Elsa Einstein
Elsa Einstein ( born January 18, 1876 in Hechingen, Hohenzollern land; † December 20, 1936 in Princeton, New Jersey, United States) was the cousin and second wife of Albert Einstein. Elsa's birth name was Einstein. By her first marriage to Max Lowenthal, she participated in the last name. By her second marriage to Albert Einstein regained her birth name.
Childhood and youth
Elsa Einstein was the daughter of Rudolf and Fanny Einstein (née Koch) and was Jewish. She was born in Hechingen in the Castle Road 16 and had two sisters, Paula ( 1878-1955 ) and Hermione ( 1872-1942 ). Rudolf Einstein was a textile manufacturer in Hechingen. Elsa's mother was the sister of Pauline Einstein (née Koch), the mother of Albert Einstein. Her father was the brother of Albert Einstein's father, Hermann Einstein.
Elsa and Albert Einstein knew each other from childhood. Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, already one year old moved with his parents to Munich and later grew zoom in Italy and Switzerland. During regular visits to the family in Munich Elsa often played with her younger by three years cousin Albert, who would revolutionize later with his theory of relativity physics. However, for his family and for his cousin Elsa, he remained all his life the " Albertle ", a Swabian dialect peculiar tendency to diminutives. When Albert in 1894 the Gymnasium in Munich broke off and followed his family to Milan, to prepare for the Zurich Polytechnic, crack of contact with Elsa. About Elsa's own training in Hechingen today is not known.
First marriage to Max Lowenthal
1896 Elsa married the Berlin textile dealer Max Lowenthal ( 1864-1914 ). The two lived with their daughters Ilse (1897-1934) and Margot (1899-1986) in Hechingen. A third child, a son, was born in 1903, but died shortly after his birth. Just one year before the birth of the boy Max Lowenthal went to Berlin for professional reasons. His family remained in Hechingen.
In 1908 Elsa divorce her husband, but kept still the name Lowenthal. They moved with their two daughters to Berlin and lived on the top floor of a comfortable middle-class apartment buildings in the Bavarian Quarter ( Haberlandstraße 5). The underlying floor inhabited their parents. Even Albert Einstein's mother Pauline had come in 1910 with the family from Hechingen to Berlin, but in 1911 accepted a position as a housekeeper in the Württemberg.
Life at the side of the famous physicist
Albert Einstein, who was a professor at the University of Prague in 1911 and from 1912 taught at the ETH Zurich, Elsa met around that time again when visiting Berlin. He had not seen her since the Munich childhood. Einstein was married at that time still with Mileva Marić and lived with her and their two sons in Zurich. The unalterable opinion of his mother and probably also the other Einstein that his marriage to Mileva a big mistake, if not even had been an accident, he had progressed so far connected that even the later separation and eventually divorce looming.
Around 1912 began the relationship between the 33 -year-old Einstein and the then 36 -year-old Elsa. It is not known when Einstein his cousin has informed the address of the Physics Institute of the ETH, but certainly is that Elsa Lowenthal wrote to her cousin 's 34th birthday on 14 March 1913. A secret correspondence ensued between the two. As in Einstein's visit to Berlin in late September 1913 cousins had come very close, it kept Elsa necessary to give her Albert some utensils for personal care which of these " ... if I am to you so unappetizing with the words, then such you a genießbareren for female tastes friend .. " let unused. 1914 Einstein by Max Planck was summoned to Berlin. Einstein was - not least because of the proximity to Elsa - enthusiastic.
Einstein's wife Mileva and the sons went first to Berlin. But after a short time there were conflicts that made another common life impossible. Mileva and the sons went back to Switzerland. For Einstein, the farewell was already final. Mileva other hand wavered for years between hope and despair. End of 1914, Einstein had most of the furniture ship to Switzerland and pulled himself into a smaller apartment more in the city center near the Kurfürstendamm. "With the separation I am very satisfied, but I rarely hear from my little boys. The peace and serenity do me extremely well, no less than the really nice relationship with my cousin, " he said. Elsa's apartment in the Bavarian Quarter was after about a quarter of an hour to reach on foot.
Not yet 38 years old, fell ill Einstein at the beginning of 1917 heavy. He had to cure a liver disease characterized by strict diet and a quiet life. The next four years suffered Einstein to a group of diseases with different intensity. He rented an apartment in the Haberlandstraße 5, which was right next to the Elsa. Now Elsa was able to organize the care of convalescents still perfect.
From Berlin, Einstein in 1915 and again in 1918 tried Mileva to move to divorce, among other things, with the promise that he her, he should get the Nobel Prize, the prize money will leave. The couple divorced on February 14, 1919 due to " natural intolerance " at the District Court of Zurich. Despite the two-year marriage ban, which Einstein had been imposed in the divorce decree from the District Court of Zurich, he strode on June 2, 1919 in Berlin to the registry office and married his cousin Elsa. Elsa's daughters Ilse and Margot had previously taken the name of Einstein and talked her uncle in the family circle as " Albert" in, from third parties after all, as the "Father Albert".
Elsa was still attractive, fun-loving and live virtuous woman, not without awareness of social status and receptive to the glory of her husband. With the title " Professor " she blossomed literally. In Berlin professor circles but also heard all sorts of criticism. Some are said to have criticized their level, others told her after she shields her husband as a personal possession from, and still others made her and her fame addiction responsible if they disliked Einstein's public appearance. Elsa Einstein but tried to create their Albert an atmosphere that was his failing health and his work equally beneficial. She accompanied him on his many travels. In 1929, she was the driving force in the construction of their summer house in Caputh near Potsdam.
Initially Elsa could still smile at the flirtations of their " Albertle ", but in 1923 she was her husband's not safe anymore. A young lady named Betty Neumann had entered the service as a secretary and Einstein had broken out in a violent love for her. This love ended at the end of the year 1924, when he wrote to her, " he must seek in the stars what was denied him on earth ," a strangely sublime renunciation. Guests at Einstein could not overlook the fact " that the relationship between him and his wife had inexplicably cool. Mrs. Einstein was there and yet not exist ". After the end of the relationship with Betty Neumann, he had apparently not come to terms with having to seek his fortune in the stars, but continued to meet you with beautiful women.
Emigration to Princeton and death
1933 Einstein emigrated due to the rise of Hitler with Elsa in the U.S. to Princeton, New Jersey. 1934 ill Elsa's daughter Ilse difficult. In mid-May of the same year accompanied Elsa Einstein to Belgenland the port of New York, but she was traveling alone to Europe. She could only stand by dying her daughter. In August, the ashes of the only 37 years old has become Ilse was buried in Holland. At Princeton, Albert and Elsa bought in August 1935 a house in Mercer Street 112 But even when moving Elsa was frightened by the feeling that they would not be in the new home long can enjoy. A swelling on the eye had occurred, which was diagnosed as a harbinger of serious circulatory and kidney problems. There was a painful winter and the long summer holidays in the mild climate of the Adirondack Mountains on Saranac Lake in upstate New York brought only moderate relief. During the subsequent months in Princeton, Einstein was so worried about his wife, " that he miserable and depressed walked around ," as Elsa told yet. "I had never thought that he so hang on me. That feels good too. " She died on 20 December 1936 in her home in Princeton.
Shortly before his own death, Einstein wrote to the son of his deceased friend Michele Besso: " But what I admired most about him ( Besso ), is the fact that he has managed for many years not only in peace, but even to live in constant consonance with a woman - an endeavor in which I twice failed rather disgracefully. "