1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:08,943 (mellow music) 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 4 00:00:13,340 --> 00:00:15,150 I'm not only a pacifist, 5 00:00:17,014 --> 00:00:18,303 but a militant pacifist, militant. 6 00:00:22,990 --> 00:00:26,689 I'm willing to fight, to fight for peace. 7 00:00:26,689 --> 00:00:29,356 (voice echoing) 8 00:00:33,271 --> 00:00:36,188 (static crackling) 9 00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:48,633 I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, 10 00:00:51,010 --> 00:00:53,720 but I can tell you what they'll use in the Fourth: 11 00:00:56,956 --> 00:00:57,789 rocks. 12 00:01:02,777 --> 00:01:06,520 The myth of Einstein was created in 1919. 13 00:01:06,520 --> 00:01:09,337 You can date it very specifically. 14 00:01:09,337 --> 00:01:12,570 (elegant classical music) 15 00:01:12,570 --> 00:01:15,180 The British astronomer Stanley Eddington 16 00:01:15,180 --> 00:01:17,550 confirmed Einstein's general theory of relativity 17 00:01:17,550 --> 00:01:19,753 through observations of a solar eclipse. 18 00:01:36,860 --> 00:01:40,220 He announced them in a very dramatic fashion 19 00:01:40,220 --> 00:01:43,470 in November 1919 to a joint session of the Royal Society 20 00:01:43,470 --> 00:01:45,253 and the Royal Astronomical Society. 21 00:01:47,450 --> 00:01:50,230 And that was then followed by sensational headlines 22 00:01:50,230 --> 00:01:52,987 in "The Times of London" and "New York Times." 23 00:02:00,600 --> 00:02:03,170 There was almost a conspiracy 24 00:02:03,170 --> 00:02:05,020 of the great newspapers 25 00:02:05,020 --> 00:02:07,383 to elevate this man into the firmament. 26 00:02:13,690 --> 00:02:18,690 When Einstein's general theory of relativity was confirmed 27 00:02:18,780 --> 00:02:21,560 by Eddington in 1919, 28 00:02:21,560 --> 00:02:26,560 this really was the start for big public enthusiasm 29 00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:30,470 but also for a big public controversy. 30 00:02:30,470 --> 00:02:33,899 The English-speaking world was quicker to accept him 31 00:02:33,899 --> 00:02:37,270 as this greater-than-life figure. 32 00:02:37,270 --> 00:02:40,063 Much more so, interestingly enough, than in Germany. 33 00:02:40,063 --> 00:02:43,400 They were making jokes about the theory of relativity, 34 00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:48,140 saying when people go dancing, when they dance waltz, 35 00:02:48,140 --> 00:02:49,410 then you will lose weight 36 00:02:49,410 --> 00:02:53,700 when you dance in the direction where the Earth rotates 37 00:02:53,700 --> 00:02:54,790 or you gain weight 38 00:02:54,790 --> 00:02:57,770 when you dance turning in the other direction. 39 00:02:57,770 --> 00:03:00,370 So the theory of relativity was really present 40 00:03:00,370 --> 00:03:02,567 in the public sphere everywhere. 41 00:03:02,567 --> 00:03:05,817 (playful twangy music) 42 00:03:58,837 --> 00:04:02,090 The theory of relativity was really a topic 43 00:04:02,090 --> 00:04:06,183 in all areas in the public that you can think of. 44 00:04:07,120 --> 00:04:09,880 This world is a strange mad house. 45 00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:11,970 Every coachman and every baker 46 00:04:11,970 --> 00:04:15,023 is debating whether relativity theory is correct. 47 00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:16,913 As a consequence 48 00:04:16,913 --> 00:04:19,430 of his celebrity status overnight, 49 00:04:19,430 --> 00:04:21,010 photographers and journalists 50 00:04:21,010 --> 00:04:23,530 started besieging his apartment, 51 00:04:23,530 --> 00:04:25,620 and from that moment on, basically, 52 00:04:25,620 --> 00:04:27,540 every public utterance that he would make 53 00:04:27,540 --> 00:04:29,260 and every trip that he undertook 54 00:04:29,260 --> 00:04:31,083 would be reported in great detail. 55 00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:35,774 With me, every peep becomes a trumpet solo. 56 00:04:35,774 --> 00:04:37,465 (triumphant fanfare) 57 00:04:37,465 --> 00:04:40,048 (bright music) 58 00:04:50,573 --> 00:04:53,240 (choir singing) 59 00:04:56,230 --> 00:04:57,507 Einstein! 60 00:04:57,507 --> 00:05:00,257 (choir chanting) 61 00:05:02,856 --> 00:05:04,297 Einstein! 62 00:05:04,297 --> 00:05:07,047 (crowd cheering) 63 00:05:16,643 --> 00:05:19,020 Professor and Mrs. Einstein, 64 00:05:19,020 --> 00:05:24,020 it is my pleasure to welcome you to the City of San Diego 65 00:05:25,380 --> 00:05:27,823 and to the State of California. 66 00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:33,377 (Albert speaking German) 67 00:05:42,020 --> 00:05:43,930 When Einstein came to America, 68 00:05:43,930 --> 00:05:46,290 there were parades turned out to meet him, 69 00:05:46,290 --> 00:05:48,910 and there were parades in several places, 70 00:05:48,910 --> 00:05:50,910 and he was invited here, there, and everywhere. 71 00:05:50,910 --> 00:05:53,590 He was the first intellectual pop star. 72 00:05:53,590 --> 00:05:55,440 People go out into the streets to greet him. 73 00:05:55,440 --> 00:05:56,810 He's a big celebrity. 74 00:05:56,810 --> 00:05:58,889 Everybody knows what Einstein looks like. 75 00:05:58,889 --> 00:06:02,191 (elegant classical music) 76 00:06:02,191 --> 00:06:04,600 A young Einstein felt encouraged to enter science. 77 00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:07,440 He had a teacher at his home, Max Talmud, 78 00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:10,343 later called Talmey, who was a medical student, 79 00:06:11,690 --> 00:06:13,570 enthusiastic about science, 80 00:06:13,570 --> 00:06:17,870 and who took the younger Einstein as an equal, 81 00:06:17,870 --> 00:06:19,480 discussing with him science. 82 00:06:19,480 --> 00:06:24,470 Science was not the esoteric world to be admired from below. 83 00:06:24,470 --> 00:06:26,460 It was a time of development, 84 00:06:26,460 --> 00:06:29,941 of sophisticated industrialization, of electrotechnology, 85 00:06:29,941 --> 00:06:31,850 of technology conquering the world. 86 00:06:31,850 --> 00:06:34,280 It was a world in which one could enter, 87 00:06:34,280 --> 00:06:37,610 actively contribute, become part of it. 88 00:06:37,610 --> 00:06:39,340 And so, the young Einstein did. 89 00:06:39,340 --> 00:06:41,980 And he went to Italy and experienced the freedom there 90 00:06:41,980 --> 00:06:44,550 and the great culture but also the open mindedness 91 00:06:44,550 --> 00:06:47,110 towards exactly this kind of development. 92 00:06:47,110 --> 00:06:48,000 With his uncle, 93 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:51,950 he communicated about electrotechnical developments. 94 00:06:51,950 --> 00:06:53,200 My dear uncle, 95 00:06:53,200 --> 00:06:55,700 I'm really very glad that you are still interested 96 00:06:55,700 --> 00:06:57,660 in my humble doings. 97 00:06:57,660 --> 00:06:59,770 It is rather naive and imperfect. 98 00:06:59,770 --> 00:07:03,690 This might be expected from such a young fellow like myself. 99 00:07:03,690 --> 00:07:07,130 And was quite familiar with this growing world, 100 00:07:07,130 --> 00:07:10,470 which really extended from technical equipments 101 00:07:10,470 --> 00:07:12,470 that were changing the daily life, 102 00:07:12,470 --> 00:07:15,440 electric lighting was being spread in the cities, 103 00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:18,050 to the intellectual challenges this implied. 104 00:07:18,050 --> 00:07:20,630 You could have the feeling, as a young person, 105 00:07:20,630 --> 00:07:23,170 of challenging the foundation of your world, 106 00:07:23,170 --> 00:07:26,110 and this gave Einstein a lot of courage 107 00:07:26,110 --> 00:07:28,410 that there was something to be achieved, 108 00:07:28,410 --> 00:07:29,970 you could make a difference. 109 00:07:29,970 --> 00:07:33,020 Even if you were not born into the center of the world 110 00:07:33,020 --> 00:07:34,850 and if you came from the margins, 111 00:07:34,850 --> 00:07:37,410 there was this way of entering the big world. 112 00:07:37,410 --> 00:07:40,510 The class of people that made it, 113 00:07:40,510 --> 00:07:43,510 people who were open-minded, who were believing in progress 114 00:07:43,510 --> 00:07:46,970 and not just in technological but also in social progress, 115 00:07:46,970 --> 00:07:51,463 in a bright, international, communicative world. 116 00:07:52,410 --> 00:07:54,240 And that's the world in which Einstein grew up. 117 00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:57,010 His parents were from a rural Southern German, 118 00:07:57,010 --> 00:07:58,870 more of a egalitarian ethos 119 00:07:58,870 --> 00:08:01,950 than the typical Prussian military ethos 120 00:08:01,950 --> 00:08:04,800 that we're familiar with when we think of German culture. 121 00:08:06,800 --> 00:08:09,570 Part of Einstein's support for social justice 122 00:08:09,570 --> 00:08:13,130 comes from his experiences of anti-Semitism at school 123 00:08:13,130 --> 00:08:14,670 from quite an early age. 124 00:08:14,670 --> 00:08:18,030 He would be bullied on the way to school, 125 00:08:18,030 --> 00:08:20,190 even physically assaulted sometimes. 126 00:08:20,190 --> 00:08:23,410 A Catholic teacher once brought a nail to school 127 00:08:23,410 --> 00:08:26,160 and presented it to the children and said, "This is the nail 128 00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:29,740 with which the Jews killed our Lord and Savior." 129 00:08:29,740 --> 00:08:31,547 And then everybody turned to Einstein, 130 00:08:31,547 --> 00:08:34,343 and he was quite mortified. 131 00:08:35,810 --> 00:08:37,890 Ever since Einstein was very little, 132 00:08:37,890 --> 00:08:39,850 he was a revolutionary. 133 00:08:39,850 --> 00:08:43,110 He revolted against the way German teaching 134 00:08:43,110 --> 00:08:46,570 basically crushed imagination out of young children, 135 00:08:46,570 --> 00:08:48,760 the tedious memorization. 136 00:08:48,760 --> 00:08:50,770 You weren't supposed to question the teacher. 137 00:08:50,770 --> 00:08:53,730 The teacher was god in the classroom. 138 00:08:53,730 --> 00:08:55,000 As a teenager, 139 00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:59,030 Einstein had to confront the issue of war and peace. 140 00:08:59,030 --> 00:09:01,640 Einstein did not want to go into the German Army, 141 00:09:01,640 --> 00:09:04,130 and so, he became a draft dodger. 142 00:09:04,130 --> 00:09:07,490 How many 16-year-old kids have the political maturity 143 00:09:07,490 --> 00:09:10,200 to say to themselves that they are against war 144 00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:13,160 so they're gonna renounce their citizenship? 145 00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:15,360 Young Einstein leaves Germany for Italy 146 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:17,230 to reunite with his parents 147 00:09:17,230 --> 00:09:19,290 because he cannot stomach the idea 148 00:09:19,290 --> 00:09:21,113 of being part of a war machine. 149 00:09:22,010 --> 00:09:24,120 Einstein had a political learning curve 150 00:09:24,120 --> 00:09:26,240 at the end of the 19th century, 151 00:09:26,240 --> 00:09:29,660 a son of a liberal Jewish family. 152 00:09:29,660 --> 00:09:32,630 So his family went to Italy, he studied in Switzerland. 153 00:09:32,630 --> 00:09:33,859 It was an important place for him, also, 154 00:09:33,859 --> 00:09:37,270 to experience what a democracy is like, 155 00:09:37,270 --> 00:09:39,030 gave him an internationalist outlook 156 00:09:39,030 --> 00:09:41,870 that portrayed to him the model republic. 157 00:09:41,870 --> 00:09:45,870 When he came to Berlin at the eve of the First World War, 158 00:09:45,870 --> 00:09:48,653 most of his colleague were German nationalist, 159 00:09:49,500 --> 00:09:51,850 considered German militarism as a necessity 160 00:09:51,850 --> 00:09:54,090 to defend German culture. 161 00:09:54,090 --> 00:09:57,380 Einstein was taken aback by it, and he had other views 162 00:09:57,380 --> 00:10:01,410 on the basis of this different background that he had. 163 00:10:01,410 --> 00:10:04,120 That vilest offspring of the herd mind, 164 00:10:04,120 --> 00:10:06,470 the odious militia. 165 00:10:06,470 --> 00:10:09,400 He wasn't a political animal at this time 166 00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:12,670 but he mobilized some of the intellectual moral resources 167 00:10:12,670 --> 00:10:16,640 that his education had give him to become more and more 168 00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:19,360 of a politically conscious human being. 169 00:10:19,360 --> 00:10:22,970 And so, his strong sense of justice, 170 00:10:22,970 --> 00:10:25,750 his strong sense of universal and globalism, 171 00:10:25,750 --> 00:10:28,430 and his participation as a Jew 172 00:10:28,430 --> 00:10:31,390 are the foundation of his morality. 173 00:10:31,390 --> 00:10:33,530 Only morality in our actions 174 00:10:33,530 --> 00:10:36,320 can give beauty and dignity to life. 175 00:10:36,320 --> 00:10:39,720 And he, like in physics, is a revolutionary thinker. 176 00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:42,610 He could identify with the underdog. 177 00:10:42,610 --> 00:10:43,990 Following his studies, 178 00:10:43,990 --> 00:10:48,990 when he was then looking around desperately for a position, 179 00:10:49,360 --> 00:10:51,600 he was the only one in his class who, ironically, 180 00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:54,580 did not secure a position as an assistant, 181 00:10:54,580 --> 00:10:57,670 the first step on the ladder of an academic career. 182 00:10:57,670 --> 00:11:01,460 To some extent, he blamed anti-Semitism for that. 183 00:11:01,460 --> 00:11:03,710 It was also probably to do with his personality 184 00:11:03,710 --> 00:11:08,710 of not really getting on with the powers that be. 185 00:11:08,870 --> 00:11:13,870 In 1914, Einstein came to Berlin, where he discovered, 186 00:11:14,080 --> 00:11:17,480 as he said, for the first time, Jews. 187 00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:21,260 When there was a influx of Eastern European Jews 188 00:11:21,260 --> 00:11:24,590 into Germany as a consequence of the war in the East, 189 00:11:24,590 --> 00:11:26,955 he identified with their plight. 190 00:11:26,955 --> 00:11:29,060 (sorrowful music) 191 00:11:29,060 --> 00:11:31,410 German voices are increasingly heard 192 00:11:31,410 --> 00:11:35,730 that demand legal measures against Eastern European truce. 193 00:11:35,730 --> 00:11:38,710 Measures that devastate so many individuals 194 00:11:38,710 --> 00:11:42,480 must not be triggered by slogan-like assertions. 195 00:11:42,480 --> 00:11:46,903 Agitation by demagogues diverts from the true problems. 196 00:11:46,903 --> 00:11:49,690 The expulsion of the Eastern European Jews, 197 00:11:49,690 --> 00:11:52,690 resulting in unspeakable misery, 198 00:11:52,690 --> 00:11:55,030 would only appear to the whole world 199 00:11:55,030 --> 00:11:57,843 as new evidence of German barbarism. 200 00:12:00,060 --> 00:12:02,040 Because, of course, in his childhood, 201 00:12:02,040 --> 00:12:05,780 he had been one of an outsider minority. 202 00:12:05,780 --> 00:12:08,660 Now in Berlin, he found very large numbers, 203 00:12:08,660 --> 00:12:10,430 especially from Eastern Europe, 204 00:12:10,430 --> 00:12:13,530 who did not have access to higher education. 205 00:12:13,530 --> 00:12:16,020 He was very concerned 206 00:12:16,020 --> 00:12:21,020 that young Eastern European Jewish academic talent 207 00:12:21,650 --> 00:12:22,793 was going to waste. 208 00:12:24,110 --> 00:12:27,890 For him, the most important thing was free, 209 00:12:27,890 --> 00:12:32,300 uninhibited research, scientific research. 210 00:12:32,300 --> 00:12:34,810 His sister later described his sense of justice 211 00:12:34,810 --> 00:12:38,350 to that very thing in founding the Hebrew University, 212 00:12:38,350 --> 00:12:41,280 a place where people like himself, young Jews, 213 00:12:41,280 --> 00:12:43,220 could be educated. 214 00:12:43,220 --> 00:12:46,929 This institution of research and scholarship, 215 00:12:46,929 --> 00:12:49,682 the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 216 00:12:49,682 --> 00:12:53,013 was founded long before the establishment 217 00:12:53,013 --> 00:12:56,040 of the independent State of Israel. 218 00:12:56,040 --> 00:12:59,030 But Einstein wasn't quite yet the political animal 219 00:12:59,030 --> 00:13:00,000 that he was to become. 220 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:02,260 That developed only over time. 221 00:13:02,260 --> 00:13:05,390 He early on saw the dangers of the Nazi regime. 222 00:13:05,390 --> 00:13:07,520 He knew his German colleagues, 223 00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:12,490 both their strength in terms of scientific competence 224 00:13:12,490 --> 00:13:16,400 and their weaknesses in terms of willing to cooperate, 225 00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:20,540 to subordinate themselves under the authorities. 226 00:13:20,540 --> 00:13:22,420 I have always found repulsive 227 00:13:22,420 --> 00:13:27,380 the undignified addiction to conformity of many of my peers. 228 00:13:27,380 --> 00:13:28,970 At times like this, 229 00:13:28,970 --> 00:13:32,603 one realizes what a sorry species one belongs to. 230 00:13:34,220 --> 00:13:36,030 He was politically unconventional. 231 00:13:36,030 --> 00:13:38,510 I mean, his taking a stand on the First World War 232 00:13:38,510 --> 00:13:41,370 already was an extremely courageous thing 233 00:13:41,370 --> 00:13:42,920 for someone in his position. 234 00:13:42,920 --> 00:13:45,310 Remember, there are so few Jewish professors 235 00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:48,530 in Germany and Austria at that point 236 00:13:48,530 --> 00:13:49,860 that somebody had to write a letter 237 00:13:49,860 --> 00:13:54,860 claiming he was free of unpleasant Jewish characteristics. 238 00:13:55,660 --> 00:13:58,420 So, he could have retreated, 239 00:13:58,420 --> 00:14:01,300 and it would have been the easiest thing in the world 240 00:14:01,300 --> 00:14:03,690 for him to do, to not be outspoken. 241 00:14:03,690 --> 00:14:06,840 I think we all, as humans, to some extent, 242 00:14:06,840 --> 00:14:11,280 compartmentalize domains of our lives. 243 00:14:11,280 --> 00:14:14,550 We separate work from friendship from family. 244 00:14:14,550 --> 00:14:16,970 So, compartmentalization is just the usual way 245 00:14:16,970 --> 00:14:19,970 of dealing with complex situations one experiences in life. 246 00:14:19,970 --> 00:14:21,850 Haber is just an extreme case. 247 00:14:21,850 --> 00:14:24,690 Haber really was enthusiastically supporting the war 248 00:14:24,690 --> 00:14:27,360 and putting science at its service. 249 00:14:27,360 --> 00:14:31,560 But Einstein certainly felt close to Haber intellectually. 250 00:14:31,560 --> 00:14:35,330 He was one of the leading physical chemists of the time. 251 00:14:35,330 --> 00:14:37,120 Einstein made great contributions 252 00:14:37,120 --> 00:14:39,600 to the foundations of physical chemistry. 253 00:14:39,600 --> 00:14:42,920 Both had Jewish backgrounds, and both problematic marriages. 254 00:14:42,920 --> 00:14:47,920 So these two men certainly were like-minded in many ways 255 00:14:48,260 --> 00:14:52,570 on an intellectual level, but Haber was no exception. 256 00:14:52,570 --> 00:14:55,040 Other close friends of Einstein 257 00:14:55,040 --> 00:14:57,760 also were signing the famous declaration 258 00:14:57,760 --> 00:15:01,910 in favor of German militarism and the occupation of Belgium 259 00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:05,141 and of the cruelties that the German Army committed. 260 00:15:05,141 --> 00:15:06,890 ("Es braust ein Ruf wie Donnerhall") 261 00:15:06,890 --> 00:15:08,000 That was the way 262 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:11,083 that all of Einstein's colleagues were thinking. 263 00:15:36,430 --> 00:15:39,120 Einstein really was the great exception. 264 00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:40,560 How do you deal with the fact 265 00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:45,240 if you are so incredibly lonely in your political position? 266 00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:47,980 You are not there as a political ambassador, 267 00:15:47,980 --> 00:15:49,490 you are called there as a scientist. 268 00:15:49,490 --> 00:15:52,280 Feeling that your colleagues were doing excellent work, 269 00:15:52,280 --> 00:15:54,150 and some of the leading scientists were there. 270 00:15:54,150 --> 00:15:58,070 Most of them were nationalist conservatives, 271 00:15:58,070 --> 00:15:59,340 to say the least. 272 00:15:59,340 --> 00:16:02,420 Some, like Fritz Haber, war criminals. 273 00:16:02,420 --> 00:16:03,670 From our perspective, 274 00:16:03,670 --> 00:16:05,540 Einstein should have broken with Haber, 275 00:16:05,540 --> 00:16:08,530 should have told him to stop his war efforts, 276 00:16:08,530 --> 00:16:13,370 but that was an unthinkable breaching of wars at the time. 277 00:16:13,370 --> 00:16:15,810 If people are working on dubious issues 278 00:16:15,810 --> 00:16:17,480 in the military industry, 279 00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:20,743 and they see consequences, dangerous consequences, 280 00:16:21,660 --> 00:16:23,290 do they have the courage 281 00:16:23,290 --> 00:16:25,570 of becoming what they call whistleblowers? 282 00:16:25,570 --> 00:16:26,650 So, whistleblowing, 283 00:16:26,650 --> 00:16:28,510 that's what we would have expected from Einstein. 284 00:16:28,510 --> 00:16:32,210 But I think it is, again, not just our general way, 285 00:16:32,210 --> 00:16:34,730 and certainly not the specific way of Einstein, 286 00:16:34,730 --> 00:16:36,870 but it's the particular situation of the time 287 00:16:36,870 --> 00:16:39,796 that people were just more compartmentalizing 288 00:16:39,796 --> 00:16:41,670 than we do today. 289 00:16:41,670 --> 00:16:44,410 It's really one of the historical lessons 290 00:16:44,410 --> 00:16:47,040 that Einstein learned, that we have learned, 291 00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:49,813 that there is a danger in such compartmentalization. 292 00:16:50,810 --> 00:16:54,300 To come to the extreme, many Nazis, 293 00:16:54,300 --> 00:16:56,090 it seems we were friendly to their dogs 294 00:16:56,090 --> 00:16:58,170 and even to their family. 295 00:16:58,170 --> 00:17:01,010 Isn't that an extreme form of this compartmentalization, 296 00:17:01,010 --> 00:17:02,890 and don't we despise this today? 297 00:17:02,890 --> 00:17:06,100 Yes, but it's a historical lesson that we have learned 298 00:17:06,100 --> 00:17:09,400 that we should look across such boundaries 299 00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:12,010 and see what the full personality is, 300 00:17:12,010 --> 00:17:15,960 the full implications in the public life 301 00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:17,820 or in the private life are. 302 00:17:17,820 --> 00:17:21,350 I think Einstein wasn't at the point of having drawn 303 00:17:21,350 --> 00:17:23,660 or having taken in all those lessons yet, 304 00:17:23,660 --> 00:17:25,440 but he soon was to do that. 305 00:17:25,440 --> 00:17:29,023 (soothing classical music) 306 00:17:33,090 --> 00:17:35,860 Nationalism is an infantile disease. 307 00:17:35,860 --> 00:17:37,893 It is the measles of mankind. 308 00:17:39,350 --> 00:17:42,410 Anti-Semitism in all of Europe and also in Germany 309 00:17:42,410 --> 00:17:44,170 has a long history, of course. 310 00:17:44,170 --> 00:17:47,740 I saw worthy Jews basely caricatured 311 00:17:47,740 --> 00:17:50,900 and the sight make my heart bleed. 312 00:17:50,900 --> 00:17:54,000 The gentile majority undermines the confidence 313 00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:57,334 even of the best of my fellow Jews, 314 00:17:57,334 --> 00:17:59,993 and I felt this could not be allowed to continue. 315 00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:02,890 And in Germany, 316 00:18:02,890 --> 00:18:07,140 it was accentuated by the spectacular success of some Jews 317 00:18:07,140 --> 00:18:09,520 in the German political and economic system, 318 00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:11,540 which didn't compensate in any way 319 00:18:11,540 --> 00:18:14,180 for the repression that was still ongoing 320 00:18:14,180 --> 00:18:17,210 at other layers of social life, 321 00:18:17,210 --> 00:18:20,300 but it made the Jews so much more visible. 322 00:18:20,300 --> 00:18:23,610 And in the crisis of the First World War 323 00:18:23,610 --> 00:18:24,840 and after the crisis, 324 00:18:24,840 --> 00:18:27,423 after the German defeat in the First World War, 325 00:18:28,470 --> 00:18:30,420 people needed to find scapegoats, 326 00:18:30,420 --> 00:18:33,360 and the Jews were quite appropriate, in a way, 327 00:18:33,360 --> 00:18:37,160 because they were so internationally-minded, 328 00:18:37,160 --> 00:18:39,000 much more than the rest of the German averages 329 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:40,880 and they were so exposed. 330 00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:42,970 Some of them were highly visible 331 00:18:42,970 --> 00:18:45,690 as part of the political and intellectual elite 332 00:18:45,690 --> 00:18:49,040 of the Weimar Republic, so they were targets, easy targets. 333 00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:52,050 Ever since the abominable murder of Rathenau, 334 00:18:52,050 --> 00:18:55,323 I myself am being constantly warned to be cautious. 335 00:18:56,560 --> 00:18:59,356 Anti-Semitism is very widespread. 336 00:18:59,356 --> 00:19:02,189 (sorrowful music) 337 00:19:09,176 --> 00:19:12,800 By 1922, there are over 300 political murders 338 00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:17,600 by right-wing radical groups, and this was 339 00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:20,100 a particularly dangerous time, also, for Einstein. 340 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:25,017 Einstein was, in the '20s, 341 00:19:25,017 --> 00:19:27,460 Weimar's prized public intellectual, 342 00:19:27,460 --> 00:19:28,730 one of the very few people 343 00:19:28,730 --> 00:19:31,770 who'd spoken out against the First World War, 344 00:19:31,770 --> 00:19:34,150 and he was very happy to put himself 345 00:19:34,150 --> 00:19:36,520 in the services of the Weimar Republic 346 00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:38,320 and do whatever could be done to strengthen it, 347 00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:43,003 the first democratic republic in Germany. 348 00:19:44,084 --> 00:19:46,630 (scoffs) Funny people, these Germans. 349 00:19:46,630 --> 00:19:48,870 To them, I'm a stinking flower, 350 00:19:48,870 --> 00:19:52,560 yet they put me into their lapel time and again. 351 00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:54,240 And it was a brave stand 352 00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:58,240 because the Foreign Minister of Weimar, Walter Rathenau, 353 00:19:58,240 --> 00:20:02,710 was actually murdered as a Jew, and a left-leaning Jew, 354 00:20:02,710 --> 00:20:06,470 and some of the same group who murdered him 355 00:20:06,470 --> 00:20:09,420 offered to pay a reward to anyone who would murder Einstein. 356 00:20:09,420 --> 00:20:11,570 Einstein, he received warnings 357 00:20:11,570 --> 00:20:14,690 that he's on the list of that group 358 00:20:14,690 --> 00:20:17,480 that murdered Walter Rathenau. 359 00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:21,310 And he was withdrawing from all public appearances 360 00:20:21,310 --> 00:20:24,560 at that time, he canceled his lectures. 361 00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:27,160 It seems I belong to that group of people 362 00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:29,853 whom the radical right plan to assassinate. 363 00:20:31,690 --> 00:20:34,180 There was a grand big lecture he was supposed to give 364 00:20:34,180 --> 00:20:35,390 that was a centennial 365 00:20:35,390 --> 00:20:38,610 of the German Society of Natural Sciences and Physicians, 366 00:20:38,610 --> 00:20:42,800 it was their 100th anniversary celebration, 367 00:20:42,800 --> 00:20:45,520 and Einstein's lecture had to be rescheduled, I guess. 368 00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:47,580 It was a big lecture for that celebration, 369 00:20:47,580 --> 00:20:49,340 and he had to cancel that. 370 00:20:49,340 --> 00:20:52,400 Many scientists, like Max Planck and von Laue, 371 00:20:52,400 --> 00:20:55,080 couldn't believe that it was possible 372 00:20:55,080 --> 00:20:58,310 that one of the most important scientists in Germany, 373 00:20:58,310 --> 00:21:02,990 Einstein, that he was somehow forced to withdraw 374 00:21:02,990 --> 00:21:05,710 from giving this lecture by right-wing radicals 375 00:21:05,710 --> 00:21:07,520 who threatened his life. 376 00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:11,270 And it extended, one may be surprised at that, 377 00:21:11,270 --> 00:21:12,700 also to the field of science. 378 00:21:12,700 --> 00:21:16,730 There were different groups of people 379 00:21:16,730 --> 00:21:18,760 opposing the theory of relativity. 380 00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:21,118 There was a political opposition. 381 00:21:21,118 --> 00:21:26,118 Einstein, as a democrat, as a Jew in the Weimar Republic, 382 00:21:26,770 --> 00:21:28,800 he was a target of many people 383 00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:32,830 who had nationalistic motivation, who were anti-Semites, 384 00:21:32,830 --> 00:21:35,457 attacking Einstein as a person. 385 00:21:35,457 --> 00:21:38,800 And there was also an opposition which mainly motivated 386 00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:41,960 by different understandings of science. 387 00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:46,700 It was not Einstein who put the topic of anti-Semitism 388 00:21:46,700 --> 00:21:48,020 on the agenda. 389 00:21:48,020 --> 00:21:51,690 He was responding to a widespread anti-Semitism 390 00:21:51,690 --> 00:21:56,300 in the public area but also among his academic colleagues. 391 00:21:56,300 --> 00:21:59,520 The Einstein opponents established their own academy. 392 00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:02,330 So, an academy of the Einstein opponents. 393 00:22:02,330 --> 00:22:03,730 So, this was a network 394 00:22:03,730 --> 00:22:06,658 mainly between the United States and Germany. 395 00:22:06,658 --> 00:22:10,075 (bright classical music) 396 00:22:14,540 --> 00:22:16,470 Under the pretentious name 397 00:22:16,470 --> 00:22:19,437 Association of German Natural Scientists 398 00:22:19,437 --> 00:22:22,340 for the Preservation of Pure Science, 399 00:22:22,340 --> 00:22:26,160 a society has assembled whose purpose of existence 400 00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,730 seems to be to degrade the theory of relativity 401 00:22:29,730 --> 00:22:31,843 as well as me as its originator. 402 00:22:34,390 --> 00:22:35,743 He left town, 403 00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:40,630 but it did not deter him from continuing to speak out. 404 00:22:40,630 --> 00:22:43,840 People who survey the situation in Germany well 405 00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:45,400 are indeed of the opinion 406 00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:48,420 that a certain threat to my life does exist. 407 00:22:48,420 --> 00:22:50,240 A yearning for the Far East 408 00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:53,280 led me to accept the invitation to Japan. 409 00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:56,455 Another part was the need to get away for a while 410 00:22:56,455 --> 00:22:59,090 from the tense atmosphere in our homeland 411 00:22:59,090 --> 00:23:01,040 for a period of time. 412 00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:04,300 After the murder of Rathenau, I was certainly relieved 413 00:23:04,300 --> 00:23:08,360 to have an opportunity for a long absence from Germany, 414 00:23:08,360 --> 00:23:11,974 taking me away from the temporarily heightened danger. 415 00:23:11,974 --> 00:23:14,557 (gentle music) 416 00:23:19,020 --> 00:23:23,090 I seek solace in Mozart, but when I am improvising 417 00:23:23,090 --> 00:23:25,530 and it appears that something may come of it, 418 00:23:25,530 --> 00:23:28,063 I require the clear construction of Bach. 419 00:23:29,740 --> 00:23:31,660 The picture of Einstein 420 00:23:31,660 --> 00:23:35,250 that gets presented by so many Einstein specialists 421 00:23:35,250 --> 00:23:37,010 is yes, he was absolutely brilliant, 422 00:23:37,010 --> 00:23:41,033 but he was a sort of childish, sad fool. 423 00:23:41,033 --> 00:23:43,520 The things that were most important to him 424 00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:47,530 are described as being the sort of ideas of a childish fool, 425 00:23:47,530 --> 00:23:48,363 of a luftmensch. 426 00:23:49,303 --> 00:23:52,730 A luftmensch being a Yiddish expression, 427 00:23:52,730 --> 00:23:54,570 not a German expression, 428 00:23:54,570 --> 00:23:58,900 which basically means somebody who has a lot of ideas 429 00:23:58,900 --> 00:24:01,410 but keeps his head in the air, luft, 430 00:24:01,410 --> 00:24:05,640 without keeping his feet on the ground, a naive person. 431 00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:10,640 Is actually a way of undermining, dare I say castrating him. 432 00:24:12,130 --> 00:24:14,600 Einstein, who was often portrayed 433 00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:18,913 as somebody who kept a distance from other people, 434 00:24:19,940 --> 00:24:22,570 which he certainly tried to do and needed to do 435 00:24:22,570 --> 00:24:24,670 in order to be able to keep working, 436 00:24:24,670 --> 00:24:27,033 given that he was such a public celebrity, 437 00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,210 but I think he was a realist of a way. 438 00:24:31,210 --> 00:24:35,880 He had experience enough about people and their weaknesses 439 00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:40,620 not just to dream about a utopian, peaceful world. 440 00:24:40,620 --> 00:24:45,100 If you think when he was talking against militarism, 441 00:24:45,100 --> 00:24:50,100 against the wrong way to be a nationalist, 442 00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:53,901 before we knew that there's the First World War, 443 00:24:53,901 --> 00:24:57,611 there will be a second one, there will be the atomic bomb, 444 00:24:57,611 --> 00:24:59,350 (bomb rumbling) 445 00:24:59,350 --> 00:25:01,293 beware of what can happen. 446 00:25:02,410 --> 00:25:05,780 It's a realistic political thinking. 447 00:25:05,780 --> 00:25:09,530 One should be impressed that he could say these things 448 00:25:09,530 --> 00:25:13,317 so early and he was one of the very few people who said, 449 00:25:13,317 --> 00:25:15,340 "Oh, be aware." 450 00:25:15,340 --> 00:25:16,920 It is strange that science, 451 00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,660 which in the old days seemed harmless, 452 00:25:19,660 --> 00:25:21,820 should have evolved into a nightmare 453 00:25:21,820 --> 00:25:24,110 that causes everyone to tremble. 454 00:25:24,110 --> 00:25:28,220 He was very distressed by his celebrity status 455 00:25:28,220 --> 00:25:29,420 at the beginning. 456 00:25:29,420 --> 00:25:33,240 It's dangerous, because if you admire someone, 457 00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,450 you follow him without thinking about it, really, 458 00:25:36,450 --> 00:25:39,410 without using your own responsibility. 459 00:25:39,410 --> 00:25:42,700 So, without doing what Einstein always did, 460 00:25:42,700 --> 00:25:47,700 thinking himself and thinking in a responsible way, 461 00:25:48,790 --> 00:25:51,130 thinking in a political way, also. 462 00:25:51,130 --> 00:25:55,490 So I think this is the reason why famousness in general 463 00:25:55,490 --> 00:25:59,820 was not something he could admire 464 00:25:59,820 --> 00:26:02,010 or he could tolerate, really. 465 00:26:02,010 --> 00:26:04,990 Einstein really lends himself 466 00:26:04,990 --> 00:26:07,319 to that kind of mythologization 467 00:26:07,319 --> 00:26:12,160 insofar as he was a great ham and the press loved him. 468 00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:15,421 What do you think of prohibition, Professor? 469 00:26:15,421 --> 00:26:18,325 (Albert speaking German) 470 00:26:18,325 --> 00:26:21,170 (all laughing) 471 00:26:21,170 --> 00:26:22,003 He doesn't drink at all, 472 00:26:22,003 --> 00:26:23,577 so he's not interested in this question. 473 00:26:23,577 --> 00:26:24,560 And he would laugh, 474 00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:27,863 and he apparently had a laugh like a barking seal. 475 00:26:28,910 --> 00:26:31,530 He was ideal as a kind of matinee idol. 476 00:26:31,530 --> 00:26:35,517 Mr. George Bernard Shaw in honor of Professor Einstein. 477 00:26:35,517 --> 00:26:38,684 (audience applauding) 478 00:26:43,460 --> 00:26:47,379 There's an order of men who are makers of universes. 479 00:26:47,379 --> 00:26:50,970 (audience applauding) 480 00:26:50,970 --> 00:26:55,633 Ptolemy made a universe which lasted 1,400 years. 481 00:26:57,041 --> 00:27:02,041 Newton also made a universe which has lasted 300 years. 482 00:27:02,570 --> 00:27:04,283 Einstein has made a universe, 483 00:27:05,179 --> 00:27:07,144 and I can't tell you how long that will last. 484 00:27:07,144 --> 00:27:09,180 (all laughing) 485 00:27:09,180 --> 00:27:13,300 He was not naive but he saw very well 486 00:27:13,300 --> 00:27:17,260 it's useful for his goals, for his political goals, 487 00:27:17,260 --> 00:27:19,370 for helping people. 488 00:27:19,370 --> 00:27:22,830 He saw it, basically, as a curse. 489 00:27:22,830 --> 00:27:24,020 Worshiped today, 490 00:27:24,020 --> 00:27:26,293 scorned or even crucified tomorrow, 491 00:27:27,290 --> 00:27:30,510 that is the fate of people whom, God knows why, 492 00:27:30,510 --> 00:27:33,070 the bored public has taken possession of. 493 00:27:33,070 --> 00:27:36,070 He didn't quite understand why, of all the scientists, 494 00:27:36,070 --> 00:27:37,450 he'd kind of been singled out 495 00:27:37,450 --> 00:27:42,140 for this unpleasant development, 496 00:27:42,140 --> 00:27:46,500 but eventually he learned how to use his celebrity status 497 00:27:46,500 --> 00:27:48,891 to promote causes that were important to him. 498 00:27:48,891 --> 00:27:51,641 (singer humming) 499 00:28:03,492 --> 00:28:05,320 As it contradicts the image of him as being naive, 500 00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:08,220 he became quite shrewd in deciding what he would approve. 501 00:28:08,220 --> 00:28:11,310 We scientists who released this immense power 502 00:28:11,310 --> 00:28:13,690 have overwhelming responsibility 503 00:28:13,690 --> 00:28:17,893 in this world life-and-death struggle to harness atom. 504 00:28:19,150 --> 00:28:20,530 I agree. 505 00:28:20,530 --> 00:28:22,340 Which petition he would sign, 506 00:28:22,340 --> 00:28:26,360 which committee he would become the honorary chairman of. 507 00:28:26,360 --> 00:28:30,633 He was pretty discretionary about it and selective. 508 00:28:31,570 --> 00:28:33,610 I have tried to be very economical 509 00:28:33,610 --> 00:28:35,310 with my public utterances. 510 00:28:35,310 --> 00:28:36,590 This is the best way 511 00:28:36,590 --> 00:28:39,390 not to lose the small beneficial influence 512 00:28:39,390 --> 00:28:41,350 one is able to exercise. 513 00:28:41,350 --> 00:28:42,217 He thought, 514 00:28:42,217 --> 00:28:45,530 "Okay, if my famousness is part of my moral capital, 515 00:28:45,530 --> 00:28:50,530 I can use it to help or to have a political influence." 516 00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:56,160 He was a political human being before his American years. 517 00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:58,630 It would be sad to waste much energy 518 00:28:58,630 --> 00:29:01,614 on the meager soil of politics. 519 00:29:01,614 --> 00:29:03,479 From time to time, however, 520 00:29:03,479 --> 00:29:06,600 the moment arrives when I cannot help myself. 521 00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:11,600 If you read his texts about peace, about human rights, 522 00:29:12,090 --> 00:29:17,090 about human beings in the world, it's easy to think, 523 00:29:17,307 --> 00:29:21,357 "Okay, this is very fundamental." 524 00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:26,550 But it's really a political engagement because, for him, 525 00:29:26,550 --> 00:29:29,163 the point of all things is the human being. 526 00:29:30,010 --> 00:29:34,600 It's not the German one, the American one, the French, 527 00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:37,370 it's the human being's right for freedom, 528 00:29:37,370 --> 00:29:38,803 for his individuality. 529 00:29:40,020 --> 00:29:42,410 He's being besieged all the time 530 00:29:42,410 --> 00:29:46,282 for requests to give a kosher stamp to (chuckling) 531 00:29:46,282 --> 00:29:49,950 or an un-kosher stamp to all kinds of enterprises. 532 00:29:49,950 --> 00:29:52,477 Magnus Hirschfeld had a very important institute in Berlin 533 00:29:52,477 --> 00:29:53,610 in the '20s, 534 00:29:53,610 --> 00:29:56,190 when people were becoming more open about sexuality, 535 00:29:56,190 --> 00:29:58,520 but there was still a lot of pushback, 536 00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,730 and Hirschfeld's institute was one of the first things 537 00:30:01,730 --> 00:30:03,030 the Nazis closed. 538 00:30:03,030 --> 00:30:04,770 They described him as decadent. 539 00:30:04,770 --> 00:30:07,740 He was gay, and not simply in favor 540 00:30:07,740 --> 00:30:09,670 of what we came to call gay liberation, 541 00:30:09,670 --> 00:30:13,140 but women's rights to open sexuality 542 00:30:13,140 --> 00:30:15,850 and a whole host of other things 543 00:30:15,850 --> 00:30:18,270 that were quite controversial at the time. 544 00:30:18,270 --> 00:30:23,270 When asked to support Hirschfeld's institute, Einstein said: 545 00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:27,840 Abortion up till a certain stage of pregnancy 546 00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,882 should be permissible at the request of the woman. 547 00:30:30,882 --> 00:30:33,060 (jazzy music) 548 00:30:33,060 --> 00:30:36,483 Homosexuality should be exempt from punishment. 549 00:30:41,410 --> 00:30:45,313 In regard to sex education, no secretiveness. 550 00:30:46,650 --> 00:30:49,777 Exactly the right things that are as valid, I think, 551 00:30:49,777 --> 00:30:53,840 and important today as they were in 1929. 552 00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:55,580 Einstein is often criticized, 553 00:30:55,580 --> 00:30:58,060 and I'm sometimes asked how can I, as a woman, 554 00:30:58,060 --> 00:31:02,520 defend Einstein's relationship toward women and his wives. 555 00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:07,273 Einstein's first wife, Mileva, was older than him, 556 00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:13,320 partly crippled, not Jewish, and anathema to his parents. 557 00:31:16,110 --> 00:31:21,110 She was the only woman physics student in Zurich. 558 00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:23,820 Einstein fell in love with a woman 559 00:31:23,820 --> 00:31:26,390 who could share his intellectual passions, 560 00:31:26,390 --> 00:31:29,510 and he only got permission to marry her 561 00:31:29,510 --> 00:31:31,860 on his father's deathbed. 562 00:31:31,860 --> 00:31:34,080 They had a daughter out of wedlock 563 00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:37,480 before his parents would permit them to marry. 564 00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:39,300 My dearest sweetheart, 565 00:31:39,300 --> 00:31:41,550 it's such a shame that our dear Lieserl 566 00:31:41,550 --> 00:31:44,620 must be introduced to the world in this way. 567 00:31:44,620 --> 00:31:48,300 I love her so much and don't even know her yet. 568 00:31:48,300 --> 00:31:51,060 She probably gave the daughter, 569 00:31:51,060 --> 00:31:53,830 all we really know about her is that she was named Lieserl, 570 00:31:53,830 --> 00:31:58,830 up for adoption, and not only did they never see her again, 571 00:31:58,980 --> 00:32:01,860 no one, and many Einstein researchers 572 00:32:01,860 --> 00:32:04,883 have tried to find out what happened to Lieserl, no one has. 573 00:32:05,870 --> 00:32:08,810 Diagnoses at a distance are always a problem, 574 00:32:08,810 --> 00:32:13,810 but that was probably a trigger for Mileva's depressions, 575 00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:18,570 which continued and became more serious 576 00:32:18,570 --> 00:32:22,340 and more tinged with rage as the marriage went on. 577 00:32:22,340 --> 00:32:25,990 She wound up failing her PhD exam in physics, 578 00:32:25,990 --> 00:32:29,140 which cannot have been easy for her 579 00:32:29,140 --> 00:32:30,990 to be living with someone 580 00:32:30,990 --> 00:32:34,493 who was writing world historical physics papers. 581 00:32:35,620 --> 00:32:38,700 And the marriage fell apart. 582 00:32:38,700 --> 00:32:40,800 There's a letter that he wrote for Mileva 583 00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,490 in which he tells her to keep her distance 584 00:32:43,490 --> 00:32:45,740 and it is harsh and it is hostile. 585 00:32:45,740 --> 00:32:49,050 You will renounce all personal relations with me 586 00:32:49,050 --> 00:32:50,720 as far as maintaining them 587 00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:54,420 is not absolutely required for social reasons. 588 00:32:54,420 --> 00:32:59,420 And all that I would say to that, 589 00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:02,043 he did take care of her financially. 590 00:33:02,931 --> 00:33:05,700 He knew he was gonna get the Nobel Prize eventually. 591 00:33:05,700 --> 00:33:09,270 He gave it almost in its entirety to her. 592 00:33:09,270 --> 00:33:10,967 So then, people say, 593 00:33:10,967 --> 00:33:14,120 "Ah, well, what do you say about his marriage to Elsa?" 594 00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:15,730 Elsa was his cousin. 595 00:33:15,730 --> 00:33:19,270 I suppose they had some kind of familial bond. 596 00:33:19,270 --> 00:33:22,180 She was a divorced woman with two daughters 597 00:33:22,180 --> 00:33:24,050 whom Einstein treated as his own. 598 00:33:24,050 --> 00:33:29,050 She cared for him when he nearly died in Berlin. 599 00:33:29,290 --> 00:33:32,010 I have to have someone to love. 600 00:33:32,010 --> 00:33:33,643 Otherwise, life is miserable. 601 00:33:34,490 --> 00:33:36,353 And this someone is you. 602 00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:38,470 He was just in the process 603 00:33:38,470 --> 00:33:41,690 of getting out of a really crazy marriage, 604 00:33:41,690 --> 00:33:44,410 so it seemed like stability 605 00:33:44,410 --> 00:33:49,410 and something that he could feel happy and comfortable in. 606 00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:51,510 She also does, in those pictures, 607 00:33:51,510 --> 00:33:54,310 really look more like his mother than his lover, 608 00:33:54,310 --> 00:33:57,500 and Einstein was a man on fire all his life, 609 00:33:57,500 --> 00:34:00,630 and he needed to connect with other women 610 00:34:00,630 --> 00:34:02,903 in ways that he simply couldn't with Elsa. 611 00:34:04,490 --> 00:34:07,970 He made two completely different bad marriages. 612 00:34:07,970 --> 00:34:09,433 He was sad about that. 613 00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:13,440 What I admired in him the most as a person 614 00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:17,280 is that he succeeded in living for many years, 615 00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:18,620 not just in peace, 616 00:34:18,620 --> 00:34:22,430 but in constant consonance with one woman, 617 00:34:22,430 --> 00:34:27,143 an endeavor in which I failed twice, quite ignominiously. 618 00:34:28,710 --> 00:34:30,560 For his 50th birthday, 619 00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:35,560 the City of Berlin decided to give him as a gift 620 00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:38,400 a house in the woods where he could go sailing, 621 00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:42,210 which everybody knew was his favorite way of relaxing, 622 00:34:42,210 --> 00:34:44,580 and a group of right-wing people 623 00:34:44,580 --> 00:34:48,560 highly objected to the City of Berlin 624 00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:52,690 giving a birthday gift to that socialist Jew. 625 00:34:52,690 --> 00:34:56,755 Einstein said, "Okay, I'll buy it myself." 626 00:34:56,755 --> 00:35:00,005 (playful twangy music) 627 00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:11,300 What attracted and appealed to Elsa about Einstein's life 628 00:35:11,300 --> 00:35:14,010 was exactly what Einstein did not want, 629 00:35:14,010 --> 00:35:17,160 the social celebrity, the being invited to aristocrat's, 630 00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:18,550 and so on. 631 00:35:18,550 --> 00:35:21,970 She had no pretension of trying to understand his physics, 632 00:35:21,970 --> 00:35:26,970 but she really wanted to be a sort of high bourgeois wife. 633 00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,910 The house was not only used for him to get away from Berlin. 634 00:35:30,910 --> 00:35:33,900 It was a place where, really, 635 00:35:33,900 --> 00:35:37,600 some of the great minds of his generation came to. 636 00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:41,040 Rabindranath Tagore came from India, 637 00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:45,143 Heinrich Mann, Chaim Weizmann, Max Planck, 638 00:35:46,590 --> 00:35:50,530 just a whole row of people came out to discuss, 639 00:35:50,530 --> 00:35:53,350 as they say in German, God and the world, 640 00:35:53,350 --> 00:35:57,360 or sometimes to play string quartets on the terrace. 641 00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:00,480 Mozart's music is so pure and beautiful 642 00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:02,460 that I see it as a reflection 643 00:36:02,460 --> 00:36:05,193 of the inner beauty of the universe. 644 00:36:06,310 --> 00:36:11,310 There is a rumor that describes Einstein as antisocial. 645 00:36:11,380 --> 00:36:14,460 I've even seen him described as autistic. 646 00:36:14,460 --> 00:36:15,533 This is nuts. 647 00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:21,440 Einstein was an extremely socially engaged person 648 00:36:22,260 --> 00:36:26,263 when he wanted to be, but he did not like formalities. 649 00:36:27,230 --> 00:36:30,320 A delegation of ministers was coming out to visit him 650 00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:34,067 from Berlin, and Elsa said, 651 00:36:34,067 --> 00:36:35,540 "Albert, the ministers are coming. 652 00:36:35,540 --> 00:36:38,710 It's time to put on your suit." 653 00:36:38,710 --> 00:36:43,220 And Einstein said, "If they wanna see me, I'm here. 654 00:36:43,220 --> 00:36:45,983 If they wanna see my clothes, you can open the closet." 655 00:36:45,983 --> 00:36:49,390 (chuckling) So, that says something 656 00:36:49,390 --> 00:36:52,590 about the way that he dealt with people. 657 00:36:52,590 --> 00:36:55,960 Einstein preferred to spend as much time as possible 658 00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:57,810 in the house in Caputh 659 00:36:57,810 --> 00:37:00,363 in those four years before he left Germany. 660 00:37:02,628 --> 00:37:05,461 (patriotic music) 661 00:37:12,553 --> 00:37:15,303 (crowd cheering) 662 00:37:21,347 --> 00:37:24,930 (Adolf shouting in German) 663 00:37:28,162 --> 00:37:30,374 (crowd cheering) 664 00:37:30,374 --> 00:37:31,820 I cannot understand 665 00:37:31,820 --> 00:37:35,110 the passive response of the whole civilized world 666 00:37:35,110 --> 00:37:37,010 to this modern barbarism. 667 00:37:37,010 --> 00:37:40,497 Doesn't the world see that Hitler is aiming for war? 668 00:37:42,811 --> 00:37:45,644 (crowd clamoring) 669 00:38:00,626 --> 00:38:03,376 (dramatic music) 670 00:38:05,483 --> 00:38:08,233 (woman laughing) 671 00:38:13,634 --> 00:38:16,141 (woman laughing) 672 00:38:16,141 --> 00:38:19,224 (train bell ringing) 673 00:38:25,028 --> 00:38:27,945 (crowd chattering) 674 00:38:36,918 --> 00:38:39,918 (suspenseful music) 675 00:38:47,302 --> 00:38:50,263 (gentle music) 676 00:38:50,263 --> 00:38:54,870 In all these years, I have only enhanced Germany's prestige 677 00:38:54,870 --> 00:38:57,540 and never allowed myself to be alienated 678 00:38:57,540 --> 00:39:01,113 by the systematic attacks on me in the rightist press, 679 00:39:04,750 --> 00:39:06,850 especially those in recent years 680 00:39:06,850 --> 00:39:10,083 in which no one took the trouble to stand up for me. 681 00:39:13,940 --> 00:39:16,780 Is not the destruction of German truce by starvation 682 00:39:16,780 --> 00:39:20,163 the official program of the present German government? 683 00:39:20,163 --> 00:39:22,913 (dramatic music) 684 00:40:08,230 --> 00:40:10,127 Einstein definitely was a realist, 685 00:40:10,127 --> 00:40:13,280 and he moved from pacifism to militant pacifism 686 00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:14,890 and then he abandoned it, of course, 687 00:40:14,890 --> 00:40:18,280 when confronted with Hitlerism. 688 00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:22,360 It was pacifism that, when confronted with odds 689 00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:26,460 that were overwhelming, would make concessions. 690 00:40:26,460 --> 00:40:30,330 I'm not only a pacifist, but a militant pacifist. 691 00:40:30,330 --> 00:40:32,483 I am willing to fight for peace. 692 00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:35,400 He felt that the danger, 693 00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:37,720 after the discovery of nuclear fission, 694 00:40:37,720 --> 00:40:40,100 of building atomic bombs, was a real one. 695 00:40:40,100 --> 00:40:42,590 He was right that there was such a danger, 696 00:40:42,590 --> 00:40:44,660 and it was hard to assess how realistic 697 00:40:44,660 --> 00:40:48,940 and how long it would take, actually, to build such a bomb. 698 00:40:48,940 --> 00:40:52,720 So that he supported it by the famous letter to Roosevelt, 699 00:40:52,720 --> 00:40:54,240 which he signed. 700 00:40:54,240 --> 00:40:55,360 In the letter itself, 701 00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:57,020 it talks about the bomb being so heavy 702 00:40:57,020 --> 00:41:00,230 that it would have to be delivered by ship 703 00:41:00,230 --> 00:41:01,973 and exploded in the harbor, 704 00:41:03,370 --> 00:41:06,250 so there was no concept of feasibility, then, 705 00:41:06,250 --> 00:41:08,640 of transporting it by plane. 706 00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:10,990 The American engagement in building the bomb 707 00:41:10,990 --> 00:41:14,240 was quite understandable, given the situation. 708 00:41:14,240 --> 00:41:16,720 Therefore, I'm saying Einstein had become, 709 00:41:16,720 --> 00:41:19,020 I think he didn't change his fundamental positions, 710 00:41:19,020 --> 00:41:22,010 but he was becoming more and more of a realist. 711 00:41:22,010 --> 00:41:25,160 And so, he found that this was an important move to take 712 00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:26,040 at the time. 713 00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:28,150 Organized power can be opposed 714 00:41:28,150 --> 00:41:30,290 only by organized power. 715 00:41:30,290 --> 00:41:33,920 Much as I regret this, there is no other way. 716 00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:35,880 Einstein deeply regretted, eventually, 717 00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:38,150 writing the famous letter to FDR. 718 00:41:38,150 --> 00:41:40,690 He thought that it was very instrumental 719 00:41:40,690 --> 00:41:43,760 in setting up the Manhattan Project. 720 00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:47,192 He thought that that was his major contribution 721 00:41:47,192 --> 00:41:51,640 to the dawning of the atomic era. 722 00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:53,580 He didn't think that his formula 723 00:41:53,580 --> 00:41:55,758 had played any role in that. 724 00:41:55,758 --> 00:41:59,341 (dramatic classical music) 725 00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,930 Albert Einstein felt very much his responsibility 726 00:42:09,930 --> 00:42:14,930 for young scientists who want to came to America 727 00:42:14,930 --> 00:42:19,930 or didn't have an affidavit or any help to get a job there, 728 00:42:20,900 --> 00:42:25,900 and he tried whatever he could to help other emigres, 729 00:42:27,450 --> 00:42:32,450 other scientists, and a lot of time, a lot of power, 730 00:42:32,950 --> 00:42:37,030 a lot of money, he gave to these people, 731 00:42:37,030 --> 00:42:41,450 and he tried nearly to help all he could help. 732 00:42:41,450 --> 00:42:45,930 He had something like a little grove for emigres. 733 00:42:45,930 --> 00:42:47,570 I think it's a very important part 734 00:42:47,570 --> 00:42:50,260 of the man Albert Einstein, 735 00:42:50,260 --> 00:42:55,260 of the immigrant Albert Einstein, of the exiled, 736 00:42:58,356 --> 00:43:02,240 and of the political human being Albert Einstein too 737 00:43:02,240 --> 00:43:06,550 because I think this engagement for other emigres 738 00:43:06,550 --> 00:43:10,030 is part of his responsibility, of course, 739 00:43:10,030 --> 00:43:13,289 because he was a famous one and he could help them, really. 740 00:43:13,289 --> 00:43:16,830 But it's also part of his political thinking 741 00:43:16,830 --> 00:43:19,150 that this is now what one should do 742 00:43:20,684 --> 00:43:24,860 to make it possible for them to come to America, 743 00:43:24,860 --> 00:43:27,370 to get a chance to get a job there. 744 00:43:27,370 --> 00:43:31,220 My dad had left Germany in December '35 745 00:43:31,220 --> 00:43:32,250 to come to the United States. 746 00:43:32,250 --> 00:43:34,000 The idea was the family would follow. 747 00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:37,520 In May of '36, we all went to the American consulate. 748 00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:39,920 My mother and my brother each got their visa, 749 00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:44,420 but I was turned down, allegedly for having tuberculosis. 750 00:43:44,420 --> 00:43:45,960 My dad was a physician. 751 00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:49,790 The likelihood that I had tuberculosis was just very remote. 752 00:43:49,790 --> 00:43:53,210 My mother had me examined by German physicians, 753 00:43:53,210 --> 00:43:56,170 colleagues of my dad, and they all said, 754 00:43:56,170 --> 00:43:59,040 "There's no evidence of tuberculosis. 755 00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:00,230 This must be a mistake." 756 00:44:00,230 --> 00:44:03,260 My mother and my brother left to come to the United States 757 00:44:03,260 --> 00:44:04,210 and join my dad. 758 00:44:04,210 --> 00:44:09,210 The idea was that you could reapply after three months 759 00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:15,270 for a visa, and since this obviously was a mistake, 760 00:44:15,270 --> 00:44:16,720 I would get the visa then. 761 00:44:16,720 --> 00:44:17,690 After three months, 762 00:44:17,690 --> 00:44:22,040 my grandmother now took me to the American consulate again, 763 00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:24,240 and I even had some medical statements 764 00:44:24,240 --> 00:44:26,920 that there was no evidence of tuberculosis 765 00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:30,960 but, much to everybody's surprise, I was turned down again. 766 00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:33,270 This went on for a total of four times. 767 00:44:33,270 --> 00:44:35,090 Each time I was turned down 768 00:44:35,090 --> 00:44:36,970 by a physician from the American consulate. 769 00:44:36,970 --> 00:44:39,220 My parents, of course, were in the United States, 770 00:44:39,220 --> 00:44:42,410 they were getting frantic about all this. 771 00:44:42,410 --> 00:44:44,220 They enlisted all kinds of help. 772 00:44:44,220 --> 00:44:48,330 Finally, Albert Einstein got interested in this. 773 00:44:48,330 --> 00:44:52,330 Einstein then wrote two letters, very strong letters, 774 00:44:52,330 --> 00:44:55,956 one to the Surgeon General Thomas Parran. 775 00:44:55,956 --> 00:44:59,456 (elegant classical music) 776 00:45:05,330 --> 00:45:07,080 I shall spare no effort 777 00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:08,853 to straighten out this matter. 778 00:45:11,650 --> 00:45:14,770 And one to an assistant secretary of state 779 00:45:14,770 --> 00:45:16,320 by the name of Messersmith. 780 00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,456 And he wrote them himself because in one case, at least, 781 00:45:19,456 --> 00:45:22,903 I have the handwritten original draft. 782 00:45:23,780 --> 00:45:27,400 My dad was able to get the consul in Zurich 783 00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:28,410 to make an exception. 784 00:45:28,410 --> 00:45:31,535 An aunt of mine brought me to Switzerland. 785 00:45:31,535 --> 00:45:34,370 I got my physical examination, I passed it, 786 00:45:34,370 --> 00:45:38,973 and I arrived in the United States on March 4th, 1938. 787 00:45:40,070 --> 00:45:44,710 I finally had an opportunity to visit him in Princeton. 788 00:45:44,710 --> 00:45:47,830 He had never met me before but he remembered the case. 789 00:45:47,830 --> 00:45:48,970 The way we talked 790 00:45:48,970 --> 00:45:53,970 was the way I might talk to just a nice elderly gentleman, 791 00:45:55,290 --> 00:45:57,900 I mean, to my grandfather. 792 00:45:57,900 --> 00:46:00,820 I was already working in industry at that time, 793 00:46:00,820 --> 00:46:03,130 and he wanted to know exactly what I was doing. 794 00:46:03,130 --> 00:46:04,810 He was very interested in it 795 00:46:04,810 --> 00:46:07,932 and we sorta discussed technical details. 796 00:46:07,932 --> 00:46:11,820 We talked just like we were colleagues, I mean, 797 00:46:11,820 --> 00:46:16,820 in a very warm and simple kind of friendly way. 798 00:46:18,750 --> 00:46:20,230 Einstein apparently worked very hard 799 00:46:20,230 --> 00:46:23,030 on behalf of German Jewish immigrants all along, 800 00:46:23,030 --> 00:46:25,420 so my case was not that unusual. 801 00:46:25,420 --> 00:46:26,770 There's a little anecdote 802 00:46:26,770 --> 00:46:31,770 that four young men came to a hospital to get a job there 803 00:46:32,850 --> 00:46:37,020 and each of them had a letter of Albert Einstein (chuckling) 804 00:46:37,020 --> 00:46:39,840 telling, "Yes, you should give him this job." 805 00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:41,360 Of course, this is an anecdote. 806 00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:45,140 I think it's not true because he knew very well 807 00:46:45,140 --> 00:46:48,360 if you do it like this, it won't help anybody. 808 00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:52,220 His recommendations are serious. 809 00:46:52,220 --> 00:46:53,670 They did try and actively save 810 00:46:53,670 --> 00:46:56,770 and did actively save individuals 811 00:46:56,770 --> 00:47:00,440 from the claws of Hitler and of Nazism. 812 00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:02,900 So he knows that Jews have to go some place, 813 00:47:02,900 --> 00:47:05,410 he sees the great tragedy. 814 00:47:05,410 --> 00:47:07,990 With respect to his political attitudes 815 00:47:07,990 --> 00:47:11,260 toward Israel and the Palestinian problem, 816 00:47:11,260 --> 00:47:15,820 some of his ideas of how to solve the problem 817 00:47:15,820 --> 00:47:18,690 seem unrealistic to our modern ear, 818 00:47:18,690 --> 00:47:21,500 given the intransigence of both sides. 819 00:47:21,500 --> 00:47:26,270 He was opposed to the establishment of a Jewish state. 820 00:47:26,270 --> 00:47:29,950 He had advocated vociferously against it for decades, 821 00:47:29,950 --> 00:47:32,170 even after the Holocaust. 822 00:47:32,170 --> 00:47:37,170 By '33, Einstein can see the disaster that's unfolding 823 00:47:37,550 --> 00:47:38,910 because of nationalism. 824 00:47:38,910 --> 00:47:40,973 And even in the First World War, 825 00:47:41,876 --> 00:47:44,610 he can see the great conflict of it. 826 00:47:44,610 --> 00:47:46,470 So, in that context, 827 00:47:46,470 --> 00:47:50,160 why support a national expression for the Jews? 828 00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:52,620 He had been very concerned already, 829 00:47:52,620 --> 00:47:57,010 even from his first visit to Palestine in 1923, 830 00:47:57,010 --> 00:48:00,980 of tendencies towards narrow nationalism 831 00:48:00,980 --> 00:48:04,370 and what he termed to be chauvinism. 832 00:48:04,370 --> 00:48:06,150 And he saw that being played out 833 00:48:06,150 --> 00:48:07,560 even in the early years of the state, 834 00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:12,450 and even in pre-state Jewish community in Palestine. 835 00:48:12,450 --> 00:48:16,010 He was in favor of more of a binational solution. 836 00:48:16,010 --> 00:48:18,593 I should much rather see a reasonable agreement 837 00:48:18,593 --> 00:48:21,463 with the Arabs on living together in peace 838 00:48:21,463 --> 00:48:24,240 than the creation of a Jewish state. 839 00:48:24,240 --> 00:48:26,270 He was in favor of a Jewish homeland 840 00:48:26,270 --> 00:48:29,940 and he was in favor of joint institutions and, basically, 841 00:48:29,940 --> 00:48:32,970 of the formation of a committee of technocrats. 842 00:48:32,970 --> 00:48:34,830 He wanted the politicians out of the picture 843 00:48:34,830 --> 00:48:36,866 and he wanted technocrats from both sides 844 00:48:36,866 --> 00:48:41,680 to make the important decisions in a most objective, 845 00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:45,160 neutral, unbiased, unemotional manner. 846 00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:48,550 The state idea is not according to my heart. 847 00:48:48,550 --> 00:48:51,210 It is connected with many difficulties 848 00:48:51,210 --> 00:48:53,453 and a narrow mindedness. 849 00:48:53,453 --> 00:48:55,640 I believe it is bad. 850 00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:58,590 After the establishment of the state, he resigned himself 851 00:48:59,660 --> 00:49:01,763 to, basically, to the fait accompli. 852 00:49:02,770 --> 00:49:07,770 Wasn't happy with it, to lend the state his support, 853 00:49:08,020 --> 00:49:12,223 but became very critical of certain policies, 854 00:49:13,430 --> 00:49:14,710 even in the early years. 855 00:49:14,710 --> 00:49:15,760 He cosigned a letter 856 00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:20,030 together with other prominent Jewish intellectuals in 1948 857 00:49:20,030 --> 00:49:20,863 to "The New York Times," 858 00:49:20,863 --> 00:49:23,330 in which he protested the visit of Menachem Begin 859 00:49:23,330 --> 00:49:26,070 to the U.S. and called him a terrorist leader. 860 00:49:26,070 --> 00:49:29,647 At the time he was here, he was the head of the Irgun. 861 00:49:31,870 --> 00:49:34,330 It only plays into the more conflict 862 00:49:34,330 --> 00:49:38,330 and, of course, if you look at the current sadness 863 00:49:38,330 --> 00:49:39,480 about the State of Israel, 864 00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:41,767 you could congratulate Einstein, you could say, 865 00:49:41,767 --> 00:49:43,350 "Yes, look at it, you were right." 866 00:49:43,350 --> 00:49:46,010 Nationalism is, no matter what kind of nationalism, 867 00:49:46,010 --> 00:49:47,000 is gonna be difficult. 868 00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,850 The absolute disaster of not having a Jewish state 869 00:49:50,850 --> 00:49:52,620 is in front of his eyes. 870 00:49:52,620 --> 00:49:56,030 My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism 871 00:49:56,030 --> 00:50:00,090 resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, 872 00:50:00,090 --> 00:50:02,170 and a measure of temporal power. 873 00:50:02,170 --> 00:50:04,010 Einstein is the poster child 874 00:50:04,010 --> 00:50:05,340 for everything in the universe 875 00:50:05,340 --> 00:50:07,670 but also for Jewish peoplehood. 876 00:50:07,670 --> 00:50:10,550 He needs a nation to back up the people. 877 00:50:10,550 --> 00:50:11,383 I really believe 878 00:50:11,383 --> 00:50:13,570 he thought that all the nations would get together 879 00:50:13,570 --> 00:50:15,900 and just start to dissolve nationalism. 880 00:50:15,900 --> 00:50:17,590 The United Nations General Assembly, 881 00:50:17,590 --> 00:50:19,580 which helped to create the State of Israel, 882 00:50:19,580 --> 00:50:21,740 now elects her a member nation. 883 00:50:21,740 --> 00:50:24,340 Assembly President Evatt announces. 884 00:50:24,340 --> 00:50:26,610 Formally declare Israel admitted to membership 885 00:50:26,610 --> 00:50:28,490 in the United Nations. (crowd cheering) 886 00:50:28,490 --> 00:50:29,890 The young republic, born of war, 887 00:50:29,890 --> 00:50:31,950 now joins the Council of Peace. 888 00:50:31,950 --> 00:50:33,820 The blue and white Star of David. 889 00:50:33,820 --> 00:50:37,130 So, once we participated in it, we could understand it, 890 00:50:37,130 --> 00:50:39,041 we could be a complete people. 891 00:50:39,041 --> 00:50:41,610 Complete peoples have a land, a language, 892 00:50:41,610 --> 00:50:42,690 a history, a culture. 893 00:50:42,690 --> 00:50:44,370 And then we could, 894 00:50:44,370 --> 00:50:46,930 as Jewish participants in the human family, 895 00:50:46,930 --> 00:50:49,550 to begin to reduce nationalism 896 00:50:49,550 --> 00:50:52,020 and bring more global harmony. 897 00:50:52,020 --> 00:50:53,760 Prime Minister Ben-Gurion of Israel 898 00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:55,220 arrives at Princeton, New Jersey 899 00:50:55,220 --> 00:50:56,967 to call on Dr. Albert Einstein. 900 00:50:56,967 --> 00:50:58,780 The man whose physics formula 901 00:50:58,780 --> 00:51:01,030 led the way to the atomic explosion 902 00:51:01,030 --> 00:51:03,270 plays host to the leader who played a great part 903 00:51:03,270 --> 00:51:05,111 in the creation of the Israeli nation. 904 00:51:05,111 --> 00:51:08,528 (bright classical music) 905 00:51:17,590 --> 00:51:18,840 I am deeply moved 906 00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:21,470 by the offer from our State of Israel, 907 00:51:21,470 --> 00:51:23,311 and at once sad and abashed 908 00:51:23,311 --> 00:51:26,490 that it is impossible for me to accept it. 909 00:51:26,490 --> 00:51:29,465 All my life, I have dealt with objective matters. 910 00:51:29,465 --> 00:51:33,380 Hence, I lack the natural aptitude and the experience 911 00:51:33,380 --> 00:51:35,420 to deal properly with people 912 00:51:35,420 --> 00:51:38,320 and to exercise official functions. 913 00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:39,230 For these reasons, 914 00:51:39,230 --> 00:51:42,210 I do not feel able to fulfill the requirements 915 00:51:42,210 --> 00:51:43,603 of this great task. 916 00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:47,770 I am the more distressed over these circumstances 917 00:51:47,770 --> 00:51:50,490 because my relationship to the Jewish people 918 00:51:50,490 --> 00:51:52,793 has become my strongest human bond. 919 00:51:55,530 --> 00:51:57,200 If I were to be president, 920 00:51:57,200 --> 00:52:00,160 sometimes I would have to say to the Israeli people 921 00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:01,913 things they would not like to hear. 922 00:52:04,350 --> 00:52:07,330 He saw the humor in situations, 923 00:52:07,330 --> 00:52:09,620 he saw the irony in situations, 924 00:52:09,620 --> 00:52:12,190 and it ties in partly with his playfulness. 925 00:52:12,190 --> 00:52:16,154 He had a very playful, childlike appreciation of things. 926 00:52:16,154 --> 00:52:19,987 (interviewer speaking German) 927 00:52:25,064 --> 00:52:28,647 (Einstein speaking German) 928 00:52:40,878 --> 00:52:44,128 (Elsa speaking German) 929 00:52:53,240 --> 00:52:55,810 One of the things that makes him very appealing, 930 00:52:55,810 --> 00:52:57,980 aside from his great sense of humor, 931 00:52:57,980 --> 00:53:01,083 is that he was genuinely a modest human being. 932 00:53:01,940 --> 00:53:05,970 You can tell just by looking at his eyes, 933 00:53:05,970 --> 00:53:10,570 this is a man with incredible spark. 934 00:53:10,570 --> 00:53:13,210 I like to call it a sense of being alive, 935 00:53:13,210 --> 00:53:18,030 a sense of intense curiosity about the real world. 936 00:53:18,030 --> 00:53:22,010 The ability to relate to all kinds of different people, 937 00:53:22,010 --> 00:53:25,860 from kings and queens to small children, when he wanted to. 938 00:53:25,860 --> 00:53:29,820 He hated hierarchy, hated class distinctions, 939 00:53:29,820 --> 00:53:32,770 and that was obvious, also, then, in America, 940 00:53:32,770 --> 00:53:35,510 where he was outraged by racism. 941 00:53:35,510 --> 00:53:36,740 The distinctions 942 00:53:36,740 --> 00:53:40,030 separating the social classes are false. 943 00:53:40,030 --> 00:53:43,360 In the last analysis, they rest on force. 944 00:53:43,360 --> 00:53:44,670 Many people don't realize 945 00:53:44,670 --> 00:53:46,590 that Albert Einstein was at the forefront 946 00:53:46,590 --> 00:53:50,010 of the struggle for racial equality in the United States. 947 00:53:50,010 --> 00:53:53,687 It pained him to see the plight of African Americans. 948 00:53:53,687 --> 00:53:58,687 ♪ When Israel was in Egypt's land ♪ 949 00:54:00,099 --> 00:54:03,016 ♪ Let my people go ♪ 950 00:54:04,030 --> 00:54:05,520 He was right there, 951 00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:07,480 right there with W. E. B. Du Bois, 952 00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:11,780 right there with Paul Robeson, right there with the struggle 953 00:54:11,780 --> 00:54:14,354 of African Americans for equality. 954 00:54:14,354 --> 00:54:15,520 ♪ Let my people ♪ 955 00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:17,400 In order for the American people 956 00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:20,840 to wake up to the plight of discrimination 957 00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:25,840 here in our own backyard. ♪ Moses ♪ 958 00:54:27,207 --> 00:54:28,552 The race problem 959 00:54:28,552 --> 00:54:30,750 is a disease of the white people. 960 00:54:30,750 --> 00:54:35,750 ♪ In Egypt's land ♪ 961 00:54:36,053 --> 00:54:38,970 ♪ Tell old Pharaoh ♪ 962 00:54:44,229 --> 00:54:46,814 I say segregation now, ♪ Let my people ♪ 963 00:54:46,814 --> 00:54:48,442 segregation tomorrow, 964 00:54:48,442 --> 00:54:52,765 and segregation forever! (crowd clamoring) 965 00:54:52,765 --> 00:54:54,515 ♪ Go ♪ 966 00:54:57,820 --> 00:54:59,310 There is a somber point 967 00:54:59,310 --> 00:55:01,870 in the social outlook of Americans. 968 00:55:01,870 --> 00:55:04,840 Their sense of equality and human dignity 969 00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:08,390 is mainly limited to men of white skins. 970 00:55:08,390 --> 00:55:10,390 The more I feel an American, 971 00:55:10,390 --> 00:55:13,240 the more the situation pains me. 972 00:55:13,240 --> 00:55:15,760 I can escape the feeling of complicity in it 973 00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:17,233 only by speaking out. 974 00:55:20,120 --> 00:55:23,360 Albert Einstein not only pioneered new strategies, 975 00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:25,500 new ways of looking at the heavens, 976 00:55:25,500 --> 00:55:27,440 not only did he open up new pathways 977 00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:30,840 by which we can oppose fascism, he also was at the forefront 978 00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:34,460 for the struggle for racial equality in the United States. 979 00:55:34,460 --> 00:55:37,523 When he moved to Princeton, 980 00:55:38,550 --> 00:55:42,923 Marian Anderson was playing a sold-out concert in Princeton 981 00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:48,014 but the Nassau Inn would not allow her to stay there. 982 00:55:48,014 --> 00:55:51,264 (Marian singing opera) 983 00:55:56,883 --> 00:55:59,670 (audience applauding) 984 00:55:59,670 --> 00:56:01,210 When Einstein found out about it, 985 00:56:01,210 --> 00:56:03,480 he invited her to stay at his place 986 00:56:03,480 --> 00:56:05,993 and they became friends for the rest of his life. 987 00:56:07,130 --> 00:56:10,580 Similar stories with Paul Robeson. 988 00:56:10,580 --> 00:56:14,220 There's a story the first time Robeson came to meet him 989 00:56:14,220 --> 00:56:15,960 at his house in Princeton, 990 00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:20,960 the man accompanying Robeson, whose name I now forget, said, 991 00:56:21,137 --> 00:56:23,330 "Oh, Mr. Einstein, it's such a privilege 992 00:56:23,330 --> 00:56:25,380 to meet a great man." 993 00:56:25,380 --> 00:56:28,140 And Einstein said, "You just came with a great man." 994 00:56:28,140 --> 00:56:32,560 So, enormous respect for Robeson 995 00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:37,560 and enormous commitment to civil rights as human rights. 996 00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:42,230 He accommodated to the realities of the situation, 997 00:56:42,230 --> 00:56:44,330 and he was not an ideologue. 998 00:56:44,330 --> 00:56:49,330 Most important for Einstein in the political sphere 999 00:56:49,530 --> 00:56:51,483 was the need for human beings 1000 00:56:51,483 --> 00:56:53,350 to have peace with one another. 1001 00:56:53,350 --> 00:56:57,780 And this comes, really, from Einstein's own background 1002 00:56:57,780 --> 00:56:59,170 and his physics career. 1003 00:56:59,170 --> 00:57:03,050 He is someone who realizes that scientific progress 1004 00:57:03,050 --> 00:57:05,360 can only be made through cooperation, 1005 00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:09,130 can only be made through the sharing of information, 1006 00:57:09,130 --> 00:57:11,260 through the sharing of sensibilities 1007 00:57:11,260 --> 00:57:13,640 and the taking into account 1008 00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:16,870 what the wishes and the views of others are. 1009 00:57:16,870 --> 00:57:21,260 He was, of course, not a man of the people, 1010 00:57:21,260 --> 00:57:24,550 although he certainly was presented as such, 1011 00:57:24,550 --> 00:57:26,590 but he was an elitist. 1012 00:57:26,590 --> 00:57:28,900 And for him, the elite that mattered 1013 00:57:28,900 --> 00:57:31,430 was the elite of intellectuals 1014 00:57:31,430 --> 00:57:35,730 who live in a society in which the exchange of information, 1015 00:57:35,730 --> 00:57:37,780 the exchange of knowledge, is everything. 1016 00:57:37,780 --> 00:57:40,260 Don't think it was anything peculiar 1017 00:57:40,260 --> 00:57:41,960 about Einstein's character 1018 00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:46,230 that made him reject any membership of German institutions 1019 00:57:46,230 --> 00:57:47,250 after the war. 1020 00:57:47,250 --> 00:57:49,730 It has to more to do with Germany that with Einstein. 1021 00:57:49,730 --> 00:57:51,340 All the scientific institutions, 1022 00:57:51,340 --> 00:57:53,200 the academic institutions in Germany 1023 00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:55,470 have gotten deeply involved, 1024 00:57:55,470 --> 00:57:58,590 and not necessarily under external force 1025 00:57:58,590 --> 00:58:03,590 but most often also voluntarily, with the Nazi regime, 1026 00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:07,400 and at the time when Einstein, after the war, 1027 00:58:07,400 --> 00:58:10,880 had interactions with them, hadn't cleansed themselves 1028 00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:14,090 from these interactions, hadn't worked up their own history. 1029 00:58:14,090 --> 00:58:19,050 It was the most natural and understandable position 1030 00:58:19,050 --> 00:58:20,369 that Einstein took. 1031 00:58:20,369 --> 00:58:23,786 (bright classical music) 1032 00:59:28,185 --> 00:59:31,602 (gentle classical music) 1033 01:00:44,980 --> 01:00:48,350 So I don't think he didn't even need to be 1034 01:00:48,350 --> 01:00:50,970 a particularly upright man, which, of course, he was, 1035 01:00:50,970 --> 01:00:52,270 in order to take that position. 1036 01:00:52,270 --> 01:00:57,270 It was just a position of good common sense that he took. 1037 01:00:57,460 --> 01:00:59,450 Einstein was prescient 1038 01:00:59,450 --> 01:01:02,910 on every political issue he ever engaged with, 1039 01:01:02,910 --> 01:01:05,660 with one exception: he thought Germany was irredeemable. 1040 01:01:05,660 --> 01:01:07,610 Germany had started two world wars 1041 01:01:07,610 --> 01:01:12,610 and there was no way to atone for that sin. 1042 01:01:13,740 --> 01:01:16,343 He never wanted to set foot there again. 1043 01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:20,920 But about the mid-'60s, 1044 01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:24,320 the Germans did a look at their history. 1045 01:01:24,320 --> 01:01:28,340 People were outraged, as they came of age 1046 01:01:28,340 --> 01:01:32,470 and saw the Auschwitz trials or the Eichmann trial, 1047 01:01:32,470 --> 01:01:36,190 that their parents had, at the very least, been bystanders, 1048 01:01:36,190 --> 01:01:38,360 and at the very worst, been Nazis. 1049 01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:42,897 To the point where the government would actually say, 1050 01:01:42,897 --> 01:01:46,530 "This is our identity, we do not forget." 1051 01:01:46,530 --> 01:01:51,210 And the slogan is not collective guilt 1052 01:01:51,210 --> 01:01:54,090 but collective responsibility for the future 1053 01:01:54,090 --> 01:01:56,560 by continuing to look at the past. 1054 01:01:56,560 --> 01:01:59,273 Einstein could not have seen that coming. 1055 01:02:01,658 --> 01:02:05,075 (gentle classical music) 1056 01:02:12,720 --> 01:02:16,530 And so, I don't see him there as a dreamy scientist 1057 01:02:16,530 --> 01:02:18,450 who didn't see the realities. 1058 01:02:18,450 --> 01:02:19,910 He saw the dangers 1059 01:02:19,910 --> 01:02:22,450 that were connected with nuclear armaments, 1060 01:02:22,450 --> 01:02:24,870 and he could foresee such dangers 1061 01:02:24,870 --> 01:02:27,570 as they come with the uncontrolled spreading 1062 01:02:27,570 --> 01:02:29,203 of radioactive materials. 1063 01:02:30,040 --> 01:02:33,060 This is the "CBS Evening News," Dan Rather reporting. 1064 01:02:33,060 --> 01:02:37,080 Every indication is that it was a serious nuclear accident. 1065 01:02:37,080 --> 01:02:39,640 Chernobyl is a string of four nuclear reactors 1066 01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:43,290 some 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, 1067 01:02:43,290 --> 01:02:44,310 an urbanized region 1068 01:02:44,310 --> 01:02:47,650 believed populated by 2 1/2 million people. 1069 01:02:47,650 --> 01:02:48,483 Several hours 1070 01:02:48,483 --> 01:02:50,680 before the Soviets admitted the accident, 1071 01:02:50,680 --> 01:02:52,750 increased radiation was first detected 1072 01:02:52,750 --> 01:02:55,170 at this nuclear power plant North of Stockholm. 1073 01:02:55,170 --> 01:02:56,930 600 workers were evacuated 1074 01:02:56,930 --> 01:02:58,720 after one of them set off an alarm 1075 01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:01,380 while passing through a routine radiation check. 1076 01:03:01,380 --> 01:03:03,390 Soon, there were reports of higher than usual 1077 01:03:03,390 --> 01:03:05,950 radiation levels throughout Scandinavia. 1078 01:03:05,950 --> 01:03:08,030 Winds blowing in a northwesterly direction 1079 01:03:08,030 --> 01:03:09,980 apparently carried the radioactive pollution 1080 01:03:09,980 --> 01:03:12,477 nearly 1,000 miles from the Ukraine. 1081 01:03:12,477 --> 01:03:13,407 "That," say experts, 1082 01:03:13,407 --> 01:03:16,217 "indicates the accident was extremely serious." 1083 01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:19,350 And the danger that small conflicts 1084 01:03:19,350 --> 01:03:21,620 might escalate into larger ones, 1085 01:03:21,620 --> 01:03:26,620 and so, his only hope, his only perspective was control, 1086 01:03:28,230 --> 01:03:33,230 was understanding communication on a global scale. 1087 01:03:33,680 --> 01:03:35,670 Human beings are not condemned 1088 01:03:35,670 --> 01:03:38,300 because of their biological constitution 1089 01:03:38,300 --> 01:03:40,030 to annihilate each other 1090 01:03:40,030 --> 01:03:43,733 or to be at the mercy of our cruel self-inflicted fate. 1091 01:03:43,733 --> 01:03:46,566 (sorrowful music) 1092 01:03:47,710 --> 01:03:49,550 He was one of the first intellectuals 1093 01:03:49,550 --> 01:03:53,390 to clearly see the full dimension of a globalized world 1094 01:03:53,390 --> 01:03:55,810 because the world became globalized 1095 01:03:55,810 --> 01:04:00,810 once these arms had the potential of destroying the planet. 1096 01:04:01,610 --> 01:04:04,920 However, later, when he saw what the consequences were, 1097 01:04:04,920 --> 01:04:08,140 he felt, first of all, even more compelled 1098 01:04:08,140 --> 01:04:11,720 to take an explicit public stance 1099 01:04:11,720 --> 01:04:13,680 in regard to political measures 1100 01:04:14,770 --> 01:04:17,540 in terms of nuclear armaments. 1101 01:04:17,540 --> 01:04:20,780 The war is won, but the peace is not. 1102 01:04:20,780 --> 01:04:23,980 The great powers, united in fighting, 1103 01:04:23,980 --> 01:04:27,120 are now divided over the peace settlements. 1104 01:04:27,120 --> 01:04:29,850 He took it on as a deep moral obligation 1105 01:04:29,850 --> 01:04:33,100 and he saw it as a moral obligation for all scientists 1106 01:04:33,100 --> 01:04:36,430 to become responsible for their deeds, for the knowledge, 1107 01:04:36,430 --> 01:04:37,950 for the use of their knowledge. 1108 01:04:37,950 --> 01:04:39,780 This is the political learning curve 1109 01:04:39,780 --> 01:04:40,960 that Einstein had undergone. 1110 01:04:40,960 --> 01:04:43,290 His capacity to take up challenges, 1111 01:04:43,290 --> 01:04:44,630 to deal with those challenges, 1112 01:04:44,630 --> 01:04:49,120 to intellectually digest them, and to draw consequence. 1113 01:04:49,120 --> 01:04:52,020 He is known as a proponent of a world government 1114 01:04:52,020 --> 01:04:54,890 that one needed to establish a peaceful world order. 1115 01:04:54,890 --> 01:04:57,410 And this in the midst of the period of the Cold War 1116 01:04:57,410 --> 01:05:00,240 when he became engaged with these issues 1117 01:05:00,240 --> 01:05:02,130 in a very strong way, 1118 01:05:02,130 --> 01:05:06,053 arguing against nuclear armament and against the arms race. 1119 01:05:08,430 --> 01:05:12,850 Mr. Welch talks about this being cruel and reckless. 1120 01:05:12,850 --> 01:05:14,050 He was just baiting. 1121 01:05:14,050 --> 01:05:16,763 He has been baiting Mr. Cohn here for hours, 1122 01:05:18,217 --> 01:05:20,960 requesting that Mr. Cohn before sundown 1123 01:05:22,000 --> 01:05:24,740 get out of any department of the government 1124 01:05:25,780 --> 01:05:27,880 anyone who is serving the Communist cause. 1125 01:05:29,780 --> 01:05:34,170 Now, I just give this man's record, 1126 01:05:34,170 --> 01:05:39,170 and I want to say, Mr. Welch, that it has been labeled 1127 01:05:40,900 --> 01:05:45,260 long before he became a member, as early as 1944- 1128 01:05:46,944 --> 01:05:48,845 Senator, may we not drop this? 1129 01:05:48,845 --> 01:05:50,868 We know he belongs to the Lawyers Guild. 1130 01:05:50,868 --> 01:05:52,515 Let me finish- Let us not 1131 01:05:52,515 --> 01:05:55,420 assassinate this man further, Senator. 1132 01:05:55,420 --> 01:05:57,400 Let's, let's- You've done enough. 1133 01:05:57,400 --> 01:06:01,400 Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? 1134 01:06:02,897 --> 01:06:05,730 Have you left no sense of decency? 1135 01:06:07,448 --> 01:06:10,531 (gentle piano music) 1136 01:06:23,400 --> 01:06:25,910 Because of the alleged external danger 1137 01:06:25,910 --> 01:06:29,530 to our country, freedom of the press is obstructed. 1138 01:06:29,530 --> 01:06:32,070 This is done by creating a situation 1139 01:06:32,070 --> 01:06:35,560 in which people fear their economic positions endangered. 1140 01:06:35,560 --> 01:06:37,510 This is a state of affairs 1141 01:06:37,510 --> 01:06:40,900 which a democratic government cannot survive. 1142 01:06:40,900 --> 01:06:43,690 The U.S. is no longer a free country. 1143 01:06:43,690 --> 01:06:48,520 My house is closely watched. (sorrowful music) 1144 01:06:48,520 --> 01:06:51,460 He not only spoke out against the blacklist, 1145 01:06:51,460 --> 01:06:55,460 but encouraged younger people to do the same. 1146 01:06:55,460 --> 01:06:57,100 You may appear with flowers 1147 01:06:57,100 --> 01:07:00,820 on the day when the last witch hunter has been silenced, 1148 01:07:00,820 --> 01:07:01,863 but not before. 1149 01:07:02,922 --> 01:07:04,730 And the beautiful thing about it is, 1150 01:07:04,730 --> 01:07:08,140 he didn't just encourage people to refuse to testify, 1151 01:07:08,140 --> 01:07:10,660 he tried to help them find jobs afterwards 1152 01:07:10,660 --> 01:07:13,183 and did what he could to leverage his name. 1153 01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:18,460 Reactionary politicians 1154 01:07:18,460 --> 01:07:20,730 have managed to instill suspicion 1155 01:07:20,730 --> 01:07:23,800 of all intellectual efforts into the public. 1156 01:07:23,800 --> 01:07:27,400 They are now proceeding to suppress the freedom of teaching 1157 01:07:27,400 --> 01:07:29,300 and to deprive of their positions 1158 01:07:29,300 --> 01:07:32,290 all of those who do not prove submissive, 1159 01:07:32,290 --> 01:07:34,383 in effect, to starve them. 1160 01:07:35,516 --> 01:07:38,210 What to do against this evil? 1161 01:07:38,210 --> 01:07:40,447 Frankly, I can only see 1162 01:07:40,447 --> 01:07:43,640 the revolutionary way of non-cooperation 1163 01:07:43,640 --> 01:07:46,863 in the sense of Gandhi's refuse to testify. 1164 01:07:48,170 --> 01:07:52,360 He must be prepared for jail and economic ruin, 1165 01:07:52,360 --> 01:07:54,940 for the sacrifice of his personal welfare 1166 01:07:54,940 --> 01:07:57,793 in the interest of the welfare of his country. 1167 01:07:59,500 --> 01:08:02,000 It is shameful for a blameless citizen 1168 01:08:02,000 --> 01:08:04,420 to submit to such an inquisition 1169 01:08:04,420 --> 01:08:07,740 that violates the spirit of the Constitution. 1170 01:08:07,740 --> 01:08:09,530 I believe that older people 1171 01:08:09,530 --> 01:08:11,810 who have scarcely anything to lose 1172 01:08:11,810 --> 01:08:13,540 ought to be willing to speak out 1173 01:08:13,540 --> 01:08:15,690 on behalf of those who are young 1174 01:08:15,690 --> 01:08:18,910 and who are subject to much greater restraint. 1175 01:08:18,910 --> 01:08:21,920 We're really talking about the character feature 1176 01:08:21,920 --> 01:08:25,440 of Einstein, and I don't think it's so much the loneliness 1177 01:08:25,440 --> 01:08:27,693 or the aloofness of Einstein. 1178 01:08:28,930 --> 01:08:31,990 If you see pictures, movies of the '20s, 1179 01:08:31,990 --> 01:08:34,420 Einstein was quite a party animal. 1180 01:08:34,420 --> 01:08:36,940 He was talkative, communicative. 1181 01:08:36,940 --> 01:08:40,810 He had, from his early days, an incredible self-confidence, 1182 01:08:40,810 --> 01:08:42,880 and I think that is the self-confidence 1183 01:08:42,880 --> 01:08:44,723 that gave him so much inner freedom. 1184 01:08:45,610 --> 01:08:48,390 And it was, of course, confirmed by his life's achievement, 1185 01:08:48,390 --> 01:08:52,870 which gave him even greater freedom, and it made him capable 1186 01:08:52,870 --> 01:08:57,313 of sustaining contradictions, rejections. 1187 01:08:58,490 --> 01:09:00,200 The loneliness that he experienced 1188 01:09:00,200 --> 01:09:02,960 in his political positions in the First World War 1189 01:09:02,960 --> 01:09:05,490 was a loneliness that he didn't choose. 1190 01:09:05,490 --> 01:09:09,490 How vile and despicable war seems to me. 1191 01:09:09,490 --> 01:09:11,930 I would rather be hacked into pieces 1192 01:09:11,930 --> 01:09:14,763 than take part in such an abominable business. 1193 01:09:15,780 --> 01:09:16,890 But this self-confidence 1194 01:09:16,890 --> 01:09:18,952 into his intellectual capabilities, 1195 01:09:18,952 --> 01:09:21,770 into his own moral autonomy, 1196 01:09:21,770 --> 01:09:25,520 gave him the strength to sustain those differences. 1197 01:09:25,520 --> 01:09:27,820 One needs courage not to go with the crowd, 1198 01:09:27,820 --> 01:09:29,550 but to stay different. 1199 01:09:29,550 --> 01:09:32,230 One is, and I think that's very important, 1200 01:09:32,230 --> 01:09:34,100 never quite alone in these things 1201 01:09:34,100 --> 01:09:38,320 because there is, on the one hand, an intellectual community 1202 01:09:38,320 --> 01:09:41,000 of the great people with whom one communicates, 1203 01:09:41,000 --> 01:09:44,493 the people one reads and one identifies with, 1204 01:09:45,330 --> 01:09:47,070 the great scientists of the past 1205 01:09:47,070 --> 01:09:50,200 but also the great moral thinkers of the past. 1206 01:09:50,200 --> 01:09:52,161 Einstein loved Spinoza. 1207 01:09:52,161 --> 01:09:55,790 He had this world of philosophical and intellectual thinking 1208 01:09:55,790 --> 01:09:57,660 with which he communicated, 1209 01:09:57,660 --> 01:09:59,810 but there were also the real friends 1210 01:09:59,810 --> 01:10:02,130 that were not necessarily the famous scientists 1211 01:10:02,130 --> 01:10:04,580 but people like Michele Besso, 1212 01:10:04,580 --> 01:10:06,880 with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship, 1213 01:10:07,750 --> 01:10:11,880 with whom he shared many views about life and science. 1214 01:10:11,880 --> 01:10:13,420 And from the early days on, 1215 01:10:13,420 --> 01:10:17,050 from the famous Olympia Academy youth club, 1216 01:10:17,050 --> 01:10:20,620 Akademie Olympia, the friends, the Habicht, the Solovine, 1217 01:10:20,620 --> 01:10:23,260 Einstein had a group of people that actually, 1218 01:10:23,260 --> 01:10:24,700 in certain occasions of his life, 1219 01:10:24,700 --> 01:10:27,233 also helped him to stay stubborn. 1220 01:10:28,380 --> 01:10:30,350 Einstein thinks about the world 1221 01:10:30,350 --> 01:10:32,260 from Spinoza's perspective, 1222 01:10:32,260 --> 01:10:36,030 which is that the world is radically one because God is one 1223 01:10:36,030 --> 01:10:39,100 and, therefore, he has to be able to come up with a theory 1224 01:10:39,100 --> 01:10:40,793 to explain everything. 1225 01:10:41,840 --> 01:10:45,830 Spinoza believed that the universe was God 1226 01:10:45,830 --> 01:10:49,420 and, therefore, he believed that every part of the universe 1227 01:10:49,420 --> 01:10:52,410 had the impact of God. 1228 01:10:52,410 --> 01:10:54,050 This is different than atheism. 1229 01:10:54,050 --> 01:10:56,480 This would be called pantheism. 1230 01:10:56,480 --> 01:10:58,820 All the aspects of the world are determined 1231 01:10:58,820 --> 01:11:01,900 and all of them are God. 1232 01:11:01,900 --> 01:11:03,650 You think about Spinoza, 1233 01:11:03,650 --> 01:11:07,570 he is a completely independent thinker, 1234 01:11:07,570 --> 01:11:10,590 he's a Jew without community, he's a Jew without constraint, 1235 01:11:10,590 --> 01:11:14,350 he's a Jew without tradition, he's a Jew without ritual. 1236 01:11:14,350 --> 01:11:16,040 And Einstein also. 1237 01:11:16,040 --> 01:11:17,840 Albert Einstein is a Jew, 1238 01:11:17,840 --> 01:11:20,430 he's called that in a consistent way. 1239 01:11:20,430 --> 01:11:23,240 And so, Albert Einstein sees himself very much 1240 01:11:23,240 --> 01:11:26,077 as a secular Jew, of the Jewish people, 1241 01:11:26,077 --> 01:11:29,460 and this is an understanding of his that's indelible. 1242 01:11:29,460 --> 01:11:30,940 I will never not be a Jew. 1243 01:11:30,940 --> 01:11:31,773 And he's happy, 1244 01:11:31,773 --> 01:11:34,900 eventually becoming more and more happy to be a Jew. 1245 01:11:34,900 --> 01:11:37,090 From a philosophical or religious 1246 01:11:37,090 --> 01:11:39,530 or, in particularly, physics perspective, 1247 01:11:39,530 --> 01:11:44,230 think about Spinoza and the idea that the universe is God. 1248 01:11:44,230 --> 01:11:47,160 There can be no random action in the universe. 1249 01:11:47,160 --> 01:11:49,380 Einstein is reading Spinoza 1250 01:11:49,380 --> 01:11:51,920 and he's saying nothing can be random. 1251 01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:55,250 If I have a theory, it has to explain everything. 1252 01:11:55,250 --> 01:11:58,700 And it has to be the most simple explanation 1253 01:11:58,700 --> 01:11:59,890 that you can come up with. 1254 01:11:59,890 --> 01:12:03,220 Einstein believes if you can figure out the cause, 1255 01:12:03,220 --> 01:12:04,890 you can figure out the effect. 1256 01:12:04,890 --> 01:12:07,630 His morality is based on that. 1257 01:12:07,630 --> 01:12:10,420 We have to be a cause for good. 1258 01:12:10,420 --> 01:12:11,300 He doesn't believe 1259 01:12:11,300 --> 01:12:13,650 that following Jewish tradition and rituals 1260 01:12:13,650 --> 01:12:16,830 is going to be the heart of his morality. 1261 01:12:16,830 --> 01:12:19,310 I myself am non-observant, 1262 01:12:19,310 --> 01:12:21,433 yet consider myself a loyal Jew. 1263 01:12:22,300 --> 01:12:25,480 He thinks that the Jewish tradition and rituals 1264 01:12:25,480 --> 01:12:29,970 were for the theocracy that existed in the land of Israel 1265 01:12:29,970 --> 01:12:31,590 thousands of years before, 1266 01:12:31,590 --> 01:12:34,500 and they're no longer relevant in their details, 1267 01:12:34,500 --> 01:12:38,240 but they are relevant in their impact. 1268 01:12:38,240 --> 01:12:41,380 So if we are going to be citizens of the world, 1269 01:12:41,380 --> 01:12:45,610 part of the people who are thinking rigorously for justice, 1270 01:12:45,610 --> 01:12:48,370 then that justice has to be worked on. 1271 01:12:48,370 --> 01:12:52,870 And Einstein worked hard on that justice. 1272 01:12:52,870 --> 01:12:55,990 He can make, and does make, lots of moral pronouncements 1273 01:12:55,990 --> 01:12:58,530 because he thinks they're for the betterment of the world. 1274 01:12:58,530 --> 01:13:00,780 The most important human endeavor 1275 01:13:00,780 --> 01:13:04,400 is the striving for morality in our actions. 1276 01:13:04,400 --> 01:13:08,960 Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. 1277 01:13:08,960 --> 01:13:11,200 Only morality in our actions 1278 01:13:11,200 --> 01:13:13,910 can give beauty and dignity to life. 1279 01:13:13,910 --> 01:13:15,440 And he does live 1280 01:13:15,440 --> 01:13:18,710 at one of the most extraordinary times of change, 1281 01:13:18,710 --> 01:13:22,480 both disaster and creation, in Jewish history. 1282 01:13:22,480 --> 01:13:26,240 Einstein says, and I quote, "I believe in Spinoza's God, 1283 01:13:26,240 --> 01:13:29,950 who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, 1284 01:13:29,950 --> 01:13:32,310 not in a God who concerns himself 1285 01:13:32,310 --> 01:13:34,830 with the faith and the doings of mankind." 1286 01:13:34,830 --> 01:13:37,930 It's a beautiful sentence, it's an elegant sentence. 1287 01:13:37,930 --> 01:13:40,160 We don't have a God sitting on cloud. 1288 01:13:40,160 --> 01:13:43,100 We don't have a God that's making for human progress. 1289 01:13:43,100 --> 01:13:45,750 We don't have a God that's going to stop evil. 1290 01:13:45,750 --> 01:13:49,130 And in Einstein's life, there's plenty of evil in the world. 1291 01:13:49,130 --> 01:13:51,280 He's alive during some of the greatest evil 1292 01:13:51,280 --> 01:13:52,800 in the history of humankind. 1293 01:13:52,800 --> 01:13:56,560 Einstein knows the terrible disasters of the world, 1294 01:13:56,560 --> 01:13:58,690 of the 20th century. 1295 01:13:58,690 --> 01:14:00,850 But he also thinks that the God that he believes in 1296 01:14:00,850 --> 01:14:04,100 is Spinoza's God, which is about the harmony of the world, 1297 01:14:04,100 --> 01:14:07,940 and it's his job, both in physics and morality 1298 01:14:07,940 --> 01:14:10,400 and even in politics, to build a world 1299 01:14:10,400 --> 01:14:14,230 which is more harmonious, and that is God. 1300 01:14:14,230 --> 01:14:15,640 If something is in me 1301 01:14:15,640 --> 01:14:17,010 that can be called religious, 1302 01:14:17,010 --> 01:14:19,610 then it is the unbounded admiration 1303 01:14:19,610 --> 01:14:21,470 for the structure of the world, 1304 01:14:21,470 --> 01:14:23,890 as far as science can reveal it. 1305 01:14:23,890 --> 01:14:25,900 It's very empowering to humanity, 1306 01:14:25,900 --> 01:14:27,190 it doesn't give you the sense 1307 01:14:27,190 --> 01:14:28,970 that God will intervene at the last minute. 1308 01:14:28,970 --> 01:14:33,030 After all, in the '30s and the early '40s, 1309 01:14:33,030 --> 01:14:35,280 if God could've, He really should've. 1310 01:14:35,280 --> 01:14:40,040 For you to pray for the change of some kind of physical law 1311 01:14:40,040 --> 01:14:44,690 or that the gas or bullets don't kill the people, 1312 01:14:44,690 --> 01:14:45,990 this is worthless. 1313 01:14:45,990 --> 01:14:48,011 You have to stop the war. 1314 01:14:48,011 --> 01:14:50,760 There is no other salvation for civilization 1315 01:14:50,760 --> 01:14:52,870 and even for the human race 1316 01:14:52,870 --> 01:14:56,160 than in the creation of a world government. 1317 01:14:56,160 --> 01:15:00,010 And for Einstein, this is a very significant, 1318 01:15:00,010 --> 01:15:03,210 and I think one could say, significant religious belief. 1319 01:15:03,210 --> 01:15:06,970 I think that Einstein has the most benevolent image 1320 01:15:06,970 --> 01:15:11,710 of any philosopher, theologian, or physicist 1321 01:15:11,710 --> 01:15:13,210 of the 20th century. 1322 01:15:13,210 --> 01:15:18,210 He was, in some ways, fearless, he was deep, he was active. 1323 01:15:19,630 --> 01:15:21,600 He believed that his imagination 1324 01:15:21,600 --> 01:15:23,880 was the most important of all of his tools. 1325 01:15:23,880 --> 01:15:27,130 Not his reason, not his learned intellect, 1326 01:15:27,130 --> 01:15:29,203 not his schooling, not his degrees. 1327 01:15:30,540 --> 01:15:34,570 Imagination is more important than knowledge. 1328 01:15:34,570 --> 01:15:39,153 Knowledge is limited, imagination encircles the world. 1329 01:15:40,007 --> 01:15:44,990 Einstein was described much later 1330 01:15:44,990 --> 01:15:49,990 by the last woman in his life as a revolutionary to the end. 1331 01:15:51,610 --> 01:15:54,560 There was so much more to Einstein besides physics. 1332 01:15:54,560 --> 01:15:59,560 There were his humanitarian endeavors, his love of music, 1333 01:15:59,870 --> 01:16:04,440 his love of children and animals and ice cream 1334 01:16:04,440 --> 01:16:06,950 and just talking to everybody 1335 01:16:06,950 --> 01:16:10,410 who was not necessarily on the faculty or higher up. 1336 01:16:10,410 --> 01:16:13,390 He made himself available to all kinds of people. 1337 01:16:13,390 --> 01:16:17,200 He is, in some ways, the victorious child. 1338 01:16:17,200 --> 01:16:19,530 A lucky boy, oh he was a lucky boy, yeah. 1339 01:16:19,530 --> 01:16:21,403 Eventually, in the final years, 1340 01:16:22,240 --> 01:16:24,779 mellowing to a certain extent 1341 01:16:24,779 --> 01:16:28,580 and then he becomes that kind of chubby teddy bear figure 1342 01:16:28,580 --> 01:16:31,670 that we all like and love. 1343 01:16:31,670 --> 01:16:33,487 Not the real Einstein, but (chuckling), 1344 01:16:35,060 --> 01:16:36,653 but a nice mythical figure. 1345 01:16:42,080 --> 01:16:45,150 Abortion, up till a certain stage of pregnancy, 1346 01:16:45,150 --> 01:16:48,550 should be permissible at the request of the woman. 1347 01:16:48,550 --> 01:16:52,093 Homosexuality should be exempt from punishment. 1348 01:16:52,970 --> 01:16:54,470 It is strange that science, 1349 01:16:54,470 --> 01:16:56,805 which in the old days seemed harmless, 1350 01:16:56,805 --> 01:16:59,370 should have evolved into a nightmare 1351 01:16:59,370 --> 01:17:01,690 that causes everyone to tremble. 1352 01:17:03,193 --> 01:17:06,552 The race problem is a disease of the white people. 1353 01:17:06,552 --> 01:17:09,140 Their sense of equality and human dignity 1354 01:17:09,140 --> 01:17:11,987 is mainly limited to men of white skins. 1355 01:17:11,987 --> 01:17:14,570 (mellow music) 1356 01:17:16,140 --> 01:17:19,990 Reactionary politicians have managed to instill suspicion 1357 01:17:19,990 --> 01:17:22,813 of all intellectual efforts into the public. 1358 01:17:29,488 --> 01:17:32,988 (elegant classical music) 1359 01:17:35,000 --> 01:17:37,230 Yes, I'm an old revolutionary. 1360 01:17:37,230 --> 01:17:40,923 Politically, I'm still a fire-spewing Vesuvius. 1361 01:17:59,071 --> 01:18:02,571 (elegant classical music)