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In 1927, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist named Philipp Lenard wrote a letter to a colleague complaining about the recent results of Albert Einstein and pondering that academia and the sciences were becoming dominated by Jews.
Lenard, an early supporter of the German Nazi party, observed that a prestigious post for Einstein was undeserved; then he wondered if non-Jews would soon be wiped out altogether.
The original letter, written in German, is being auctioned by Nate D. Sanders Auctions in Los Angeles. The offer for the article, which also includes an English translation, starts at $ 16,000 US, according to the auction list.
Related: 8 ways you can see Einstein’s theory of relativity in real life
In the letter – written to physicist Wilhelm Wien, another Nobel laureate – Lenard lamented the “action of Einstein”, referring to Einstein’s recent acceptance into the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich, the auction listing says. The “superficial intellectuality” of the academy that elevated Einstein was an “unexpected testimony of his domination by the Jews,” wrote Lenard.
He went on to wonder how his letter might be viewed in the future, “provided that non-Jewish people are still alive then,” he said.
But when Adolf Hitler gained power in Germany, it wasn’t non-Jews who were threatened with imminent annihilation. From the start of World War II, the Nazis began systematically killing Jews across Europe, according to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. By the end of the war, some 6 million Jews – more than two-thirds of European Jews – had been killed.
Lenard, born in Hungary in 1862, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1905 for his work on cathode rays, leading to the discovery of electrons and X-ray, second The Nobel Foundation. His experiments also explored the photoelectric effect – the ejection of electrons when light hits metal – and “he never forgave Einstein” for gaining greater recognition regarding this phenomenon, notes the Nobel Foundation in a biography.
But Lenard’s enmity toward Einstein also reflected deeply rooted anti-Semitic beliefs. Lenard was such a devoted member of Hitler’s National Socialist Party that Nazi officials named him Head of Aryan Physics, according to the biography.
By 1927, Einstein was already well aware that dangerous anti-Semitic sentiments were overtaking common decency in Germany, along with a rising tide of fanatical nationalism and fascism. Five years earlier, in 1922, Einstein wrote a note to his sister Maja while hiding; he had fled Berlin after right-wing extremists killed his friend Walther Rathenau, a Jewish colleague and German foreign minister.
“I am doing quite well, despite all the anti-Semites among my German colleagues,” Einstein wrote. “Dark times are brewing here from an economic and political point of view”.
Auction for Lenard’s letter ends today (Oct 29) at 5pm Pacific Time (8pm ET).
Originally published on LiveScience.
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