An unstable schizophrenic, Eduard Einstein would spend three decades in an asylum and was to his father Albert an "insoluble problem."
Albert Einstein CollectionEduard Einstein, the youngest son of Albert Einstein, as a boy.
Albert Einstein is one of the most famous scientists in history. His image is well known across the world, and his name has become synonymous with the word “genius.” But though almost everyone has heard of the physicist and his remarkable work, few know about the tragic fate of his youngest son, Eduard Einstein.
Though brilliant, Eduard struggled on several fronts during his life. He was sickly as a boy and, as an adult, suffered from schizophrenia. His relationship with his father also deteriorated, and as Albert’s profile rose, Eduard entered a psychiatric clinic, where he would spend the rest of his days.
This is the little-known story of Eduard Einstein, Albert Einstein’s youngest son.
The Early Life Of Albert Einstein’s Youngest Son
Eduard Einstein was born on July 28, 1910, in Zurich, Switzerland, to Albert Einstein and his first wife, Mileva Marić. The couple already had one son, Hans Albert, as well as a daughter, Lieserl, who left only a faint mark on the historical record, and may have died of scarlet fever as an infant.
When Eduard was just four years old, Albert moved his family from Zurich to Berlin, where Albert took a position at the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Humboldt University of Berlin. Though Marić later remarked that her husband prioritized his scientific research over his family, Hans Albert recalled spending a great deal of time with his father. In Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, Hans Albert recalled that when their mother was busy around the house, “father would put aside his work and watch over us for hours, bouncing us on his knee…I remember he would tell us stories — and he often played the violin in an effort to keep us quiet.”
Albert Einstein CollectionHans Albert and Eduard Einstein.
Eduard, who was sickly as a child, required a good deal of attention. He was nicknamed “Tete” (a shortened version of the French word for small, petit) because of his small stature, and was often ill. That said, he purportedly had shades of his father’s brilliance, and was an especially gifted pianist.
But shortly after the family moved to Berlin, it fractured: Albert Einstein began an affair with Elsa Einstein, his first cousin, whom he would later marry. Marić thus took the boys, and moved back to Zurich.
Though Albert would stay in touch, Eduard Einstein purportedly later told his mother that he never forgave his father for abandoning the family.
‘My Little Boy’s Condition Depresses Me Greatly’: Eduard Einstein’s Growing Health Problems
Shortly after Eduard Einstein moved back to Zurich with his mother and brother, World War I made travel between Switzerland and Germany a challenge. Still, Albert stayed in touching, writing often to Hans Albert. In 1915, he promised to take Hans Albert on a hiking trip in the Alps, noting that: “Tete may also come along when he is old enough for it.”
Albert also worried over Eduard’s health. He asked a friend to check in on the boy, who had developed ear infections and other problems. “Please write me what is wrong with my little boy,” Albert wrote. “I’m particularly fondly attached to him, he was still so sweet to me and innocent.”
A few years later, in 1917, Albert continued to fret over Eduard’s health — which included bad fevers and inflamed lungs — as well as the time Eduard spent recovering from his various illnesses.
Albert Einstein CollectionAlbert Einstein with his sons, Hans Albert and Eduard.
“My little boy’s condition depresses me greatly,” Albert lamented in a letter about Eduard, in which he brought up, and rejected, the practice of leaving sickly children on a mountain to die. “It is impossible that he would become a fully developed person. Who knows if it wouldn’t be better for him if he could depart before coming to know life properly.”
The physicist vowed to do whatever he could to help his son, even accompanying Eduard to various sanatoriums in an effort to improve his physical health. But as Eduard got older, his problems worsened.
Though Eduard followed in his father’s footsteps and attended the University of Zurich, where he hoped to become a psychiatrist, his mental health problems grew more severe. He wrote edgy poetry, played the piano with such fervor it could be “scary,” and wrote his father long, intense letters.
Eduard, who idolized Sigmund Freud, also pondered deeply about his relationship to his father who, by the time Eduard had entered university, had won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics in Physics.
“It’s at times difficult to have such an important father because one feels so unimportant,” Eduard wrote. He further mused: “People who fill their time with intellectual work bring into the world sickly, nervous at times even completely idiotic children (for example…me).”
BundesarchivEduard Einstein and his father, Albert Einstein. They never saw each other again after Albert emigrated to the United States in the 1930s.
In 1930, an ill-fated love affair with an older woman set Eduard on a depressive spiral. He attempted suicide and, in 1931, Eduard Einstein was diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized for the first time.
“This sorrow [over Eduard] is eating up Albert,” his wife Elsa remarked. “He finds it difficult to cope with.”
But shortly afterward, Albert Einstein left Germany for the United States as the Nazis gained power in Germany. He never saw his son Eduard ever again.
Eduard Einstein’s Final Years In Psychiatric Hospitals
In an attempt to alleviate his mental health problems, Eduard Einstein underwent a number of treatments, including electroshock therapy and heavy drug regimens. Sadly, these cures ultimately seemed worse than the disease. Eduard lost much of his speech and cognitive abilities and he dropped out of university, never to return.
Eduard’s care fell to Marić, who supported him until her death in 1948. After that, a family friend named Carl Seelig took over Eduard’s care. Though Albert continued to support his son financially, he ultimately broke off contact with Eduard. Seelig tried to encourage Albert to reestablish ties with Eduard, but Albert confessed that he couldn’t do it.
Albert Einstein CollectionEduard Einstein on his 45th birthday. Sadly, the treatments for his schizophrenia negatively impacted his speech and cognitive abilities.
“There is something blocking me that I am unable to analyze fully,” Albert wrote to Seelig. “I believe I would be arousing painful feelings of various kinds to him if I made an appearance in whatever form.”
Albert Einstein died in 1955, having never spoken to his son Eduard again. Eduard spent the rest of his life in the psychiatric clinic Burghölzli in Zurich, where he died of a stroke a decade later at the age of 55.
After reading about the sad story of Eduard Einstein, Albert Einstein’s youngest son, learn more about Eduard Einstein’s famous father with these famous Albert Einstein quotes. Then, see what Einstein’s desk looked like the day he died.
