rebuilding Goethehaus Frankfurt post-WW2

Model of the Goethe House before the renovation in 1775

Frankfurt was hit by a very large air raids of WW2 in March 1944. Av­oid­ing German anti-aircraft defences, 816 British planes dr­op­ped thousands of heavy bombs and 1.2 million incendiary dev­ices. Al­tst­adt-Old Town particularly suffered when the entire quarter was dest­roy­ed down to rubble.

bombed out Al­tst­adt Frankfurt, 1944

Creating the most pain was an elegant 5-storey building that had been the cradle of German culture, home of Jo­hann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Goethe had recalled it was to Goethehaus that he owed his lit­er­ary passion, where he’d learn­ed to love Italy, antiq­uity and nat­ure; where he wrote some of his most famous works including Faust.

This house had been bombed in 1943 by the British but the blaze was contained. Luckily prisoners of war ensured a temporary roof protecting the house. The next British bomb in 1944 was much wor­­se when nothing was left ex­cept the cellar, foundations and one fra­g­ile wall. The German press expl­od­ed with anger, describing the bomb­ing as terr­orism. Rhein-Mainishe Zei­t­ung claimed that in dest­roy­ing this part of the civilised world, the Allies comm­itted an outrag­eous assault on the German soul that demanded revenge.
                                       

Ernst Beutler and colleague

sitting in the rubble of Goethehaus

Ernst Beutler (1885-1960), historian, Goe­t­he resear­ch­er and Goethehaus Direc­t­or, had already fore­seen the danger, and began safe­guarding the house in 1939 by moving paintings to safety. By 1943 the entire lib­rary had been crated & shipped. Beutler was as careful with the building, having detailed architectural draw­ings prep­ared and photo­graphs taken.

Once the Free German Foundation, which ran Goethe­haus, had given its approval in Apr 1944, Beutler launched an awareness campaign: leaflets, newsletters and vol­un­teer lists. Hav­ing devoted much of his career to Goet­he’s memory, re­con­str­uct­ion seemed mandatory.

Alas others thought diff­erently. Post-war Germany, now occupied and divided, was no longer the nation it had been. As people strugg­led to come to terms with the Third Reich, guilt began to grow. Though most were anxious to put the Nazi years behind them, it was a rare person who didn’t value Germany’s cul­tural past.

Post-war, Eugen Blanck & Werner Hebebrand were app­oint­ed Frank­furt City Planning Office’s new chiefs. Committed mod­ern­ists, they focused on affordable housing, deter­mined to rebuild Frankfurt al­ong functional, egal­itarian lines. Anticipating a bitter struggle with­in the City Council and with Beutler, they created a survey of lead­ing architects who opposed reconstruction, and started a new press campaign

Even Germany’s most prominent writers and artists, who shared a deep admiration for Goethe’s works and referred to his Frank­furt years with pride, were concerned about what rebuilding Goethehaus would mean post-war. Poet Reinhold Schneider saw hero-worship. A leading anti-war figure, Schneider’s works were banned by the Third Reich and he became the Conscience of the Nation. He det­ected in Beu­t­ler’s plan a cultish hint, like the adulation piled on Hitler. If West Ger­m­any was to rise from the ashes, Schneider thought it vital to rescue the German spirit from itself.

Modernist architect Otto Bartning said Beutler’s promise of a faithful rec­onst­ru­c­tion was a dev­ious commitment. Since Goethe’s father remodelled it, building methods had changed, new materials were introd­uced and regulations were tightened. Even with a large budget, Beut­ler could only produce an imitation. Lack of authenticity made Beut­l­er’s plan a giant lie, dec­eiving the public with a false im­age of the past. Giv­en all that Germ­any had exper­ienced since 1933, this was the opposite of what was needed.

Many worried about costs. Philosopher Dolf Sternberger strug­g­led to justify sp­ending money  so many were home­less. Since history was less valuable than the lives of ord­inary cit­iz­­ens, they should have erected a simple Goethe memorial on the rubble. What might I have said, had the Melbourne Shrine or Sydney Harbour Bridge been bombed?

Beutler thought it easiest to go be­hind the Planning Off­ice! But when he heard Blanck and Hebebrand, it was clear that a sneaky app­roach was inappropriate. So he began writ­ing to polit­ic­ians, writ­ers and scholars for supp­ort. His appeals were elegant and charm­ing, diff­erent from his oppon­ents’ rants. They suc­­c­­eed­ed! With­in weeks Beut­ler received help from industrialist Richard Mert­on, Soc­ial Democratic polit­ician Kurt Schumacher and nov­elist Ernst Wiechert.

The most important backing came from Hermann Hesse. With his friend Thomas Mann, 1929 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, Hesse domin­ated German liter­at­ure. Hesse’s novels won him the Nobel Prize for Lit­erat­ure in 1946. Though he remained in Swiss exile, Hesse had devoted his career to explor­ing the individual’s quest for auth­en­ticity. But he was not an uncrit­ical Goethe fan. Goethe was the blight of Hesse’s intell­ectual life, boring, pompous and drunk, even though he regarded Goethe as an important writ­er for the post-war era. Hesse was ac­utely aware that there were other more pressing needs in Germany but he was still convinced that Beutler’s plan was a vital enterprise. It wasn’t just that Goethehaus had represented the loss of some­thing beautiful. Rather it was so import­ant in its potential to force present/future people to think  critically.

Goethehaus today

Hesse’s intervention was decisive. In Apr 1947 Beutler won City Council approval to re-build Old Goe­t­hehaus. Blan­ck and Hebebrand were hor­r­ified. 3 months later André Gide (French Nobel Prize winner in Lit­er­at­ure 1947) pres­id­ed over laying the found­ations. Mayor Walt­er Kolb saw the house as a place of peace and sp­ir­it­ual underst­and­ing between nations. 2 years later, Goethehaus triumph­antly reop­en­ed. 

Goethe's library rebuilt

Beut­ler received the 1960 Goethe Prize for rebuilding of Goethehaus. He died in Frankfurt that year.

Honours to Helen Suzman, South Africa

                                               

In Parliament, late 1950s

Wiki

Helen Gavronsky (1917-2009) was born in South Africa, her Lithuanian parents having arrived with thousands of Jewish migrants from the Baltic states, desperate for peace. My hero in 1966 was by then called Helen Suzman, the bravest person on whom I might have aimed to model myself. 

Helen studied economics & statistics at Witwatersrand Uni. At 20 she married Dr Moses Suzman and had 2 children, before returning to university as a lecturer in 1944. She gave up academia for politics, being elected to Parliament in 1953 as a member of United Party. She moved to the liberal Progressive Party in 1959 and represented her district as her party's sole member, the sole parliament­arian clearly opposed to Apartheid, from 1961-74.

Progressive Party's House caucus in 1960, prior 1961 election that left Suzman

as the sole parliamentarian opposed to apartheid for 13 years. Wiki

The ruling white government sent the police to watch her every action, whether work-related or private. Her mail was examined and her phones were bugged, largely because she was Jewish, a woman, middle class, liberal and a very vocal opponent of Apartheid. So the National Party put every conceivable hurdle in her way. I am amazed she survived assassins' bullets. The most obnoxious bit of legislation in her time was the Black Homeland Cit­iz­enship Act 1970 which changed the status of the blacks. They would no longer be citizens of South Africa, but would become citizens of one of the 10 autonomous territories.

Freed Nelson Mandela thanking Helen Suzman
1990, NY Times

Robben Island, located off South Africa’s coast, had a long history of being a penal colony but only from the mid 1960s-91 was it was the brutal home to the nation’s maximum security gaol. Nelson Man-dela was imprisoned there from 1964-82 and Suzman visited the island on a regular basis; she reported on the gross indignities of prison life and to get the prison system to reduce the worst suffering of Mandela and other political prisoners.
                              

Dame Helen was the first woman to be awarded the Honorary Freedom of Hull in 1987, but I cannot find her connection to that city. Yet correspondence with Helen Suzman is definitely still held at Hull Uni History Archives.

Later, as parliamentary white opposition to Apartheid grew, her Party merged with the Reform Party and became the Progressive Reform Party. Eventually Suzman was joined in Parliament by equally committed re­pr­esentatives. Altogether her parliamentary career lasted 36 years, leaving parliament in 1989, just in time for the inevitable emer­g­ence of a new South Africa. Very shortly after, in 1991, the government formally repealed all Apartheid laws.

Suzman became Pres. of South African Institute of Race Relations from 1991-3, not bad for a women in her mid 70s. In 1993 the Helen Suzman Foundation was founded as a non-partisan think-tank in Sth Africa, dedicated to liberal democratic values and human rights post-Apartheid via its research, journals, litigation & submissions to Parliament. I knew Mandela rightfully won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, but although Suzman was named twice, she sadly never won a Nobel. Luckily she had the time and energy in 1993 to publish her autobiography, In No Uncertain Terms: A South African Memoir, helping her country and the world to recognise the previous injustices of Apartheid.

For some years Suzman was a member of the statutory Human Rights Commission, excited to be at Mandela’s side when he signed the new constitution in 1996. She remained a much-favoured speaker and newspaper author.

The Liberal International is a global federation based in UK. The Liberal International Prize for Freedom is given to a well-known person of liberal conviction who had made outstanding efforts for the defence of freedom and human rights. In 2002 it was awarded to Suzman, the courageous champion of human rights, who in the dark days of Apartheid did more than any other person to keep liberal values alive in South Africa. They noted that as many African countries were moving to political systems based on democracy, human rights and rule of law, the pioneering work that Suzman did in South Africa could not be underrated. 

Blue Plaque unveiled by Helen's daughters

2017

Conclusion
The anti-Apartheid struggle had many heroes, all of whom rightly deserved commemoration and remembrance; all of their contributions helped in some important way to the ending of Apartheid and the dawn of democracy in 1994. Helen Suzman was one such a hero, and she was honoured late in her lifetime but since she died in 2009, she has been honoured in South Africa and globally. I suppose she was very fortunate to survive the hatred she faced in Parliament and lived long enough to see some of the honours with her own eyes. But most of the honours were greatly appreciated by her two daughters, Frances (b1939) and Patricia (b1943).

In Nov 2017  Johannesburg citizens and family members gathered to pay tribute to her with the unveiling of a blue plaque on the Eton Rd Parktown footpath. The plaque was unveiled by Helen’s daughters, 2017 being the centenary of the birth of South Africa’s amazing Helen Suzman. 

Many thanks to Democratic Alliance, South African History on-line, The Heritage Portal  and Liberal International.

Françoise Fren­k­el's vital WW2 memoirs

Françoise Fren­k­el (1889-1975) was born to Jewish parents in Piotr­ków Poland, near Lodz. After an introduction saying how she became fascinated with books as a child, she continued with her studies at the Sorbonne and did an apprenticeship with an anti­qu­arian bookseller. Not surprisingly, she soon developed a profess­ional passion for literature, especially French literature.

Francoise Frenkel, Rien où poser sa tête

Published 1945

Leboncoin

Germany In 1921 Françoise set up the first French-language bookshop in Berlin, La Maison du Livre, recognising the appetite for French culture in Berlin after WW1. Her business successfully appealed to classy people: diplomats, aut­hors, artists. In the heady years of the Weimar Republic (1918-33) and after, her bookshop became a cultural centre in the city.

She worked with her Russian-born husband Simon Raich­enstein until 1933. Ident­ity papers were denied him by French auth­orities who is­s­ued him with a deportation order. He was taken to Drancy detention camp near Paris and killed in Ausch­witz in July 1942.

Frenkel’s dream job lasted until 1939 but the end was seen with the descent into Naz­ism, racial gen­o­cide and the start of WW2. Nazi officers & Hitler Youths crept over the streets, destroying Jewish-run businesses, smashing windows and burning synagog­ues. Krist­allnacht Nov 1938 was the worst.

Françoise had to escape to France, just before war broke out. Only days after her depart­ure from Germany, Nazi Germany bomb­ed Paris, causing terrible destruction. Frenkel would have stayed in Paris but she was forced to keep mov­ing. In the meantime Mar­shal Philippe Petain’s regime remained in Vichy as the nominal gov­ern­ment of France, op­erating as a client state of Nazi Germ­any from Nov 1942 on.

Françoise and many other city residents sought refuge in the loveliest parts of France - first Avignon (Sth), then Nice (S.E). Frenkel her­self was constantly moved from safe house to safe house, from refugee hotel to messy refugee hotel. Nice was overrun with ref­ug­ees who were hiding in poor living cond­itions; families were split up. Françoise understood that she surv­ived only because some stran­g­ers risked their lives to protect her. She escaped many crises with Nazi police officers rounding up Jews for concentration camps, but informants were clearly everywhere.

Just as it was looking as if most non-Jews were either brutal them­selves or uncaring about Jews, her memoir became a tap dance bet­ween acknowledging human cruelty and being in awe of human kind­ness. In fact her most valuable insights were into the behaviour of French people specifically under Occupation in Vichy France.

Deportation of Foreign Jews from Paris 

to Drancy detention camp.

Frenkel conveyed a huge debt of gratitude in her work. I would not have. My grandfather searched Eastern Europe for his sister, from the last letter he received (1942) until his 1971 death. My father-in-law searched for his brother, sister-in-law and 6 nieces/nephews after his liberation from Ukraine; all had been exterm­in­ated except one child.

Switzerland  From Dec 1942 on Françoise attempted to reach neutral Switzerland, her bids for safety being des­perate. In her book, she detailed how in 1943 she finally smug­gled herself across the border from Haute-Savoie. Eventually her memoir Rien où poser sa tête/No Place to Lay One’s Head was written on the shores of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland and published in 1945 by Geneva-based publish­ers Jeheber.

What happened in Françoise Frenkel's subsequent life? She returned to live in Nice and died there in 1975. But not even a photo of the author exists. Very limited extra informat­ion came from a list of persons who were given per­mis­sion to cros­s­ the border into Switz­erland during WW2 and who obtained a resid­ence permit there. Those documents are now in State Archives of Gen­eva.

After the 1945 publication, the memoir was largely forgotten until recently when a copy was accidentally discovered in Nice. In the preface of the book’s newest publication, French novelist/Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano added to the story of refugees fleeing terror the world over.

Of course Frenkel’s book reminded me of Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, the girl who survived in hiding in Amsterdam until the family was deported to death camps in Poland in 1944. Miraculously her father Otto Frank survived and miraculously he found Anne’s diary. And Catherine Taylor  added another comparison - Irène Némirovsky’s unfin­ish­ed novel Suite Française, which was miraculously discovered by her daughter, decades after Némirovsky perished at Aus­chwitz-Birkenau. Like Rien où poser sa tête, these two books works were lucky to be published. But unlike Frenkel, Anne Frank became a well known sym­bol of the Holocaust.

Division of France between German Occupied Zone and Vichy Free Zone

highlighting Paris, Drancy, Nice (N) in France and Geneva (G) in Switzerland

Frenkel’s quest for refuge in war-torn Europe reminds us all of our contemp­orary debates reg­arding refugees. Like the author back in WW2, many unlucky citizens in the modern world need to flee starv­ation, war or ethnic oppression. No country wants them today, so fleeing is still an alien­ating, unforgiving journey of necessity. The story today is as tragic today as it was when my own husband was carried over the mountains between home (Czechoslovakia) and the DP camps in Austria after the war. Worse, probably.

 

No Place To Lay one's Head

by Francoise Frenkel

translated by Stephanie Smee, 2019

Amazon

Bookshop in Berlin (alternative title) by Francoise Frenkel

Booktopia

Penguin Random House's Vintage published a translation of Frenkel’s French book, Rien où poser sa tête in 2017 as A Bookshop in Berlin. Hopefully the orig­in­al style was capt­ured in English by Australian translator Steph­an­ie Smee. For a detailed review, read Brigette Manion in Asymptote.

Dr R Virchow: pathology, science, politics ....................... by guest blogger

Prussian Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) was the only child of a farmer and always had a strong interest in natural science. In 1839, he received a scholarship from the Prussian Military Academy to study medicine at Berlin’s Friedrich Wilhelm Institute University. He grad­uated in 1843 and was preparing for a career as an army physician.

Rudolf Virchow with skeletons

Science Photo Library

At the Charité Hospital he studied pathological histology and in 1845 published a paper des­cribing one of the earliest reported cases of leukaemia. He became hospital anat­omist, and in 1847 he and Dr Benno Rein­hardt started a new journal Virchow’s Archives which still goes on as a leading pathology journal. He asked students to use microscopes and had a major impact on medical education in Germany. He taught several men who became famous scientists, including William Welch & William Osler, 2 physicians who founded Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Dr Virchow was appointed by the Prussian government to in­ves­tigate a typhus epidemic in Upper Silesia; his strong report blamed the outbreak on social conditions that were tolerated by the government. The government was annoyed, but it had to deal with the revolution in Berlin! After the 1848-9 Revolution, Virch­ow wrote and published a weekly paper, Medical Reform, but the government didn’t like his progressive views.

Having already established a reputation as a crusading social reformer, he’s since been identified as much with social medicine as pathology. His regular writings on topics of pathology included many essays and lectures on social medicine and public health. His writings and teachings recommended ways of improving people’s health by improving their economic and social conditions.

The doctor was soon appointed to the newly established Chair of Path­ological Anatomy at Würzburg University, Germany’s first. During his successful years there, Virchow published many papers on pathological anatomy, and began publishing his 6-volume Handbook of Special Pathology and Therapeutics (1854). He also began to formulate his theories on cell­ular pathology with studies of the abnormal skulls of those affected by neonatal hypo­thyroidism.

Dr Virchow giving a Pathology lecture

Science Photo Library

Virchow disliked the majority view that phlebitis of a vein caus­ed most diseases; he de­monstrated that mass­es in the blood vessels resulted from thromb­osis and that portions of a thrombus could detach to form an embolus. An embolus set free in the circulation could be trapped.

Virchow’s greatest success was his observation that a whole organism does not get sick, only groups of cells. In 1855 at 34, he published his now famous aphorism every cell stems from another cell. Virchow thus launched the field of cellular pathology. He stated that all diseases involve changes in normal cells i.e all pathology ultimately is cellular pathology. This insight led to major progress in medicine. It meant that disease entities could be defined much more sharply. Diseases could be characterised not merely by a group of clinical symptoms but by typical anatomic changes.

In 1856 he was given the Chair of Pathological Anatomy established at Berlin Uni; and a new pathological institute was built which he used until retirement. His main statement of his cellular pathology theory was given in a lecture series in 1858 and published as his book Cellular Path­ol­ogy as Based upon Physiological and Pathological Histology. Virchow lectured on the inflammatory process, introducing the modern con­cep­t­ion of starchy degeneration. The pathology of tumours was important, as was his work on the role of animal parasites in causing disease in humans.

Interestingly Virchow became actively engaged in politics. In 1859 he was elected to the Berlin City Council, foc­using on pub­lic health issues eg meat inspection and school hygiene. He super­vised the design of two large new Berlin hospit­als, opened a Nursing School and designed the new city sewer system. Then in 1861 he was elected to the Prussian Diet/Assembly under Otto von Bis­marck. In the wars of 1866 and 1870, Vir­ch­ow was involved in building military hos­pitals and equipping hospital trains. In 1874 the doctor introduced a standardised technique for perform­ing aut­opsies, to examine the whole body in detail.

Dr Virchow supervised autopsies closely

ThoughtCo.

It was interesting that this talented doctor campaigned vigorously for soc­ial reforms and contrib­uted to the development of anthropology and archaeology. These were Virchow’s­ main interests in 1865 when he discovered hill forts in North­ern Germany. In 1869 he co-founded the German Anthropological Ass­ociation and in 1870 he founded the Berlin Society of Anthropology, Ethnology & Prehistory and continued to edit its journal. And in 1873 Virchow was elected to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He excavated wall mounds in Wollstein with Dr Robert Koch in 1875 and edited Koch’s papers. [For his discovery of tuberculosis bacterium, Koch won a Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1905].

Pathologic anatomy had major practical consequences. If the physician was able to find out what anatomic changes had occurred in a patient, he could make a much more accurate diagnosis of the disease than he could previously. This also empowered physicians to give more precise treatment and prognosis. In his speeches Virchow advocated that medicine in Germany should a] study microscopic pathological anatomy, b] do research performed by physicians and c] make systematic clinical observations

Virchow’s many discoveries included finding cells in bone and connective tissue and describing substances eg myelin. He was the first to recognise leukemia and the first to explain the mechanism of pulmonary thromboembolism. He showed that blood clots in the pulmonary artery can originate from venous thrombi. While Virchow in Germany was creating the new science of cellular pathology, Louis Pasteur in France was developing the new science of bacteriology. Virchow and  Pasteur’s germ theories were somewhat different.

He served in the German Reichstag (1880–93) while also directing the Pathological Institute in Berlin. Even though Virchow was opposed to Bismarck’s excessive budget, which angered Bismarck sufficiently to challenge Virchow to a duel, Virchow helped to shape Bismarck’s health care reforms. Not bad for a pathologist, public health activist, social reformer, politician and anthropologist!

by Dr Joseph

neoclassical sculpture was created to honour Dr Virchow

by Fritz Klimsch from 1906, 

On Karlplatz in Berlin-Mitte, 

Wiki

Rhodes Scholarship - wish I won one.

Established through the Will of Cecil John Rhodes of the diamond company De Beers in 1902, the Rhodes Scholarship was a very progressive project in the new century. 120+ years later, the Rhodes Scholarships are the oldest and most respected international scholarship programme anywhere, enabling talented young people around the world to undertake full-time postgraduate study at Oxford Uni.

Rhodes House, Oxford

built 1926

The reputation as the world's most famous academic scholarship rests not on the life of founder Cecil Rhodes, but on the enormous contributions scholarship-holders later made to the world. Thus the ideal personal and academic qualities (listed below) remain as important as ever. Not surprisingly, Oxford scored first in the Times Higher Education rankings each year from 2016-24 .

One of the founding aims of the Scholarship was to identify young leaders from around the world who, through being educated together at Oxford, would create long term links of mutual understanding and fellowship for the betterment of the world.

The following criteria were used to select Rhodes Scholars:
1.literary and scholastic excellence, intellectual distinction;
2.energy to fully use one's talents where teamwork is involved by mastery in areas like sports, music, debate, dance, theatre and arts;
3.courage, devotion to duty, protection of the weak, unselfishness and focus on public service; and
4.moral instincts to lead fellow humans.

When students from around the world came together in a shared spirit, the excitement began. The Rhodes Scholarship was a life-changing opportunity, starting when applications (aged only from 18-24) for each Rhodes Scholarship open early in each northern academic year. Today 100 scholarships a year cover all fees and a stipend for 2-3 years, with 300+ scholars in residence in Oxford at one time.

Each year, 9 Rhodes Scholarships are available for outstanding Australians to study at Oxford, each state offering one scholarship, awarded by a formal selection committee. Rhodes Scholars here have achieved distinction as politicians, academics, scientists and doctors, authors, entrepreneurs and Nobel Prize winners. Australia’s most famous winner was Howard Florey (1898-1968) received his medical training at the University of Adelaide and at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. This pharmacologist won a Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1945 for isolating and purifying penicillin, shared with Alexander Fleming and German biochemist Ernst Boris Chain. Other Rhodes scholars became heads of state or heads of government, including Prime Ministers Tony Abbott, Bob Hawke and Malcolm Turnbull, and Deputy Prime Minister Kim Beazley.

Howard Florey

There is a yearly total of 32 Rhodes Scholarships for the U.S, covering the 50 states and its territories like American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands. The Scholarships in the U.S are administered by 16 regional selection committees, each awarding 2 scholarships. Three scholars are elected from New Zealand each year; 8 Scholarships every year for South Africans; and 5 scholarships available yearly for India. In Canada 3 scholarships go to the Prairie Region; and 2 each to Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. Israeli scholars have two scholarships available each year, but with one key difference. The maximum age for Israeli applicants is 27, to allow Israelis to finish their 3 years’ compulsory national service before starting university. In 1977, women were finally admitted to the full scholarship and since 2018 students from anywhere in the world can apply; the competition is now more vigorous!

Now for a more detailed look at a specific scholarship winner. After finishing San Mateo High School Cal in 1954, Kris Kristofferson (1936–2024) enrolled at Pomona College Cal, hoping to become a writer. He studied writing under Dr Frederick Sontag, who encouraged him to apply for a Rhodes scholarship. He graduated in 1958 and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, allowing him to study British literature at Oxford earning a Masters. I am not surprised that he wrote stories and examined the works of William Blake. But I had no idea he began writing songs during his time in Oxford. At the same time he began his performing career and he was also awarded a University Blue for boxing and played rugby.

                      

Australian prime ministers: Bob Hawke (L) and Malcolm Turnbull (R)

His studies may have demanded his total attention but Kris continued to play sports and pursue music, all while studying literature. Perhaps he read that the criteria which determined Rhodes Scholars included the mastery of areas such as sports and music.He graduated from Merton College Oxford, in 1960 and returned to the U.S. Followed in his father's footsteps, Kris served in the Army and eventually becoming a helicopter pilot and Captain. He graduated Airborne School, Ranger School and Flight Schools, served in Germany, and volunteered for Vietnam as a helicopter pilot, but instead was offered a Professor of English Literature position at USMA West Point. Disappointed that he was not allowed to fight in Vietnam, he resigned his position in 1965 and pursued songwriting. This surprised me since every male I knew in the last 1960s went into hiding, if they were conscripted into the Australian Army. In '65 Kris was commissioned to teach literature at West Point but ended up choosing Nashville, to pursue a music career instead. He got a janitor job in Nashville studios where he met Johnny Cash, who initially took some of his songs. So I know a lot of the music where Kristofferson changed the face of Country Music back then eg Me and Bobby McGee (1970) (Written by Kristofferson and sung by Janis Joplin)

Freedom is just another word for nothin' left to lose
Nothin', don't mean nothin' hon' if it ain't free, no-no
And feelin' good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues

You know feelin' good was good enough for me
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee.

Lise Meitner - a great female scientist .. guest post

Lise Meitner (1878-1968) was the Vienna-born daughter of a large Jew­ish family. Because girls weren’t allowed tertiary education, the family gave Lise a private tutor at 14. She entered the Uni of Vienna in 1901, study­ing physics under Ludwig Boltzmann. Later she received her doct­or­ate in 1906, only the second woman to receive one from Vienna Uni.

She left for Berlin in 1907 with family support, to attend Dr Max Planck’s lectures and to do rad­io-activity research with chemist Dr Otto Hahn. After a year, she became his Hahn’s as­s­istant and worked with him, wanted to discover isotopes. In 1913 phys­ic­ist Meitner and chemist Hahn collaborated at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Chemistry in Berlin.   

Drs Meitner and Hahn in their laboratory, 1913

German History Intersections

 

Meitner supported the Austrian army as a medical X-ray technician ­in WWI, returning to Berlin in 1917 when she and Hahn disc­ov­ered the radioactive chemical el­em­ent pro­tact­in­ium. Meitner was awarded the 1917 Leibniz Medal.

Having isolated the is­o­t­ope prot­ac­t­inium, Meitner and Hahn stud­ied nuclear is­omerism and beta decay. In 1926 she became the fir­st female Professor of Physics in Ger­many, heading up the Phys­ics Dept at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry. Research at the time was theoretical, but many scientists knew about the honour of the Nobel Prize waiting for the winner who dis­covered it. She worked with Hahn for 30 years, collaborating cl­osely, st­udying radio­activity, with her physics skills and his chemistry skills.

In the 1930s with the German physical chemist Dr Fritz Strass­mann, she inv­estigated neutron bombardment of uranium. Strassmann was not Jewish but he refused to join the Nazi Party, so both their res­earch efforts were interr­upt­ed as the Nazis gained power. She stayed in Germany longer than most because of her Austrian citizen­ship, but because she was Jew­ish, her physicist friends had to help sneak her over the border when Austria was annexed by Germ­any in 1938. Then she worked in Sweden at the Nob­el Institute for Exper­imental Physics, then continued her laborat­ory work at Stock­holm’s Manne Siegbahn Instit­ute, developing a working relationship with Niels Bohr.

Physicist Dr Otto Frisch (1904–79) was the Austrian-born first cousin of Lise Meit­ner. He first measured the magnetic moment of the proton and together they advanced the first theoretical explanation of nuclear fis­sion and first detected the fission by-products.

While working together, Otto Frisch and Lise Meitner received the news that Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann had discovered that the collision of a neutron with a uranium nucleus produced the element barium as one of its by-products. Frisch and Meitner both hypothesised that the uranium nucleus had split in two, coining the term nuc­l­ear fission to describe the proc­ess. After Hahn and Strassmann showed that barium appeared in neutron-bombarded uran­ium, it was Meitner and Frisch who explain­ed the ph­ys­ical charact­eristics of this division.

L->R Niels Bohr, Werner Heisen­berg, Wolfgang Pauli, Otto Stern, Meitner, Rudolf Ladenburg and ?

conference in 1937, Wiki

In Feb 1939, Meit­ner published the physical expl­an­ation for the ob­serv­ations. Meitner, Frisch and colleag­ues found that uranium atoms split when bombarded with neutrons, rel­easing a large amount of energy. Nuc­l­ear fission process was later used in nuclear power plants and bombs.

Hahn had isol­ated evidence for nuclear fission, but Meitner and Frisch were the first to clarify how the process occ­urred. Yet in 1944 Hahn al­one re­ceived the Chemistry Nobel Prize regarding nuc­lear fis­sion, giv­en that he ignored Meitner’s research af­ter she left Ger­many. He should have argued that Meitner merited the Nobel Prize as well.

After WW2 Meitner continued working in Sweden, then travelled and lect­ured across the USA. Her recognition of the explosive potent­ial of the process was what motivated Dr Albert Eins­tein to cont­act Pres Roosevelt, lead­ing to the establishment of the Manhattan Project. She was then in­vited to work on the Project at Los Alamo but Meitner opp­os­ed the atomic bomb and refused to work there at all.

On a visit to the U.S in 1946 she was welcomed by her siblings, and given total Americ­an press celeb­rity treatment, including being named Woman of the Year by the Women's National Press Club, DC. She had dinner with Pres Harry Truman who mistak­en­ly thought that she worked on the atomic bomb but Lise Meitner refused to work on a bomb.

Her Swedish colleagues planned to get her a proper position. In 1947, Meitner moved to Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology to establish a new facility for atomic research, with researchers to help. Appropriately she received in the Max Planck Medal, honouring her old mentor in Berlin.

Lise Meitner, Life in Physics,

(California Studies in the History of Science,

by Ruth Lewin Sime, 1997, Amazon

But the Nobel nastiness wasn’t even partly rect­if­ied until 1966, when Hahn, Meitner and Strassman won the En­rico Fermi Award, for their joint re­search that led to the discovery of uran­ium fis­sion. What a long wait!

The physicist who never lost her human­ity died in Camb­ridge in Oct 1968. In 1992, element 109 was named Meitnerium in her honour. Like many others, I believe she was the most significant woman scientist of the 20th century!

By Dr Joe

Melbourne 

#30plus: great MIRC channel 1993-2023

#Israel was the very first IRC channel that both Daniel ben Sefer-Dabas Sydney and Helen Webberley-Heloise Melb­ourne had been involved in. We met many fine people who remained close friends, especially Muet, Mer, Academy, Winky, Andygee and Peteyc. The experience in ear­ly 1993 was novel, challenging and fun. But eventually the fun palled. The problems were twofold:

RACISM was by far the nastiest problem Dabas and Heloise had ever dealt with. The channel became open slather for every lunatic fringe element who had a gripe against Jews:
1. Nazis planning to rebuild Hitler's gas chambers.
2. Christian fundamentalists raided the channel less often, concerned with allocating blame for the death of Christ.
3. Islamic militants intent on destroying the Jewish state.

JUVENILITY Given that the average age of #Israel was 19.2 years, and that 80% was male, their favourite top­ics were army life, university subjects and finding a weekend date.

As with any testosterone-charged channel, kicking, banning and op wars were common. Part of this frenetic activity was a survival strategy to do with the constant invasion of Neo Nazis and militant Islamists. But part of it was just machismo. Suggestions we­re made about opening up the discussion topics to things ADULTS we­re inter­ested in eg literature or music. But this ended in uproar every time.

 

Dabas, Heloise and Skeve met to start the channel
Sydney Harbour Bridge
22nd Oct 1993.

Helen was going to Sydney one weekend in Oct 1993, and so Dabas (beard) and his friend Skeve (cap) arranged to meet up for lunch along the Sydney Harbour foreshore. It was a hot day, and by the end of the second icy beer, Heloise was telling them about irc problems. Dabas asked why we did not start our own channel, and pat­ien­t­ly ex­plained that he could do the technical stuff if I could est­ab­lish the ground rules for new members, no racism, anti Semitism, sexism or adolescents; a channel that would maintain the beloved Israeli connections and Australian values.

As we had hoped in #Israel, the discussions would be expanded to topics mature adults were interested in eg travel, music, literature, philosophy, world politics, careers, family relationships and sport. Op wars and kick bans would become a bad memory from the past.

Both we believed that all the Anglo Saxon, acad­em­ic, middle aged friends from #Israel would want to join us. Dab­as, Winky, Ac­ademy, Muet and Heloise were all: over 40, Jewish and acad­emics, so the channel could be #40academic or #40married or #40Jewish.

When I logged on the first night in the Sydney hotel room, Dab­as quickly messaged: "Come into #30plus: I HAVE CAPTURED A REAL LIVE CHANNEL MEMBER". This was poor man called Runaway whose wife had left home and had taken their children with her. He just wanted suppor­tive adult company during the crisis. And so #30plus was born, the name being suggested by Skeve as more inclusive and less excl­us­ive than #40academic. But neither of us knew what we were doing. We did not even know how to keep the channel open 24 hours a day, so took it in 8 hour shifts to be there, around the clock!

During those first days, me3, pdq, joshtree, bigjoe, toots, gazza, sirlunar, dugip, zurbaran, amarin, sna, tinytim, ruach, edu, drKB, kimba, shor, beamer, fluffy, fuzed, friskykid, capt-peril, oldbear, panache, nurse, redgum, sulu, kate, lone, bish, hotsailor, flaccus, thalia, mfp, melsy, cty, fauna, wabbit and peppr came into the channel, and stayed. Joshtree in Finland set up the twin bots, Castor and Pollux, so the founders could finally get some sleep.

The channel name started to appear in computer magazines and on radio as an interesting and non violent place to be. We were both interviewed by journalists in Australia and elsewhere, and people popped in saying "I saw you in Article X in New Zealand (or wherever)". Lisabee, nutnhoney, daisee, rossma, birdbrain, prism, belladona, annette and others joined by late 1993.

Where did the first organised meetings of #30plus members take place? The channel was Australian based, but as can be discovered from the early photos, the first reunion was in Boston (Jan 1994) and the next was in Canberra (Apr 1994).

Boston reunion, Jan 1994

It was thought from the beginning that the channel was really easiest for Anglophones or people who could type and read English in a very busy channel. In fact two thirds of the channel regul­ars lived in the USA, while the others were mainly Australasian, British, South Afric­an and Canadian. Channel members were full of admiration for the Isr­aelis and Europeans who added a breadth to the channel, using English as their second lang­uage.

An early collective tasks of this new, adult-friendly channel was to collect lists of peo­ples' favourite books. People took hours, going along their libr­ary shelves, reminding themselves of books they had not read since the 1960s. The lists were diverse, but always fas­cin­ating. The level of convers­ation and of email letters was very high.

A San Francisco reunion weekend,  July 1994

Life was never going to be quite the same again. Pdq suggested nom­inating Dabas and myself for the Nobel Peace Prize, given that they had revolutionised IRC and made it a pleasant place for adults to be. Australia had produced yet another really worthwhile contribution.

**
Three significant events in late 2018 changed #30plus. Firstly the Australian Trade Mark Registrat­ion ended in Aug 2018 and was not ext­ended so #30plus had no more intell­ec­tual property protect­ion. Then #30plus started in Oct 1993 and was thus celebrating its 25th bir­th­day. While this was a huge ach­iev­ement in the MIRC world, a new generation of channel members was mov­ing in; the older members spent their spare time looking for ret­ire­ment villages. Third­ly I ret­ired from lecturing when Covid start­ed and no longer benefited from tax deduct­ibility and printing costs.

The channel of course continued strongly. But I have repeated this post because in late 2023 a long-time U.S channel member called on-line for all Jews to be exterm­in­ated. The Australian police couldn’t help us and my most beloved US friends, Fluffy and Oldbear, died some time ago.

J Edgar Hoover's Gospel: illegal, oppressive

J Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) was born in Washington DC in a religious family. Devout since boyhood, he loved being a Sunday School teacher and prided himself on his Scriptural knowledge. Before his father was ill, and it became necessary for him to choose higher-paying em­pl­oy­ment, young Hoov­er had intended on becoming a Christian min­is­t­er. Instead he studied law and worked in the Dept of Justice.

J Edgar Hoover, 1932

History Today

 

In 1919 young Hoover worked in the Justice Dept's Rad­ical Division, gathering data on radical political organisations. His sur­veil­lance system came by creating a data­base of all American rad­icals. After the 1920 Wall St bomb, anarch­ists and comm­un­ists were located via Hoov­er’s system and questioned, since Hoover believed that the bombing was directed by Russian forces.

The Washington Post (Sept 1920) desc­ribed the Wall St bombing as ex­emplifying the extent to which the alien scum from the sew­ers of the Old World had polluted the clear spring of American demo­c­­racy. The Dept of Justice launched raids, round­ing up thousands of lef­t­ists and deporting many out of the US. The D.O.J charged young Hoo­v­er with investigating the attack, along with the N.Y Police Dep­art­ment. The nasty repress­ion of imm­ig­rants led to the civil libert­ies movement; American Civil Liberties Union was formed in 1920 to add­ress this government crackdown on free speech & political act­ivism

In 1924 at 29, Hoover was appointed as FBI Director. As America’s top cop, he turned the FBI into a blend of a Sunday School, private-members club and white supr­em­acist clique. He demoted all non-white special ag­en­ts, as well as most Jews, and made Christ­ianity part of FBI train­ing and social events. In contrast to the anti-Cath­olic sentim­ent in US society, Hoover resp­ected Cat­hol­icism for its theological rig­our. He welcomed Cathol­ic­ism to the FBI, instig­ating an annual FBI mass.

Hoover believed the U.S was God’s chosen nation. Director from 1924-72, Hoover thought the Bureau’s miss­ion was to defeat the godless forces of liberalism, women’s rights, civil rights, radical cl­ergy, students, anti-war prot­es­tors and particularly gay men. To ov­er­come these foes, America had to yield to his pref­erred Christ­ianity i.e unerr­ingly conservative, patriotic and white.

Dr Lerone Martin is Director of the Martin Luther King Jr Res­earch and Education Institute and Prof of Religious Studies at Stan­ford Uni­versity. Martin’s book Gospel of J Edgar Hoover (2023) sh­owed how the FBI director, infamous for persecuting Martin Luther King, worked system­atically to champion his own religion. Using newly decl­as­s­­ified FBI documents, Martin desc­rib­ed how Hoover bent the cul­t­ure of the FBI, and collaborated with fam­ous evangelicals and Catholics to try to es­tab­lish his Christian Amer­ica. Together they fuelled the polit­ical rise of white Christian nat­ion­alism, with vast consequences for electoral pol­it­ics, views of nat­ional security and role of race and religion in US ident­ity.

Hoover had an fanatic hatred of Albert Einstein because he was Je­w­ish, foreign and left wing. Einstein got to the USA in 1933 and in­volved himself with racial justice, was against lyn­ching and for qu­al­ity black educ­at­ional institutions. Einstein befriended Paul Rob­eson, Hoov­er’s MOST despised human being. Hoover wanted to have Einstein deported!

Einstein and actor Paul Robeson (right) 

Washington Post

After WW2, Hoover launched a public relations campaign outside the Bureau eg his popular essays in the conservative magazine Christian­ity Today dealt with theological and patriotic concerns. Pre-em­inent  Cath­olic ­evang­elists Fulton Sheen and Billy Graham prais­ed FBI!

Martin reported that during 1956-71 Hoover sanctioned 2,000+ ill­eg­al dir­ect actions targ­eting domestic civ­ic organisations he'd hated. Some of his religious operations were both unconst­itutional and biz­arre eg when he investigated one word in a new Bible trans­la­t­ion. This commun­ist plot und­ermined U.S Christ­ianity, Hoover said!

Regarding Hoover’s flagrant ab­use of the Separation of Church and St­ate, the details Martin published were based on the ex­haus­tive use of arch­ives. But the FBI were still unsym­p­athetic to Mart­in’s project in 2020, so he had to sue the Bureau for not resp­ond­ing to a Free­dom of Information request. Even then, Martin wrote, the Bur­eau did not admit to break­ing any law.

Some of Hoover’s later issues
The Nobel Prize Committee cited philosopher Albert Cam­us’ pers­is­tent efforts to illuminate the problem of human consc­ience! It was largely as a champion of philosophical moral truth that Camus was hon­oured in 1957 and is still admired today. Hoov­er was furious that he couldn’t stop Camus receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Re John Lennon, Hoover wrote to HR Halde­mann, Pres Nixon’s White House Chief of Staff indicating the high pr­iority the Lennon case had for Nixon; Lennon had been inter­est­ed in extreme British left-wing act­iv­ities and was a sym­p­ath­is­er of communists there. It’s telling that Hoover died in May 1972 and a memo was sent from the FBI’s Acting Director Patrick Gray say­ing the FBI was ending its surveill­an­ce of Lennon. In any case Nixon was easily re-elected in Nov, and the Imm­ig­­rat­ion Service and FBI succeeded in pressuring Lennon to withdraw from anti-war activ­ity. How strange then that Lennon still received Immigration and Naturalisation Service dep­ort­­ation not­ic­es. So imm­ig­r­at­ion lawyer Leon Wild­es sued Att Gen John Mitchell and ot­h­ers for their cons­piratorial attempts to throw Lenn­on out of the country. Their investigation turned up documents from Hoover to HR Hald­e­man, inform­ing him of the FBI’s progress.

When politicians advocated for stricter gun laws

J Edgar Hoover tests a gun, opposing gun controls

The Nation

In May 1970 chaos at Kent State Ohio shocked Uni off­icials who bel­ieved outside agit­at­ors were responsible. Kent's mayor de­­c­lared a state of emergency, appealing to Ohio Governor James Rhod­es to send in the Ohio National Guard. How was Edgar Hoover involved?

Conclusion
Hoover’s influence on the FBI remained. The Bur­eau had been too slow to combat the security threat posed by white Chr­ist­ian nationalists, a group concerned with violent, terrorist att­acks, incl­uding the 6th Jan 2021 killings. White Christian nat­ion­al­ism and the FBI’s inertia were part of Hoover’s legacy, from a man who bel­ieved he and his religion were above the law. Hoover was work­ing for God, not for the Constitution or Americans.

"Top Cop, Bad Cop" by Daniel Rey, History Today July 2023; "Ringleader" by Adam Hochschild The Nation , March 2023; and "Hoover's War on Gays" by Douglas M. Charles, UP Kansas 2015 are well worth reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Einstein (1917-55): Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, UK, USA

Albert and his first wife Mileva

German-born Albert Einstein (1879-1955) became the world’s most fam­ous physicist. I briefly examined his early life and first wife Mil­eva Marić (1875–1948) whom he married in Zurich in 1903. In 1905 he published his vital scientific papers that made him famous. By 1908, he was rec­ognised as a lead­ing scientist at Bern Uni, completing his work on the general theory of relativity.

In 1917, as director of the new Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Ph­ysics in Berlin, Einstein re-took German citizenship. Meanwhile the publication of experimental evid­ence supporting his general relat­iv­ity theory made huge impacts in acad­eme. After their 1919 divorce, Mileva took their two sons to Zurich, so Albert could immediately marry his wife-cousin Elsa and adopt her children.

Einstein first visited New York in 1921 where he was offic­ially welcomed by organiser Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organisation. This was followed by weeks of lectures and re­c­eptions at Columbia and Princeton Un­i­v­ers­ities, and at the Nat­ional Academy of Scien­ce.

How did Einstein earn the title of one of the greatest ever gen­ius­es? With his arrival in New York; American journalists quickly picked up on the broad­er appreciation for the foreign sc­ien­tist. Apprec­iat­ion wasn’t univ­ersal because the US then was quite xenophobic, suspicious of sc­ience and fearful of dom­in­at­ion. But the nation was also greatly con­cerned with advance­ment. By the time he left the U.S in mid 1921, Einstein was indeed a genius.

He won the Physics Nobel Prize in 1922! But as a Jew, he’d closely observed the rise of Nazism in Berlin in the 1920s.

Einstein admired Toni Meyer Mendel; they first met ear­ly in Weimar Republic (1919-33), Germ­any’s noble years of demo­cracy; both the Ein­st­ein and Mendel fam­il­ies belonged to the same pacif­ist ass­oc­­iat­ion Bund Neues Vater­land. In pre-Hitler Ber­l­in, they’d all liv­ed tog­ether in Tony’s grand villa on the Wannsee, the inter­ior desig­ned by Walter Gropius. Bruno Mendel was a med­ical researcher who built a pri­vate laborat­ory in his villa!

Einstein loved playing music himself

and loved listening to concerts

 
Toni became a wealthy, emanc­ipated widow who loved travel. She was a regular compan­ion of Ein­stein, and their close friend­ship was grimly tolerated by wife Elsa. Einstein and Toni sailed together, discussed Freud, and shared concerts. Toni’s Weimar-culture intrig­ued Einstein, whose interests rang­ed­ far beyond phys­ics. He was devoted to music, playing chamber mus­ic him­self. And he was closely engaged in the excited sch­olarship of the Weimar era! When Hitler came to power, Toni quickly emigrated to Toronto.

In Mar 1933, Albert ex­iled himself in Belgium with Elsa. In late Jul 1933, after the Nazi regime forced famous German Jews to flee, Ein­stein visited the UK on a pol­it­ical mis­s­ion: to help Germ­any’s Jews. He first had a meet­ing with Winston Church­ill at Ch­art­well House to discuss Nazism.

From the Distinguished Visitors’ Gal­lery of Parliament, Einstein lis­ten­ed to a speech in the House of Com­mons. The speaker was an upper-class, right-wing Con­servative M.P, Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson who want­ed Britain to extend citizenship to desperate ref­ug­ees from outside the British Em­pire. And the House voted to sup­p­ort the MP’s bill on its first read­ing! The Nazi newsp­ap­er Völkischer Beo­bacht­er imm­ediately attacked, saying Locker-Lampson staged the event sole­ly for self-publicity.

Albert and his second wife, Elsa

always travelling

Chaim Weizmann welcomed Albert to New York, 1921

Later the president of Israel (1949–52)

Thousands cheered hia motorcade driving to City Hall 

for a welcome by New York City's mayor, April 1921.

Einstein returned to Belgium, where the Nazi leadership savaged him. Firstly they attacked Albert’s “pacifism” when he called for Europ­ean rearmament against the Ger­man th­reat. Secondly Einstein had pub­licly end­orsed a left-wing book The Brown Book of the Hitler Ter­r­or i.e an eye­witness report from Germ­any with horrify­ing photos of Nazi pogroms, burn­ings and tort­ur­es. Fortunately the Belgian king had the police constantly protect Einstein. Still, a secret Nazi terror org­anis­ation Fehme had targeted the scientist

Einstein packed some vital books and papers, and trav­elled from Bel­g­ium to the UK. He went to a hut on a Norfolk heath, to focus on theor­etical physics in peace. During his UK visit in Sep-Oct 1933, organised by Locker-Lampson, Britain’s national news­papers photog­raphed Einstein in hiding! Locker-Lampson org­an­ised a public meeting at the Royal Albert Hall; the German phys­icist and British speakers raised funds for academic Jewish Germ­an ref­ug­ees. Einstein spoke on Science and Civil­is­ation in his cautious Eng­lish, to huge applause from the huge audience. Note there were also British Union of Fascists Blackshirts att­end­ing. Einstein told newspapers the kindness of the British people had touched his heart deeply. Then left for USA.

Einstein lived the rest of his life in America, at the In­stitute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He was so involved with both physics and Cold War politics that he never returned to Eur­ope. Elsa was diag­­­­­nosed with organ failure in 1935 and died in 1936. He continued his work and his active social life, with a Russian sculptor’s wife, secretary Betty Neumann, and Toni Mendel again.

In 1953 with the USA gripped by the televised McCarthy hear­ings, Einstein took a well reported public stand against the loathed House Un-American Activities Committee.

In July 1955 after Einstein’s death, British academic Bertrand Rus­sell announced the Russell-Einstein Man­ifesto in London. Warn­ing the world of the dangers of a nuc­l­ear war, the signature had been Eins­tein’s last public act.

Find Einstein on the Road, to read his travelling diaries.