German Government Never Offered Any Indemnification to Einstein

The late Professor Albert Einstein never received any compensation or restitution for property taken from him by the Nazis a survey of competent sources here and in Bonn disclosed today. As a long-time university professor and director of the governmental Kaiser Wilhelm institute, he would have been entitled to a substantial civil service pension, but he apparently disdained to ask for it and no move was made by the German Government to offer it to him.

Of the many claims he could have filed under provisions of the Indemnification Law, his attorney registered only one, a considerable time ago. So far, however, Dr. Einstein had received not one penny. Some years ago, his attorney also applied on his behalf to West Berlin authorities for reimbursement for the bank accounts, treasury certificates and stocks belonging to him and his wife, Elsa. that had been confiscated by the Nazi regime. They originally amounted to about 55,000 Reichsmarks, but because of the devaluation to which bank accounts and treasury certificates have been subjected, these assets are now believed to be worth little more than $1,000.

This application was at first rejected because the head office of the bank where he maintained his accounts and its vaults were located in East Berlin. Some months ago the Western powers put a stop to this subterfuge insofar as former residents of West Berlin and West Germany were concerned. The scientist’s attorney then renewed the claim, but, in the words of a spokesman for the West Berlin Indemnification Agency “It is still being processed and investigated” with no decision expected before the end of this year, at the earliest.

The former country home of the great scholar at Caputh, in the lake district near Berlin, is now in the Soviet zone. In letters to a friend here, Dr. Einstein expressed the hope that he might get the property back, because he had spent many happy years there. However, no restitution legislation exists in East Germany and no Jew not actually on the spot has received back property stolen from him by the Nazis. Not wishing preferential treatment, Dr. Einstein never approached German Communist authorities. Repeated efforts in the past few years by German organizations to make Dr. Einstein an honorary member and by municipalities to bestow the freedom of their cities on him were rejected by the scientist, politely, but unequivocally.