http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/736758.html
Hebrew University co-founder Albert Einstein bequeathed it his literary
estate and personal papers. (Archives)
Last update - 16:20 10/07/2006
Obscure Einstein lover emerges as Hebrew U. unseals correspondence
By The Associated Press
An obscure lover of Albert Einstein's has emerged in letters
unsealed by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on Monday, shedding new light on
the personal life of the 20th century's greatest intellect.
Ethel Michanowski, a Berlin socialite, was involved with Einstein
in the late 1920s and early 30s - going so far as to chase him to England, said
Barbara Wolff, an archivist at the university's Einstein Archives. She was a
friend of
Einstein's stepdaughters, and was about 30 - 15 years younger than
Einstein - at the time of their affair, Wolff said.
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The more than 3,500 pages of correspondence were written between
1912 and 1955, the year Einstein died. Among the revelations: Einstein lost
much of his Nobel Prize money in the Great Depression, was a more devoted
father than previously thought and made no bones about discussing his romantic
liaisons with his second wife.
Einstein is known to have had 10 lovers, in addition to the two
women he married after affairs with them, Wolff said. Michanowski and the
others - including a Margarete, an Estella, two Tonis and a Betty - sailed,
read books, attended concerts and more with him, archivists told a news
conference.
Most striking about the more than 1,300 letters released on Monday
was the way Einstein openly discussed his extramarital affairs with his second
wife and cousin, Elsa, and his stepdaughter and confidante, Margot, they said.
Michanowski is mentioned in three of the newly unsealed letters.
One letter to Margot in 1931 complained that "Mrs. M." -
Michanowski - "followed me [to England], and her chasing me is getting out of
control."
Einstein was one of the founders of the Hebrew University and he
bequeathed it his literary estate and personal papers. The university also has
licensing rights to the scientist's image, voice and quotes. Professor Hanoch
Gutfreund, a former Hebrew University president and physicist, said those
rights have been worth an estimated $1 million a year to the school over the
past 15 years.
The letters - most of them to Elsa, and from his first wife and
their two sons - have been in the Einstein Archives for years. But under the
terms of Margot Einstein's will, they could not be made public until 20 years
after her death, on July 8, 1986, the university said.
This apparently will be the last time the public will receive such
a big body of work on Einstein, Gutfreund said.
The material released Monday shed no light on Einstein's science or
how he reached his tremendous achievements, Gutfreund said. But it illuminated
a private side of Einstein the public hadn't known about until now, he said.
Einstein's dalliances and abrupt, even cruel treatment of his first
wife, Mileva, have been well documented in biographies. He has also been
portrayed as an indifferent father unwilling to take on the obligations of
parenthood.
Gutfreund said the latest collection show Einstein to have been
more involved and warmer to his first family than previously thought. Letter
from the boys showed "they understood he loved them," he said.
By filling in some previous gaps in correspondence, the documents
presented a more comprehensive picture of the man, Wolff said. "It added colors
to the image we had of Einstein before," she said. "Now we have a
high-resolution picture."
The letters also provide the full story of Einstein's prize money
for the 1921 Nobel prize in physics. Under the terms of his divorce from
Mileva, the entire sum was have been deposited in a Swiss bank account, and
Mileva was to draw on the interest for her and the couple's two sons, Hans
Albert and Eduard.
It's been known for some time that there was a problem with
Einstein's discharge of the agreement, but the details weren't clear. The new
correspondence shows he invested most of it in the U.S., where much of it was
lost in the Great Depression. This caused great friction with Mileva, who felt
betrayed because he didn't deposit the entire sum as agreed, and repeatedly had
to ask him for money, Wolff said.
Ultimately, however, he paid her more money than he received with
the prize, she added.
The man who became best known for his Emc2 equation apparently did
not want to be bound up with it eternally. In a 1921 letter to Elsa, Einstein
confided, "Soon I'll be fed up with the relativity. Even such a thing fades
away when one is too involved with it."
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