1879–1955
○ Natural causes
German-born physicist who developed the theory of relativity and spoke for pacifism and socialism
In 1914 he signed the anti-war counter-manifesto to the “Manifesto of the Ninety-Three”, and he also signed Hirschfeld’s petition against Paragraph 175.
A theoretical physicist born to a Jewish family in Ulm who studied in Switzerland. In 1905 he published four papers including special relativity, in 1915 he developed general relativity, and he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics. After moving to Berlin in 1914 he opposed the First World War, signed the founding proclamation of the German Democratic Party in 1918 and was active in the German League for Human Rights. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 he stayed in the United States, becoming a citizen in 1940. He later regretted signing the letter urging Roosevelt to develop the atomic bomb, and in 1949 wrote “Why Socialism?”. He died in Princeton in 1955.
Activities and affiliations
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1902–1955
Science and technology
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1918–
Science and technology
Related historical events
Pacifism, Zionism and socialism
He renounced his Württemberg citizenship in 1896 to avoid military service and kept the Swiss citizenship he acquired in 1901 for the rest of his life. Moving to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin in 1914, he became a German citizen again, but when the First World War broke out he was one of the few German intellectuals to distance himself from the “Manifesto of the Ninety-Three” justifying Germany’s war and to sign the irenic “Manifesto to the Europeans” instead. In 1918 he signed the founding proclamation of the left-liberal German Democratic Party; as a member of the German League for Human Rights he worked for reconciliation between Germany and France, and he signed the petition against Paragraph 175 that Hirschfeld’s Scientific-Humanitarian Committee circulated for more than thirty years. He was also in contact with the World League for Sexual Reform’s congress. When the Nazis took power during his 1933 visit to the United States and the Gestapo repeatedly raided his Berlin flat, he renounced his German citizenship, settled at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and helped European Jews to emigrate. He supported Labor Zionism and Jewish–Arab cooperation but had reservations about partitioning Palestine, and in 1952 declined the presidency of Israel. Critical of Lenin’s methods yet honouring him as a man devoted to social justice, he published “Why Socialism?” in Monthly Review in 1949, calling for social ownership of the means of production and a planned economy. A lifelong self-described pacifist, he signed the 1939 letter to Roosevelt warning of a German atomic bomb and later called it the one great mistake of his life. After the war he campaigned with Russell against nuclear testing and signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto days before his death. The FBI kept a 1,427-page file on him.