Albert and Mileva Einstein in Zurich, Switzerland
If you are interested in Albert Einstein, you will enjoy my video of his time in Zürich, Switzerland, which lasted from 1895 to 1919, with a few breaks.
(You may also enjoy the irony that the man who became one of the most celebrated physicists of all time, failed his exam first time around when he tried to get into the Polytechnikum in Zürich in October 1895!)
In this film about Albert Einstein, which starts with a shot of the River Limmat and the old city from Quai Bridge which Einstein certainly knew well, in less than one and a half minutes I take you to all the places where he and his first wife, Mileva, lived in Zürich – and they moved about a lot.
After his failure, Einstein went to the Kantonsschule in Aaarau, Switzerland for a year, after which he was successful in getting a place at the Ploytechnikum to train to be a specialist teacher of Mathematics and Theoretical Science, where he met Mileva Maric, a Serbian mathematician and the only woman on the course. In the film I show you two views of the present day Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Rämistrasse, which is what the Polytechnikum is called now, and two views of Central University in the same street.
Einstein was immediately attracted to Mileva and spent all his time with her, often working at her lodgings in the evenings. His parents were dead against their marriage on three or four counts: Mileva was not German and wasn’t Jewish, as they were (in fact her family were Serbian Orthodox Christians); and she was older than Einstein by more than three years. One might only half-jokingly add that she was not of their family: marrying your first cousin was quite normal in their lifetime, in spite of the known dangers of consanguinity, and Einstein’s second wife, Elsa, was a cousin both on his mother’s and his father’s side.
While a student, Einstein lived at three addresses in the city, and these appear next in my movie: 4 Unionstrasse, 87 Klosbachstrasse and 17 Dolderstrasse. (Each one is labelled on the screen.)
At the end of his course in science teaching, Albert Einstein had two temporary jobs in Winterthur and Schaffhausen, and then worked in the Swiss Patent Office in Berne from 1902 to 1909. Einstein returned to Zürich as a Professor in 1909 and he and Mileva, (now his wife), for the first time had a self-contained apartment at 12 Moussonstrasse (renumbered 10 in the present day).
Their son, Eduard, was born in Zürich in 1910 and soon after the family moved to Prague. A year later they were back, living in 116 Hofstrasse.
Einstein, Mileva and their two children moved in 1914 to Berlin. That same year Albert sent his family back to Zürich because he wanted to divorce Mileva and marry his cousin, Elsa, which he did in 1919. Einstein remained in Berlin until the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, apart from a short time back in Zürich in 1919 when he lived at 37 Hochstrasse where their marriage ended in divorce. Mileva stayed in Zürich until her death in 1948. Einstein, who had already won the Nobel Prize and bought this house at 62 Huttenstrasse with the prize money, now gave the house to Mileva as part of the divorce settlement.
Einstein emigrated to Princeton, USA where he remained until his death in April 1955, aged 75.
Sadly, Mileva Einstein died in this house at 18 Carmenstrasse in August 1948 at the age of 73.
The film finishes, appropriately, at Albert-Einstein-Strasse on the new campus of ETH at Hönggerberg, which is outside the city where Einstein spent so much of his early life.
The house in Ulm (Germany) where Einstein was born was destroyed in WWII. The same happened to the houses in Berlin where Einstein lived. Only the house in Caputh near Potsdam was not bombed.
The houses in Zurich were not destroyed in WWII because Switzerland was not in war with Germany. It is surprising that all houses are still here – architects like to destroy old buildings and build new skyscrapers.
Note: Einstein’s Other Houses
Einstein lived in a lot of different places, some of which are still there to see, and some are not. He was born in Ulm in Germany, a medieval city in the state of Baden-Wittenberg, but that house is no longer there due to bombing in the Second World War.
Later Einstein lived in a number of houses in Berlin, but again none of them survived the war.
There is just one of Einstein’s dwellings in Germany that survives, in the village of Caputh near Potsdam. This is a holiday area with a lake where Einstein liked to sail. His wooden summer house was built in 1929 but he was only able to enjoy it until 1933 when the Nazis came to power; it is now owned by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. There is an exhibition about Einstein in Caputh, with documents, photos and models illustrating his life and work.
Städte in Deutschland, Cottbus, Gebäude, Parks, Industrie, Freizeit, Tourismus, Frauen
Städte in Deutschland, Cottbus, Gebäude, Parks, Industrie, Freizeit, Tourismus, Frauen
Städte in Deutschland, Cottbus,
, Deutschland, Städte, Gebäude, Parks, Einkaufszentren, Industrie, Freizeit, skyline,
Abenteuer, Bilder, Business, Reisen, Tourismus, Tourist, Einkaufen,
leben, Bilder, nette, kirche, Denkmal,
Deutsch, fantastisch, bunt, Fotografie, Bilder, Geschäfte, Städte in Deutschland, Yoga, Sport, schöne Stadt, schöne, Tanz, Deutschland Reisen, Verkehr, Autos, Bars, spaß, nett, Kraftstoff, universität, museum, urban, Frauen, Festivals
Städte der Welt
große, gemütlich, schön, abenteuer, voller, groß, Tür, Stein, Holz, Metall, Landschaft, Stadtbild, Stadtlandschaft, städtisch, leben, Stadtgebiet, Performance, Show, Büro, Essen, Getränke, frauen, frau,
schön, Straßen, Schienen, Kunst, Schule, Hotel, Flughafen, Geld, Gutschein, vertile, Fabrik,
Interesse, Leben, leben, stadt frauen, stadt, Mädchen, Stadt eine Frau, Menschen, zoo, natur, Medizin Shop, Ökologie, Stil, Trends, Lippenstift, Teich, Brunnen,