Albert Einstein (1879-1955).

Typed letter signed ('A. Einstein') to Paul Epstein, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 2 March 1939.

In German. One page, 254 x 203mm, on Institute for Advanced Study letterhead. Provenance: by descent from Paul S. Epstein.

On the prospects of helping the maverick physicist Felix Ehrenhaft emigrate to America. Einstein notes that 'this case of Ehrenhaft is difficult'; Ehrenhaft's brother-in-law Arthur Schindler, a professor at the University of Iowa, may be best placed to help him: 'I myself have given so many affidavits in recent times that I must already shudder at the number of current cases. The case of Ehrenhaft is moreover such a responsibility, as one cannot think what he could start out on here'.

The atomic phyicist Felix Ehrenhaft (1879-1952) was a professor of experimental physics in Vienna from 1920 until his expulsion by the Nazis in 1938. Until recently he and Einstein had enjoyed a very warm friendship, but the slightly cool tone of Einstein's letter reflects a growing alienation between the two, prompted by Ehrenhaft's increasingly erratic and extreme views. Ehrenhaft spent the war years in America, before returning to the University of Vienna in 1946.

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