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Albert Einstein is one of the most famous scientists in history and his
name has become a household term synonymous with genius. But although
almost everyone has heard of the physicist and his remarkable work, few
know about the tragic fate of his son, Eduard Einstein.
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Eduard Einstein’s Early Life
Eduard Einstein’s mother, Milea Maric, was Albert’s first wife. Maric
was the only female student who studied physics at the Zurich
Polytechnic Institute where Einstein also attended in 1896. He soon
became smitten with her, despite the fact that she was four years older
than he.
The two married in 1903 and their union produced three children, Lieserl
(who vanished from history and may have been given up for adoption),
Hans Albert, and Eduard, the youngest, who was born in Zurich,
Switzerland on July 28, 1910. Einstein separated from Maric in 1914 but
kept up a lively correspondence with his sons.
Although Maric would later lament that her famous husband had put his
science before his family, Hans Albert recalled that when he and his
brother were young, “father would put aside his work and watch over us
for hours” while Maric “was busy around the house.”
Little Eduard Einstein was a sickly child from the start and his early
years were marked by bouts of illness that rendered him too feeble to
take family trips with the rest of the Einsteins.
Einstein despaired over his son even after he had abandoned the
household, writing fearfully in one 1917 letter to a colleague “My
little boy’s condition depresses me greatly. It is impossible that he
would become a fully developed person.”
The coldly scientific part of Einstein wondered if “it wouldn’t be
better for him if he could depart before coming to know life properly,”
but in the end, paternal love won out and the physicist vowed to do
whatever he could to help his sickly son, paying for and even
accompanying Eduard to various sanatoriums.
Eduard’s Mental Illness Worsens
As he grew older, Eduard (whom his father affectionately dubbed “tete,”
from the French “petit”) developed an interest in poetry, piano-playing,
and, eventually, psychiatry.
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He worshiped Sigmund Freud and followed in his father’s footsteps by
enrolling in Zurich University, although he intended to become a
psychiatrist. By this time, Albert’s fame had been solidly established.
In one telling bit of self-analysis, Eduard Einstein wrote, “it’s at
times difficult to have such an important father because one feels so
unimportant.”
The aspiring psychiatrist followed his father’s path once again when he
fell in love with an older woman at the university, a relationship that
also ended disastrously.
It appears to be around this time that Eduard’s mental health took a
severe turn for the worse. He was sent into a downward spiral that
culminated in a suicide attempt in 1930. Diagnosed with schizophrenia,
it has been speculated that the harsh treatments of the era worsened
rather than eased his condition, eventually to the point where it
impacted his speech and cognitive abilities.
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Eduard’s Family Emigrates To The United States
Without Him
Albert, for his part, believed his son’s condition was hereditary,
passed down from his mother’s side, although this scientific observation
did little to assuage his grief and guilt.
His second wife, Elsa, remarked that “this sorrow is eating up Albert.”
The physicist soon faced more than issues surrounding Eduard. By the
early 1930s, the Nazi Party had risen in Europe and after Hitler took
power in 1933, Einstein could not return to the Prussian Academy of
Sciences in Berlin, where he had been working since 1914.
Einstein may have been one of the world’s most famous scientists, but he
was also Jewish, a fact that his countrymen could not accept and forced
him to flee to the United States in 1933.
Although Albert had hoped his younger son would be able to join him in
America along with his older brother, Eduard Einstein’s continually
deteriorating mental condition prevented him from also being able to
seek refuge in the United States.
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Before he emigrated, Albert went to visit his son at the asylum where he
was being cared for one last time. Although Albert would keep up
correspondence and would continue to send money for his son’s care, the
two would not meet again.
As Eduard spent the remainder of his life in an asylum in Switzerland,
he was buried in Hönggerberg cemetery in Zurich when he died of a stroke
at age 55 in October 1965. He had spent over three decades of his life
in the psychiatric clinic of Burghölzli at the University of Zurich.
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