My Great Aunt Franka, Albert Einstein, and The New Fatherland League

I have been meaning for sometime to start collecting links on the Internet to my great aunt, but for now, I am deviating from my intentions, and wandering about something I just found during some random searching, which, of course, has set me both wondering again, and wandering some more.

My first "finding" was a "This Date in History" for November 14, from History.com about the launch of the Bund Neues Vaterland--"the New Fatherland League."  In particular, the second paragraph:

First and foremost, the league argued, World War I, which had begun the previous August, should end promptly in favor of “a just peace without annexations.” Secondly, an international organization should be established in order to prevent future wars. According to Dr. Franziska Baumgartner-Tramer, who attended some of the league’s meetings, Einstein spoke “with great pessimism about the future of human relations….I managed to get to him on one occasion, when I was depressed by the news of one German victory after another and the resultant intolerable arrogance and gloating of the people of Berlin. ‘What will happen, Herr Professor?’ I asked anxiously. Einstein looked at me, raised his right fist, and replied ‘This will govern!'”

Unsourced, unattributed, and my aunt's last name misspelled. Also, I had never heard any story that she had any connections with Albert Einstein. I asked my mother and while she could acknowledge remembering something about this, she had no more information.


A bit more Googling (searching for some of the exact phrasing in the paragraph) showed me that this date in history has been copied quite a few times into other sites. It also led me to the source of the paragraph--all a direct quote from Martin Gilbert's "The First World War: A Complete History" (Henry Holt & Co., 1994)--except that in the original, "This" in Einstein's words was underlined for emphasis.

So, unfortunately, I stalled on any further understanding of where this came from. While one can find places to browse Gilbert's book online, I did the old-fashioned thing and checked it out from the public library, and his book has no footnotes. Plus, as he states, in his bibliography, he has "listed only books whose factual and documentary material has been of significance during the preparation" of his book, and merely acknowledges the "several hundred, perhaps several thousand pages written by others" for every page that he himself has written. Thus, the search for this page must go on.

The New Fatherland League

So, I did detour to try to understand something about the New Fatherhand League. The English Wikipedia has no article on it, and is just mentioned in a stub article on the German League for Human Rights, stating that it was founded on 16 November 1914 as the pacifist group New Fatherland League and that, among its members was Albert Einstein, citing Walter Isaacson's magisterial "Einstein: His Life and Universe." 

I own Isaacson's book, so it was easy to look there (offline!). He has a few passages on the League (none mentioning Aunt Franka):

Einstein also became an early member of the liberal and cautiously pacifist New Fatherland League, a club that pushed for an early peace In the establishment of a federal structure in Europe to avoid future conflicts. It published a pamphlet titled "The Creation of the United States of Europe," and it helped get pacifist literature into prisons and other places. Elsa [Einstein, his cousin, and later his wife] went with Einstein to some of the Monday evening meetings until the group was banned in early 1916. [pp. 207-208]

[On November 13, 1918,] Einstein then went down the street to a mass meeting of the revived New Fatherland League, where he delivered a two-page speech that he had carried with him to his confrontation with the students. Calling himself "an old-time believer in democracy," he again made clear that his socialist sentiments did not make him sympathetic to Soviet-style controls. "All true democrats must stand guard lest the old class tyranny of the Right be replaced by a new class tyranny of the Left," he said. [p. 242]

Isaacson cites several sources each of these paragraphs (unlike Gilbert, he has no problem making acknowledgements). The most promising is the collection of Einstein's writings on peace: Einstein on peace; edited by Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden (Simon and Schuster, 1960), so I have triggered an Interlibrary loan request for this. [I am not up to trying to navigate the German edition of Einstein's collected papers!]

Einstein on Peace:

So from the print edition: 

Evidence that Einstein occasionally took the floor at these meetings also appears in the account of a Swiss woman student who had attended Einstein's first lecture at the Institute of Technology in Zurich: 9

	At the outbreak of the First World War I happened to be in Berlin, where a committee had been organized to aid foreigners in need. There was a great deal to be done, and I soon became a kind of "maid of all work." Einstein's name was a very familiar one, for his eldest stepdaughter frequently came to the office with requests from him. He helped whomever he could, to the limit of his ability. Some of his requests caused me a good deal of trouble and called for considerable ingenuity, such as the procurement of forbidden pacifist literature for his like-minded friend, the biologist Professor Nicolai. Einstein seemed to make an almost gleeful game of circumventing the authorities. He chortled every time he learned that we had succeeded in smuggling letters or books into a prison. But I was not always amused at his demands, which could be fulfilled only at the expense of great vigilance and dissimulation. He ignored these difficulties. He seemed to feel there could be no insurmountable obstacles if the will to help was strong enough. At the time, frankly, I thought this rather inconsiderate. for the risks were considerable and I myself had to answer repeatedly to a court-martial and was in danger of imprisonment. It was only much later that I was able to accept Einstein's view that no sacrifice is too great for those in need. I met him personally at this time in a private socio-political club [probably the Bund Neues Vaterland), where many pacifist writers, scholars and politicians gathered every Monday night.... I was permitted to sit in a corner and listen. Einstein occasionally attended. When he spoke, it was always with great pessimism about the future of human relations. It was interesting to see how the celebrities crowded about him, while he always had an eye for the common man. I managed to get to him on one occasion, when I was depressed by the news of one German victory after another and the resultant intolerable arrogance and gloating of the people of Berlin. "What will happen, Herr Professor?" I asked anxiously. Einstein looked at me, raised his right fist, and replied; "This will govern!"

9. The account of Einstein's early wartime activities was provided by Dr. Franziska Baumgartner-Tramer of Berne, Switzerland. Portions of it were published by her in the Berne newspaper Der Bund, July 10, 1955.  

Links to explore about the New Fatherland League:

1. German Wikipedia article
2. Was will der Bund "Neues Vaterland?"

Letter from Uncle Tramer

One other connection I have found, but without a lot of meat to it, is that the Bern archives of Franka's husband, my great uncle Moritz Tramer, includes the following letter from Tramer to Einstein, in response to a request from May 22, 1933 (not available) for some leads for a Miss Juliusberger (the daughter of an old friend of Einstein's). My guess is that Einstein would only have asked Tramer because of his connection to Franka?

May 31, 1933.

Prof. Albert Einstein Brussels

Dear Mister Professor,

If I'm not replying to your esteemed letter of April 22nd until today, it's because I wanted to see first what could be done for Miss Juliusberger.

A paid position is not possible under the current settlement regulations, only an unpaid position with a vacant post.

I myself do not have such a position to offer. Inquiries I made of various ladies who came into question; led to the following: Miss Juliusberger should contact Mr Fritz Nordmann, Zurich, citing Miss Selma Maier in Zurich, who can help her find a suitable position.

I very much regret not being able to do more, but you will be well aware that the situation in Switzerland is also difficult.

With excellent appreciation