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Introduction

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EINSTEIN in BERLIN

by Thomas Levenson

Bantam Books, Random House New York 2003

I found this book fascinating, and read it cover to cover in a few days. Perhaps I feel this way because Mr. Levenson uses Albert Einstein, my hero, to hold together his commentary on Berlin and Germany from 1914 to 1931. Perhaps I also feel this way because Mr. Levenson gives some insight into what it was like to live through the Great War and the Weimar Republic.

On the other hand, I gave the book only 4 stars because the title is misleading. Einstein is used to hold the book together, which is more a set of observations about the Germany and Berlin in which Einstein lived, than an Einstein biography. Further, most of the biographical information is well known, so this book is not a revelation. Mr. Levenson does not delve deeply into Einstein's physics, which might be a relief to lay readers, but leaves his rejection of Quantum Mechanics somewhat of a mystery. Nonetheless, the book is an easy to read version of what it must have been like to be a wealthy Jew in Berlin at that time, an outsider, an observer not a player. The book covers an often-ignored background of Einstein's life.

Prof Einstein was active from time to time in the Zionist and pacifist movements, and was a participant in the highest levels of International science. Despite his fame and his efforts, his words went unheeded. Einstein desired an International culture, and disdained patriotism (he was a "one worlder"), but was very much a Berliner. He disdained religious practices, including traditional Judaism, but advocated Zionism for practical reasons (to escape German, European anti-Semitism). He was a very private man who wanted "to think," but did a lot of things others would consider immoral (his affairs, his marriages). He was not German, although he was born in Germany, although he defended the Weimar Republic from time to time, and although he was entrenched in Berlin.

The greatest contradiction of Einstein's life was the success of Quantum Mechanics, of which he was a Founder and wet nurse, but which he detested. Einstein was a Platonist, believing until his last breath that the Universe described in physics (preferably his physics) must be the true Form of the Real World. He could not come to grips with the notion that mere probability underlies everything. That notion was particularly difficult for Relativity's inventor, because General Relativity describes the Macro Universe so well (to this day). Although Einstein rejected Quantum Mechanics, he conceded its success in explaining the Micro world - the atoms, electrons, photons, etc of which everything is made. (And, that success continues to this day.) Levenson suggests Einstein's inability to come to terms with Quantum Mechanics after 1927 ("He was growing old", p 344) was due to middle age. All of us get older and set in our ways.

Einstein was, objectively, a sexist. He was a philanderer, and treated his wives miserably. In a wife, he wanted a housekeeper and a caring personal servant. In a woman, he wanted a temporary playmate. In this, he was an unreformed man of the Victorian age. Levenson describes some of Weimar Berlin's party scenes, which are like Hugh Heffner's Playboy Club. There can be no doubt that women were treated there as sex objects, as amusements, not as ends in themselves. That Kantian ideal was a central notion in Einstein's moral thinking, yet escaped application to women. Einstein was not a perfect man, although he insisted he had the right "to live like a man."

In his personal life, Einstein was very much a bourgeois Berliner of his time. He appreciated living in a secluded suburb. He especially coveted the lakeside vacation home and sailing boat he eventually acquired in Caputh, Germany. Even so, he did not suffer the privations of his fellow Berliners during the Hyperinflation or the Depression. His sufficient foresight about Herr Hitler caused him to leave Germany in late 1932. Oddly, he did not suffer the misfortunes of other Berliners because, as a Jew, he was never fully accepted as a German. German anti-Semitism was a persistent warning to Einstein to remain aloof, even though his life was like that of other bourgeois Germans.

Perhaps because he was a Jew born in a hostile environment, Einstein always highly valued his independence. It was a desire for independence which led him to dishonor his marriages, as he did not want to be chained down at home. His famously unkempt hair and clothes were an expression of that fierce independence and rejection of bourgeois values. Nonetheless, Einstein existed because of bourgeois society. He was conventionally handsome, which attracted women. Many amours were made possible by his outlandish stardom, which attracted groupies seeking relief from bourgeois ennui. But, Einstein was also quick enough to put on formal attire when required by the sponsors of public events. Except that he was a scientist, Einstein's life was a lot like today's movie and rock stars.

The author made a documentary film about Einstein for PBS' "NOVA" series, which is perhaps why the book is an easy read. Einstein in Berlin is a series of portraits, scenarios, from which we are supposed to extrapolate what Einstein was like. It gives us an idea of what it was like to be an Einstein during those catastrophic years, 1914-1932. Yet I think this is a light treatment, because Levenson glosses over a very deep issue. I quote, in extenso, his consideration of theories of history:

The Great Man theory of history has come in for much abuse over the years. Most famously, Tolstoy railed against it in War and Peace, in which he tried to demonstrate that Napoleon the man was an insignificant actor in the actual events that decided his disastrous Russian campaign. In kindred arguments, Hegel's idea of history and its Marxist heirs emphasized a logic to history, progress that was achieved by the clash of forces too large and impersonal for any one person to affect. Reworked, ideologically cleansed, extended and reanalyzed, such approaches are now ordinary tools for historians, and they are not entirely wrong, far from it. But at certain times and in particular places, there can be no doubt that the individual matters, that the life or death, the rise or fall, of a single person, reverberates through the experience of untold, unnamed millions.

In Germany in 1933, Adolph Hitler began to shape what would become the twentieth century's collective nightmare. There was nothing inevitable about his triumph - no forces of history, no ineluctable hand of progress. The ground had been prepared long since. The enemies of the German Republic, both left and right, attacked democratic institutions from the moment of their birth. Both probably did more than any other single force to prepare Germany for its man on horseback. But from spring of 1930 to January 1933, decisions made by a handful of known, identifiable individuals made a decisive. Hitler himself was the key actor: who he was and what he committed himself to provided the decisive push that led Germany in one direction and not another. Yet arrayed against him were several men who could have stopped him cold. Hindenburg was perhaps the most important, but there were others who had the chance. Theirs were genuine choices, not false options. But Hitler was both extraordinarily skilled politically and just plain lucky, particularly in the selection of those who stood in his way. He was routinely underestimated, especially at the last, for all that those who had observed him for years should have known better. When some who did worry raised the subject after the creation of the Hitler government, Papen put it most staggeringly in his comment, "We've captured him." It was perhaps the worst misjudgment on record.

The Tolstoyan argument holds this far. Larger forces than Hitler brought the Nazi party and its leader to the surface. There is little doubt that Germany was headed for the political rocks. But which particular breed of right-wing nationalism would triumph was crucial. One tired old man, a former conspirator in his own right, had learned this truth from hard personal experience. Two days after Hitler became chancellor [sic], General Erich von Ludendorff sent Hindenburg a bitter telegram, telling his former commander that "you have delivered up our holy German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time." Only misery could result. "I solemnly predict," Ludendorff wrote, "that this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss. ... Future generations will damn you in your grave for what you have done."

Einstein in Berlin, pp 408-409

I take the foregoing gloss as equivocal, indecisive and shallow; either an attempt to appease or tantalize TV watchers. Mr. Levenson has thrown up a deep and controversial subject in a few paragraphs, without any attempt to resolve it. Mr. Levenson's subject- Einstein in Berlin - stands as an example of how one person cannot stand against a juggernaut. We are fascinated with the picture of the unknown Chinese man stopping the tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1988. It did happen for a few minutes, but then the tanks rolled on and over the Chinese democracy movement. Similarly, Einstein's opposition to Nazism and German bigotry did little to change it. Read carefully, the thrust of Mr. Levenson's discussion leans against The Great Man, against the role of heroes in history. It even leans against Hitler as Great Man, for, as he said, "Larger forces than Hitler brought the Nazi party and its leader to the surface."

Ironically, in view of my favoring a Chaos Theory of History, there were others, not just Hitler, who might have become Chancellor with equally disastrous results. Hitler was just the pick of the day. My hero, Einstein, would never have accepted that notion.