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Overview
The French political philosopher Raymond Aron once observed that the twentieth century "could have been Germany's century." In 1900, the country was Europe's preeminent power, its material strength and strident militaristic ethos apparently balanced by a vital culture and extraordinary scientific achievement. It was poised to achieve greatness. In Einstein's German World, the eminent historian Fritz Stern explores the ambiguous promise of Germany before Hitler, as well as its horrifying decline into moral nihilism under Nazi rule, and aspects of its remarkable recovery since World War II. He does so by gracefully blending history and biography in a sequence of finely drawn studies of Germany's great scientists and of German-Jewish relations before and during Hitler's regime.
Stern's central chapter traces the complex friendship of Albert Einstein and the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Fritz Haber, contrasting their responses to German life and to their Jewish heritage. Haber, a convert to Christianity and a firm German patriot until the rise of the Nazis; Einstein, a committed internationalist and pacifist, and a proud though secular Jew. Other chapters, also based on new archival sources, consider the turbulent and interrelated careers of the physicist Max Planck, an austere and powerful figure who helped to make Berlin a happy, productive place for Einstein and other legendary scientists; of Paul Ehrlich, the founder of chemotherapy; of Walther Rathenau, the German-Jewish industrialist and statesman tragically assassinated in 1922; and of Chaim Weizmann, chemist, Zionist, and first president of Israel, whose close relations with his German colleagues is here for the first time recounted. Stern examines the still controversial way that historians have dealt with World War I and Germans have dealt with their nation's defeat, and he analyzes the conflicts over the interpretations of Germany's past that persist to this day. He also writes movingly about the psychic cost of Germany's reunification in 1990, the reconciliation between Germany and Poland, and the challenges and prospects facing Germany today.
At once historical and personal, provocative and accessible, Einstein's German World illuminates the issues that made Germany's and Europe's past and present so important in a tumultuous century of creativity and violence.
Synopsis
"This wide-ranging collection of essays reminds us again that Fritz Stern is a living national treasure--in both Germany and the United States. It will interest and delight anyone who wishes to think deeply about how and why Germany, with all its potential, wrecked the century that it tried to dominate, and left a legacy that haunts us still. From Einstein to Goldhagen, Fritz Stern shows us again the extraordinary depth of his historical insights, and raises our understanding to a different level."--Ambassador Richard Holbrooke
"Stern gives us penetrating character sketches of eminent Jews in pre-Nazi Germany, and he makes us feel for those whose lives ended in tragedy."--Max Perutz, Nobel Laureate in chemistry and author of I Wish I'd Made You Angry Earlier: Essays on Science, Scientists, and Humanity
"Stern, prominent historian of Germany, who knew Einstein personally, a cousin of the late Otto Stern, intimate friend of Einstein, is uniquely qualified to write of Einstein's world. His main essay on Einstein and Haber, Stern's godfather, brilliantly sketches the contrast between those who saw the Nazi threat in time and those who saw it too late. A splendid book."--Abraham Pais, Rockefeller University, author of A Tale of Two Continents and Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and Life of Albert Einstein
"The essays are clearly from a master's hand--well-crafted, thoughtful, learned, and wise. The biographical essays display Stern's gifts as a portraitist. With a few swift and confident strokes, he captures a series of extraordinary characters at moments of personal and public crisis. The historiographical essays display the author's critical intelligence and synthetic ability."--James Sheehan, Stanford University
Times Literary Supplement - Michael Burleigh
Elegiac, subtle and wide-ranging, Fritz Stern's book goes a long way to restoring one's hopes for a Germany that once included Einstein.
Editorials
Times Literary Supplement
Elegiac, subtle and wide-ranging in scope, Fritz Stern's book goes a long way to restoring one's hopes for a Germany that once included Einstein.— Michael Burleigh
Nature
Revealing, absorbing, and often poignant. . . . Frtiz Stern's writing has an unmatched authority and a magisterial sweep that throws a brilliant light on the tragic disintegration of a noble culture, one in which science reigned supreme. . . . Stern's is the civilized voice of reason and understanding; his book is revealing, absorbing and often poignant.— Walter Gratzer
Foreign Affairs
A superb and gripping collection of essays.— Stanley Hoffmann
London Review of Books
Fritz Stern is alive to moral and historical ambiguity, arguing that there is no simple judgement on the compromises of a Max Planck, any more that there is a simple way to characterize German-Jewish relations or the circumstances that made the Holocaust possible.Choice
Well-documented, extremely readable collection. . . . What makes this compendium a must for those interested in European history is that Stern not only places all of these people within the history of science, but also discusses how they both reflected and influenced the times in which they lived.Physics Today
A small series of fine . . . essays on eminent personalities surrounding Albert Einstein in pre-Hitler Germany, and some considerations illuminating the changes that followed each of the two world wars.— Helmut Rechenberg
The Wall Street Journal
[In these] elegantly written essays. . . . we come to understand something about the fabric of this world that no abstract social or cultural theory can provide. . . . [I]t was a bright and shining moment and we should thank Fritz Stern for bringing it back to life so vividly.— Omer Barton
The Washington Times
In his wide-ranging collection of nine essays, lectures and Festschriften, the eminent historian Fritz Stern, who grew up in Germany 'in the shadow of the First World War,' assembles a complex mosaic—mainly from historical and personal profiles of eminent Jewish scientists—illustrating the attitudes, prejudices, complexities, intricacies and subtle ambiguities of the relationship between Germans and Jews before Adolf Hitler and thereafter. Anti-Semitism, Mr. Stern finds, came in the most diverse guises—from irritation at Jewish successes to paranoid fear and fury at the thought of Jewish power threatening German life and virtue. He dismisses the view that the rabid anti-Semitism in Hitler's party was a reflection of the sentiments of German culture and questions theories that it formed an important bond between Hitler and the German population.— Viola Herms Drath
The Times Higher Education Supplement
[E]ssential reading for any student of Einstein. . . .— Jeremy Bernstein
Financial Times
Stern's portrait of [Einstein] is sparklingly comic and profound. . . . He writes with the wisdom and truth of a historian who never fails to empathize with the human uncertainty and frailty that operate in extreme as well as everyday historical conditions. . . . No one has written better on the country's rise and fall than Fritz Stern.kie Wullschlager. "Financial Times
Stern's portrait of [Einstein] is sparklingly comic and profound. . . . He writes with the wisdom and truth of a historian who never fails to empathize with the human uncertainty and frailty that operate in extreme as well as everyday historical conditions. . . . No one has written better on the country's rise and fall than Fritz Stern.
Times Literary Supplement
Elegiac, subtle and wide-ranging in scope, Fritz Stern's book goes a long way to restoring one's hopes for a Germany that once included Einstein.Nature
Revealing, absorbing, and often poignant. . . . Frtiz Stern's writing has an unmatched authority and a magisterial sweep that throws a brilliant light on the tragic disintegration of a noble culture, one in which science reigned supreme. . . . Stern's is the civilized voice of reason and understanding; his book is revealing, absorbing and often poignant.Foreign Affairs
A superb and gripping collection of essays.London Review of Books
This is a book pervaded by a genuine sense of pity. Fritz Stern is alive to moral and historical ambiguity, arguing that there is no simple judgment on the compromises of a Max Planck, any more than there is a simple way to characterize German-Jewish relations or the circumstances that made the Holocaust possible. Fritz Stern has been successful beyond the historical profession as a voice of liberal tolerance. . . . [He] has earned his reputation as a non-historian's historian.The Wall Street Journal
[In these] elegantly written essays. . . . we come to understand something about the fabric of this world that no abstract social or cultural theory can provide. . . . [I]t was a bright and shining moment and we should thank Fritz Stern for bringing it back to life so vividly.The Washington Times
In his wide-ranging collection of nine essays, lectures and Festschriften, the eminent historian Fritz Stern, who grew up in Germany 'in the shadow of the First World War,' assembles a complex mosaic—mainly from historical and personal profiles of eminent Jewish scientists—illustrating the attitudes, prejudices, complexities, intricacies and subtle ambiguities of the relationship between Germans and Jews before Adolf Hitler and thereafter. Anti-Semitism, Mr. Stern finds, came in the most diverse guises—from irritation at Jewish successes to paranoid fear and fury at the thought of Jewish power threatening German life and virtue. He dismisses the view that the rabid anti-Semitism in Hitler's party was a reflection of the sentiments of German culture and questions theories that it formed an important bond between Hitler and the German population.The Times Higher Education Supplement
[E]ssential reading for any student of Einstein. . . .Physics Today
A small series of fine . . . essays on eminent personalities surrounding Albert Einstein in pre-Hitler Germany, and some considerations illuminating the changes that followed each of the two world wars.The Washington Times
In his wide-ranging collection of nine essays, lectures and Festschriften, the eminent historian Fritz Stern, who grew up in Germany 'in the shadow of the First World War,' assembles a complex mosaic--mainly from historical and personal profiles of eminent Jewish scientists--illustrating the attitudes, prejudices, complexities, intricacies and subtle ambiguities of the relationship between Germans and Jews before Adolf Hitler and thereafter. Anti-Semitism, Mr. Stern finds, came in the most diverse guises--from irritation at Jewish successes to paranoid fear and fury at the thought of Jewish power threatening German life and virtue. He dismisses the view that the rabid anti-Semitism in Hitler's party was a reflection of the sentiments of German culture and questions theories that it formed an important bond between Hitler and the German population.— Viola Herms Drath
Omer Barov
[The] heart of the book concerns the relationship between Albert Einstein and Fritz Haber, the German-Jewish nationalist who invented a process to extract nitrogen from the air. Haber was involved in the production and use of gas in warfare and worked on the insecticide, later known as Zyklon-B, that was used in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Here, in the friendship and mutual admiration of these two men with opposing personalities and world views, we have a fascinating portrayal of the ambiguities, contradictions and vicissitudes of German-Jewish scientists in the first decades of the century. Through the prism of their private lives, we come to understand something about the fabric of this world that no abstract social or cultural theory can provide....But it was a bright and shining moment, and we should thank Fritz Stern for bringing it back to life so vividly.—The Wall Street Journal
Jackie Wullschlager
Stern's portrait of [Einstein] is sparklingly comic and profound....He writes with the wisdom and truth of a historian who never fails to empathize with the human uncertainty and frailty that operate in extreme as well as everyday historical conditions....No one has written better on the country's rise and fall than Fritz Stern.— Financial Times
Michael Burleigh
Elegiac, subtle and wide-ranging, Fritz Stern's book goes a long way to restoring one's hopes for a Germany that once included Einstein.— Times Literary Supplement
Nature
Revealing, absorbing, and often poignant....Fritz Stenr's writing has an unmatched authority and a magisterial sweep that throws a brilliant light on the tragic disintegration of a noble culture, one in which science reigned supreme.Foreign Affairs
A superb and gripping collection of essays.London Review of Books
Fritz Stern is alive to moral and historical ambiguity, arguing that there is no simple judgement on the compromises of a Max Planck, any more that there is a simple way to characterize German-Jewish relations or the circumstances that made the Holocaust possible.Stanley Hoffmann
A superb and gripping collection of essays. The book's first half depicts how a group of distinguished German Jews grappled with German antisemitism, World War I, and their predicament as German patriots in a nation that did not fully trust them. The immunologist Paul Ehrlich, the physicist Max Planck, and the chemist Fritz Haber (who helped produce poison gas during World War I) all supported the German war cause; only Albert Einstein remained antimilitaristic and embraced Zionism. Meanwhile, industrialist and statesman Walther Rathenau was deeply ambivalent about his Judaism, holding the Prussian officer up as his ideal. With subtlety and compassion, Stern also offers a fine biographical sketch of Chaim Weizmann, the great Zionist leader whose faith in Great Britain later turned into bitter disappointment.— Foreign Affairs
Publishers Weekly
Distinguished historian Stern (Gold and Iron, Dreams and Delusions, etc.) presents a rich collection of essays--some scholarly, others more personal--written during the past decade. The book's first part centers around the lives of four visionary scientists (Paul Ehrlich, Max Planck, Fritz Haber and Albert Einstein), allowing Stern to draw attention to what he calls "Germany's second Geniezeit," or Age of Genius, an era filled with great promise and yet punctuated by war and violence. His subjects, internationally acclaimed figures in modern science, were also committed German patriots, all of whom (except Einstein) were outspoken supporters of the German war effort in 1914. The extended chapter on Haber and Einstein meticulously documents the careers of these two highly assimilated German Jews who, despite numerous obstacles, managed to become leading public intellectuals of their time. In the second half of the book, Stern reevaluates major debates concerning the First World War, German unification, the representation of the Holocaust and contemporary German-Polish relations. Without ever pointing an accusatory finger, Stern's approach helps readers to grasp how the extraordinary potential for "what could have been "Germany's century" ended so disastrously. Stern launches a corrective to the notion of German peculiarity, insisting instead on the greater universal import of interpreting the German past. As he persuasively argues, "No country, no society, is shielded from the evils that the passivity of decent citizens can bring about. That is a German lesson of the twentieth century--for all of us." (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
Columbia historian Stern (Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichr der and the Building of the German Empire) presents a collection of compelling essays written over the last decade. The loose theme of the first section is Jewish men who succeeded in pre-Nazi Germany; in the second section, Stern delves into themes of current German historiography. Collections of essays can be uneven in quality, but the only weakness here is an essay on Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel, which seems out of place. "Historians and the Great War" is a fascinating look at how personal experience in the trenches of World War I affected the later writing of historians. "The Past Distorted: The Goldhagen Controversy," in which Stern points out flaws in Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners (LJ 3/15/96), is worth the price of the book. Biographical essays on Paul Ehrlich, Max Planck, Fritz Haber, and Walther Rathenau illuminate figures who have not received much attention in English-language publications. Highly recommended for academic libraries and any public library that holds Goldhagen's book.--Randall L. Schroeder, Wartburg Coll. Lib., Waverly, IA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Meir Ronnen
However, central to historian Fritz Stern's setting of Einstein against his German background is Einstein's long friendship with the brilliant German chemist Fritz Haber. Each in his own way was a humanist, but their relations to their Fatherland and their common Jewish background were startlingly different. The value of Professor Stern's account of Haber's career is in demonstrating that this notable German patriot was everything that Einstein was not. Einstein despised everything connected with imperial German society and its values. Early on, he fled from army service and its mindless drills to a haven in Switzerland. He later saw the Great War and German jingoism as an eruption of madness. His pacifism did not endear him to Germany; there were calls for his detention.—The Jerusalem Post
Viola Herm Drath
In his wide-ranging collection of nine essays, lectures and Festschriften, the eminent historian Fritz Stern, who grew up in Germany "in the shadow of the First World War," assembles a complex mosaic - mainly from historical and personal profiles of eminent Jewish scientists - illustrating the attitudes, prejudices, complexities, intricacies and subtle ambiguities of the relationship between Germans and Jews before Adolf Hitler and thereafter. Anti-Semitism, Mr. Stern finds, came in the most diverse guises - from irritation at Jewish successes to paranoid fear and fury at the thought of Jewish power threatening German life and virtue. He dismisses the view that the rabid anti-Semitism in Hitler's party was a reflection of the sentiments of German culture and questions theories that it formed an important bond between Hitler and the German population.—The Washington Times
Kirkus Reviews
This volume brings together a decade's collection of essays that brilliantly profile the lives of key figures—primarily German and Jewish—in the context and in the aftermath of the century's two world wars. Stern, a noted historian and Columbia University professor emeritus, brings enormous scholarship as well as personal memoir to the history. Stern was the godson of the chemist Fritz Haber, who, with Einstein, is the subject of the book's centerpiece, a marvelous study in contrasts. Haber was a Jew who converted to Protestantism. He was also a loyal German, dedicating his Nobel-winning talents to research to further arms development and even chemical warfare (he thought it more benign than weapons that killed). Einstein not only remained Jewish, but was forever contemptuous of Germany and thoroughly pacifist. Yet the two remained friends; and Stern illuminates their emotional and temperamental bonds—-keen intellects, unhappy marriages, a deep love and passion for research. Here and throughout the volume, Stern describes the complexity of being German and Jewish—what it was like to recognize one's status as second-class citizen yet also to attain elite status as eminent scientist or statesman. On the other hand, Stern also provides a sympathetic portrait of Max Planck, a non-Jew who was a patriot but unhappy at the plight of his Jewish colleagues and who tried to help when he could. Stern also provides portraits of Paul Ehrlich and Chaim Weizmann, an essay on German historians, and speculations on the future of Germany since reunification. These nuanced essays see complexity and contradictions in human behavior against the background of German history sinceBismarck. They thus set the stage for Stern's essay attacking as simplistic, unhistorical, and distorted Daniel Goldenhagen's thesis that Germans en masse were Hitler's willing executioners in the Holocaust. A combination of passion and compassion mark Stern as not only a dedicated and gifted historian, but also one committed to the hope, expressed by Vaclav Havel, that humankind may yet learn to live in trust and in truth.Book Details
Published
March 1, 2001
Publisher
Princeton University Press
Pages
271
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780691074580