March 09, 2004

• Erleichda!
• hmmm, I got it! It's like a magic eye thing, you stare at it long enough and the 'real message' pops out in front.
• I think it's in German. The hand isn't so bad, though it is always harder with digital images, because you can't move them around as much as when deciphering handwriting on regular paper. Anyone read German? (Score one for the anti-digitalization historians - normally I'm for, but this is an example of a major disadvantage.)
• I can't read it, but if you scroll about 2/3 of the way down this page, you'll find a reference to an unfinished work by Einstein. Einstein's last, unfinished, document was the draft of a speech to mark Israel's Independence Day. His opening remarks commented on long-term conflict between Israel and Egypt. 'You may think this is a small and insignificant problem and that there are more serious things to worry about. But this is not true. In matters of truth and justice there can be no distinction between big problems and small...Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs....' Albert Einstein died in his sleep at Princeton Hospital on April 18 1955.
• His handwriting is a bit hard to read, but here's what I get from skimming the text: It appears to be a draft of some sort of speech about the conflict between Israel and Egypt, put in the larger context of the cold-war east-west conflict, and therefore raising the spectre of nuclear war. He seems to be saying that the conflict is being played out as if it were a traditional power struggle, despite the fact that the possibility of nuclear war makes the potential consequences much worse. But this is based on skimming handwritten text that's not as legible as I'd like, so it's not necessarily definitive... (On preview, Coot seems to have found another account of it that seems reasonably accurate)
• Ich bin hier... but I've never been much good at deciphering German handwriting. I like the part Coot quotes.
• If we care that much, I attempted to transcribe it, and it's terrible, terrible (my transcription that is). But here is my sad transcription, ubiquitous ambiguities und so weiter marked (and I can't translate it now (which would have been even worse than the transcription) but maybe it will be easier to do for someone when legible-ish): Ich spreche zu euch heute nicht als ein amerikanischer Bürger und auch nicht als Jude, sondern als ein Mensch, der in allem Ernst danach strebt, die Dinge objektiv zu betrachten. Was ich erstrebe, ist einfach mit meinen schwachen Kräften der Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit zu dienen auf die Gefahr hin, niemand zu gefallen. Zur Diskussion steht der Konflikt zwischen Israel und Aegypten, - ein kleines und unwichtiges Problem, werdet ihr denken, ??? hahas groessere Sorgen. So ist es aber nicht. Wenn es sich um Wahrheit und Gerichtigkeit handelt, gibt es nicht die Unterscheidung zwischen kleinen und grossen Problemen. Dem die allgemeinen(?) Geniert sprachte(?), die das Handeln der Menschen betreffen, sind unteilbar. Wer es in kleinen Dinges nicht der Wahrheit nicht (?) (?), das kann man auch in grossen Dingen nicht vertrauen. Diese Unteilbarkeit gilt aber nicht und(?) fuer das Moralische kuemmen nur richtig erfasst werden, wenn sie in ihren Abhaengigkeit und das grosses Problemen verstanden werden. Das grosse Problem praesentiert sich gegenartig(?) als Trennung der Menschenwelt in zwei feindliche Lager die sogenannte free world und die kommunist World. Da es nur wenig klar ist, was hier unter free und communist zu verstehen ist, will ich lieber von einen Machtstreit zwischen Ost und West reden, obwohl es wegen der Kugelgestalt der Erds auch nicht recht klar ist, was nun da unter West und Ost zu verstehen hat. Es ist im Grande(?) nur ein Machtstreit alter Stiles, der wie fruehere Kampfe um die Macht das Menschen in halb-religioser Verhuellung dargeboten wird. Dieser Machtstreit hat aber durch die Entwicklung der Atomwaffe einen gesp??stischen Charakter wegenommen. Jede Gartes(?) weiss ubenlich(?) und gibt es auch zu, dass unsere Menschheit verloren ist, wens? der Streit in einer wirklichen Krieg ausarbeitet. Trotzdem wird von den verantwortlichen Staatserinnern(?) auf beiden Seiten der Streit in algewohnsten Wise auf der Versuch gegruendet, den Gegner durch Entwicklung ueberlegener militarischer Machtmittel eingeschuechtern und nuerbe(?) zu machen. Daher muss man allerdings Kraecy(!?) und Untergung riskieren. Aber den (eingig versfor lunken)?!?! Weg den uebernutsprecher Sicherung einzuschlagen magt kein verantwortlichen Staatsmerken(?), weil dies seiners?? sichere mindesten?? politischen Tod bedenken wuerde denn die all?allen entpackten politische Leiderschaft verlangt ihre ???. That took more time than it was worth. No warranties explicit or implied.
• How do Germans communicate when their words make no sense to me?
• /slight derail You think this handwriting is bad? Think about what ancient historians must go through. There is a display of Sumerian clay tablets at the museum - the cuneiform is just worn scratches! I have no idea how they do it. /off derail I don't know anything about Einstien's political life - don't really know much about him at all, aside from the science schoolbook pablum. Any illuminators?
• I speak to you today not as an American and also not as a Jew, but as a man (or person) who in all seriousness strives to regard things objectively. What I [erstrebe] is simply, with my weak forces of truth and justice, to serve nobody. Up for discussion is the conflict between Israel and Egypt - a small and unimportant problem, wouldn't you think, [We?] have more important [/greater] concerns. So it is, but it isn't. If it [the conflict?] is handled with truth and justice, there is not the distinction between small and large problems. Of the combined [I think this is Gewichstpunkte - points of value], the handling of the people concerned, is indivisible [can't be treated alone?]. Who is in small things not truthful, not serious [=ernst] [?], cannot be trusted in large things. This indivisibility [see above] doesn't apply, however, and [?] for the moralists, but also for the politicians [? - I don't know what this word is, really], because the small problems [? - "kuemmen" isn't a word] will only be seized, if they in their independence were to be understood [this whole paragraph reads wrong, sorry]. The big problem presents itself oppositely [=gegenartig] as separation of the people's world in two unfriendly camps: the so-named free world and the communist world. What is only slightly clear, what is to be understood here as free and communist, I prefer talking to making controversy between East and West, although it is not clear because of the round shape of the earth, what will be East and what will be West. A controversy based on old-fashioned reasoning [I've done this clause wrong], that is earlier wars around the power of people ordered around half-religious veiling. This controversy has however through the development of the Atob-bomb taken on a [?] character. Every [Gartes] knows naturally [=naturlich?] and it is also that our humanity is lost, if the controversy degenerates [=ausartet]. Nevertheless it will be based on the attempt of the responsible persons State-[?] on both sides of the conflict in [altgewohnsten?] ways, the opposite through development of overlying military intruments of power [eingeschuechtern?] and [nuerbe?] to make/do. [What a horrible sentence!] With that [=Dabei] one must in all things risk [Krieg?] and fall. But the [doo be doo be doo] way of the [ubernutzsomething?] precaution [to hit= einzuschlagen] likes no responsible persons State-thingy, because this political precaution [mindesten] should have been considered because the [?] simple political passion requires your [?]. His handwriting in the last paragraph is appaling, even for a genius. :)
• Oh well. That was boring. I was at least expecting something earthshattering. Poo.
• His handwriting in the last paragraph is appaling, even for a genius. And he could barely do arithmetic, either. Bloody amateur.
• "the totality of thy fortifcations remain under our proprietary purview."
• But the [doo be doo be doo] way of the [ubernutzsomething?] precaution [to hit= einzuschlagen] likes no responsible persons State-thingy, because this political precaution [mindesten] should have been considered because the [?] simple political passion requires your [?]. DO you think he'd got bored by this point.
• I thought the first part was a bit stirring. Very good writing, especially considering that he was a physicist, not a speech writer.
• ps - thanks coots, klausness, jjray and tracicle.
• I'm better at translating letters to my dad. They're only about boring old genealogy.
• a generalised translation from a german friend of mine: "Anyway, in a nutshell the letter is an attempt to present the major problems of the world (in 1955 I guess) in an objective matter. He talks alot about the need for objectivity, truth and justice. He also mentions the striving for power and the tendency of people in power to perceive reality in a self-serving manner (I have added some interpretation here). He describes the world as being composed of two quarelling camps, the free world and the communist world. He writes about the development of nuclear weapons, the arms race and the fact that conflict has taken on a 'ghost-like' appearance, because nuclear weapons have changed the face of war fare. He also urges us not to underestimate the conflict in the middle east and the possibility of nuclear war. " eerie.