Eduard Einstein

Eduard Einstein
Born 28 July 1910
Zurich
Died 25 October 1965 (aged 55)
Psychiatric Clinic Burghölzli, Zurich
Cause of death
 Stroke
Resting place
 Cemetery Hönggerberg, Zurich
Residence Switzerland (1910-1965)
Nationality Switzerland
Other names "Tete"
Parent(s) Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić
Relatives Hans Albert Einstein, Lieserl

Notes

"Make a lot of walks to get healthy and don’t read that much but save yourself some until you’re grown up." Albert Einstein in a letter to his son Eduard, June 1918

Eduard Einstein (28 July 1910 – 25 October 1965) was born in Zürich, Switzerland, the second son of physicist Albert Einstein and his first wife Mileva Marić. Einstein and his family moved to Berlin in 1914. Shortly thereafter the parents separated, and Marić returned to Zürich, taking Eduard and his older brother Hans Albert with her. His father remarried in 1919 and in the 1930s emigrated to the United States under the threat of the German Nazi regime.

A good student, Eduard began to study medicine with the goal of entering the new field of psychiatry. At age 20 he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and two years later was committed to an asylum for the first of several times throughout the remainder of his life. After his mother's death in 1948, he was committed full-time.

Life

Eduard was a good student and had musical talent. After gymnasium, he started to study medicine to become a psychiatrist, but by the age of twenty, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was institutionalized two years later for the first of several times. Biographers of his father have speculated that the drugs and "cures" of the time did more damage to the young Einstein than aiding him, but schizophrenia can be intractable.[1] His brother Hans Albert Einstein believed that his memory and cognitive abilities were damaged by electric convulsive shock treatments.[2]

After suffering a breakdown, Eduard had told his father that he hated him. Einstein emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1933 after the rise of the Nazi German government and never saw his son again.[3] The father and son, whom the father fondly referred to as "Tete" (for petit), corresponded regularly before and after Eduard became ill. Their correspondence continued after the father's emigration to the United States.[4][5]

Eduard remained interested in music and art,[6] wrote poetry,[7] and was a Sigmund Freud enthusiast. He hung a picture of Freud on his bedroom wall.[8]

His mother cared for him until she died in 1948. From then on Eduard lived most of the time at the psychiatric clinic Burghölzli in Zurich, where he died in 1965 of a stroke at age 55. He is buried at Hönggerberg-Cemetery in Zurich.[9] Groups working to support research on mental illness have used the prominence of the Einstein family to help raise public awareness of schizophrenia.

References

  1. ↑ Clark, Ronald W. (1971). Einstein: The Life and Times. Avon. ISBN 0-380-44123-3.
  2. ↑ Barry Parker (2003): Einstein: The Passions of a Scientist. Prometheus Books. New York. p. 236.
  3. ↑ Parker (2003): Einstein, pp. 236-237.
  4. ↑ "Albert Einstein to Eduard Einstein, 1928". Shapell Manuscript Collection. Shapell Manuscript Foundation.
  5. ↑ "Albert Einstein to Eduard Einstein, 1944". Shapell Manuscript Collection. Shapell Manuscript Foundation.
  6. ↑ "Albert Einstein to Eduard Einstein, circa 1933". Shapell Manuscript Collection. Shapell Manuscript Foundation.
  7. ↑ "Albert Einstein to Eduard Einstein, 1933". Shapell Manuscript Collection. Shapell Manuscript Foundation.
  8. ↑ "Albert Einstein on Sigmund Freud"
  9. ↑ Robert Dünki, Anna Pia Maissen: «…damit das traurige Dasein unseres Sohnes etwas besser gesichert wird» Mileva und Albert Einsteins Sorgen um ihren Sohn Eduard (1910–1965). Die Familie Einstein und das Stadtarchiv Zürich. In: Stadtarchiv Zürich. Jahresbericht 2007/2008. (german)

See also

Further reading

External links