Einstein in Berlin

Einstein in Berlin , Thomas Levenson , Bantam Books, New York, 2003. $25.95 (486 pp.). ISBN 0-553-10344-X

When Albert Einstein arrived in Berlin in the spring of 1914, he was at the height of his intellectual powers. Not yet a household name, he was already a force to be reckoned with in the European physics community. Five years would pass before he achieved true celebrity status with partial confirmation of the general theory of relativity in 1919, and almost 20 years would go by before his 1932 departure from the city with which his name has become inextricably linked. Thomas Levenson situates Einstein in that German metropolis, and he does so with great intimacy and sensitivity. In contrast to earlier biographies, Einstein in Berlin is the story of a man and a city. The book is a novel approach to Einstein historiography that, for the general reader, magnifies interest in the physicist’s life.

Levenson begins with a brief prologue and first chapter on Einstein’s life before he arrived in the city. For the most part, the account is straightforward and accurate. Some factual errors and misunderstandings, however, have crept in. The most significant error Levenson has made is perpetuating the myth that Einstein’s work in 1905 arose completely out of the blue. Because of the rediscovery, almost two decades ago, of the letters to his classmate and future wife, Mileva Marić— correspondence on which much of our knowledge of the physicist’s early years rests—we know that Einstein was working on what came to be known as the special theory of relativity since at least 1899.

Less obvious but perhaps more troubling is the author’s occasional misreading of the letters exchanged between Einstein and Marić. The 20-year-old Einstein’s description of a growing estrangement with his mother and sister was not so much an indication of callowness or desperation, as Levenson writes, as it was an admittedly stilted attempt to stress his independence of family and thus ingratiate himself with a new girlfriend. Levenson also misses the point when referring to a passage in which Einstein mentions “our dark souls.” That was no more than a playful allusion to a shared mischievousness, not a reproach about Marić’s brooding nature—a trait that Einstein would criticize much later in their relationship.

The author really hits his stride when writing about Einstein’s time in Berlin. The book is particularly masterful in its evocation of World War I and its importance as a crucible for the struggling democratic Weimar Republic that emerged in Germany in 1919. Clearly, Levenson feels very much at home discussing the strategy battles, and personalities of that war; with great effect, he devotes considerable space to this topic.

By contrast, the author gives short shrift to Einstein’s changing views on Zionism, a central thread that runs through the physicist’s Berlin years. The importance of that theme is brought home even more powerfully when we consider that it may go to the heart of a significant mystery about Einstein: How did an individual so dedicated to the pursuit of scientific truth in his early years emerge with passionately held political interests after the war? And where did those political interests come from? We know that Einstein’s indifference to political issues, as well as his “agnostic” views on religion and a Jewish cultural identity, changed in Berlin. Is it mere speculation that he forged a new sensibility and willingness to speak out on public issues by confronting what it meant to be a Jew? Such questions are open, but unfortunately Levenson does not pursue them in his book.

It seems the author is after bigger game. His goal, as he puts it, is to instrumentalize Einstein as “a kind of human Geiger counter tracing Berlin’s state and fate at any moment for [the] eighteen crucial years” of the Weimar Republic. In addition to using the rather unfortunate metaphor, Levenson sets up for himself an impossible task. Einstein was the archetypal “outsider as insider,” a man who remained aloof and is therefore not suitable to serve as a guide to Weimar Germany. The author could have more fruitfully juxtaposed Einstein’s growing scientific isolation with an account of the burgeoning, interactive physics communities in Berlin and the rest of Europe.

Throughout the book, Levenson generally does a fine job in getting his German citations and translations correct. The book’s index, however, is unfortunately riddled with egregious misspellings.

Einstein does not typify the period or the city of Berlin. He observed and partook of the city’s singularity. And yet, even as an observer, he pales in comparison with German diplomat and man-about-town Harry Kessler, whose memoirs have recently been excellently translated into English. Still, there is no denying Einstein’s symbolic importance. As Levenson accurately sums up toward the conclusion of his book, Einstein was a “tangible emblem of the city’s drive to excel.” Describing him in that manner is quite a different and far more acceptable proposition than viewing him as a human Geiger counter.