Elsa Einstein

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Elsa Einstein was related to Albert Einstein in two separate ways at once. Their mothers were sisters, which made the two of them first cousins. Their fathers were also first cousins, which made them second cousins as well. Elsa was born an Einstein, and she was the physicist's second wife. Her path to that marriage ran through a childhood nickname, a divorce in Berlin, and a second family built from the wreckage of two earlier marriages. How did a girl from a small Swabian town come to share a household with the most famous scientist of the century? What did she actually do inside that household? And what happened to her after the couple crossed the Atlantic?

  234

• 2. Childhood in Hechingen

  ›

  Hechingen was the town where Elsa was born, on the 18th of January 1876. Her father, Rudolf Einstein, ran a textile manufacturing business there. Her mother was Fanny Einstein, born Fanny Koch. Elsa grew up between two sisters. Hermine was the eldest, born in 1872 and living until 1942. Paula was the youngest, born in 1878 and living until 1955.

  Munich was where the family visited relatives, and those visits put Elsa in the same rooms as her cousin Albert. The two played together as children. In her Swabian dialect she called him "Albertle". The friendship was interrupted in 1894, when Albert left Germany to follow his family to Milan. Elsa stayed behind, and two years later she was married.

  246

• 3. A First Marriage

  ›

  In 1896, Elsa married a textile trader named Max Löwenthal, who came from Berlin. He was born in 1864. The couple settled in Hechingen, and their family grew quickly. Ilse was born in 1897, and Margot followed in 1899. A son was born in 1903, but he died shortly after birth.

  The household was divided in 1902, when Max took a job in Berlin. His wife and children stayed in Hechingen. The marriage ended in divorce on the 11th of May 1908. Elsa then moved with her two daughters to an apartment at Haberlandstrasse 5 in Berlin, directly above her parents. She and the girls went back to the surname Einstein. Max Löwenthal lived until 1914.

  26

• 4. Cousin Becomes Partner

  ›

  April 1912 is the month when Elsa began a relationship with her cousin Albert. He was still married then to Mileva Marić, who was a physicist and mathematician. The two men and women in this triangle stayed in that arrangement for more than two years. In July 1914, Albert separated from Mileva. He sent her and their two sons back to Zürich.

  The divorce was not finalised until the 10th of February 1919. Elsa waited just over three months after that. She married Albert on the 2nd of June 1919.

  2347

• 5. Gatekeeper at Home

  ›

  Ilse and Margot, Elsa's daughters from her first marriage, were the center of the new household. Albert and Elsa had no children together. Even so, Albert treated both girls as his own. For a short time Ilse also worked as his secretary. The family lived in the Berlin area.

  Elsa's own role was practical and protective. She spent most of the marriage acting as Albert's gatekeeper. She kept away unwelcome visitors and charlatans who wanted his attention. She was also the driving force behind the couple's summer house. They acquired it in 1929 in Caputh, near Potsdam. Four years later, the couple left Germany for good.

  234

• 6. Mercer Street

  ›

  Princeton, New Jersey, was where Albert and Elsa Einstein settled after emigrating to the United States in 1933. In August 1935 they bought a house at 112 Mercer Street. They moved in during the autumn of that year. Soon afterward, Elsa developed a swollen eye. Doctors diagnosed heart and kidney problems.

  Albert responded by retreating into his studies, spending much of his time there. Walter Isaacson's book, Einstein: His Life and Universe, records what he believed would carry him through. He wrote of "strenuous intellectual work and looking at God's nature" as "the reconciling, fortifying yet relentlessly strict angels that shall lead me through all of life's troubles".

  Elsa died after a painful illness on the 20th of December 1936. She died in the house on Mercer Street, which had been theirs for little more than a year.

  24