De Haan, Belgium (AFP) – Sitting alone on a bench, legs crossed, Albert Einstein enjoys the tranquility of a public park in the Belgian coastal resort of De Haan.
His bronze statue attracts excited tourists to the town where the famed 1921 Nobel physics laureate stayed 90 years ago while a Nazi secret society put a price on his head.
He never returned to Europe again.
This is a relatively unknown episode in the life of the German-Jewish American physicist, who was born in 1879 and died in 1955.
When Adolf Hitler came to power in early 1933, Einstein, a native of the southern German city of Ulm, was already teaching his theory of relativity in the United States.
Hitler’s Nazi Germany increasingly hunted down Jews, targeting Einstein’s home near Berlin and confiscating his belongings.
On his return to Europe from across the Atlantic, Einstein landed in Belgium in March 1933 with his second wife, Elsa, fearing that returning to Germany would be too dangerous.
The physicist spent six months in De Haan under the careful supervision of the Belgian police.
Albert Einstein stayed in De Haan (Belgium) for a few months in 1933, and evidence of this still exists. You can sit near his statue. pic.twitter.com/WfOodCEQMr
, Stephanie???? (@bookfever11) August 2, 2017
“My mother knew Einstein well when she was little. Every morning, he would walk along the promenade or the beach,” said Brigitte Hochs, a 78-year-old Belgian who guided the AFP team in the scientist’s footsteps.
The Hochs family ran the Bellevue Hotel for decades. Einstein rented the nearby Villa Savoyarde.
playing violin with the queen
After a walk in the fresh air, Einstein used to drink coffee on the hotel terrace. Hawks said, “It was his routine.”
He noted that another famous Albert, King Albert I of Belgium, whose wife was a Bavarian duchess, played a large role in Einstein’s short exile.
Hawks said, “The king strongly advised Einstein not to return to Germany.”
Einstein knew the royal couple as they attended the Congress in Brussels. As well as the German language, he also shared a love of the violin with Queen Elizabeth. Hawks said, “They even played together.”
Belgian tourist guide Brigitte Hochs shows a photo of scientist Albert Einstein outside the Villa ‘Savoyarde’ in De Haan, Belgium, on April 20, 2023, where the famous German scientist lived for six months after leaving Germany in 1933. (KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP)
The physicist’s “Flemish” adventure inspired a comic last year by Belgian screenwriter Rudi Miel, who described the short exile as “a thriller”, noting that Einstein was subjected to “death threats”. Was under police surveillance.
In the comic, “Le Coq-sur-Mer, 1933,” referring to de Haan’s French name Le Coq, Einstein, with his famous brown hair and thick moustache, appears as a hunting man in Baudouin’s Devil’s portrait Let’s give
The author imagines a blond spy in a trench coat, pistol in hand, sent by the Nazis to kidnap Einstein as part of the Third Reich’s research on the atomic bomb.
Einstein’s discoveries on mass and energy from his famous equation E=mc2 laid the foundation for future nuclear fission, despite his lifelong pacifism.
Einstein’s arrival in De Haan, the most beautiful town on the Belgian coast.
(version Anspach) pic.twitter.com/ICjzu1a6dn— Martin Billen (@martinbillen58) July 13, 2022
‘A real treasure’
In fact, there was no attempt to kidnap him while he was in Belgium. But a file dedicated to him in the Belgian state archives reveals the extent to which Einstein was in danger during his escapade on the shores of the North Sea.
“The file is a real treasure. Through surveillance reports, we discover the personality of Professor Einstein,” said archivist Philipp Strube.
“One of the reports says that he used to go on walks at 2:00 am or 3:00 am without informing the police. This made his security difficult.
Two state security officers had to closely monitor his every move as the Nazis put a price on his head.
A Nazi magazine named Einstein an “enemy of the state” and placed a $5,000 bounty on his head (worth more than $110,000 today).
When a Jewish researcher was shot dead in the Czech Republic on Nazi orders in August 1933, Einstein understood that he was no longer safe in Belgium.
From the Belgian port city of Ostend, he traveled to London from where he moved to the United States.
A picture taken on April 20, 2023 in De Haan, Belgium shows the Villa ‘Savoyarde’ where the famous German scientist Albert Einstein lived for six months in 1933 after leaving Germany. (KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP)
Einstein would have appreciated several stories about his life.
The statue at De Haan is accompanied by one of his most famous quotes: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
