The Prussian Academy of Sciences yesterday received a complete statement from Professor Albert Einstein denying his participation in any “atrocity” campaign and correcting the exaggerations which he claims were made in the press. It was on the basis of press reports of what he had said that the Academy voted to exclude Professor Einstein. Professor Einstein’s statement follows:
“I have been informed from absolutely reliable reports that the Prussian Academy in official statements has talked of ‘the participation of Albert Einstein in atrocity propaganda in America and France.’
“I herewith declare I have never participated in any atrocity propaganda and must add that I have not seen anywhere anything of such agitation. The people were on the whole satisfied to report and comment upon official pronouncements and decrees of responsible governmental persons in Germany and the program concerning the economic destruction of German Jews.
“The statements I gave to the press were in regard to the fact that I would resign my position in the Academy as well as my Prussian citizenship. I was motivated in this, as I stated, in that I did not want to remain in a State where individuals were not conceded equal rights before the law for freedom of speech and doctrine.
“I furthermore characterized the situation in present-day Germany as a state of psychic malady of the masses, but I added something about the cause of this state.
“In a letter I gave to the International League Against Anti-Semitism for propaganda purposes I appealed to all cool-headed persons who remained faithful to the ideals of a menaced civilization to do all in their power to prevent the spreading of this mass psychosis which had manifested itself in Germany in so dreadful a way.
“It would be easy for the Academy to obtain the correct text of my statement before talking about me the way it did. The German press represented my statement in a distorted way, as could not be expected otherwise in view of the present gagging of the German press.
“I stand by every word I have published. But I expect from the Academy especially as it participated in defaming me before the German public, that it will bring these statements of mine to the knowledge of its members and to that part of the German public among whom I have been defamed.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
