In a book that is both biography and the most exciting form of history, here are eighteen years in the life of a man, Albert Einstein, and a city, Berlin, that were in many ways the defining years of the twentieth century. Einstein in Berlin In the spring of 1913 two of the giants of modern science traveled to Zurich. Their mission: to offer the most prestigious position in the very center of European scientific life to a man who had just six years before been a mere patent clerk. Albert Einstein accepted, arriving in Berlin in March 1914 to take up his new post. In December 1932 he left Berlin forever. “Take a good look,” he said to his wife as they walked away from their house. “You will never see it again.” In between, Einstein’s Berlin years capture in microcosm the odyssey of the twentieth century. It is a century that opens with extravagant hopes--and climaxes in unparalleled calamity. These are tumultuous times, seen through the life of one man who is at once witness to and architect of his day--and ours. He is present at the events that will shape the journey from the commencement of the Great War to the rumblings of the next one. We begin with the eminent scientist, already widely recognized for his special theory of relativity. His personal life is in turmoil, with his marriage collapsing, an affair under way. Within two years of his arrival in Berlin he makes one of the landmark discoveries of all time: a new theory of gravity--and before long is transformed into the first international pop star of science. He flourishes during a war he hates, and serves as an instrument of reconciliation in the early months of the peace; he becomes first a symbol of the hope of reason, then a focus for the rage and madness of the right. And throughout these years Berlin is an equal character, with its astonishing eruption of revolutionary pathways in art and architecture, in music, theater, and literature. Its wild street life and sexual excesses are notorious. But with the debacle of the depression and Hitler’s growing power, Berlin will be transformed, until by the end of 1932 it is no longer a safe home for Einstein. Once a hero, now vilified not only as the perpetrator of “Jewish physics” but as the preeminent symbol of all that the Nazis loathe, he knows it is time to leave.

Dieter Hoffmann conveys how Einstein's life and work were linked to the scientific and social life of the city and inspires the reader to explore the places where he made his mark.

Albert Einstein is an icon of the twentieth century. Born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879, he is most famous for his theory of relativity. He also made enormous contributions to quantum mechanics and cosmology, and for his work he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921. A self-pronounced pacifist, humanist, and, late in his life, democratic socialist, Einstein was also deeply concerned with the social impact of his discoveries. Much of Einstein's life is shrouded in legend. From popular images and advertisements to various works of theater and fiction, he has come to signify so many things. In Einstein: A Biography, Jürgen Neffe presents a clear and probing portrait of the man behind the myth. Unearthing new documents, including a series of previously unknown letters from Einstein to his sons, which shed new light on his role as a father, Neffe paints a rich portrait of the tumultuous years in which Einstein lived and worked. And with a background in the sciences, he describes and contextualizes Einstein's enormous contributions to our scientific legacy. Einstein, a breakout bestseller in Germany, is sure to be a classic biography of the man and proverbial genius who has been called "the brain of the [twentieth] century."

The French political philosopher Raymond Aron once observed that the twentieth century "could have been Germany's century." In 1900, the country was Europe's preeminent power, its material strength and strident militaristic ethos apparently balanced by a vital culture and extraordinary scientific achievement. It was poised to achieve greatness. In Einstein's German World, the eminent historian Fritz Stern explores the ambiguous promise of Germany before Hitler, as well as its horrifying decline into moral nihilism under Nazi rule, and aspects of its remarkable recovery since World War II. He does so by gracefully blending history and biography in a sequence of finely drawn studies of Germany's great scientists and of German-Jewish relations before and during Hitler's regime. Stern's central chapter traces the complex friendship of Albert Einstein and the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Fritz Haber, contrasting their responses to German life and to their Jewish heritage. Haber, a convert to Christianity and a firm German patriot until the rise of the Nazis; Einstein, a committed internationalist and pacifist, and a proud though secular Jew. Other chapters, also based on new archival sources, consider the turbulent and interrelated careers of the physicist Max Planck, an austere and powerful figure who helped to make Berlin a happy, productive place for Einstein and other legendary scientists; of Paul Ehrlich, the founder of chemotherapy; of Walther Rathenau, the German-Jewish industrialist and statesman tragically assassinated in 1922; and of Chaim Weizmann, chemist, Zionist, and first president of Israel, whose close relations with his German colleagues is here for the first time recounted. Stern examines the still controversial way that historians have dealt with World War I and Germans have dealt with their nation's defeat, and he analyzes the conflicts over the interpretations of Germany's past that persist to this day. He also writes movingly about the psychic cost of Germany's reunification in 1990, the reconciliation between Germany and Poland, and the challenges and prospects facing Germany today. At once historical and personal, provocative and accessible, Einstein's German World illuminates the issues that made Germany's and Europe's past and present so important in a tumultuous century of creativity and violence.

From the acclaimed author of The Nobel Prize comes this fascinating portrait of four of the greatest minds in the history of science and the impossible turning point they faced.

In 1919 the Prussian Ministry of Science, Arts and Culture opened a dossier on "Einstein's Theory of Relativity." It was rediscovered by the author in 1961 and is used in conjunction with numerous other subsequently identified 'Einstein' files as the basis of this fascinating book. In particular, the author carefully scrutinizes Einstein's FBI file from 1950-55 against mostly unpublished material from European including Soviet sources and presents hitherto unknown documentation on Einstein's alleged contacts with the German Communist Party and the Comintern. Siegfried Grundmann's thorough study of Einstein's participation on a committee of the League of Nations, based on archival research in Geneva, is also new. This book outlines Einstein's image in politics and German science policy. It covers the period from his appointment as a researcher in Berlin to his fight abroad against the "boycott of German science" after World War I and his struggle at home against attacks on "Jewish physics" of which he was made a prime target. An important gap in the literature on Einstein is thus filled, contributing much new material toward a better understanding of Einstein's so rigorous break with Germany.

Seit über 20 Jahren ist dies die erste umfassende Einstein-Biographie. Der anerkannte Autor Denis Brian untersucht die private, öffentliche und wissenschaftliche Seite der legendären Persönlichkeit dieses rätselhaften Mannes. Geschickt beleuchtet Brian Einsteins eigenartig-neugierigen Charakter, die Träume und Ereignisse, die den künftigen Wissenschaftler vorangetrieben haben auf seiner unglaublichen Reise zu den Gipfeln des Erfolges und weltweiter Anerkennung. Einsteins Lebenswerk veränderte schließlich die Sichtweise der Wissenschaft von der Welt, angefangen bei seinem ersten Entwurf der revolutionären Relativitätstheorie 1905 bis hin zur Entwicklung der Atombombe (und seiner umstrittenen Position als Gegner des nachfolgenden nuklearen Wettrüstens). Der Autor erforscht Einsteins überwältigendes Erbe in Gesprächen mit vielen Zeitgenossen. Auch lüftet Brian das Geheimnis der Formeln, Theorien und Experimente, damit wir ihre Bedeutung und Tragweite besser verstehen können. Mit Prägnanz und Liebe zum Detail entführt er uns in die Welt, in der Einstein arbeitete, zurückgezogen oder gemeinsam mit anderen; von seinen Assistenten wurde er verehrt und mit anderen Physikern seiner Zeit pflegte er freundschaftliche Beziehungen. (10/97)