In Germany, a dedicatory inscription by Albert Einstein was unexpectedly found in an old book
At the Dortmund University of Technology library, a large private collection of books on American Studies (over 4000 volumes) was being processed. In one of the books, a dedicatory inscription by Albert Einstein, dated 1952, was found, writes Deutsche Welle.
Albert Einstein. Photo: Getty Image
The book in which the inscription was found is titled "Socialism and American Life." It was published in the USA during a period when socialist ideas were still actively discussed, but the era of McCarthyism was already beginning, where any left-leaning sympathies could provoke suspicion and political pressure.
In 1952, Albert Einstein wrote a handwritten dedicatory inscription for his close friend, economist Otto Nathan. Their friendship began in Princeton after their emigration from Europe and lasted for many years. Nathan was not just an academic colleague, but a person with very similar views: he supported pacifism, criticized economic inequality, and also faced political pressure in the USA.
The text of the inscription — "To dear Otto Nathan. Friend and Saint. This book is about the mistakes of his colleagues. A. Einstein. 1952" — seems quite ironic and reflects Einstein's attitude towards the academic and political disputes of that time. He wrote the dedication in 1952 in German, as he did many personal letters to Nathan, because Nathan, like Einstein himself, was also a German-speaking emigrant.
The peculiarity of the find is that it is not just a signed book, but a very personal dedicatory copy. Researchers note that no other similar books by Einstein addressed specifically to Nathan have been found yet. Therefore, this may be a unique preserved instance of their correspondence and friendship in material form.
The book entered the collection much later: it was purchased by a professor of American Studies in 1993 from a used bookstore in New York for only 35 dollars. Only after the collection was processed in Germany did specialists notice the inscription and conduct a handwriting analysis, comparing it with known archival samples of Einstein's writing. The possibility of forgery was eventually ruled out.
Such artifacts show how Einstein thought beyond physics: he was deeply involved in the political and humanitarian discussions of his time, supported friends who held views inconvenient for the USA, and quite openly ironized about the "mistakes of colleagues."
Today, this book is planned to be displayed publicly as part of the collection's archive, as it combines three layers of value: Einstein's autograph, the history of his friendship, and the context of the Cold War in the academic world of the USA.