Foreign Property News | Posted by Hnin Ei Khin
Albert Einstein spent part of his life in Bern. He came to the Swiss capital in 1902 and took up a post at the federal patent office. In 1903, he and his wife, Mileva, moved into an apartment in the third floor of Kramgasse 49, in the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
{Apartment in the third floor of Kramgasse 49}
Today, the apartment is open to tourists. It is furnished in the style of Einstein’s time and documents the life of the physicist during his years in Bern. This period included 1905 – Einstein’s annus mirabilis (extraordinary year) – which was his most creative period of scientific discovery.
Post WWI politics in Germany were volatile, complicated by a severe German economic depression. When the German National Socialist Workers Party under Adolf Hitler came to power, with its anti-Semitic rhetoric and disregard for democratic principles, Einstein emigrated to the United States (which he had first visited in 1921) to accept a position at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies. In the quiet New Jersey town, Einstein intended to lead a life of research and reflection, but once again his international fame required that he travel widely attending conferences and giving lectures.
Albert Einstein was among the most famous scientists of the 20th century. Typical statements about him refer to a man who fundamentally changed the nature of 20th century science and he is given equal ranking with England’s Sir Issac Newton (1643-1727) in the history of physics.
Einstein House in Princeton, New Jersey, is a simple two-story, “L” shaped frame building with a gabled roof over the front block and a flat roof on the rear block. The exact date of construction and the builder of the Albert Einstein House are unknown, but the home was probably built in the 1870s or 80s. When Albert Einstein first came to Princeton in 1933, he lived at 2 Library Place. In 1936 he purchased 112 Mercer Street. The house remained his home until his death in 1955.
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He remains one of the world's most important scientists. But despite his innumerable professional successes, Einstein found it impossible to sustain a successful personal life. In his book, Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson describes how Albert Einstein found maintaining a harmonious love life a battle he would never win.
In fact, so pragmatic was Einstein's approach to love, that when he found his 11 year marriage to fellow scientist Mileva Maric was floundering, he issued a list of outrageous rules that he believed would allow the two to remain together for the sake of the children.
The list, published in full below, is a set of demands that would see Maric become more maidservant than lover. Einstein was driven to write the list when, in 1914,he realised that after 11 years, his marriage to first wife Maric - one of the first women to study mathematics and physics in Europe - was destined for failure.
Realising that salvaging their personal relationship was a lost cause, ever the pragmatist, Einstein proposed that he and Maric should stay together for the sake of the children. But with his proposal came an austere list of demands to which his wife must adhere. Shockingly the list demanded Maric continue to act as maid to her erstwhile husband - yet should expect no affection or attention in return.
The scientist demanded that she keep his rooms tidy, bring him three meals a day (to be eaten in his room), keep his clothes and laundry in good order, and keep his bedroom and study neat (she should not use his desk, of course).
There would seemingly be no benefits to Maric in return. In fact, Einstein stipulates in his list of conditions, printed in Isaacson's book (via website listsofnote.com), that she must not expect Einstein to either sit with her, or accompany her outside of the house - and she must stop talking when he requests.
She must 'renounce all personal relations' not strictly essential for social reasons - which should not include expecting to be accompanied on social engagements.
In addition, Einstein stipulated that his wife should not expect any intimacy from him, should not reproach him in any way; should stop talking to him if he requested it; should leave his bedroom or study immediately without protest if requested, and should refrain from belittling him in front of the children, either through words or behaviour.
The more Neanderthal-minded males out there may well be nodding sagely in accordance with Einstein's outrageous demand - but women's jaws will no doubt be collectively hitting the floor. And it seems that Einstein's wife, although she initially agreed to her husband's unreasonably demands, ultimately had the same reaction. Just a few months after he issued his misogynistic manifesto, she left Einstein in Berlin and moved with their sons, Hans Albert and Eduard (their daughter, Lieserl, born in 1902, was given up for adoption), to Zurich.
Five years later she filed for divorce and, in 1919, it was granted. The outcome would come as no surprise to the scientist's former girlfriends. Indeed, Isaacson reveals how as a young man, Einstein predicted in a letter to the mother of his first girlfriend that the 'joys of science' would be a refuge from 'painful personal emotions'.
As testament to that fact, the father of the theory of relativity is known to have had many liaisons throughout his marriage to Maric. In fact, he became involved with Elsa, a first cousin who would become his second wife, in 1912, when he was still married to his first wife.
Given the circumstances in which they met, Elsa may have expected a certain level of dalliance from her new husband. And of course, although Einstein married Elsa in 1919, within four years he was already involved with Bette Neumann, his secretary and the niece of one of his friends.
'His conquest of general relativity proved easier than finding the formulas for the forces swirling within his family,' Isaacson says. Something the women who loved him learned the hard way.
Ref: Albert Einstein lived in Bern from 1903 to 1905 and developed his Theory of Relativity here. The Einstein House gives visitors a chance to see where the great physicist completely revolutionized our understanding of space and time. (bern)