JUNE 17 (Reuters) — Letters penned by physicist Albert Einstein that include his views on God, religion, and the atomic bomb fetched $420,625 at auction on Thursday (June 11).
The more than 25 lots of documents included typed and handwritten letters, autographed by Einstein and revealing his innermost thoughts, according to auction house Profiles in History’s Consignment Relations Individual Specialist, Brian Chanes.
“What’s so interesting about them is this field is driven by the content, what the letter states. It’s not a routine letter that he is thanking someone for some cufflinks that they gave him, which is really meaningless, frankly. This actually gets into the mind of, what many perceive as being, the greatest mind of the 20th century. So people are always craving that information; what would his views be on God or religion or many of these philosophical perspectives that, they’re saying, well if it’s good enough for Albert Einstein, I wonder what my views, how they would differ from someone with such a fantastic mind,” said Chanes.
In addition to his thoughts on philosophical matters and science, some letters also reveal Einstein’s views on Nazi Germany anti-semitism.
“I’m sitting here quietly in Holland after I was informed that there are certain people in Germany who are after me as a “Jewish Holy Man.” In Stuttgart, they even had a billboard where I was ranked first among the richest Jews. I have been thinking about giving up my position in Germany altogether but I am not doing that because it would be morally damaging to the German intellectuals.”
The German-born physicist developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics and may be best known for his mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc2. (Los Angeles, California, USA)
