ALBERT EINSTEIN AS A PACIFIST AND DEMOCRAT DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR HUBERT GOENNER (INSTITUT FÜR THEORETISCHE PHYSIK, UNIVERSITÄT GÖTTINGEN) AND GIUSEPPE CASTAGNETTI (MAX-PLANCK-INSTITUT FÜR BILDUNGSFORSCHUNG, BERLIN) 0 INTRODUCTION As we all know, the peace movement has played and is presently playing only a marginal rôle in European and in world politics. Nevertheless, actual historiography also takes note of such side-streams in the historical development, because it is interesting to study outsiders of the reg- ular strata of society and their judgement concerning government politics. In this paper, we present a case study of a scientist who changed the history of his discipline physics but re- mained one of these political outsiders in Germany during the First World War: Albert Einstein (1879-1955).1 At least since Nathan and Norden’s book Einstein on peace we know that Einstein took part in the peace movement since the outbreak of the First World War. In fact, we read “that, except for his devotion to science, no cause was more important or closer to his heart than the deter- mination that the institution of war be forever abolished” (Nathan and Norden 1968, p. vii). Un- fortunately, this description, as far as the period of 1914-1918 is concerned, is less than precise and directed more by reverence for Einstein than by factual research in the peace movement in Germany during the First World War.2 Its main activists among German university professors 1 As a reference for the history of the First World War cf. Erdmann 1973; for the history of the peace movement in Germany during the war cf. Quidde 1979, Holl 1988, Eisenbeiß 1980 and Stiewe 1972. For Einstein’s bio- graphy cf. Fölsing 1993 and Hermann 1994. 2 As Nathan and Norden 1968 sometimes omit passages, we translate from the later German edition Nathan and Norden 1975 or from the original documents. Hubert Goenner and Giuseppe Castagnetti as were Ludwig Quidde (1858 -1941), Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster (1869 -1966), Walther Schücking (1875 -1935) and Hans Wehberg (1885 -1962) are quoted by Nathan and Norden only in passing mostly in the annotations and, surprisingly, not in connection with the period of 1914-18.3 Although Herneck’s general characterization of Einstein as an “unfearing fighter for the mutual understanding of nations and world peace” is certainly correct, it nevertheless may give a misleading impression for the time studied (Herneck 1979, p. 37). It all depends with whom Einstein is compared. Among his colleagues at the Preußische Akademie der Wissen- schaften (Prussian Academy of Sciences) and within the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (German Physical Society), Einstein stands out as a peace loving man whose internationalistic and antiwar thinking was unparalleled. However, within the group of German university pro- fessors struggling for peace, he was just one of an, admittedly very small, group of colleagues opposing Pan-German chauvinism and trying to influence the Prussian political and military es- tablishment. Moreover, in this peaceful competition, as we shall see, he came in about at the last place, if practised non-conformism (not just in thought), public activity and being an ad- dressee of the wrath of “Kaiserliche” authorities are considered. We have had to revise our opinion concerning these matters formed by Nathan and Norden, Herneck and the generally ac- cepted recognition of Einstein as a pacifist leader. In fact, from the available historiographical reports on the peace movement during the First World War, Einstein emerges as a marginal fig- ure outstanding not by his activity but by his moral integrity. That it hardly could have been different seems obvious: a man with 59 publications during 1914-1918 with about 30 research papers in theoretical physics among them, and who in 1914/ 1915 brought to its grand finale the revolutionary accomplishment of General Relativity, could at the same time not have been also very active in any further field. More so, because, in the same period, Einstein suffered from repeated illness (1917, 1918) and was emotionally torn by the separation from his family. Einstein’s upbringing and life experience had not made him a political thinker; during the epoch studied here he only very slowly evolved from moral indig- nation towards the war to a political assessment of it. In the words of Konrad Wachsmann (1901-1980), the architect of Einstein’s summer house in Caputh: “Einstein’s pacifism was rooted in a deep disdain of brutality, cruelty, hatred, and every form of destruction. He consid- ered it perverse to honour humans for killing other humans and give them medals. He consid- ered cultivation of heroes as an invitation to murder and manslaughter [...]. Einstein’s pacifism came from logical thinking as well as from a warm human feeling [...]” (Grüning 1990, p. 256). 3 For the peace movement and the attitude of German professors cf. Beales 1931, Böhme 1975. 2 Albert Einstein as a pacifist and democrat during the First World War The paper will be grouped into five parts. In the first section, we shall make brief remarks con- cerning the international and German peace movement before and during the First World War. The prevailing nationalistic climate at German universities during the war is sketched. In sec- tions 2 - 4, a more or less chronological narrative of Einstein’s activities within the peace move- ment, structured according to some of the key events, is given. Finally, in the fifth section, we try to describe Einstein’s position and his eventual development toward political thinking. Cer- tain conflicts within Einstein’s attitude and actual behaviour are laid open. Questions from so- cial history and the history of ideas are only briefly touched, but not answered. Such are, for example, why Einstein’s self-understanding as a scientist and university professor differed so much from his colleagues, to what extent he still shared the naive agreement of the majority of physicists that science and politics must be strictly kept apart or, why he projected the course of history more into the actions of small moral and spiritual elites than into the masses of people driven by economical and social needs. We intend to link our case-study to general studies of German academia before and during the First World War in other papers. 1 PEACE MOVEMENT AND GERMAN ACADEMIA 1.1 A background sketch of the peace movement We are used to call members of peace societies “pacifists”. But the word “pacifism” is not as simple a concept as to be defined within one line. It has been said that “pacifism and the science concerning international law (Völkerrechtswissenschaft) were children of industrialization. They were born when security through the law, private ownership and capital investment all were threatened, on the one side, by the increase in armament and, on the other side, by interior (social) revolution” (Stiewe 1972, p. 35-6); or, expressed differently, social tensions might be relieved by international organization and, eventually, social reform. Historical fact is that the idea of organizing the arbitration of international conflicts was discussed, politically, as early as in 1832. Somewhat later, the demand of reducing armaments was debated in the English Par- liament. Such a motion was introduced also and in vain, for example, by the pathologist and liberal democratic politician Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) in the Norddeutscher Reichstag (North German Parliament) in 1869.4 In a way, pacifism is said to be a growth of the larger bourgeois liberal parties in which even rather conservative minds could feel welcome. For them pacifism appeared a sort of a friendly imperialism in the form of industrial exchange (mercan- 4 For the history of the peace movement cf. Fried 1911-1913. 3 Hubert Goenner and Giuseppe Castagnetti tilism). From the German angle, to some it might have meant the formation of a union of Euro- pean states under the leadership of Imperial Germany. In fact, in the third war-pamphlet of the Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft (German Peace Society) we read: “the different groups of power now separated by jealousy ought to be replaced by a system of states, possibly with equal rights [...]”, but the version published in the journal Völkerfriede reads “[...], possibly under the lead- ership of Germany” (Quidde 1979, p. 50 and 334; our italics). In fact, before the First World War, the German peace movement was far from opposing the status quo both in interior and exterior politics (Brunner et al. 1978, vol. 4, p. 773). Nevertheless, it was held in contempt: “One should not forget that the peace movement in Germany was considered largely as a dec- adent, jewish and feminist appearance” (Stiewe 1972, p. 352). In the United States and in England, some peace organizations were established already in the first half of the 19th century. Other countries were slower to follow. The foundation of an In- terparlamentary Union in Paris, in 1888, by English and French members of Parliament signals an active phase of the European peace movement in the last two decades of the old and reaching into the 20th century (Fried 1911-1913). In Berne, Switzerland, an International Peace Bureau was installed in 1892 in order to organize World Peace Congresses on a regular basis. One of its German representatives was Quidde from Munic who organized the World Peace Congress of 1907 and whom we shall meet again soon. Berta von Suttner’s (1834 -1914) well received moralistic novel Die Waffen nieder ! (Ground arms!, 1889) which described war as an avoidable evil led to the foundation, by the author and Alfred H. Fried (1864 -1921), both Austrians, of the Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft, in 1892. Its coming to life and further existence in the next twenty years was rather feeble; in contrast to the vigorous life of the imperialist Alldeutscher Verein (Pan-German League) founded in 1891 in the presence of 32 members of the Reichstag and of numerous university professors (Barkeley 1948, p.