Tag: einstein family

Hans Albert Einstein: The Story of Einstein’s First Son
October 30, 2023
Bernhard Caesar Einstein: One of Einstein’s Three Grandsons
- Grandson of Albert Einstein, son of Hans Albert Einstein.
- Raised in Switzerland and the United States
- Married Doris Aude Ascher and had five children.
- Worked in electronics and specialized in night vision technology.
Bernhard Caesar Einstein (1930–2008), the son of Hans Albert Einstein, was a German-American engineer. Only three of Albert Einstein‘s grandchildren are known to exist, and Bernhard Caesar was the only one to reach adulthood. Bernhard was also a physicist, albeit not quite as accomplished as his grandfather had been. Like his grandfather, father, and grandmother, Mileva Maric, before him, he majored in physics at Switzerland’s prestigious ETH (Federal Institute of Technology) in Zurich. His father, Hans Albert, died in 1973 and was buried in Massachusetts.
His Early Years
Bernhard with his father Hans and grandfather Albert Einstein (late 1930s).
Hans Albert was working on a bridge project in Dortmund, Germany, when Bernhard was born on July 10, 1930. His half-Jewish family gave Bernhard a Germanic name (bern, “bear” + hard, “hardy”) and a Latin name after Julius Caesar. His uncle, Eduard Einstein, suffered from schizophrenia and died that year.
Bernhard Caesar had two brothers. His first brother, Klaus Martin, was born in 1932 but died at age 6 of diphtheria. The second is Evelyn, who was born in 1941 and adopted by the family. His mother, Frieda Knecht, died in 1958, and then his father remarried Elizabeth Roboz, a neuroscientist, with whom he had no children.
Before his family relocated to South Carolina when he was eight years old, Bernhard was pretty much raised in Switzerland. Since Hans Albert was a lecturer at the California Institute of Technology, Bernhard spent most of his adolescence there and at Berkeley.
Meeting with Albert Einstein
Bernhard Caesar Einstein (11) and Albert Einstein in 1941. (Photo: Leo Baeck Institute, F 5373E.)
When Bernhard was two years old, he met his legendary grandpa Albert Einstein for the first time. The Einstein dynasty vacationed at Saranac Lake, New York, and New Jersey during this brief period. Einstein often went boating and sailing with his grandson, just like he did with his stepdaughter, Ilse Einstein (1897–1934).
According to Bernhard, Einstein did not approve of fishing as a recreational activity and thought fish should only be taken for consumption:
“Grandfather would only allow me to go fishing if I ate all the fish I caught, so I caught one fish early in the morning and ate it for breakfast.”
Einstein was notoriously quiet throughout the sails. He found the tranquility appealing and said that it posed the greatest challenge to sailors. In the three hours they were out, they managed to cover just around 0.6 miles.
Albert Einstein even gave his grandson his violin since the great physicist was a die-hard violin fan and he knew how much the young man would enjoy playing it. In addition, Einstein handed Bernhard some money during his visit. However, Einstein is known to have left most of his wealth and property to Jerusalem University upon his death in 1955 to facilitate scientific research.
Academic Pursuits
Concerned about the emergence of Nazi Germany, Albert Einstein urged his grandson Hans Albert to follow in his footsteps and leave Germany for the United States in 1933. Bernhard obtained a number of patents in electronics during his time as an engineer with Texas Instruments and Litton Industries after studying at UC Berkeley and ETH Zurich. Together, he and his wife, Doris Aude Ascher, had a brood of five kids.
What Did Bernhard Achieve?
Bernhard Einstein was likely very bright, but not as successful as either his father Hans or grandfather Albert. Even if some of Albert’s descendants had inherited his intelligence, they still wouldn’t have been Albert Einstein. He was built differently.
In the sphere of engineering, Bernhard Caesar Einstein contributed to the development of electron tube technology. His research centered on ways to improve night vision through the use of amplified light. While at Litton Industries, he submitted four patents to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for this technique. These patents have provided a guide to the evolution of night vision technology and have broader implications for the electronics industry. No particular prizes or recognitions obtained by him are known to have been made public.
Bernhard also sent a letter to Belgian documentary director Françoise Wolff, recounting his grandfather’s recollections. The letter was used as the introduction to a film released in 1998.
Meeting the Love of His Life
Bernhard met Doris Aude Ascher while he was stationed in southern Germany with the United States Army. Doris’ mother was a primary school teacher, Elsa Schüt, and his father was a prisoner of war in World War I. The father had studied zoology, mathematics, and botany and received a doctorate in 1923. Bernhard said that the army gave him “self-discipline.”
His Children
More than twenty great-great-grandchildren of Albert Einstein have been produced by his five great-grandchildren.
Doris Aude Ascher, born in 1930, had been Bernhard Caesar Einstein’s first and only wife until her death in 2008, the same year as Bernhard’s death on September 30. In 1954, they tied the knot and raised five children as a couple. Bernhard named one of his children “Eduard” after his uncle, who died from schizophrenia.
1. Thomas Martin Einstein (Swiss, b. 1955)
2. Paul Michael Einstein (Swiss, b. 1959)
3. Eduard Albert “Ted” Einstein (Dallas, Texas, b. 1961)
4. Mira Einstein-Yehieli (Los Angeles, b. 1965)
5. Charles Quincy Ascher “Charly” Einstein (American, b. 1971)
Bernhard Einstein’s children have taken divergent career paths. Dr. Thomas Martin Einstein operates an outpatient surgical center in the greater Los Angeles region. He provides anesthetic services to California’s plastic, dental, and oral surgeons. Currently residing in the south of France, Paul Michael Einstein is a classical violinist. In Los Angeles, Eduard Albert “Ted” Einstein owns and operates a furniture shop. There is also a Switzerland-based musician and telemarketing business partner, Mira Einstein-Yehieli, who lives in Israel with her family. Lastly, Charles Einstein now works as a spokesman for a major Swiss hospital.
Featured Image: Thomaseinstein, CC BY-SA 3.0, edited from original
October 2, 2023
Ilse Einstein: Einstein Liked to Marry His Fiancé’s Daughter
- Einstein contemplated marrying his future stepdaughter, Ilse, in 1918.
- Ilse Einstein considered Albert more of a father figure.
- Einstein later saw Ilse and Margot as his own daughters.
Although Albert Einstein spent the years 1914–1918 working tirelessly on his groundbreaking theory of relativity, his personal life was becoming more complex. Einstein’s thinking of marrying his cousin-wife Elsa‘s daughter Ilse in 1918 is interesting on its own. Ilse Einstein (1897–1934) was the daughter of Elsa and her previous husband, Max Löwenthal. In 1919, she became the stepdaughter of Albert Einstein, then a nationally renowned figure.
Background to the Story
Elsa married the Berlin textile merchant Max Loewenthal (1864–1914) in 1896. Ilse (1897–1934) and Margot (1899–1986) were born and raised in Hechingen. Max Loewenthal moved to Berlin for professional reasons in 1902. Their home was in Hechingen. In 1903, they had a son, but he passed away shortly after birth. Elsa moved to Berlin’s Haberlandstrasse 5 with her two daughters after her marriage ended in 1908. Around 1912, she and Albert Einstein, childhood cousins, began dating in Berlin.
Ilse’s mother Elsa, and Albert Einstein.
When Einstein confessed his feelings for Ilse, his fiancée’s daughter, in the spring of 1918, the twenty-year-old lady was thrown into a state of confusion. She sent a personal letter to her family’s friend, Georg Nicolai, explaining her predicament and asking for guidance.
“I have never felt the desire or the slightest desire to be physically close to him.”
Ilse confessed to Nicolai in May 1918.
Einstein’s Complex Relationships
At the age of 38, Einstein had relocated to Berlin in 1919 and divorced Mileva in preparation for his upcoming marriage to his cousin Elsa. Einstein’s assistant at the time was Ilse, Elsa’s oldest daughter, and Albert was already engaged to Elsa.
After a playful remark turned into a serious proposal from Einstein to marry his secretary and future stepdaughter Ilse, instead of her mother, Ilse wrote to her close friend Georg Nicolai for advice, with a note “destroy after reading.” Nicolai had been her ex-lover.
Picture shows Ilse Einstein sailing. She went on a boat trip with her husband, her mother, and her stepfather Einstein. (Image: Leo Baeck Institute, F 38590)
Einstein told Ilse that he loved her, but she didn’t openly return her sentiments (or it was never documented). It was because of this that Einstein was thinking of ending his engagement to his cousin Elsa right away.
However, it appears that she loved Einstein as a father figure, and she had no interest in having a sexual relationship with him. Fortunately for Albert, there is no indication that their relationship has progressed any further. Months later, Einstein married Elsa, and Ilse later married Rudolf Kayser in 1924.
Ilse Einstein died of tuberculosis either in 1933 or 1934. Only two years later, Rudolf married Eva Urgiss. Rudolf also wrote a biography of Albert.
Ilse’s Conflicted Emotions
While Ilse held Einstein in a place of near-paternal regard, she did not want to develop romantic feelings for him since she considered herself too young for such a relationship. Albert was 18 years older than Ilse, and Ilse was 20 or 21 years old at the time. However, such an age difference in marriage was not uncommon at the time, and Ilse’s ex-lover, Georg Nicolai, was also older than her.
From the letters sent by Ilse, her mother Elsa was also willing to give up her position of marriage to Einstein if it would make Ilse happy.
Einstein’s Marital Dynamics
Albert Einstein’s house in Berlin, Caputh. (Photo, Stephan M. Höhne, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Beyond his scientific genius, Einstein was a complex man who had complicated relationships with various women. This can be understood in various ways; his daughter Lieserl Einstein was kept hidden from the public for 85 years, and Evelyn Einstein was possibly Albert’s out-of-wedlock daughter from an alleged New York ballet.
The Einsteins created a loving family unit with their stepdaughters, Ilse and Margot. Albert raised Ilse and Margot as his own, despite the fact that he and Elsa never had any biological children. They were Berliners who bought a vacation home in Caputh, a suburb of Potsdam, in 1929. During that time, Ilse appears to continue to work as Einstein’s secretary.
However, the vacation house’s architect, Konrad Wachsmann, later reported that there were also recurring scenes of jealousy involving Elsa, where she even mentioned a separation from Albert. But Elsa eventually came to terms with her husband’s behavior. She later explained her predicament:
“It’s not ideal to be the wife of a genius. Your life is not yours to control. It appears to be shared property.”
Elsa was by Einstein’s side until the day she passed away in 1936.
September 30, 2023
Rudolf Einstein: Einstein’s Father-in-Law and Uncle
September 30, 2023
Evelyn Einstein: Einstein’s Grandchild and Alleged Daughter
- Evelyn Einstein, allegedly Albert Einstein’s granddaughter, was adopted by Hans Albert Einstein.
- She struggled with poverty despite her famous lineage.
- Einstein’s hidden letters caused family disputes.
Adopted by Albert Einstein, Evelyn Einstein was born on March 28, 1941, and passed away on April 13, 2011. She said she was Albert Einstein’s and a ballet dancer’s daughter. Hans Albert Einstein and Frieda, née Knecht, adopted Evelyn shortly after her birth. The University of California, Berkeley awarded her a master’s degree in medieval literature, after which she worked as a cult deprogrammer, a police officer, and a dog catcher.
Evelyn Einstein’s Life
Evelyn was adopted by Hans Einstein and his first wife, Frieda Einstein, after her birth in Chicago, USA, in 1941. Bernhard Caesar Einstein was the eldest of the three boys in the family, and he was Evelyn Einstein’s brother. Her other two brothers died while they were children. Evelyn’s mother was 16 when she gave birth to her, according to Chicago records.
Evelyn had a Master of Arts degree from UC Berkeley, read Shakespeare in German, and was fluent in four or five languages, which were more indicative of her Einstein DNA than her biological mother’s. At the age of 18, she was part of a group of child rights campaigners in San Francisco who were detained.
She had a 13-year marriage to the ‘famous’ anthropology professor Grover Krantz before divorcing and falling into abject poverty. Krantz was a peculiar anthropologist from Washington State who was determined to provide conclusive evidence for the existence of Bigfoot.
After ending her marriage (1964-1977), Evelyn was pretty much alienated from her father Hans and his second wife Elizabeth Roberts. According to her, her adoptive family treated her with contempt and lacked respect for her.
Living in the Streets
Hans and Elizabeth allegedly did not provide Evelyn Einstein with significant financial support despite her medical expenses. Evelyn had become so poor after her divorce that she had to spend months sleeping in her vehicle and eating scraps from the garbage. But she refused to panhandle for money. With some friendly help, she later found jobs as a Berkeley animal control officer and an auxiliary police officer.
She helped unearth Albert Einstein’s private letters at Berkeley in the 1980s. After successfully suing Einstein’s estate for shares in 1996, she subsequently lost a legal battle against the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for further rights. Allen P. Wilkinson started working on her autobiography in the weeks leading up to her death.
Evelyn as the Alleged Daughter of Einstein
Suspecting that she was the illegitimate second daughter of the Nobel laureate, Evelyn Einstein claimed to be the daughter of Albert Einstein. She claimed that the famed scientist, in order to prevent a scandal, gave her up for adoption by Hans, his biological son. In 1941, when she was born, Albert was 62 years old.
To Evelyn, the story that she was “grandpa’s” illegitimate daughter from an affair with a ballet dancer was told to her as a youngster and stuck. She said that this was proven when she learned that Frieda (her stepmother) had informed the headmaster at her Swiss boarding school that she and Hans had adopted her as a favor to Albert Einstein.
Historians on the great physicist have long believed that Einstein had an affair with a New York ballet dancer. Experts never completely dismissed this possibility, given that Einstein was notoriously unfaithful to his wife Elsa, and she was well aware of it.
As evidence for her claim, Evelyn Einstein said her adoptive parents had not actually wanted a child. “My father in particular rejected me,” she said of Hans Albert Einstein. “Maybe they were forced to adopt me. Who could say no to Albert Einstein?” She also said that her parents were too old to legally adopt her.
During the time of adoption Frieda was 46 years old and already showing signs of heart disease and Evelyn was eight and a half days old at the time. The DNA test using Albert Einstein’s brain cells reportedly failed since the cells could not be analyzed, as stated by Evelyn.
Perhaps the fact that Einstein admitted to having extramarital encounters with young women in his later years lent credence to Evelyn’s claim that she was really Einstein’s daughter and not his granddaughter.
Disputes Over Einstein’s Legacy
After Albert Einstein’s death in 1955, he left the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, with 75,000 papers and other belongings, rather than leaving his fortune to relatives. According to Evelyn Einstein, the $10 million annual income that was supposed to go to her from her grandfather Albert Einstein’s inheritance instead went to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Around 500 love letters and other communication between Albert Einstein and his first wife, Mileva Maric, were made public when Evelyn, in 1986, found them in a bank vault in Berkeley, California. Thomas Einstein (the eldest son of Bernhard Caesar Einstein) and others had kept the letters hidden from Albert Einstein’s granddaughter Evelyn and others, leading to family litigation.
In 1902, Albert Einstein and Mileva Maric had a daughter named Lieserl Einstein, as shown by their correspondence, but her whereabouts beyond that date have always been unclear. Even on her deathbed, Evelyn was still wrangling with Hebrew University over her grandfather’s inheritance, and the manuscripts and letters had long ago been auctioned off for $900,000.
When compared to other famous people like Michael Jackson and Dr. Seuss, Albert Einstein’s license revenue clocks in at number eight.
Evelyn Einstein’s Later Years and Death
Evelyn Einstein in 2010. (Photo by Steve Rhodes, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Evelyn Einstein had a late-in-life dream of inheriting some of her renowned grandfather’s wealth, but she was ultimately disappointed. She was a poor California resident. “Everyone thinks I’m unspeakably rich and that I have a screw loose because I don’t spend my money,” Evelyn said. However, she claimed that she had no money.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has been the owner of the intellectual rights to Albert Einstein’s works since 1955. The institution trademarked Einstein’s name as well. The sale of Einstein t-shirts, mugs, and bobblehead dolls has been a source of revenue for the university. It is estimated that royalties of roughly $10,000,000 were collected in 2010 alone.
Evelyn didn’t understand what plastic figurines had to do with her grandfather’s scientific legacy, but she could use a portion of this cash. “I don’t want to be rich,” she said confidently. Just get her into an “assisted living facility”, was all she asked. However, the inquiries to the school proved fruitless during her lifetime.
Evelyn Einstein had a townhouse in Albany, California, with a view of San Francisco Bay from the mid-1990s until her death in 2011. Her life was marred by mental distress and physical illness (including breast cancer and liver disease), which put her in a wheelchair covered with Star Trek stickers.
Despite all that, she had a reputation for being smart, funny, and upbeat on the few occasions when she wasn’t melancholy, in the face of her numerous hardships. She died at the age of 70 on April 13, 2011, in Albany, California as the adoptive grandchild and alleged daughter of Albert Einstein. Nonetheless, she lacked proof to back up her latter assertion.
References
Einstein’s granddaughter dies – CNN.com
Evelyn Einstein Died in Squalor, Despite Grandfather’s Riches – ABC News (go.com)
My Friend Evelyn Einstein – Guernica (guernicamag.com)
September 23, 2023
Michele Besso: The Closest Friend of Einstein
- Michele Angelo Besso was a close friend of Albert Einstein.
- Besso played a role in Einstein’s development of the theory of relativity.
- Their friendship lasted 60 years until their deaths, a month apart.
A Swiss engineer of Italian descent, Michele Angelo Besso (25 May 1873 – 15 March 1955), was one of the closest friends of Albert Einstein. The brilliant scientist considered this Sephardic Jew, who worked in the same patent office as himself, to be “the best sounding board in Europe” due to their close friendship and professional collaboration. He was the nephew of the Italian insurance company Assicurazioni Generali’s leader, Marco Besso.
To test out his daring new ideas, Einstein would argue them with his low-key acquaintance, who he described as having an “extraordinarily fine mind.“
Michele Besso’s Early Years
Michele Besso was born to Italian Jewish parents Giuseppe Besso and Arminia (née Cantoni) in the Zurich neighborhood of Riesbach. The family relocated to Zurich so that the father could take a job with the Assicurazioni Generali branch there. With the father’s promotion, the family moved back to Trieste, Italy, where Giuseppe was born and raised and where the Assicurazioni Generali was headquartered, in 1879.
When Besso was 17, he was kicked out of high school in Trieste and spent some time at the University of Rome before being admitted to the Zurich Institute of Technology’s engineering program in October 1891. His engineer degree was awarded in March 1895.
Besso Meets Einstein, the Friend of His Life
Since the families of Michele Besso’s mother and Albert Einstein were acquainted, the older Besso was likely requested to assist the younger Einstein in his preparation for the admission tests to the same institution that he would take in October, around half a year later. This is how they met (although there are other accounts of their first encounter), and they remained inseparable until their deaths a scant month apart, 60 years later.
Einstein and Besso stayed close friends for 60 years.
Over the course of their lives, the two sent each other hundreds of letters. Only around two-thirds of the letters were preserved, but what little there is to learn about Einstein’s early scientific theories and his personal life is invaluable.
Einstein Found Besso the Love of His Life
Michele Besso with his wife Anna Winteler in 1898. (Original, Daniele Fisichella, CC BY SA 4.0)
Based in the city of Winterthur, close to the Swiss city of Zurich, Michele Besso joined the engineering staff of the massive Swiss textile machinery manufacturer “Rieter” in 1896. He met his future wife, Anna Winteler (1872-1944), a year later. Anna Winteler’s younger sister, Marie, was Einstein’s first lover. None of them were Jewish. It was Einstein who arranged their meeting, and Einstein’s sister Maja would also marry another Winteler in 1910, Anna’s younger brother Paul.
Besso had a son in 1898 (he also had a daughter later on), switched careers, and moved back to Italy that same year. Instead of going back to Trieste, where he was born and raised, he went to Milan to see his mother’s relatives and meet Albert Einstein’s family. All of Albert Einstein’s school breaks from 1898 to 1901 were spent in Milan, Italy, with his family and the family of a close friend.
After his father passed away in October 1901, Beso returned to Trieste from Milan. Despite Einstein’s simultaneous relocation to the official Swiss patent office in Bern, their relationship, which had begun in Zurich and continued in Milan, did not terminate in Trieste.
Besso’s Part in Einstein’s Relativity Theory
Around two years after Einstein was accepted to the patent office in January 1902, Michele Besso followed suit in January 1904. He was not only accepted but also promoted to a position above Einstein as a technical examiner. While this could have limited Newton’s field of vision, Einstein saw it as an advantage since it allowed for an uninterrupted flow of ideas between the two scientists.
The works of Ernst Mach, a critic of conventional physics, are said to have impacted Einstein’s approach to physics and contributed to the formulation of the theory of relativity, and Besso is credited with introducing Einstein to Mach’s writings. In his 1905 article on relativity, Einstein credited no one except Besso for their work.
Leaving the patent office behind, Einstein began his academic career in 1908 at the University of Bern. Michele Besso continued working there for a long time.
While their physical locations gradually diverged and Besso eventually became a Christian, Einstein never stopped meeting with or talking to him, and the two exchanged lengthy letters in which they discussed everything from the nature of space and time to private concerns.
“No one is as close to me as he is.”
In a letter sent in 1918, Einstein referred to Besso as “the best sounding board in Europe” for physical ideas, and he also remarked, “No one is as close to me as he is, and no one knows me as he does.”
In one of his letters to Michele Besso, Einstein poked fun at him for having converted to Christianity but admired him for continuing to study. While Besso was able to push through his language barriers, Einstein was not that interested in the book.
In 1926, Einstein rescued his buddy Besso’s employment at the patent office by writing an enthusiastic letter to the administration of the agency on Besso’s behalf. This was in large part due to the fact that Einstein had already won the Nobel Prize in Physics at the time.
In 1955, Michele Besso passed away in Geneva. After the death of his brother, Einstein penned the now-famous line:
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Einstein passed away only a month and three days after Besso’s passing.
Albert Einstein, in a letter to Michele Besso’s son, 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.” Einstein’s relationship with his wife Elsa Einstein was not exemplary.
References
Einstein Believed In A Theory Of Spacetime That Can Help People Cope With Loss (forbes.com)
Digital Einstein Papers Home (princeton.edu)
Einstein and Besso: (arxiv.org)
September 22, 2023
Elsa Einstein: The Life of Einstein’s Second Wife
September 22, 2023
Eduard Einstein: The Second Son of Albert Einstein
- Eduard, Albert Einstein’s son, excelled in poetry and music.
- He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent years in psychiatric care.
- Eduard’s literary aspirations were discouraged by his father, Albert Einstein.
  buy wellbutrin online https://newonlineandblo.com/buy-wellbutrin.html no prescription pharmacy
The second son of Albert Einstein and his wife Mileva Maric, Eduard Einstein was born on July 28, 1910, in Zurich, and died on October 25, 1965, in the same city. Eduard Einstein, whom his father affectionately called “Tete,” was a sensitive little boy who excelled in poetry and music early on in his life. While Einstein’s mother Pauline and the aunt Maja probably met Eduard, the grandfather Hermann died long before that.
Relationship Between Albert and Eduard Einstein
Both Eduard and his brother Hans Albert Einstein were affected by their parents’ divorce and spent most of their childhood in Switzerland with their mother. Most of his teachers liked and respected Eduard. It is widely believed that he did not speak to his father Albert for the first five years following their separation in June 1914. However, there was nothing unusual about his communication with his father throughout his adolescence, even in the 1920s.
The October 1920 visit that Albert Einstein paid to the home of Pastor Camillo Brandhuber (a friend of his from his days in Benzingen) also featured Eduard. On October 7 or 8, 1923, Albert and Eduard once again visited relatives in Ulm, and while there, Albert took Eduard up the tower of Ulm Cathedral.
Together with Hans Albert, they later visited the Lautrach Castle, which belonged to a patron and business associate who was a friend of Albert. Despite some rocky patches, the bond between Eduard and his mother remained strong throughout his childhood.
His Literary Career
Eduard Einstein’s surviving poetry has, like his father’s, frequent sarcastic characteristics; some of it was even published in school newspapers during his lifetime. For instance, the poetic studies by Eduard Einstein examined the perspectives of educators and peers. These analyses not only indicated a socially critical stance but also provided new insight into the precarious position of the bourgeois idyll in German-speaking Switzerland.
A tremendous existential fear, resulting from the enormous insensitivity and absurdity inherent in the world, was reflected in Eduard’s work. This view was prevalent not just in the ‘ivory tower’, but also in the framework of contemporary bourgeois culture.
Classmate and future Nobel laureate in literature Elias Canetti wrote a fictional biography, The Tongue Set Free (1977), on several of the professors mentioned in Eduard Einstein’s character studies. Albert was a major audience for Eduard Einstein’s aphorisms, in which he makes references to the likes of Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche.
buy arimidex online https://esishow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/jpg/arimidex.html no prescription pharmacy

Albert provided him with comments on his writings, but he understandably discouraged the son from pursuing a career in literature.
Eduard Einstein’s Schizophrenia
Eduard was originally admitted to the Burghölzli psychiatric facility in Zurich in October 1932. He received a diagnosis of schizophrenia in January 1933. According to Albert Einstein, Eduard’s ailment ran predominantly in the family of his mother.
Albert cutting off contact with his son after his last clinic appointment is just an urban tale. Eduard’s correspondence with his now-American father just became sparser over time due to the physical distance between the two. It’s also worth mentioning that the career Eduard took was of no interest to Einstein.
buy bactrim online https://newonlineandblo.com/buy-bactrim.html no prescription pharmacy

The End of Eduard’s Life
Eduard Einstein spent almost 14 years in the Burghölzli psychiatric hospital in Switzerland. This period of time includes various stays of a few months in the city, each between 1942 and his mother’s death in 1948. But he especially spent the final eight years of his life in the hospital until his death at age 55 in the autumn of 1965.
buy ozempic online https://subee.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/jpg/ozempic.html no prescription pharmacy

Carl Seelig, the biographer of Albert Einstein who also cared for Robert Walser and others, was a father figure to Eduard from 1952 until Carl’s untimely death in 1962.
Looking for More
In addition to what has already been made public in the various volumes of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, which encompass his life up to 1923, additional details regarding Eduard Einstein’s life can be located in various other sources. For instance, Franziska Rogger’s work Einstein’s Sister (in German) provides insights, particularly regarding Eduard’s initial admission to Burghölzli, as found on page 124 of her book.
Furthermore, the Swiss historian Alexis Schwarzenbach’s publication titled The Spurned Genius offers similar information, which is documented on page 188 of his work.
One can also refer to Hans Albert Einstein: His Life as a Pioneering Engineer by Robert Ettema and Cornelia F. Mutel which provides insights on Eduard throughout the book.
buy lexapro online https://newonlineandblo.com/buy-lexapro.html no prescription pharmacy
September 21, 2023
Lieserl Einstein: Einstein’s Hidden Child for 85 Years
- Lieserl Einstein was the first child of Albert Einstein and Mileva Maric.
- Her existence remained unknown to the world for over 80 years.
- It is believed that Lieserl was born in January 1902 and likely died of scarlet fever in September 1903.
The first child born to Mileva Maric and Albert Einstein, Lieserl Einstein (born January 1902 in Novi Sad, Vojvodina, then Austria-Hungary; died unknown), was unknown to the world for more than 80 years. In 1987, with the discovery and release of Einstein’s letters to his companion and eventual wife, Mileva Maric, the existence of the kid was made public. The infant is called by name in this letter. Curious enough, nothing is known about Lieserl Einstein, including his life.
Who Was Lieserl Einstein?
At the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich in 1896, when Einstein and Maric both attended classes, the two struck up a friendship. There was a baby on the way for Maric in the spring of 1901. The letters show that Maric desired a daughter, “Lieserl,” while Einstein wished for a male, “Hanserl.”
At the end of May 1901, Einstein asked, “What is the boy doing?” in a letter delivered through Winterthur (Switzerland). This was the first time he had asked about Lieserl.
buy zithromax online https://www.urologicalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/jpg/zithromax.html no prescription pharmacy

A future together was also something he assured Maric of:
“Just be of good cheer, my love, and don’t worry yourself. I’m not leaving you, and I’m going to bring everything to a happy end.”
Einstein’s parents (mother Pauline, father Hermann) disapproved of his association with Maric, who was not Jewish, and Einstein was unemployed after graduating from the Polytechnic University. Three months pregnant, Maric retook the Polytechnic diploma test she had failed the year before with Einstein. Unfortunately, she did not pass this time around, either.
After finishing up in 1900, she made the trip to Novi Sad (Serbia) to see her folks. In a letter to her, Einstein said:
“… and look forward to our dear Lieserl, whom I secretly (so that Doxerl [Marić’s pet] doesn’t notice) prefer to imagine as Hanserl.”
The Swiss Patent Office in Bern, where Einstein had been working part-time since 1901, offered him a possible permanent post at year’s end. Before starting work at the Federal Patent Office in June of 1902, he relocated to Bern in February.
The Birth of Lieserl
Einstein asked, “how we could take our Lieserl to us; I don’t want us to have to let her out of our hands,” not long before the baby was born, in light of his impending work in Bern. The birth of Lieserl Einstein appears to have occurred in January 1902. Maric was too fatigued to write himself following issues during delivery, so her father sent a letter to 22-year-old Einstein to tell him the news.
After hearing the news, Einstein was overjoyed:
“Is she also healthy, and is she already crying properly? […] Is there anything wrong with her? […] Which of us does she look more like? […] I love her so much, and I don’t even know her yet. […] Can she soon turn her eyes to something?”
At the end of 1902, Maric returned to Switzerland without “Lieserl.” In Bern’s civil record office on January 6, 1903, Maric and Einstein tied the knot. No one from either Einstein’s or Maric’s families attended the wedding. From what we can tell, the child’s existence was hidden from the Swiss community at large.
Mileva Maric and Albert Einstein
Since the time Albert Einstein began working at the Bern Patent Office, he appears to have missed out on meeting Lieserl altogether. Because when Mileva went to marry Albert in Bern, Switzerland, she left her kid with her grandparents in Novi Sad.
It is assumed that Maric and Albert Einstein decided to separate from their daughter Lieserl in the summer of 1903. No clear explanation has been given for this choice. It’s possible that Einstein didn’t want to risk his job at the patent office. August of 1903 found Maric visiting her people in Novi Sad, probably to see Lieserl.
According to the letters, Lieserl was diagnosed with scarlet fever at this time. After learning of Lieserl’s illness, she writes to Albert, who expresses his sorrow by writing,
“I’m very sorry about the situation with Lieserl. Scarlet fever can easily leave lasting effects.
buy hydroxychloroquine online https://www.urologicalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/jpg/hydroxychloroquine.html no prescription pharmacy

I hope everything turns out well.”
It seems that the kid was to be placed for adoption in September, when Einstein inquired about the child’s registration and recommended prudence to ensure the daughter would not be harmed in the future.
While on their journey, Einstein and Maric learned that they were expecting again. Their second son, Hans Albert, was born in Bern in 1904, and their second son, Eduard, was born in Zurich in 1910; however, Einstein is not known to have ever seen his first child, an only girl, Lieserl, again.
The Real Lieserl Einstein
Einstein’s last reference to Lieserl comes in a letter he sent on September 19, 1903. After contracting scarlet fever in 1903, the child was likely baptized and placed for adoption. No church or government documents have been located despite extensive searching.
After then, Lieserl disappears from all subsequent correspondence and records. That summer, when she was just one and a half years old, was likely her last summer with Mileva and Einstein. After waiting for almost two decades, Mileva finally admits to her friend Helene in a letter that she really wants a daughter.
buy stendra online https://www.urologicalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/jpg/stendra.html no prescription pharmacy

According to “Einstein’s Daughter: The Search for Lieserl,” a book written and published by Michele Zackheim in the United States in 1999, Lieserl was born with mental disabilities, was raised by Maric’s family, and died of scarlet fever in September 1903.
It has also been speculated that Lieserl was really the blind woman named Zorka Savic, who was adopted by Maric’s friend Helene Savic and survived until the 1990s. While this theory has been approved by some, Milan Popovic, the grandson of Helene Savic, disputes the claim that Zorka Savic was Lieserl and instead claims that Lieserl Einstein died in September 1903.
September 20, 2023
Pauline Einstein: The Life of Einstein’s Mother
- Pauline Einstein was the mother of Albert Einstein.
- She was a talented pianist with artistic interests and was considered well-read.
- She encouraged Albert’s dedication to learning and academic pursuits.
Pauline Einstein (February 8, 1858–February 20, 1920; originally known as Pauline Koch) was the mother of Maja Einstein and Albert Einstein. She was a middle-class woman, and she had a direct effect on Albert Einstein’s upbringing, the education he received in his childhood, and his personal life, including his marriage. She was a talented pianist with other artistic leanings, and she was thought to be well-read. At the address of Badstrasse 20 in Cannstatt, where Pauline Einstein was born, there is a plaque in her honor.
Who Was Pauline Einstein?
Pauline (Koch) Einstein, c. 1870.
The Cannstatt grain dealer Julius Koch had a daughter named Pauline Einstein. Her dad grew up in a family with modest beginnings. Originally from Jebenhausen, he officially became the supplier of grain to the Royal Württemberg Court after acquiring a sizable fortune with his brother Heinrich. Annette Bernheimer, her mother was a lovely person from the same town.
Hermann Einstein (29) and Pauline Einstein (18) tied the knot on June 8, 1876, at an Israelite prayer site in Cannstatt. Hermann was a partner in the Israel & Levi bed feather manufacture in Ulm starting at the end of the 1860s. Pauline, an elegant woman with artistic leanings, was thought to be well-read.
She was a talented pianist and practiced whenever she could find time between her domestic obligations. Maja Einstein often praised her “persevering patience” even while tackling needlework projects. According to Maja, Pauline was a compassionate mother, yet she often did not let her emotions run wild.
Pauline and Hermann Einstein
Hermann Einstein
Pauline and Hermann Einstein resided in a Wilhelminian-style home at Bahnhofstrasse 20 in Ulm, which had been constructed by two Jewish owners. They stayed in this house between 1878 and 1880. When the Einsteins lived in Ulm, they became “dear friends” with Jewish banker Gustav Maier. Hermann Einstein joined his younger brother Jakob’s business in Munich in June 1880; by 1885, the firm had been reorganized as an electrical engineering plant.
There were four generations of Einsteins in the household at Adlzreiterstrasse 14: Hermann and Pauline, Albert and Maja, Jakob and Ida, and Robert and Edith. From 1886 until 1894, Pauline’s father, Julius Koch, a widower, lived with her and her husband’s families in Munich. However, as a result of financial difficulties, the Munich business was shut down in 1894, and the family relocated to Milan.
How Did Pauline Raise Albert as a Kid?
Pauline Einstein achieved ‘self-actualization’ as a mother and wife when she understood the full potential of her brilliantly talented child, Albert Einstein. This was at a time when, as the wife of a business owner, she was legally barred from working outside the home. At the age of five, Albert Einstein was already in the second grade of his Munich primary school because his mother Pauline had given him individual lessons.
Albert Einstein’s ‘religious period’ began when he was 10 years old and lasted for two years. During this time, he was strict with his family about not, among other things, eating kosher. However, shortly after that, Albert developed an agnosticism toward everything. Lucky for him, his parents let him out of having a bar mitzvah, unlike most other Jewish families.
A Jewish medical student from Munich named Max Talmey (1869–1941) was invited once a week by Pauline Einstein to have dinner at the house. The natural world and the fundamentals of philosophical and mathematical-scientific thought were both new to Albert before he met Talmey.
Maja and Albert Einstein.
Pauline Einstein’s Legacy on Albert
Pauline Einstein instilled in her son Albert a desire for learning, hard work, and dedication until his death in 1894. She urged Albert to study the violin with all his might. Beginning at the age of twelve, Albert found that his violin playing provided him with inspiration in his life, including in the field of physics.
Having received parental permission, Albert studied independently in Milan in order to pass the admission test for the Swiss Federal Polytechnic (ETH) in Zurich. With dedication, Pauline Einstein fostered her son Albert’s growth. She was typical of the mother who sees her role as ensuring that her talented child grows into an accomplished person.
A Nobel Prize was awarded to Albert in the end. On the other hand, Maja Einstein, the daughter, earned a doctorate in the field of Romance studies.
A Turbulent Life
Together with Lorenzo Garrone, Jakob and Hermann Einstein ran an electrical engineering enterprise in Pavia, Italy, from 1894 until its failure in 1896. Hermann Einstein eventually went on to run his own, smaller electrotechnical businesses in Milan. The first one collapsed into insolvency, leaving just the second one standing. In 1895, Albert’s parents realized they couldn’t afford to keep him in Zurich for school, so they transferred him to Genoa instead.
There, Albert lived well thanks to his aunt Julie Koch, who provided him with 100 Swiss francs a month until the year 1900. Pauline Einstein was her sister-in-law and a close friend. So, Pauline Einstein made sure her kids had enough money to get by, even though they were practically poor. Pauline Einstein even took her kids, Albert and Maja, to Mettmenstetten (a village in Switzerland) twice over the summer at the request of Julie Koch.
For Pauline and Hermann Einstein, keeping their independence intact was a top priority from 1896 until 1902. After Hermann Einstein’s untimely death from heart disease on October 10, 1902, Pauline Einstein found herself a widow.
The Second Act in Pauline Einstein’s Life
Albert Einstein’s house in Berlin, Caputh. (Photo, Stephan M. Höhne, CC BY-SA 3.0)
After spending some time with her cousin Auguste Hochberger in Heilbronn, Germany, Pauline Einstein relocated to Hechingen in 1903 to be closer to her sister Fanny, and brother-in-law Rudolf Einstein. In 1910, the Einsteins brought Pauline with them to Berlin.
However, in 1911, she was unable to remain there due to financial problems, so her son Albert sent her to work as a housekeeper for the wealthy Heinz Oppenheim in Heilbronn. In Heilbronn, Heinz ran a spice and intestinal import business.
Albert Einstein intended to go into electrical engineering and could have helped the family firm get off the ground in 1900 if he had taken that path. When the school year at Aarau was over, however, he decided to delve into the study of physics and mathematics. The Einsteins were opposed to their son marrying a non-Jewish student at Zurich University named Mileva Maric, a Serb who graduated as one of the first women in mathematics and physics. Their marriage occurred in 1903, when Maric was 28 and Einstein was 24.
Mileva Maric was now Pauline Einstein’s daughter-in-law, although she despised her since she was older than her son and neither Jewish nor German. “Like you, she’s a book, but you ought to have a wife,” Pauline said to Einstein. “By the time you’re 30, she’ll be an old witch.”
Since they were living in Zurich, Pauline was unable to maintain communication with the couple. She was certain that she could tell her son, better than he could, which lady was the right one for him. Nonetheless, both women stopped speaking to each other in 1913.
Finally, a Worthy Bride
His mother was finally at peace with Einstein’s separation from Mileva Maric and her children in 1914 and his divorce from her in 1919, but only after Albert established a relationship with his Jewish cousin Elsa Einstein in Berlin. In July 1914, Pauline Einstein won the battle for Mileva’s separation from the Berlin house when Albert sent his wife and her children back to Zurich.
Even though Elsa was older than her son, Albert Einstein’s mother nevertheless gave her blessing to their relationship in 1912. This was because Elsa was Jewish and had previously been accepted into the family. In 1914, Pauline Einstein went back to Berlin to take care of her oldest, recently widowed brother Jakob Koch’s family.
Her Final Years
“I know what it’s like to see one’s mother go through the agony of death and be unable to help; there is no consolation.”
Einstein on his mother.
Pauline had surgery in Berlin the same year, 1914, to treat uterine cancer; Albert Einstein footed the bill. From 1915 through 1918, Pauline Einstein worked as Heinz Oppenheim’s housekeeper in Heilbronn once more. Pauline kept working as a housekeeper even as a cancer patient, probably because Einstein was working at the Patent Office and he was trying to support his family on his modest income.
In 1918, she visited her older brother Jakob Koch in Zurich for a while. Her condition worsened again in 1919. At the time, Pauline was residing in a Lucerne (Switzerland) nursing facility, which she had first moved into with her daughter Maja Einstein and her husband Paul Winteler.
With the help of a doctor from Lucerne, a nurse, and Pauline Einstein’s daughter Maja, she was transported to Berlin in a special hospital vehicle in the winter of 1919. For her last two months on earth, she was attended to by the nurse from Lucerne under the roof of her son Albert in Wilmersdorf.
On February 20, 1920, only weeks after turning 62, Pauline Einstein passed away; she was laid to rest the following day, on February 23, in the Schöneberg Municipal Cemetery on Maxstrasse, Berlin. In modern times, she was featured in the 2017 TV series “Genius.”
References
Featured Image: Find a Grave Memorial, upscaled and colorized.
NYTimes – Essay Dollie and Johnnie
Einstein in Love – Google Books
The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein: The early years, 1879-1902 – Google Books
September 19, 2023
Hermann Einstein: The Life of Einstein’s Father
September 19, 2023
Maja Einstein: The Sister of the Great Physicist
- Maja Einstein was Albert Einstein’s sister and pursued higher education.
- She married Paul Winteler and lived a simple life in Italy.
- Maja passed away in 1951, cared for by Albert in Princeton.
Albert Einstein had a close relationship with his sister, Maria (Maja) Einstein. At Bern’s University, Albert Einstein was awarded his “habilitation,” the qualification to conduct teaching. The fact that his sister Maja likewise excelled at Bern and earned a doctorate in Romance studies. The fact that Einstein had a sister is surprisingly less known among many people.
Who was Maja Einstein?
Also known as “Maria”, Maja Einstein was born to Hermann Einstein and Pauline Einstein in 1881, making her the youngest of the Einstein siblings. There was a striking resemblance between them. In contrast to her brother’s life, Maja’s existence followed the trajectory of a woman who was too smart to live a traditional female life. She wasn’t complacent, but neither was she so radical as to reject all norms. Maja’s life shows the challenges and possibilities available to a woman with a university education in the early 20th century.
Albert and Maja Einstein.
Both Maja and her closest companions were dealt blows by life, including mental illness, murder (of Robert Einstein), child mortality, poverty, and persecution for being Jews. Her story is also a tribute to the strong bonds of siblingship. Maja and her husband Paul Winteler, a Swiss lawyer, had a very loving marriage, but they also went through some very difficult times together.
Meeting the Love of Her Life
While Albert was preparing for university in Aarau, Switzerland, Maja was doing the same thing. She was there for a seminar for educators. In 1905 Maja obtained her teacher’s license, and in the same year her brother published his “Special Theory of Relativity.”
Albert met with the Winteler family when he was in Aarau, where he attended the lectures of the school professor Jost Winteler at Kantonsschule School. Paul, the son of the Winteler family, who was hosting her brother Albert at the time, became the object of Maja’s affection at Aarau. For Maja, this was the ultimate love, until death came between them.
While Maja Einstein was attending university in Bern to study Romance languages, she shared a house on the Aegertenstrasse in Bern (Switzerland) with her brother, sister-in-law Mileva Marić, and nephew Hans Albert. She kept studying Romance languages and literature in Berlin, Bern, and Paris and was doing her doctorate with a…
“… Determination of the manuscript relationship of the Knight of the Swan and the Enfances Godefroi.”
Maja always kept in touch with her brother, who was becoming famous at the time. Among Swiss women, Maja’s pursuit of further education was at the time considered radical. In fact, some of the Swiss women in attendance were subsequently influential figures in the fight for equal rights for women and girls in schools throughout the country.
Evidently, she approved of certain feminist ideals, such as the “partnership” of married man and woman, and equality between sexes in the home.
The Marriage That Changed Maja Einstein’s Life
Maja Einstein lived in Albert’s house until her death. c. 1930.
Conversely, Albert Einstein was not an early adopter of progressive women’s rights.
buy clindamycin online https://www.svmassagetherapy.com/docs/pdf/clindamycin.html no prescription pharmacy

Regarding females, he was traditional. To the dismay of his spouses and lovers, he was also an unreliable person in romantic relationships. Closely related to her brother throughout her life, Maja experienced this as well. When Albert left his wife Mileva and their children, it was the lowest point. There was no rupture in the sibling bond despite these difficulties.
buy aurogra online https://cmmpsurgerycenter.com/scripts/css/aurogra.html no prescription pharmacy

Initially, Albert considered leaving the kids with his sister.
Maja and Paul married in 1910 and made their home in Lucerne, Switzerland, where both of them had earned doctorates at the time. Although she was married now, Maja Einstein never had children and was otherwise a typical 1950s middle-class American woman in comparison.
Because of her marital status, Maja was now barred from holding a teaching position at a public high school. There was a lack of equality in Maja and Paul’s home and workplace. They wished, however, to make a “fresh start”. Paul and Maja Winteler-Einstein departed the city in 1920 to live in the warmer climes of the south. They lived a simple, self-sufficient lifestyle on a farm outside of Florence in an effort to focus on their minds and bodies through meditation and study.
Paul relaxed by painting, while Maya was interested in music and made dinner for the house.
buy professional cialis online https://cmmpsurgerycenter.com/scripts/css/professional-cialis.html no prescription pharmacy

However, even in this setting, regular, everyday issues with money persisted. In the end, Albert, the younger brother, sacrificed himself so that their far-off lifestyle would not fail disgracefully.
Einstein Was Looking After Maja When She Passed Away
Albert Einstein’s house in Princeton, New Jersey. (Photo, Ken Lund, CC BY-SA 2.0)
The Nazis were even after Einstein’s family because he was Jewish, so when the fascists rose up in Italy, Maja was able to escape to her brother in Princeton, New Jersey. However, the United States government denied entry to Paul due to health concerns.
Thus, in 1939, six years after Albert emigrated to the United States, Maja followed him to the Princeton house. However, Maja Einstein was seriously ill after World War II ended and had to return to the hospital many times. Her first stroke happened in 1946 and she became bedridden due to arteriosclerosis (“hardening of the arteries”). Albert wrote in a letter to Margarita Konenkova (his secret love) in Moscow on June 1, 1946:
“My sister is very sick. She had an attack that was described by the doctors as a mild stroke. She is recovering, but there is no real recovery in this ailment, which has to do with the aging process.”
Maja Einstein’s Death
This describes the subject matter of the next several years in the life of Maja. Being in Albert’s company was never dull. There wasn’t much action inside his home, but there was a lot going on in his life as he turned into a world-famous physicist.
She was never able to go back to Europe to be with Paul and Florence again. At Albert Einstein’s place, she received excellent care. The nightly routine usually included Brother Albert reading to her.
“For the past few years, I have read to her every evening from the finest books of old and new literature.”
She suffered an upper arm fracture on June 25, 1951. Later that day, Maja Winteler-Einstein passed away in 1951 from pneumonia without seeing the love of her life again while under the roof of her loving brother in Princeton. Almost a year later, Paul passed away in Geneva on July 15, 1952.
In a letter to Michel Besso on December 12, 1951, immediately after Maja’s death, Einstein wrote to his close friend:
“During the years of her suffering, we read together most of the best books written at all times. But most of all, she loved Bertrand Russell, and by the way, so did I. His style is worthy of admiration, and until his old age, he remained some kind of mischief-maker” [Einstein-Besso-2, 1980, p. 41].”
September 18, 2023