Gennaro Ungaro 20th Century European History, Dr. Witkowski Assignment – Term Paper Outline (Historical Figure) October 10, 2013 Albert Einstein and His Escape from the Third Reich Albert Einstein was born in the German city of Ulm in 1879 to Hermann and Pauline Einstein. A year later his family moved to Munich. While growing up in Munich, Einstein excelled in his academic studies. Although he was excelling academically, his marks suffered from a lack of interest in the military style structure his school revolved around. However, in 1894 his father’s company started to fail and his family moved to Italy. A few months later Einstein returned to Munich in the pursuit of finishing school, but this was short lived because he resented the schools military structure and had constant clashes with the schools authority. This forced him to return to his family in Italy and finish school there. In 1895 at the age of sixteen Einstein applied to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich. He was denied entrance because he failed to meet the required minimum standard in all subject material. However, he did score exceptional in physics and mathematics. Einstein then turned to the Aargau Cantonal School in Aarau, Switzerland. A year later he renounced his German citizenship and finished high school. After high school Einstein entered a teaching diploma course at Zurich Polytechnic and finished in 1900. In 1901, his paper, "Conclusions from the Capillarity Phenomena" was published in Annalen der Physik. However, during this time, Einstein was unable to find work teaching. He eventually secured a job in Bern at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property, the patent office, as an assistant examiner. While at the patent office, Einstein was able to examine numerous mechanical and electrical devices. This would later influence some of his works. In 1905, Einstein completed his thesis, with the help of Alfred Kleiner, Professor of Experimental Physics, and was awarded a PhD by the University of Zurich. Gennaro Ungaro 20th Century European History, Dr. Witkowski Assignment – Term Paper Outline (Historical Figure) October 10, 2013 By 1908 he was recognized as a leading scientist and was appointed to teach at the University of Bern. A year later he quit his teaching post at Bern, as well as the patent office, and relocated to Zurich to teach at the University. In 1911 he became a full professor at CharlesFerdinand University in Prague and was beginning to make a name for himself as notable intellectual. In 1914, he would return to Germany after being appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics and a professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He would regain his German citizenship and remain in Germany until his escape to America from the Third Reich in 1933. It was a wise decision. It wasn't long before Nazi officials targeted Einstein. Books attacking his works such as, “100 Authors against Einstein” were published. This gave the Nazi party the means to belittle Einstein’s work. Although such works mostly targeted Einstein as a Jew rather than his scientific work, it infuriated Einstein who up until this point was somewhat a pacifist trying to come to terms with the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. Eventually the Nazis would burn his books among the thousands of other Jewish authors that the Nazis saw unfit. Though he had foreseen the rise of the Third Reich, it still devastated him. He knew he would have to leave Germany and in early 1933 traveled to Belgium to contemplate his next move. He spent a few months in Belgium thinking about what his response would be as to why he left Germany. As he put it, “A group of armed bandits have successfully silenced the responsible sections of the population and imposed a kind of revolution from below which will soon destroy or paralyze everything that is civilized.” Gennaro Ungaro 20th Century European History, Dr. Witkowski Assignment – Term Paper Outline (Historical Figure) October 10, 2013 Einstein's attitude towards his earlier pacifist views began to change. In the spring of 1933, he had believed that an economic blockade would bring down the Third Reich. Now, in the summer, he pressed for an international peace force to forcibly prevent the Third Reich from rising. He supported the New Commonwealth Society's call for “no disarmament without security, no security without an international court of arbitration and an international standing army.” He also told the King of Belgium that because of the rise of the Third Reich, Belgium's army was a means of defense. If it came to it, conscientious objectors should be offered alternative war service. He told an antimilitarist friend, “If I were Belgian I would not, in the present situation, refuse military service. I would enter it in the belief that I was helping European civilization.” Pacifists everywhere were upset; others were enraged. “You can be sure that every chauvinist, militarist and arms merchant will now delight in ridiculing our pacifist position.” said one British activist. Einstein replied, “I loathe all armies and any kind of violence; yet I'm firmly convinced that at present these hateful weapons offer the only effective protection.” However, Einstein never stopped supporting pacifist ideals and after the war became a large advocate of peace all over the world. In the fall of 1933 Einstein left Belgium for England. From there he wrote, “My present attitude towards military service was reached with the greatest reluctance and after a difficult inner struggle.” Although rumors circulated that plots to kidnap or assassinate him had followed him from Germany, he spoke at a mass meeting in the Royal Albert Hall. It was organized by refugee aid workers assisting Jewish academics to escape the Third Reich’s persecution. He told Gennaro Ungaro 20th Century European History, Dr. Witkowski Assignment – Term Paper Outline (Historical Figure) October 10, 2013 an audience of about 10,000 that, “Freedom itself is at stake... One can only hope that the present crisis will lead to a better world.” Einstein arrived in America on October 17, 1933. He was 54 years old. The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton offered him a job, and Princeton became his permanent home. He never returned to Europe. Shortly after Einstein arrived, a friend said, “It was as if something had died in him. He did not laugh anymore.” Einstein's cause then turned to the establishment of an international organization that would ensure peace to the world, and this was the point of many of his correspondence to anti-war groups and meetings. “I am as ardent a pacifist as I ever was.'', he told a rabbi. When Hitler marched into Austria in 1938, the persecution of Jews in Europe grew ever more severe. Einstein started an immediate appeal to non-Jews in Europe and America, for help in “averting the worst.” “No government has the right to conduct a systematic campaign of physical destruction of any segment of the population which resides within its borders. Germany has embarked on such a path in its inhuman persecution of German and Austrian Jews… Can there be anything more humiliating for our generation than to feel compelled to request that innocent people be not killed?” After the allied victory in World War II, Einstein used his experience and influence to help humanity achieve peace. While furthering his works in science, Einstein remained an ardent activist against the evils and atrocities in the world using his own form of pacifist ideology as a template to further the development of peace. A true man of his word, never backing down from Gennaro Ungaro 20th Century European History, Dr. Witkowski Assignment – Term Paper Outline (Historical Figure) October 10, 2013 a cause he picked up. He truly believed that man can co-exist with one another no matter how many differences were between them. He was a great man, scientist, activist and philosopher. When he passed away in 1955, the world lost a true genius who made a giant impact on society in all fields of study. The world is a better place because of Albert Einstein. Bibliography David E. Rowe and Robert Schulmann, ed., Einstein on Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007) Walter C. Mih, The Fascinating Life and Theory of Albert Einstein (Huntington: Kroshka Books, 2000) Jozsef Illy, The Practical Einstein: Experiments, Patents, Inventions (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2012)