- Elsa Einstein was Albert Einstein’s cousin and second wife.
- They married in 1919 after divorcing their first spouses.
- Elsa played a supportive role in Albert’s life and work.
Elsa Einstein was Albert Einstein’s cousin and his second wife; she was born on January 18, 1876 in Hechingen, and died on December 20, 1936, in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Originally, Elsa was known as “Elsa Einstein”. She adopted Max Löwenthal’s surname after their first marriage. Albert Einstein, her second husband, helped her return to her birth name.
The Early Life of Elsa Einstein
Elsa Einstein was born to Jewish parents, Rudolf and Fanny Einstein (née Koch). Paula (1878–1955) and Hermine (1872–1942) were her sisters, and she was born in Hechingen at Schlossstrasse 16. Her dad, Rudolf Einstein, was a partner in the B. Baruch & Söhne cotton weaving plant in Hechingen. Fanny, Elsa’s mother, was the sister of Pauline Einstein (née Koch), Albert’s mother. Hermann Einstein, the forefather of electrical engineering and the actual father of Albert, was a distant relative of Elsa’s father.
Elsa and Albert Einstein have been friends for a very long time. Born in Ulm, Albert’s family moved to Italy and Switzerland while he was still a baby. Albert and Elsa, who was three years his junior, often engaged in games where Elsa called him “Albertle.” Albert and Elsa lost touch when Albert left Munich to join his family in Milan and study for the Zurich Polytechnic entrance exam in 1894. About Elsa’s own schooling at Hechingen in Germany, nobody knows anything.
Elsa’s Marriage to Max Löwenthal
Elsa married the Buttenhausen-born textile entrepreneur Max Löwenthal (1864–1914) in 1896. They had two daughters, Ilse (1897–1934), who married Rudolf Kayser, and Margot (1899–1986), who lived with them in Hechingen. A boy born as the third child in 1903 unfortunately passed away soon after birth. Max Löwenthal moved to Berlin for work a full year before the last child was born. His loved ones stayed in Hechingen. But Elsa later divorced him in 1908, although she kept the Löwenthal surname at first.
Elsa, a divorcee with two kids, and her family resided in a Berlin apartment on the fifth story of a luxury building in the Bavarian Quarter (Haberlandstrasse 5). Her parents lived in the same apartment. Elsa’s parents, Rudolf and Fanny Einstein, had moved to Berlin from Hechingen in 1910, bringing with them Albert’s mother, Pauline Einstein. However, due to financial difficulties with her brother-in-law, Rudolf Einstein, she accepted work as a housekeeper in Heilbronn in 1911 at the urging of her son, Albert Einstein.
Elsa and her cousin Albert hadn’t seen each other since they were kids in Munich, but that all changed in the spring of 1912 when Albert visited Berlin. Both the University of Prague and the ETH Zurich included Albert Einstein among their full professorial ranks beginning in 1911. He resided there with his wife and classmate, Mileva Maric, a mathematician and physicist, and their two children. In the meantime, he agreed with his mother that his marriage to Mileva was a mistake, and he prepared himself for their inevitable separation and divorce. This decision made the mother Pauline fairly happy since Maric was neither a Jewish nor a “housewife”.
Elsa and Einstein Flirting
Around 1912, the married 33-year-old Einstein started dating his divorced cousin Elsa, who was three years older than him. Elsa Löwenthal sent a birthday letter to Albert at the ETH Physics Institute on March 14, 1913, for his 34th birthday. There were more letters exchanged in private. Elsa thought it was appropriate to give her lover some personal hygiene utensils during Einstein’s visit to Berlin at the end of September 1913, but he refused, saying,
“… if I am so unappetizing to you, then look for a friend more palatable to female tastes.”
When Max Planck offered Albert Einstein a position in Berlin in 1914, he jumped at the chance, and not only because it put him closer to Elsa.
In the spring of 1914, Einstein moved to Berlin with his family, which included his wife Mileva and their two kids. Einstein pushed them apart, so they returned to Zurich at the end of July. For Einstein, the breakup was complete at that point. His wife, Mileva, on the other hand, spent years wavering between optimism and pessimism. She was the mother of their three children (one was her, and two were born during their marriage, Eduard and Hans Albert), and she had worked with him on his theory of relativity.
They divorced at the end of 1914. Einstein moved into a smaller, more centrally situated apartment in Kurfürstendamm and had most of the furniture sent back to Switzerland. 15 minutes of walking separated Elsa’s and the Einsteins’ houses in the Bayerisches Viertel. Einstein said:
“I’m very happy with the separation, even though I rarely hear from my boys. The peace and serenity of mind do me immensely good, no less than the really nice relationship with my cousin.”
Einstein, then just 38 years old, was critically sick at the start of 1917, during the interim period before the ultimate divorce, which was not completed until 1919. A regimen of food and rest helped him recover from stomach pain. A succession of diseases, varied in severity, plagued Einstein during the following four years. He began spending a lot of time in 1917 at Elsa’s flat on Haberlandstrasse 5. While Einstein was on vacation in Hechingen, Elsa had planned this move beforehand.
From Berlin, Einstein made two further attempts to divorce Mileva in 1915 and 1918; he promised to give her the Nobel Prize money if he won, among other things. At the Zurich District Court on February 14, 1919, the couple filed for divorce, citing a difference in their personalities.
The Marriage of Elsa and Albert Einstein
Einstein traveled to the Berlin registrar office on June 2, 1919, to marry his cousin Elsa, despite the Zurich District Court’s two-year marital prohibition set in the divorce judgment. Elsa’s children, Ilse and Margot, have adopted their mother’s maiden name Einstein and refer to their great-uncle as Albert inside the family and Father Albert while addressing outsiders.
Elsa was still a lovely, vibrant lady who enjoyed life and was open to the attention her husband’s celebrity brought her. It wasn’t unusual for women to bloom when called Frau Professor back then. However, there was also a great deal of criticism floating around in Berlin’s academic community. When people didn’t appreciate Einstein’s public demeanor, they often pointed the blame at his wife, claiming that she was too shallow to realize that he was a celebrity.
Elsa Einstein, on the other hand, worked hard to make their home a place where Albert could recover from his illness and produce his best work. She went on all of his excursions with him. In 1929, she was the one who spearheaded the effort to build their summer retreat in Caputh, not far from Potsdam. The burden of being her husband’s shield from the public eye, as Elsa Einstein explained it in her initial chat with the country house’s architect Konrad Wachsmann in September 1929, was a heavy one.
Elsa, too, felt the effects of her husband’s infidelity. She became cold, especially after being shown proof. On the other hand, she did not like to be separated from Albert. According to their architect Konrad Wachsmann, the Einsteins were generally happy with one another.
However, visitors to Einstein’s house could not help but note that he and his wife had an oddly distant connection. Mrs. Einstein was there, but not physically present. Albert Einstein continued to have romances with beautiful women after his flirting with Betty Neumann ended in 1924. Elsa figured out how to cope with it. She was successful in part due to her positive outlook on life.
Elsa also thrived while she was at Albert Einstein’s side, acting as his manager in many respects. Elsa was a superior English speaker when compared to Einstein. Since Einstein was not good with money, Elsa handled most of the couple’s financial matters. Elsa Einstein and her parents both lost their personal fortunes during the financial crisis in the Weimar Republic (1914–1923).
In accordance with the terms of his divorce settlement, Albert Einstein transferred his 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics earnings to a trustee account in Zurich and split the proceeds with his ex-wife, Mileva. Only in 1929, when he built a vacation home in Caputh, close to Potsdam, was he able to fulfill his own desires, such as having a house on a lake with a sailboat.
A New Beginning in the United States
Due to Hitler‘s ascension to power, Albert and Elsa Einstein left Germany for Princeton, New Jersey, in 1933. Ilse, Elsa’s daughter, became very sick in 1934. Elsa was planning a trip to Europe in the middle of May that year, and Einstein followed her there before abandoning her. She was unable to stop her daughter’s death in Paris. Ilse (37) was cremated and buried in Holland in August. Rudolf Kayser, Ilse’s spouse, had written a biography of his father-in-law Einstein under a pen name in 1930; he, too, had immigrated to the United States in 1935.
Even when she and Albert moved into their beautiful Princeton home at 112 Mercer Street in August 1935, Elsa couldn’t shake the idea that she wouldn’t have much time to appreciate it. Because the swelling in her eye was the first sign of far more significant issues with her kidneys and blood flow.
A harsh winter followed, and spending the summer in the Adirondack Mountains at Saranac Lake in upstate New York, where the weather is mild, provided only temporary reprieve. Elsa said that in the months that followed, Einstein spent his days completely feeling down because of his worry for his wife. Elsa said that she was surprised by how devoted Einstein became to her. At age 60, Elsa Einstein passed away on December 20, 1936, in her Princeton home.
Albert Einstein, in a letter to Michele Besso‘s son written shortly before his own death, reflected on his friend: “But what I admired most about him (Besso) is the fact that he managed to live for many years not only in peace but even in permanent consonance with a woman—an endeavor in which I twice failed quite ignominiously.”
References
- Digital Einstein Papers Home (princeton.edu)
- The collected papers of Albert Einstein – Google Books
