Letter from Albert Einstein, to Jewish-American physician Dr. Isidor W. Held. Typewritten and hand-signed by Einstein, on Einstein's blind stamped personal letterhead. [Princeton, United States], January 18, 1945. German.
The present letter was written towards the end of WWII, when Einstein was residing in Princeton, U.S.A., and discusses the idea of establishing a "supranational agency" – a global government – an idea which Einstein promoted for many years as a means to achieving world peace.
In his letter, Einstein thanks Dr. Held for the booklet he sent him, writing: "I find it to be not bad, although under the current circumstances psychologically misguided. Even if under the current circumstances the prospects of creating an effective supernational agency are indeed slight, it nonetheless seems to me quite dangerous to work journalistically to cripple such aspirations. Since, if one stops halfway, the next world war is already certain today. This is all the more the case when modern technological development evermore induces the preemptive war, as the surprise attack is far superior to the defense".
With the words "modern technological development", Einstein presumably alludes to the atomic bomb, which was by then in advanced stages of development within the top-secret Manhattan Project (the letter was written some seven months before the American atomic bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki). According to Einstein, in the balance of terror in which the most effective defense is a surprise attack, it is necessary to
establish an effective supranational organization which will impose peace between the nations and prevent the next war, where the new, highly destructive weapon is bound to be used (approximately six months after Einstein wrote this letter, the Charter of the United Nations – the foundational treaty of the United Nations – was signed).
Einstein's attitude towards the atomic bomb was, in certain respects, ambivalent. As a pacifist he opposed war with all his being and aspired to totally abolish the idea of a nation state, which, by its mere existence, he held, made war inevitable. Nonetheless, as a pragmatist he saw Germany's arming with nuclear weapons as a threat to humanity, and believed that the Allied powers must precede it in obtaining the atomic bomb. This line of thinking led him to sign, alongside the physicist Leo Szilárd, a letter sent in 1939 to President Roosevelt (the Einstein-Szilárd letter), informing the American administration of the latest discoveries in the field of energy generation through nuclear fission, and the military potential of this new technology, and raising the concern that Nazi Germany may be working on developing its own atomic bomb. This letter resulted in the establishment of the Manhattan Project, where the first American atomic bombs were developed. Einstein later expressed his regrets of having signed this letter. In 1946, he founded together with Szilárd the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists to warn the public of the dangers associated with the development of nuclear weapons, and in 1955, shortly before his death, he signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which also discussed the threats posed by nuclear weapons and called for world leaders to seek peaceful resolutions to international conflicts.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), one of the most influential physicists in the 20th century, creator of the Theory of Relativity and the one who laid the foundations for the theory of quantum mechanics; Nobel prize laureate. Einstein was born in Ulm, southern Germany, studied in Switzerland and served as professor in various universities, including the Friedrich Wilhelm University (today named Humboldt University) in Berlin. Apart from his scientific research, Einstein was involved for many years in political efforts to promote organizations committed to international cooperation, which would lead to the eradication of wars. In 1914, he signed the pacifist manifesto Aufruf an die Europäer (Appeal to Europeans), and in the 1920s he was a member of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. With the Nazi rise to power in 1933, he renounced his German citizenship and settled in the United States, where he was offered a position in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. He remained there until his death on April 18, 1955.
The recipient of the letter is Isidore William Held (1876-1947), a Jewish, Austrian-born medical doctor. Held studied in Philadelphia, Berlin and Vienna, wrote many medical monographs and translated medical works from German to English. He worked for many years as a physician in the Beth Israel hospital in New York, and was active in the local Jewish community. He was active in assisting Jewish doctors and scientists who escaped Nazi Germany to the United States, and it was presumably in that framework that he became acquainted with Einstein. After Held's passing in 1947, Einstein wrote to his widow: "As a role model for his fellow men he was the best that a human being can be".
See: Aufbau, Reconstruction, an American Weekly Published in New York, Vol. XIII – No.10, New York, Friday, March 7, 1947.
[1] leaf. 28 cm. Good condition. Folding marks. Minor marginal tears. Minor stains to lower part of leaf. Inscription on verso.