Story Highlights
- historical event:
- Einstein got word that his name was on a list of assassination targets, together with a 5,000 dollar reward. One magazine declared him an enemy of the German regime with the note that he was “yet to be hanged”. In these circumstances, Einstein decided not to return to his homeland.
Hitler came to power in Germany in January 1933. At that time Einstein was working in the USA as a university professor. In April, the Nazi government forbade Jews to lecture at universities. In May, Einstein’s books were among those burned by the Nazis. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels declared that “Jewish intellectualism is dead.”. Einstein got word that his name was on a list of assassination targets, together with a 5,000 dollar reward. One magazine declared him an enemy of the German regime with the note that he was “yet to be hanged”.
In these circumstances, Einstein decided not to return to his homeland. He became a lecturer at the Princeton University in New Jersey and decided to stay there. He became an American citizen in 1940. He renounced his German citizenship, but kept his Swiss one. He continued working at Princeton till the end of his life, and died there in 1955.
