The only surviving correspondence from Einstein to his father.

A holiday postcard from the 18-year old Einstein during a summer trip to Lake Constance. Einstein reports his successful rendez-vous with his friend Fritz Genewein the previous evening in Bregenz ('gesund u[nd] wohl getroffen'), the 'wonderful weather', and their departure for Hechingen the next day, and concludes with the note that some arrangement (indecipherable) may have fallen through ('... wahrscheinlich ins Wasser gefallen'). Fritz Genewein adds a formal greeting to Pauline Einstein below Einstein's text.

Einstein had just completed his first year at the Zurich Polytechnic (the summer holiday ran from 5 August to 11 October). The reference to a visit to Hechingen is intriguing: he would undoubtedly have visited his uncle and aunt, Rudolf and Fanny Einstein, who lived there – and possibly also their daughter, his cousin Elsa, whom he was to marry some 22 years later.

This is amongst the earliest surviving letters by Einstein: the Princeton Collected Papers of Albert Einstein records only five earlier than this date; according to the same source, this is the only surviving letter from Einstein to his father. In later life, Einstein was to recall that his father himself had virtually no private correspondence. Fritz Genewein was a former classmate of Einstein’s in Munich: a letter from him to Einstein in 1924 remarks that the last time they had met was 28 years previously – presumably during this trip.



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