Quantum_ Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality - Manjit Kumar [149]
Six weeks earlier, on 14 September, the Nazis had gained 6.4 million votes in the Reichstag elections. The size of the Nazi vote stunned many. In May 1924 the party had won 32 seats, and in the December elections that same year, just fourteen. In May 1928 they did even worse, winning a mere twelve seats and 812,000 votes. The result seemed to confirm the Nazis as just another far-right fringe group. Now, little more than two years later, they had increased their share of the vote eight-fold and were the second-largest party in the Reichstag with 107 deputies.18
Einstein was not alone in believing that 'the Hitler vote is only a symptom, not necessarily of anti-Jewish hatred but of momentary resentment caused by economic misery and unemployment within the ranks of misguided German youths'.19 However, only about one quarter of those who voted Nazi were young first-time voters. It was among the older generation of white-collar workers, shopkeepers, small businessmen, Protestant farmers in the north, craftsmen, and unskilled workers outside the industrial centres that Nazi support was strongest. What contributed decisively to the changed German political landscape between the elections of 1928 and 1930 was the Wall Street Crash in October 1929.
Germany was hardest hit by the financial shockwaves emanating from New York. The lifeblood of its fragile economic revival of the past five years had been short-term loans from the United States. With mounting losses, and in disarray, American financial institutions demanded immediate repayment of existing loans. The result was a rapid rise in unemployment from 1.3 million in September 1929 to over 3 million in October 1930. Einstein for the moment saw the Nazis as nothing more than a 'childish disease of the Republic' that would soon pass.20 The disease, however, would kill off an already ailing Weimar Republic that had in all but name abandoned parliamentary democracy in favour of rule by decree.
'We are moving toward bad times', wrote a pessimistic Sigmund Freud on 7 December 1930.21 'I ought to ignore it with the apathy of old age, but I can't help feeling sorry for my seven grandchildren.' Five days earlier, Einstein had left Germany to spend two months at Caltech, the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Boltzmann, Schrödinger and Lorentz had all lectured at what had fast become one America's leading centres of scientific excellence. When his ship docked in New York, Einstein was persuaded to give a fifteen-minute press conference to the horde of waiting reporters. 'What do you think of Adolf Hitler?' shouted one. 'He is living on the empty stomach of Germany', replied Einstein. 'As soon as the economic conditions improve, he will no longer be important.'22
A year later, in December 1931, when he set off for a second stint at Caltech, Germany was in an even deeper economic depression and greater political turmoil. 'I decided today that I shall essentially give up my Berlin position and shall be a bird of passage for the rest of my life', Einstein wrote in his diary as he crossed the Atlantic.23 While in California, Einstein happened to meet Abraham Flexner, who was in the process of establishing a unique research centre, the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey. Armed with a $5 million donation, Flexner wanted to create a 'society of scholars' devoted entirely to research, freed from the demands of teaching students. Serendipitously meeting Einstein, Flexner wasted little time in taking the first steps that eventually led to the recruitment of the world's most celebrated scientist.
Einstein agreed to spend five months a year at the institute and the remainder in Berlin. 'I am not abandoning Germany', he told the New York Times.24 'My permanent home will still be in Berlin.'