The theory of infidelity: The women in Albert Einstein's life

Throughout his life, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a pop star of science. He had his "Annus mirabilis" (Latin for "miracle year") in 1905 when, at age 26, he'd published several groundbreaking works. One of these, the special theory of relativity, made him world-famous. Just 12 years later, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. But where did he find the strength, inspiration and time to achieve all this?

"Making Science, Love and Coffee": This could have very well been Einstein's motto posits Jürgen Renn, science historian and professor at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in Jena. In 2005, Renn co-published "Am Sonntag küss' ich dich mündlich" — "I'll kiss you on the lips on Sunday" — the title of a collection of love letters between Einstein and his first wife Mileva Maric between 1897 and 1903.

This collection of letters is also part of the "Collected Papers of Albert Einstein," published by Princeton University Press in the USA in 1987, which Renn co-edited from 1986 to 1992. "These letters had only just been discovered at the time, my job was to read them, comment on them and classify them historically," Renn tells DW. He still sounds fascinated by the text today: "It was sensational material, because it not only contained testimonies of love, but also scientific material from Einstein's most creative phase, which he discussed intensively with his girlfriend and later wife."

Science and love

The letters not only provided an insight into the emotional world of the young Albert Einstein, but also — quite incidentally — testified to the development of his scientific theories. Einstein and Mileva Maric (1875-1948), a young Serbian woman, had met at the Polytechnicum in Zurich in 1896, when he was 17 and she was 20.

He had completed his A-levels in Switzerland after dropping out of grammar school in Munich. She came from Vojvodina, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, attended a boys' grammar school in Zagreb and studied physics in Zurich — the only woman in her year and the first Serbian ever to do so.

Einstein probably took a liking to the uniqueness of his fellow student. At the time, he devoured the works of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and enjoyed an anti-bourgeois attitude.

A special kind of love grew between Mivela and Albert: "With her, Einstein was able to combine his love life with his scientific life," says Renn, adding that "they could literally talk about everything!" Mileva was obviously on par with Albert in mathematical matters — why else do experts still speculate about Mileva's part in the development of the theory of relativity?

"Dear Doxerl," Einstein wrote to his Mileva around 1901, "I love you, my dear maiden ... How beautiful it was last time when I was allowed to hold your dear little person close to me, as nature gave it, kiss me most sincerely for it, you dear soul!" "Doxerl," by the way, is "doll" in a southern German dialect.

The six years of correspondence were decisive years for Albert and Mileva: Mileva fell in love at a young age, became pregnant in 1901 and gave birth to an illegitimate child. Marriage followed in 1903. Three children were born from the marriage, which formally only lasted until 1918. "You renounce all personal relationships with me," Einstein clarified in a letter in 1914. "You have no right to expect any affection from me, nor to reproach me in any way."

In their divorce settlement, he concedes to her the prize money from the Nobel Prize — which he hadn't yet received at the time.

Slighted by gift of hairbrush 

Serious illness plagued the career physicist during his Berlin years. After stints in Zurich and Prague, he had lived on the Spree starting in 1914 but broke with Nazi Germany in 1933 — Einstein was Jewish — and emigrated to the United States.

While still in Berlin, his second cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, an actress and reciter (née Einstein; 1876-1936), took care of the ailing Einstein. He moved in with her. Shortly after his divorce from Mileva, Albert married her.

Things were rough between them. For example, she criticized his lack of personal hygiene — and gave him a hairbrush. "If I'm too unappetizing for you then find a friend who is more palatable to female tastes. But I'll preserve my independence."

This did not seem to diminish his effect on women; quite the opposite. Wherever he went, he was courted by the ladies. On many of his frequent lecture tours, Einstein had love affairs. Even in Berlin, he had a mistress, as Einstein biographer Armin Hermann writes, in addition to his marriage to Elsa. "The greatest strain on the marriage was Einstein's affairs," notes Hermann in his foreword to Einstein's love letters. "Einstein felt strongly attracted to everything feminine."

Passionate childhood love

It only emerged later that Einstein's relationship with his first girlfriend, Marie Winteler, was apparently more than just a youthful flirtation. "When I read your letter, it was as if I were watching my grave being dug," he wrote pathetically, "the little happiness I had left has been destroyed, all that remains is a desolate life of duty." Einstein did not address these dramatic lines to his first wife Mileva, his second wife, his cousin Elsa, or one of his many mistresses. The addressee was his childhood sweetheart Marie, daughter of the host family with whom Einstein lived for a year as a teenager to catch up on his high school diploma.

But this love affair was short-lived, and soon his beloved bore the name Mileva.

However, these letters, which were kept in the Bernisches Historisches Museum in Switzerland for a long time before they were published in 2018, show the genius of the century Albert Einstein as a romantic with a penchant for pompousness: "What infinite happiness is the feeling: We are one soul together," he enthused, "Love makes us great and rich and no god can take it away from us."

Einstein's love letters probably show one thing above all: The physicist loved science, friendship and women. He was not just the universally admired genius. He also had several complicated love stories.

"The Einstein Love Letters," a lot including correspondence to his first wife Mileva, were auctioned off on Wednesday at London auction house Christie's, fetching  441,000 pounds (€536,000, $562,000).