Later on he is offered the presidency of the state of Israel, which he refuses because he said he’s not a public man. This was after Weizmann’s death. But although he was not in favour of many aspects of what happened in part in Israel, he was a Zionist all his life.

And he was very involved in all sorts of civil rights movements. And during the war he was, in the thirties, he also raised money for all sorts of charities to help refugees. When Russia joined, well after the Molotov ribbon trough packed and Russia joined the war, or rather the Nazis invaded Russia, Stalin sent members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee to America to raise money. And Einstein hosted the meeting. So he was always involved in issues of refugees. He was very much in favour of helping what was then called the coloured people of America. Interesting how words change, isn’t it? Karl Popper, another Middle European who finished up at LSC. He said the 20th century will not be about philosophy, it will be about the meaning of words and the changes in the meaning of words. So, but he was, he was a friend of Paul Robeson. He was a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt. He was an incredible character. One thing he did do that was controversial, he did write letters on the suggestion of Leo Szilard, another brilliant scientist; the man who had the chain reaction moment in London to write to Roosevelt to tell him to get the bomb first. He wasn’t involved in Los Alamos, but it was probably his stamp that put Roosevelt on the way. Later on he saw the destructiveness of it all, but he was terrified that Hitler would get the bomb first. So, I’ve just given you a sketch of three incredible characters, which gives you a notion of exactly what the, what can I say about German and Austrian Jewry? Will we ever see their like again? But all the tensions of belonging and not belonging and at the same time huge contributors in their own way to the societies they came from and yet disgorged. Rathenau is assassinated as an elder of Zion on mid-summer by a maniac group called the Thule Society, who believed in Nordic sun Gods. He was sacrificed as a sacrifice to the Nordic sun God. Rathenau. I’ll finish there. Thanks, Judy. Let’s have a look at questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Oh Rose is saying, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Yes, I love that.

Noah is recommending “Rathenau” by Professor Shulamit Volkov. Thank you Noah.

Rita, “ My late brother introduced me to Einstein when I was 15 years old, changed my life.” Jean is giving us an article on Einstein’s first wife.

“And thank you for providing the links,” Says Rita.

Yes, of course. Yes, yes. Haber did invent chlorine gas.

A E J did I pronounce it wrong, Peter? Yes, Haber was the one who created poison gas and it was it was Zyklon B, which his company also produced.

Albert Einstein documentary. There was also a series, was it, I can’t remember what it was called. Was it called “Genius?” I don’t know if you can still get it. It was, it was lots of episodes. It was faction but brilliant.

Tim says, “All the men have a moustache.” It was fashion at the time.

Q: “Were there no Jewish families that part were Jewish and part French and had family identity crisis? After all, both German and French Jews were lovers of modernity.”

A: Yes. A lot of French. There was a huge crisis of identity in France. Yes, of course. Particularly at the time of the Dreyfus affair. Look, the French Jews, there were only a hundred thousand of them in 1900 they gave to France. Read Proust. And if you want to know about alienated Jewish identity.

“How to remain a Jew,” says Monty. “What is the one thing we can learn from history of German Jewry to do so?”

Pamela says, “The mustard gas used and was nothing to do with gas. No, I know Pamela, but his company developed both. That’s the point. He made - Zyklon B was a pesticide that was made by the company. Remember they’re trying to feed the world. And tragically it was later used quite deliberately by the Nazis because they are to use that. I mean, I’m going to use language that upsets my, they were extirpating vermin.

Q: Though antisemitism is international, why are German speakers so good in it?

A: Ah, that’s a very interesting question and I think it’s because Germany was unified late. Germany had an insecure nationalism. And the Jews and but if it hadn’t been for World War I and everything that happened, anti-Semitism was actually slightly declining before World War I. But I will be addressing this.

Q: Was the pre-War II owner of Vannsee Jewish?

A: No I don’t believe he was, but I’ll check that for you.

Q: Why were there so many German geniuses who were so interested in modernity?

A: Yeah, but there were French geniuses as well. I think it was in Germany though, it was more. And Jews working in the German language. If you can come up with the answer, you would certainly win a prize from Lockdown University. I think there are lots of there are lots and lots of reasons. It’s, look, what was it? What was it? Heiner said in one of his good days, the two ethical nations, the Jews and the Germans can create a new Jerusalem.

"On the meaning of words,” says Myrna, I’ve just finished an article in this issue of the Atlantic on the case against euphemism. Do you have a crystal ball? My children believe I do. Perhaps the love of enlightenment plus Germany was truly denial of reality. I don’t want to believe the enlightenment is over. I want to believe it will come back. Those ideas of education and cultivation, I really think, look, think what Einstein said. He blamed the German education system. I really think, if you want to know what our, if I’ve acquired any knowledge in my lifetime of being involved in education, I think we have to rethink what we mean by education. And that’s across the board. National Geographic offered “Genius” and not sure if it’s still being offered. If you can get hold of it it is wonderful.

Q: Would Germany have won World War II if it hadn’t persecuted Jews?

A: Sharon, that is a terrifying question that I’m not in a position to answer.

Certainly, the 90% of the physicists at Los Alamos were of Jewish birth. Many of them were Hungarians, by the way, Hungarian Jews like the genius Johnny von Neumann. Yes, I didn’t mention that. Susan, thank you for bringing that. The Hebrew U. is is building the Einstein building. Yes. He left his papers to the Hebrew U. Einstein left Europe by Albania. Yeah, we talked about that, didn’t we? With the Albanian prime minister.

“Having just returned from visit to the Hebrew University, I was allowed into the library of Einstein where all these books can be seen. I can recommend.” Thank you Peter. How are you Peter?

“I’ve just finished reading, This is from Mark, "Hitler’s Willing Executioners” by Daniel Goldhagen which explores why average Germans so easily became killers of Jews.“ Yes, Mark, we sometimes have to leave history for psychology. Totally agree. To add Einstein honorary president of the National Conference in Paris of the Union for the protection of the wellbeing of the Jewish population, wrote to urging Turkey to give sanctuary and research facilities to 40 German Jewish scientists who have been removed from their work in the rise of Martin.

Yes. He was incredible. He did so much, Josie. He tried. He tried. He tried. But there were other people, you know, there were a couple of British scientists who were in Vienna when, when Hitler came to power and they started lobbying to get as many German scientists to England as soon as possible. And many other Jewish academics. The trouble was in the end, they had to save everybody and that’s the problem. Einstein could get a job. What about all those ordinary folk who couldn’t make it? I think that’s actually it, Jude.

• [Judi Ferreira] Trudy, I will speak to you later. Thanks everybody. Bye-bye.

• God bless.