[[link removed]]

SUNDAY SCIENCE: EINSTEIN ON THE RUN: HOW THE WORLD’S GREATEST
SCIENTIST HID FROM NAZIS IN A NORFOLK HUT  
[[link removed]]


 

Donna Ferguson
February 10, 2024
The Guardian
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ The physicist’s refuge from assassins on a British heath changed
the course of history, as a new docudrama shows _

Albert Einstein with his secretary B Howard, Oliver Locker-Lampson
and an armed guard outside the hut in 1933., Bettmann/Bettmann Archive


 

In September 1933, a humble wooden hut on a secluded Norfolk
[[link removed]] heath became the
improbable location of one of the most important hideouts in history.

Nearly a century later, the rarely told story of the three
weeks Albert Einstein
[[link removed]] spent holed up
in a heathland bothy, on the run from Nazi assassins, has been turned
into an unusual type of docudrama.

Using Einstein’s own words, Netflix’s _Einstein and the Bomb
[[link removed]]_ will shine a light on how
the celebrated German Jewish scientist’s brief sojourn on Roughton
Heath came at a crossroads in his life – and, consequently, changed
the course of history.

“It was only as we looked closer that we realised quite what a
seismic moment in his life it was,” said the screenwriter Philip
Ralph, a “verbatim specialist” who used only Einstein’s actual
speeches, letters and interviews to script the theoretical
physicist’s dialogue.

“What came out from my research was that it was, in many ways, the
most important turning point in Einstein’s life.”

By then, Einstein was public enemy No 1 in Germany. In May 1933, a
brochure entitled _Jews Are Watching You_ accused Einstein of
“lying atrocity propaganda against Adolf Hitler”. Under his
picture, it stated: “Not yet hanged.”

In September, after German secret agents assassinated the Jewish
philosopher Theodor Lessing in Czechoslovakia, the Nazis – who had
already stolen Einstein’s savings, raided his summerhouse, ransacked
his Berlin apartment and taken his violin – offered a reward of at
least £1,000 for his murder.

The next day, Einstein yielded to his wife Elsa’s pleas to leave her
in the holiday home they had been renting near Ostend in Belgium and
flee to England by sea. He would never set foot on continental Europe
again.

“Prior to that point, Einstein had been an avowed, passionate
advocate for non-violence and pacifism. But at the end of that three
weeks, he gave a speech to 10,000 people at the Royal Albert Hall
where he effectively said there is an existential threat to European
civilisation, and we will have to fight it,” said Ralph.

In 1939, fearing that the Nazis would get there first, he successfully
petitioned President Franklin Roosevelt to accelerate the US
development of a nuclear bomb, a decision recently depicted in
Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster_ _film _Oppenheimer
[[link removed]]_.

It was during Einstein’s stay on the remote heath, protected by
armed guards, that he first came to the realisation that he must
publicly use his influence in society to speak out against the Nazis
and call on world leaders to act, Ralph said. “We chose the
title _Einstein and the Bomb_ because it was the shift in his
thinking that took place over that three-week period in Norfolk that
directly led him to put his name to that letter to Roosevelt.”

The small Norfolk bothy belonged to a trusted acquaintance, the
anti-fascist Conservative MP and first world war naval commander
Oliver Locker-Lampson, who offered it to Einstein as a place of refuge
under his protection.

Earlier that year, Locker-Lampson had highlighted Einstein’s
situation in parliament and introduced an ultimately unsuccessful
private member’s bill to “extend opportunities of citizenship for
Jews resident outside the British empire”.

Perhaps to draw attention to Einstein’s plight, members of the press
were somewhat incongruously invited by Locker-Lampson to the secret
hideout and allowed to interview and photograph the famous Nobel
prizewinner.

It was a press call that, given the very real threat to Einstein’s
life, appalled a reporter at the _Observer. _“England is not a
very good place to hide in,” the newspaper’s diarist reported on
17 September 1933. “Dr Einstein, who has come here to escape Nazi
persecution, finds his wooden hut photographed in the papers, with
full indications of locality, and Cromer Council considers the
question of presenting an address. Germany, I suppose, is presumed to
be looking the other way.”

When Einstein agreed to give the speech at a ticketed event at the
Royal Albert Hall to raise money for Jewish academic refugees from
Germany, his decision was criticised by the _Daily Mail_. The
editorial, which claimed to pity and “have every sympathy with the
German Jews as such”, called on Einstein to “stop this injudicious
agitation in this country against the Nazi regime”.

Two days after giving his historic speech, calling on all nations to
“resist the powers that threaten intellectual and individual freedom
… which our forefathers won through bitter struggle”, Einstein
left for the US and the newly formed Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton University. Elsa successfully joined him en route and he
spent the rest of his life in exile, where he wrote affidavits
recommending the US offer visas for Jews fleeing Nazi persecution and
helped to found the world’s first refugee aid agency, the
International Rescue Committee.

_DONNA FERGUSON is a multiple award-winning freelance journalist,
mostly @observeruk [[link removed]] and @guardian
[[link removed]]. Committee member of Women in
Journalism @WIJ_UK [[link removed]].  Here work has
appeared in The Guardian, Business Insider, Daily Mail, MSN
(US), MSN Australia, MSN Canada, MSN Ireland, MSN UK, The
Independent, The Mail on Sunday, The Mirror UK and more. _

_Message from Betsy Reed, Editor, GUARDIAN US:_

_I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to
ask if you would consider supporting the Guardian’s journalism as we
enter one of the most consequential news cycles of our lifetimes in
2024._

_With the potential of another Trump presidency looming, there are
countless angles to cover around this year’s election – and we'll
be there to shed light on each new development, with explainers, key
takeaways and analysis of what it means for America, democracy and the
world. _

_From Elon Musk to the Murdochs, a small number of billionaire owners
have a powerful hold on so much of the information that reaches the
public about what’s happening in the world. The Guardian is
different. We have no billionaire owner or shareholders to consider.
Our journalism is produced to serve the public interest – not profit
motives._

_And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media: the tendency, born
of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the
name of neutrality. We always strive to be fair. But sometimes that
means calling out the lies of powerful people and institutions – and
making clear how misinformation and demagoguery can damage democracy._

_From threats to election integrity, to the spiraling climate crisis,
to complex foreign conflicts, our journalists contextualize,
investigate and illuminate the critical stories of our time. As a
global news organization with a robust US reporting staff, we’re
able to provide a fresh, outsider perspective – one so often missing
in the American media bubble._

_Around the world, readers can access the Guardian’s paywall-free
journalism because of our unique reader-supported model. That’s
because of people like you. Our readers keep us independent, beholden
to no outside influence and accessible to everyone – whether they
can afford to pay for news, or not. IF YOU CAN, PLEASE CONSIDER
SUPPORTING US JUST ONCE FROM $1, OR BETTER YET, SUPPORT US EVERY MONTH
WITH A LITTLE MORE. [[link removed]]
THANK YOU._

What Is a Species, Anyway?
[[link removed]]
By Carl Zimmer
Some of the best known species on Earth may not be what they seem.
New York Times
February 19, 2024

* Science
[[link removed]]
* History
[[link removed]]
* Albert Einstein
[[link removed]]
* nazism
[[link removed]]
* World War II
[[link removed]]
* nuclear weapons
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]