Albert Einstein ALS - November 24, 1923...

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Albert Einstein ALS - November 24, 1923 Autograph letter signed ("Papa"), 4 pages (5.25 x 8.5 in.; 133 x 216 mm.), front and back, in German, Leiden, Holland, 24 November 1923, written to To my dear children. When signing, Einstein first signed Albert over which he wrote Papa. Einstein ponders giving up his position in Germany [at the Prussian Academy of Sciences] and discusses German politics and the Jewish people. Einstein writes in part: I'm sitting here quietly in Holland after I was informed that there are certain people in Germany who are after me as a "Jewish Holy Man" In Stuttgart, they even had a billboard where I was ranked first among the richest Jews. That costs money and speaks of bad intentions...I'm working so hard that it is affecting my stomach, so I have to take it easy, which is why I don't want to travel....I have been thinking about giving up my position in Germany altogether but I am not doing that because it would be morally damaging to the German intellectuals, which is something I want to avoid. Should my return to Germany not be advisable in the near future, I shall stay in Holland...Now I am happy that you stayed in Switzerland. An existence in Germany would have become pretty difficult. You can hardly imagine how the poor people there have to suffer. A note to Tetel: Music is one of the best companions in life. It will beautify and enlighten your path. Love, Papa. With the price of a loaf of bread in Berlin rising in 1923 from 700 to one billion marks, the Germans were casting about for scapegoats. Internationalists, pacifists and Jews all fit the bill, and Einstein, who was an internationalist, pacifist and Jew, was one of the first targets of the Nazis. Ultimately, German anti-semitism and the drumbeat of Nazi death threats would cause Einstein not only to flee Berlin, but the continent of Europe. By 1933, he would come to America to stay.