The Man Who Stalked Einstein by Bruce J. Hillman, Birgit Ertl-Wagner, Bernd C. Wagner Page A

it.”
    Responses to the events of August 1920 were heated on both sides. A letter from Gehrcke,
     folded around the Einstein rebuttal, welcomed Lenard home to Heidelberg from a holiday
     in the Black Forest. In the same day’s packet had come a letter from Stark revealing
     what had transpired: “Surely you will have read about the Einstein scandal, which
     has been replayed recently in Berlin and in the local press. Einstein has thrown out
     every theoretical achievement of yours and adjudicated in favor of superficiality.”
    Although Einstein’s charge of complicity in the evening’s events was true enough,
     Lenard very much resented being accused of involvement when he painstakingly had sought
     to conceal his role. In a September 8 letter to Stark, Lenard wrote,
I am astonished by this personal element that Mr. Einstein and Mr. von Laue [a friend
     of Einstein and a 1914 Nobel Laureate who also published a critique of the Philharmonic
     events] hold in the matter and that they believe that they can turn against me. .
     . . My purely factual objections are to refute the generalized theory of relativity
     so that Einstein must precisely demonstrate it, instead of being naughty. . . . In
     short, I do not have the slightest desire to be in the company of Einstein unless.
     . . . I am a part of the whole that either passes or fails [his theories].
    Beginning shortly after the time Lenard became aware of Einstein’s newspaper speculations
     on his role in the Berlin Philharmonic episode, he became even more hostile toward
     Einstein, and his words and writings more openly anti-Semitic. What had been primarily
     a conflict of scientific positions had transformed into something pointedly personal.
    Among the pro-Einstein faction, there was concern that Einstein had incautiously
     let his emotions get the better of him, charging Lenard with actions he could not
     substantiate. Many of his friends and admirers worried that, out of either fear for
     his safety or a feeling of being unappreciated, Einstein might emigrate to any number
     of countries that would welcome him with open arms. It was common knowledge that Einstein’s
     friend, Paul Ehrenfest of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, was particularly
     interested in bringing Einstein to Holland and had offered the likelihood of a professorship.
     Few doubted that there would be other bidders should Einstein express an interest
     in emigrating.
    It had been no easy matter six years previous to recruit Einstein to Berlin from
     his professorship in Zurich, where he had landed after a brief tenure at the Charles-Ferdinand
     University in Prague. Einstein’s star was rising on a meteoric trajectory. He had
     demanded and received unheard-of considerations to immigrate to Germany—the directorship
     of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics, professorship at Humboldt University,
     and agreement that he would have only minimal teaching obligations. Now those who
     had invested so much in his recruitment feared the undoing of their efforts. Why,
     they wondered, should he put up with such grief when he had so many other choices?
    Despite the growing anti-Jewish sentiment in Berlin, Einstein probably did not seriously
     consider leaving Germany at this time. However, this fact may not have been apparent
     to his contemporaries. In an open letter to a number of Berlin newspapers, Max von
     Laue, Heinrich Rubens, and Walther Nernst implored him to continue in his current
     posts. Nobel laureate Max Planck, and president of the German Physical Society Arnold
     Sommerfeld, wrote personal letters emphasizing their support for Einstein’s continued
     presence in the capital. Sommerfeld, in particular, made an effort at reconciliation
     between the two scientists as a way of heading off open conflict at the upcoming Bad
     Nauheim meeting, to which Lenard had alluded in his August 2 letter to Stark.
    Sommerfeld was encouraged that a truce might be enacted when