During the life of Albert Einstein, those who did not know him personally believed that the physicist was only passionate about science and led a fine lifestyle.
However, the author of the famous theory of relativity believed that marriage is contrary to human nature. The concept of "loyalty" did not exist for him at all. He slept with his wife's daughter, seduced the spouses of his colleagues, not recognizing any moral standards.
Mileva Maric failed in height. Yes, and the face did not come out. Plus, she was limping. What did he see in her? Einstein's friends were perplexed. And they are quite understandable: after all, 24-year-old Albert was just a handsome man. And he never looked for women! His next love was the one that was nearby. In the polytechnic school where the genius studied, except for Mileva, there were no girls. So he took as his wife the one that turned up under his arm. In addition, this Serbian was well versed in mathematics.
He lived with Mileva for several years before the official marriage, but the poor thing already had to share it with other women. One of them is Marie Winteler, the daughter of a teacher of ancient Greek and history at the cantonal school of Aarau, where Albert studied in 1895. Starting to live with Mileva, Einstein continued to give his things to Marie's laundry - out of habit. The physicist wrote passionate poems to each of his ladies of the heart. So he did until old age - he began the conquest of women's hearts with a lyrical dedication.
Marich gave birth to a scientist's daughter and two sons - Eduard and Hans Albert. Einstein was a good father to them, but this did not stop him from divorcing her after 16 years of marriage. Mileva filed for divorce - unable to withstand the constant betrayals of her husband. He did not miss a single woman who happened to be nearby.
The outstanding physicist loved to embarrass the servants by not wrapping his dressing gown when leaving the bath. He sunbathed in the courtyard of his own house without panties, covering only his shoulders. And when he saw a lady passing by, he jumped up and, not at all embarrassed by nudity, began to greet.
Well, how was Mileva to endure such a rake? In addition, he also beat her.
Einstein's second wife is his cousin Elsa Lowenthal. She was three years older than Albert and had two daughters from her first marriage - the elder Ilza and the younger Margot. But first, the physicist planned to marry not his cousin Elsa, but her eldest daughter Ilse. He had an irresistible sexual attraction to her.
A letter from Ilza to a friend has been preserved, where she tells how once Albert, already being a stepfather, confessed his love to her, asked her to marry him and promised to break off his relationship with her mother. But Ilsa refused.
At first, Elsa tried to keep her husband from cheating. She even hid money from him so that he could not take his mistresses to restaurants. But the ladies themselves paid for it! Einstein's theory of relativity caused a worldwide sensation. Fame added to his attraction. All women at the sight of Einstein had an inexplicable passion for science, and each of them asked him to present his theory to her personally.
Realizing that nothing could be done, Elsa resigned herself. He brought his mistresses home for the night, and she went to bed alone without scandals. But more than that - in the morning she also served him coffee. She left him at a country house in Caputa, supposedly going shopping so that he could enjoy his freedom. The scientist arranged one of his mistresses as a secretary at the University of Berlin. Elsa gave her husband an ultimatum: if he cannot do without this passion, then she will allow him to satisfy the "dog instinct" twice a week. But in return she demanded: let the mistress be the only one. But where is it!
It was rumored that Albert slept not only in the bed of Elsa and Ilsa, but also of Margo, his wife's youngest daughter. After the death of her older sister and mother, and the latter died in 1936, she divorced her husband and lived under the same roof with Einstein. She accompanied him on foreign tours and attended dinner parties. Although it is known that at the same time, Albert often satisfied his sexual desire by visiting prostitutes.
“Recently I had a dream that Margo got married,” Einstein wrote to Elsa. “I love her as much as if she were my own daughter, maybe even more.”
In 1935, the administration of Princeton University, where Einstein worked, commissioned a relief portrait of him from the Soviet sculptor Sergei Konenkov. At that time he lived in New York with his wife Margarita. By the way, Elsa was still alive. The affair with Margarita lasted ten years, until 1945, when Einstein was 66 years old, and Konenkova was 51. Albert had no idea that his beloved was performing a special task. In Moscow, they were satisfied with her work.
There is a version that through Einstein it was possible to influence Robert Oppenheimer and other "secret" physicists. And yet, real passion burned between Margarita and Albert. It faded away only after Konenkova returned to the USSR.
Einstein's last love was Joanna Fantova. Until the age of 76, until his death, he maintained a close relationship with her.
Genius - about ladies
“Compared to these women, any of us is a king, because we stand on our own two feet, not expecting something from the outside, and these women are always waiting for someone to come to satisfy all their needs,” Einstein said.
According to physicist biographer Janos Plesch, “Einstein loved women, and the dirtier, the more primitive they were, the more they smelled of sweat, the more he liked them. Pleshch recalled how once a genius, already at an age, was extremely excited when he saw a young girl kneading dough.
What is the secret of his attractiveness?
Women are always interested in esoteric and astral teachings. And they perceived the theory of relativity as a natural continuation of the supernatural doctrine. Einstein was taken for a prophet and magician.
Reference
Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879.
Hans Albert Einstein is the second son of one of the greatest physicists of the first half of the twentieth century - Albert Einstein, who radically changed the ideas of science about the Universe.
Father
Albert Einstein was born on 03/15/1879 into a Jewish family living at that time in the small German town of Ulm. He was owned by a company that stuffed pillows and mattresses with feathers. Albert's mother was the daughter of a well-known maize merchant in the town.
In 1880 the Einstein family moved to Munich. Here, Albert's father, together with his brother Jacob, opened a small business selling electrical equipment. In Munich, Albert's sister Maria was born. In the same city, the boy first went to school. It was attended by children of Catholics. According to the memoirs of the scientist, already at the age of 13 he moved away from religious beliefs and joined science. Everything that was said in the Bible ceased to seem plausible to him. He began to take shape as a person who was skeptical of everything, including authorities.
The most vivid childhood impressions that Albert had for the rest of his life were the compass and Euclid's work "Beginnings".
Mother insisted that the future Nobel laureate study music. Albert began to play the violin and became interested in it. The craving for music remained with him for life. Already in his mature years, while in the United States, the scientist even gave a concert to emigrants who came from Germany. He played a Mozart composition on the violin.
In 1894 the Einstein family moved to the small town of Pavia near Milan. It also moved its own production from Munich.
In 1895, the future scientist arrived in Switzerland. In this country, he wanted to go to college to become a teacher of physics. However, Albert failed his botany tests. Then the young genius went to study at the school of the town of Arau. Here he became interested in studying the electromagnetic theory of Maxwell.
The next place of study for the future Nobel laureate was the Zurich Polytechnic. Here he met the mathematician Grossman. Here he met his future wife - Mileva Marich.
Albert Einstein received a diploma from the Polytechnic in 1900, but he could not find a permanent job in his specialty. In order to survive and feed his family, the future Nobel laureate had to become an employee of the patent agency. In his spare time, he never ceased to engage in scientific problems.
In 1903 Albert's father died. In the same year, he legalized his relationship with Mileva Marich.
The coming to power of Hitler forced Albert to leave Germany. He moved to America, where he became a professor. He died in 1955. The cause of his death was an aortic aneurysm.
Mother
Mileva Marić is the first wife of Albert Einstein. She was a Serbian by nationality, born in Hungary. This is the only girl who studied at the Zurich Polytechnic School.
Mileva Marić was three and a half years older than Albert Einstein. However, this did not stop their love. Soon after they met, the young began to live in a civil marriage. For the people around them, such an alliance seemed somewhat strange. After all, the young Einstein was distinguished by amazing charm, attractiveness and ease of communication. In contrast, Mileva was ugly. Her short figure was spoiled by her stoop and lameness, which arose after suffering bone tuberculosis. But at the same time, Mileva was a very talented mathematician, possessed a deep intellect. And the absence in her character of excessive respect for various authorities finally brought her closer to Albert.
In addition, the young people both loved music and good food. It is also important that Mileva was a great hostess. It is quite possible that Einstein subconsciously strove for a woman who could relieve him of the burden of everyday problems. Indeed, according to the recollections of friends, as a student, Albert was unable to concentrate on everyday worries. Mileva, unlike him, was a practical person, which reminded Einstein of his mother.
The wedding of Hans' parents
Einstein did not hide his civil marriage. His parents also knew about him. But they did not give their son permission to marry. Albert's mother considered Mileva repulsive and ugly, and his father wanted to see a girl of only Jewish nationality as his daughter-in-law.
Everything changed after Hermann Einstein became terminally ill. Saying goodbye to his son, he nevertheless blessed his marriage. And on January 6, 1903, the young became husband and wife, legalizing their relationship in Bern.
First child
Hans Albert Einstein never saw his sister. She was born in 1902, when her parents were in a civil marriage. An illegitimate child could spoil the scientific career of a young genius. And so, being pregnant, Mileva went to her parents. Here, in Hungary, she gave birth to a daughter Lieserl. In order for no one to know about the illegitimate baby, the girl was immediately given up for foster parents.
Mileva pledged never to look for her daughter and not to meet her. According to some reports, the girl did not live long. While still an infant, she fell ill with transient scarlet fever and died. Einstein never saw his daughter and never told anyone about her.
son of a genius
05/14/1904 born Hans the boy began in Bern. His happy father rushed through the streets of this city, who, having learned about the birth of his son, ran as fast as he could to kiss his wife and baby.
Einstein's first son was very loved by his parents. According to the recollections of the friends of the great scientist, they often saw Albert, who in one hand held sheets of work written up and down, and the other rocked a baby stroller with a sleeping baby.
The fate of the second son
In 1910, another boy, Eduard, was born in the Einstein family. He had excellent musical abilities. However, the second son of the scientist was very painful, and at the age of 20, after suffering a nervous breakdown, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. At one time, Eduard Einstein was under the supervision of his mother. But a little later, Mileva placed her son in a psychiatric hospital.
Albert Einstein, who by this time had already divorced his wife, was not at all surprised by the illness of his son, who was affectionately called "Tetel" or "Tete". The fact is that Mileva's sister suffered from schizophrenia. Eduard Einstein also often behaved in a way that clearly indicated the presence of the disease in him. However, the eldest son of the great scientist had a somewhat different opinion. Hans Albert Einstein believed that the final destruction of his brother's psyche was due to the treatment using electric shock, which was popular at that time.
Albert Einstein came to live in the US a year after his Aunt was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. And since then communication with sons was limited only by letters. Eduard's father sent rare, but very sincere messages. In one of them, for example, the scientist compared people with the sea, saying that they can be both friendly and welcoming, as well as complex and stormy.
After the death of his mother in 1948, Eduard Einstein was in a village near Zurich, where he was taken care of by Dr. Heinrich Meili. Tete lived with a local pastor and gradually began to make contacts with people. Eduard even started earning money by writing addresses on envelopes on the instructions of one of the local companies.
However, after some time, the guardian moved his ward to the widow of a lawyer who lived on the outskirts of Zurich. This worsened Edward's mental state. In 1954, the great scientist refused all contact with his youngest son. He explained his act by the certainty that the correspondence was painful for both.
In 1965 Eduard died. According to one of the researchers, he was killed by love for his neighbor, which turned out to be an unbearable burden for him.
Divorce of parents
Since 1912, relations between Albert and Mileva have become more than tense. The reason for this was the scientist's passion for his cousin Elsa Leventhal. In 1914, Marich left for Zurich with her children, having received from her husband an obligation certified by a notary on the annual maintenance of the family in the amount of 5600 Reichsmarks. The couple filed an official divorce on February 14, 1919.
An agreement was reached between Einstein and Marić. It provided for the transfer to the ex-wife of the monetary part of the Nobel Prize expected by scientists. The financial resources that Albert Einstein would have received were to be taken into trust by the children. Marić was left to receive interest.
Life after parents' divorce
In June 1919 the scientist arrived in Zurich, where he spent time with his children. The son of Albert Einstein, Hans, went with his father on a sailing trip on Lake Constance, and with Edward, the great naturalist visited Arosa, where the boy was treated at a sanatorium.
Mileva and her sons lived in extremely cramped circumstances. However, in 1922, after receiving the Nobel Prize for her ex-husband, she acquired three houses in Zurich. Marich moved to one of them to live with her sons, and the other two served as long-term investments. However, everything changed after Edward was given a terrible diagnosis. Mileva had to sell two houses. All funds went to pay for the treatment of his son at the University Hospital of Zurich. In order not to lose the main house, the woman transferred the rights to his possession to her ex-husband, who fulfilled his obligations to transfer funds for the maintenance of the former family.
Career of the eldest son of the great scientist
Hans Albert Einstein decided to follow in the footsteps of his parents. To do this, he received a diploma from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, located in Zurich, where he graduated in 1926. Then for four years he worked as a designer on a bridge project under construction in Dortmund. Already in 1936, Hans Albert defended his doctoral dissertation, receiving an academic degree for it.
Emigration
After Albert Einstein fled Germany to escape the anti-Semitic threat, he advised his eldest son to do the same. In 1938, Hans Albert Einstein left Switzerland and moved to South Carolina, to the city of Greenville. Here he worked as a hydraulic engineer for the US Department of Agriculture. The scope of his duties included the study of sediments. Work in the Department lasted from 1938 to 1943.
Since 1947, Hans Albert Einstein has been an associate professor at the University of California in hydraulics at Berkeley. But his career didn't end there. A little later he became an honorary professor at the same university.
Being a highly qualified specialist in his field, Hans Albert traveled a lot around the world. He constantly took part in hydrotechnical conferences of various levels even after 1971, when he had already retired. At one of these symposiums in Woodshole (Massachusetts) Hans Albert Einstein was in 1973, where on July 26 he died of a heart attack.
Awards
For his work in the field of hydraulics and the study of bottom sediments, Hans Albert was awarded:
Guggenheim Fellowships (in 1953);
Scientific awards of the American Society of Civil Engineers (in 1959 and in 1960);
Certificate of Appreciation from the US Department of Agriculture (in 1971);
Award from the University of California (in 1971);
Certificate of Recognition for more than 20 years of excellent and dedicated service from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (in 1972).
Personal life
After the divorce of his parents, Hans Albert's relationship with his father became more than strained. The son accused the great scientist of putting Mileva in an extremely difficult financial situation, giving her the use of only a percentage of the Nobel Prize received.
Disagreements between son and father became even deeper after the great scientist spoke out against the marriage of Hans to Fred Knecht. The girl was three years older than the guy. In addition, according to Einstein Sr., there was nothing attractive about her. The scientist cursed such an alliance, accusing Frida of deceit and persecution of his son. After unsuccessful attempts to quarrel the young, Albert Einstein began to beg them not to have children, so as not to complicate, in his opinion, the inevitable divorce.
Reconciliation between father and son did not come even during their life in the United States. They were always apart. After the death of the great scientist, his son practically did not inherit anything.
Despite a quarrel with his father, Hans Albert Einstein nevertheless married Frieda Knecht in 1927. His personal life was successful. With this woman he was together until her death in 1958. Having become a widower, he married again. His wife was Elizabeth Roboz.
Hans and Frida had three children of their own. However, only one of them survived to adulthood. Bernhard Caesar Einstein (10/07/1930 - 30/09/2008) was an engineer-physicist. The couple also had an adopted daughter, Evelyn. She passed away in 2011 in extreme poverty.
Hans Albert was an avid sailor. Often with colleagues and his family, he went on excursions to San Francisco. The son of the great scientist was fond of photography. He also read his scientific lectures using a slide show created by himself. Just like his father, Hans loved music and knew how to play the flute and the piano. This is mentioned on his tombstone.
The great scientist Albert Einstein, thanks to whom science moved by leaps and bounds, needs no introduction. This name is known to everyone from the school course. However, the school curriculum, of course, does not intrude into the details of Albert Einstein's personal life. As well as the fact that the great scientist did not recognize many of the laws of civilization, he preferred to live according to his own laws, communicating exclusively with those with whom he was really interested. Children of Albert Einstein never felt a lack of fatherly love, although he managed to work with children, thinking about something completely different.
In the photo: Albert Einstein and his first wife Mileva Marich with their son Hans Albert
The only woman who gave the scientist heirs was his first wife, Mileva Marich. Despite the fact that the parents of the luminary of science opposed this marriage, he nevertheless officially registered it in 1903. There is an opinion that at the time of registration the couple already had a daughter Lieserl. However, in official biographies, she is practically not mentioned anywhere. Some suggest that she died of scarlet fever, others that the girl was raised first by the parents of Albert Einstein's wife, and then by foster parents. Taking into account the reverent attitude of the scientist to the sons who appeared later, the variant with scarlet fever seems more plausible. Literally a year after the wedding, the eldest son of the couple, Hans Albert, was born. He was a professor at the University of California teaching hydraulic engineering. The youngest son, Eduard, who was born six years after his brother, was incredibly talented in music and languages. On account of his teenage period alone, 300 poems. Unfortunately, at the age of 21, Albert Einstein's youngest son was diagnosed with schizophrenia, so he spent the rest of his life in a hospital.
In the photo - Albert Einstein with his second wife Elsa and adopted daughter Margo
Despite the fact that in 1919 the scientist divorced his first wife, he never stopped relations with his sons, often spent holidays with them and corresponded with them. Since in the second marriage, Albert Einstein adopted two children of his wife from his first marriage - Ilza and Margo, then they can be counted among the heirs of the famous physicist. Moreover, judging by the correspondence of the scientist published almost 10 years ago, the youngest daughter was his obvious favorite. By the way, she became the person who handed over the papers of her father to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, one of the founders of which was her stepfather. The descendants of the pathologist who stole him tried to send the remains of Albert Einstein's brain to her.
The personality of Mileva Maric seemed to most of Einstein's biographers rather a modest shadow of her great husband - a kind of ideal and conflict-free, selfless wife of a genius who unquestioningly performs the "mathematical part of the work", that is, the most inconspicuous empirical share of creative research.
Einstein's future wife, Serbian Mileva Maric, was born on December 19, 1875 in the city of Titel in the north of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is necessary to note the unusual education that the girl received: her father did everything possible, including financially, to give his daughter the fullest and broadest possible education. Marich's native language was German, however, since childhood, her father read Serbian folk legends and poems to her, which she later learned on the piano. Her biographer ironically remarked: "The list of places where Mileva studied is reminiscent of Cook's guidebook with the designation of the paths that Milos pushed her in search of beauty." The girl herself fully justified all the expectations of her father, and for her high marks and exemplary behavior, her classmates nicknamed her "Our Saint."
Mileva is the first girl in Austria-Hungary who studied at the gymnasium
Her main area of interest was mathematics and physics - in these subjects at the final exams, "no one had better marks than her." However, Marich was also fluent in French and Greek, showed extraordinary ability to draw, besides, it was Marich who became the first girl in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who, thanks to her extraordinary talents, was allowed to study with the boys. Hoping for further university education and scientific fame, Marich moved to Switzerland, perhaps the most liberal country at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, which provided refuge to many disgraced politicians, writers and artists. Higher education in the country was famous not only for its quality of education, but also for the significantly fewer obstacles for women seeking to acquire serious academic knowledge.
Marich first chooses the Department of Psychiatry at the Medical Faculty of the University of Zurich, a field of study that was then gaining extreme popularity. However, after studying there for only one semester, the young talent moves to the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Zurich Polytechnic Institute. This higher technical institution had the status of an international class university that trained electrical engineers - the most sought-after technical specialists of that time. However, a diploma from this rather prestigious educational institution allowed the fairer sex only to teach in high school, which, in fact, Mileva Marich counted on, choosing the profession of a teacher. By the way, she was the only female student in her course and the fifth woman in the entire history of the institute (the first appeared in 1871 and arrived, by the way, from Moscow). Contemporaries who knew her in her student years describe Marich as a "sweet, shy, benevolent" girl, "unpretentious and modest." “She was limping,” but she “had a mind and soul,” in her student years she “knew how to cook perfectly and, out of economy, she sewed her own dresses.” However, it was here that she met the promising young physicist Albert Einstein.
In October 1897, Marich went to study at Heidelberg University in Germany, where she attended lectures on physics and mathematics as a free student. In April 1898 she returned to Zurich, where she began to study thoroughly differential and integral calculus, descriptive and projective geometry, mechanics, theoretical physics, applied physics, experimental physics and astronomy. Marich's scientific career was interrupted in 1901 when she became pregnant by Einstein. At the third month of pregnancy, she tried to pass the final exam, but her average score was extremely low - 2.5 out of 6 possible. Finding herself an unmarried woman, without any particular status, however, in a very interesting position, Marich decides to stop working on her thesis, which she planned to defend under the guidance of physics professor Heinrich Weber. Marić goes to her native Serbian Novi Sad, where, in all likelihood, in January 1902 she had a daughter named Lieserl (her fate is unknown).
Marić was Einstein's collaborator in writing the theory of relativity
Probably, Einstein's ardent passion for a very intellectually gifted girlfriend quickly passed, and was finally leveled by the circumstances of their short life together. Judging by the letters of the German physicist, Marich very quickly became his comrade-in-arms, however, Einstein's mother was worried when she realized the seriousness of her son's intentions towards the girl: “the fact that Mileva was not Jewish did not matter ... but Polina, apparently, shared the prejudice against Serbs characteristic of many Germans. The opinion that the Slavs are second-class people took root in Germany long before Hitler came to power. However, as early as 1903, Einstein reported in a letter to his best friend: "She knows how to take care of everything, cooks well and is in a good mood all the time." Biographers, speaking about the role of Mileva Maric in Einstein's life, wrote: "The twenty-seven-year-old wife could least of all serve as a model of the Swiss fairy of the hearth, the pinnacle of ambition of which is the battle with dust, moths, rubbish." Karl Zeling, according to Einstein, wrote that the Serbian was “a dreamer with a heavy, clumsy mind, and this often fettered her in life and study. However, it should be written in favor of Mileva that she bravely shared with Einstein the years of need and created for him to work, however, in a bohemian unsettled, but still relatively calm home.
The further period of the life of the spouses can be described as a struggle for divorce during the First World War. Einstein, shortly before the start of the bloodshed, becomes a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and moves to Berlin, where he is quite close to his cousin (from his mother's side) Elsa Leventhal - it is she who will later become the next wife of the great physicist. Although Einstein sent money to his family in Zurich from Berlin, they were sorely lacking, so Marich was forced to earn extra money by private lessons in mathematics and playing the piano. With the outbreak of war, Marich moved to a boarding house in Zurich with two children. Einstein wrote to her at the time: “I would gladly send you more money, but I myself have none left. I myself live more than modestly, almost like a beggar. That's the only way we can save something for our boys." Einstein sent her an allowance of 5600 Reichsmarks a year, which was a very small and very unstable amount, given the constantly rising wartime inflation rate.
Due to family circumstances, the son of Einstein and Marich fell ill with schizophrenia
In 1916, Einstein asked for a divorce in order to legitimize his relationship with Elsa Leventhal, however, Marich refused to release her husband from obligations, experiencing her situation extremely hard: in a few months she suffered a series of heart attacks. Einstein was obviously weary of his wife's illness, and in a letter to one of his Swiss friends, he makes it clear that if Mileva dies, he will not be too upset. However, the disease dragged on, improvements in health alternated with deterioration, and she often ended up in the hospital.
Einstein with his second wife, Elsa Löwenthal
In May 1918, Marich nevertheless agrees to a divorce from Einstein, however, even here it was not without the delicate topic of resolving financial issues of providing for his ex-wife and children. The physicist hoped to receive the Nobel Prize, the amount of which was 180,000 Swiss marks. It was this amount that was offered by Marich as a "compensation" (she received the money in 1922, after the prize was awarded).
In the late 1930s, Eduard and Eduard, Einstein and Marich's son, suffered a nervous breakdown, and during a medical examination, schizophrenia was diagnosed, and the family was forced to sell their last property to cover treatment at a psychiatric clinic at the University of Zurich. Mileva Maric herself died at the age of 73 on August 4, 1948 in Zurich and was buried in the Nordheim cemetery. In a strange twist of fate, immediately after the death of Mileva Marich, Einstein learns that he himself is seriously ill.
Einstein met his first wife, Mileva Marich, in 1896 in Zurich, where they studied together at the Polytechnic Institute. Albert was 17 years old, Mileva was 21. She was from a Catholic Serbian family living in Hungary. Albert's parents were against their relationship, and when they learned that their son was going to marry, they made a scandal: in Jewish families it was not customary to be related to Christians.
Albert suffered. “... I have lost my mind, I am dying, I am burning with love and desire,” he wrote to his beloved in 1901. “The pillow you sleep on is a hundred times happier than my heart!” You come to me at night, but, unfortunately, only in a dream…”.
They had to forget about the wedding for a while, but the lovers continued to meet and soon began to live together. In January 1902, Mileva gave birth to their first child, a daughter, Lieserl. The appearance of the child puzzled Albert. He was not ready for fatherhood. After graduating from the institute, Einstein received a diploma as a teacher of physics and mathematics, but he was not left to teach at the institute. I had to earn money by private lessons. The lovers barely made ends meet. As a result, Albert decided to give the baby up for adoption to a childless family of Mileva's relatives. She agreed, after which her parents demanded that their daughter immediately leave such a lover. Mileva did not listen: she loved Albert and dreamed of a wedding. But in response to her talk about marriage, Albert unexpectedly set strange conditions:
“First, you will take care of my clothes and bed; secondly, you will bring me food to my office three times a day; thirdly, you will renounce all personal contact with me, except for those necessary for the observance of decorum in society; fourthly, whenever I ask you about it, you will leave my bedroom and study; fifthly, without a word of protest, you will perform scientific calculations for me; sixth, you will not expect any manifestations of feelings from me.
Mileva agreed. In June 1902, Einstein got a job at the Berne Federal Patent Office, and six months later they were married. On May 14, 1904, their son Hans Albert was born, in 1910 - Eduard.
The work of a civil servant gave a lot of free time to conduct their own research. In 1905, he published several scientific papers in which he described his sensational discoveries in the field of physics, in particular, the "photoelectric effect", which provided a theoretical justification for the future invention of television, and the "special theory of relativity".
Einstein defends his dissertation, becomes a doctor of science, he is invited to teach at the universities of Zurich and Prague. All this time, Mileva was Albert's faithful assistant and tried to fulfill all his whims. However, it was difficult to get along with a brilliant husband. For Einstein, physics always came first. He spent months sitting in his office doing calculations. When something did not work out, he played the violin: the music inspired the scientist. At night, his concerts prevented his wife and children from sleeping.
In 1914, on the recommendation of the famous German physicist Max Planck, Einstein was appointed professor at the Prussian Academy in Berlin. Mileva did not go with him. Albert didn't insist.
In 1916, in the midst of World War I, he created the "general theory of relativity." His ideas completely destroyed the generally accepted ideas about the laws of the universe, which were based on the laws of mechanics of Isaac Newton. The concept of relativity proved that space and time are not absolute, as previously thought, but are influenced by the relationship of motion and mass. When his hypothesis was confirmed by astronomers, Einstein became a world celebrity.
However, intensive work and poor nutrition in warring Germany soon made themselves felt: the scientist's health was undermined. Einstein fell seriously ill: a stomach ulcer opened, then jaundice was added. The patient was cared for by his cousin Elsa Einstein-Loventhal. She was three years older, divorced, had two daughters. Albert and Elsa have been friends since childhood, during the illness of the scientist they became close. After recovering, Albert wrote to Mileva asking for a divorce. The wife refused. Then Einstein gave her an ultimatum:
“I promise you that when I receive the Nobel Prize, I will give you all the money. You have to agree to a divorce, otherwise you won't get anything at all."
Mileva had two small children in her arms. Edgar suffered from dementia since childhood and needed treatment. There was no exit. As soon as Mileva agreed to a divorce, Albert and Elsa got married. Albert adopted her daughters and was on excellent terms with them.
The scientist kept his promise. In 1922, he received the Nobel Prize and gave all 32 thousand dollars (a huge sum at that time) to his ex-wife. Mileva was very upset by the divorce, fell into depression, and was treated by psychoanalysts. She died in 1948 at the age of 73.
In 1933, when Hitler came to power, Einstein turned down a professorship in Berlin and accepted an offer from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Soon, the directorate of the Institute decided to order a sculptural portrait of their great colleague from the famous Russian sculptor Sergei Konenkov, who then lived in the United States. In the master's house, Albert met his 35-year-old wife Margarita. They became friends, and after several meetings became close. In 1936, when Elsa Einstein died of heart disease, they became lovers.
Margarita worked for the NKVD and was supposed to transmit information about the American nuclear project to the USSR. Through Einstein, she met Robert Oppenheimer, the "father" of the American atomic bomb, and other nuclear scientists. Albert knew about her "work" and felt sorry for his mistress, called the USSR "her hardened Motherland." He himself did not take part in the creation of the bomb, and therefore could not tell Margarita anything about this. The same information that “agent Lucas” transmitted to the Kremlin has not been declassified to this day.
For three years the lovers met secretly. Einstein was decidedly not satisfied with this state of affairs, and one day he decided on a forgery. Albert wrote a long letter to Sergei Konenkov saying that his wife was seriously ill. Attached to the letter were certificates that Einstein took from his doctor friends. They strongly advised Konenkova to receive medical treatment at the Saranac Lake resort, which was Albert's favorite vacation spot. Worried about the state of his wife, Sergei sent her to be treated. Einstein joined soon after.
The room where the lovers spent time, they called the "nest". Things that were given to each other were considered common and dubbed "Almar", from the first letters of the names: Albert and Margarita. Margarita also washed the scientist's famous hair. After her departure, Einstein did it himself with great difficulty.
Soon, her husband found out about their relationship, and Margarita made a huge scandal. But Konenkova continued to meet with Albert.
In 1945, the Konenkovs received an order from Moscow to return to their homeland. Margarita went to see Einstein for the last time and stayed with him for two weeks. In parting, Albert dedicated a sonnet to her and presented her with his gold watch. The correspondence of former lovers continued for another ten years, until Einstein's death in 1955.
Margarita survived Albert by 25 years. After the death of her husband, she was left completely alone. She didn't go anywhere, she avoided people. Her housekeeper openly mocked the infirm mistress, fed herring with black bread, spoiled things and stole jewelry. In 1980, Margarita died of exhaustion, simply refusing to eat.
