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Lot 53
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Albert Einstein Rare ALS RE: "atomic bomb" a "triumph of technical thinking"- Exceptional!
Albert Einstein Rare ALS RE: "atomic bomb" a "triumph of technical thinking"- Exceptional!
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Description:

Einstein Albert



Albert Einstein Reference to the “atomic bomb” and Thanks Correspondent for a Gift

 


ALBERT EINSTEIN, Autograph Letter Signed, to Ruth E. Dammann, Princeton, c. January 1947. In German, on Einstein’s embossed stationery. With Margot Einstein, Autograph Note Signed, on same page, Princeton, January 23, 1947.  1 p., 8.5" x 11". 


Complete Translation

Dear Mrs. Damann,

Thank you so much for the kind and amusing present. In a way it represents the most recent triumph of technical thinking; and this newest event has the advantage over the one before last, the atomic bomb, of a certain harmlessness. It also helps me personally to remember the task to keep close to the food dish so as not to sail off before my time. That corresponds exactly to the diagnosis of Drs. Bucky, senior and junior, which has been confirmed by the experience since of the little tummy I acquired and the increase of energy connected with it.

With kind regards and best wishes from us all, including Cico, Yours truly,

                                                                        A.Einstein.

 

January 23, 1947

            Dear Damann- I am writing way down here so you can cut off my greeting. So far I have been to N.Y. only once for 2 hrs., for a flu. Don’t you ever go back to Bucky’s?

I’ll have to figure out when and how to see you otherwise. We have Chico. If only he could stay with us! Love, Margot


Historical Background


Albert Einstein fled Germany in 1932, and in 1933, he emigrated to the United States, where he joined the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. For many years at Princeton, Einstein had a pet fox terrier named Chico.

 

Gustav Peter Bucky (1880-1963) was a German Jewish radiologist, physician, and inventor who was educated in Germany and Switzerland. He lived in the United States from 1923 to 1929, before returning to Germany for a position as head of a radiology department in a hospital. He left Germany for political reasons in 1933, and returned to the United States, where he established a medical practice in New York City. Bucky became close friends with Albert Einstein while caring for Einstein’s wife Elsa. In 1935, he and Einstein jointly filed a patent application for a camera that self-adjusted the amount of light admitted. He also treated Einstein and was present at Einstein’s deathbed in 1955.

 

One of Gustav Bucky’s sons, Dr. Thomas Bucky (1918-2015), was born in Berlin and graduated from Yale University and Yale Medical School. He served in the medical corps during World War II and then returned to practice internal medicine for more than fifty years.

 

Einstein sent this letter to Dammann in care of Café Old Europe at 2182 Broadway in New York City. William Kanter, who had operated Café New York in Vienna before the paramilitary Sturmabteilung forced its closure in 1933, reopened Café Old Europe in November 1945. It was an “exile café” that became an “international social center,” especially for displaced Austrian and German Jews, with dining, dancing, and entertainment. House food specialties included Hungarian goulash with spaetzles, sauerbraten with potato dumplings and red cabbage, wiener roast braten, wienerschnitzel and schnitzel a la Holstein.


Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was born in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg in the German Empire to non-observant Ashkenazi Jewish parents. In 1894, the Einstein family moved to Italy. Einstein went to Switzerland to finish his secondary schooling, and graduated from the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zürich in 1900. In 1903, he married Mileva Maric (1875-1948), with whom he had two sons. In 1919, they divorced and he married his cousin Elsa Löwenthal. In 1905, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Zürich. From 1908 to 1932, he taught at a series of universities in Switzerland, the Austrian Empire, and the German Empire. As a theoretical physicist, he published ground-breaking papers as early as 1905 and developed the theory of relativity including the mass–energy equivalence formula, E = mc2. In 1922, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the photoelectric effect. In January 1933, when der Fuhrer came to power, Einstein was visiting the United States and remained here, becoming a citizen in 1940. A year earlier, he signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning that Germany could develop a nuclear bomb, and urging the U.S. to become involved in uranium research, thus beginning the “Manhattan project.” Though he focused on the need to defeat Hitler during the war, afterwards he became known for efforts to further world peace. At the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., from 1933 until his death in 1955, he worked unsuccessfully to develop a unified field theory and to refute the accepted interpretation of quantum physics. Considered the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects of history, Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers and over 150 non-scientific works.

 

Margot Löwenthal Einstein (1899-1986) was born in Germany, the daughter of Elsa Hoffman and her first husband, Rudolph Max Löwenthal (1864-1914). After their divorce and his death, Elsa Hoffman became her cousin Albert Einstein’s second wife in 1919. They did not have children, but he treated his stepdaughters Ilse and Margot as his own. Margot Löwenthal married Dmitri Marianoff in 1930, but they divorced in 1937. She followed her stepfather to the United States in 1934 and studied sculpture at Columbia University. Her mother died in 1936, and with her stepfather, she became an American citizen in 1940. She lived in Princeton with her stepfather until his death in 1955, and then with his secretary Helen Dukas until her death in 1982.

 

Ruth Edith Dammann (b. 1901) was born in Berlin, Germany, into a Jewish family. In 1937 she immigrated to New York from Le Havre, France, aboard the S.S. Normandie. She was listed as a single house worker who spoke German and Yiddish. She apparently returned to Europe, and lived in Paris, France, for a time. In June 1941, she again immigrated to New York from Lisbon, Portugal, on the SS Mouzinho, but this time without a visa. She was listed as divorced with an occupation of “Artistic Flowers.” The board of special inquiry initially denied her entrance, but she appealed. In September 1941, she was admitted for six months, under Section 3(2) of the Immigration Act of 1924, “the Dept of State having waived passport and passport visa requirements.”

 

 

Complete Transcription

Liebe Frau Damann

Herzlichen Dank für das freundliche und amüsante Geschenk. Es stellt in der That den neuesten Triumph technischen Denkens dar; und dieses neueste Ereignis hat vor dem vorletzten, der atomic bombe, noch den Vorteil einer gewissen Harmlosigkeit. Mir persönlich stellt es auch die Aufgabe vor Augen, dass ich mich gewissenhaft an den Futternapf halten muss, um nicht vor der Zeit abzusegeln. Dies entspricht auch genau der Diagnose von Herrn Drs. Bucky, senior und junior, die in der Erfahrung durch das inzwischen angefressene Bäuchlein und die damit zusammenhängende  Zunahme der Lebenskräfte bestätigi worden ist.

Mit freundlichen Grüssen und Wünschen von uns allen inclusice Cico  Ihr


A. Einstein

 

23. I. 1947.

Liebe Damann – Ich schreibe nur hier unten,   damit du meinen Gruss abschneiden kannst. Bis jetzt  war ich nur auf 2 Std. einmal in N.Y. – wegen einer Grippe – kommst du nie mehr zu Bucky’s?

Muss sehen wann und wie ich dich sonst einmal sehen kann. – Wir haben Chico. Wenn er nur bei uns bleiben könnte.

Herzlichst Deine Margot

 

 



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