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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Einstein family | 3/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_family | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T04:05:30.588947+00:00 | kb-cron |
Lieserl Einstein (27 January 1902 – September 1903) was the first child of Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein. According to the correspondence between her parents, Lieserl was born on 27 January 1902, a year before her parents married, in Újvidék, Austria-Hungary, present-day Novi Sad, Serbia, and was cared for by her mother for a short time while Einstein worked in Switzerland before Marić joined him there without the child. Lieserl's existence was unknown to biographers until 1986, when a batch of letters between Albert and Mileva Marić was discovered by Hans Albert Einstein's daughter Evelyn. Marić had hoped for a girl, while Einstein would have preferred a boy. In their letters, they called the unborn child "Lieserl", when referring to a girl, or "Hanserl", if a boy. Both "Lieserl" and "Hanserl" were diminutives of the common German names Liese (short for Elizabeth) and Hans. The first reference to Marić's pregnancy was found in a letter Einstein wrote to her from Winterthur, probably on 28 May 1901 (letter 36), asking twice about "the boy" and "our little son", whereas Marić's first reference was found in her letter of 13 November 1901 (letter 43) from Stein am Rhein, in which she referred to the unborn child as "Lieserl". Einstein goes along with Marić's wish for a daughter, and referred to the unborn child as "Lieserl" as well, but with a sense of humour as in letter 45 of 12 December 1901 "... and be happy about our Lieserl, whom I secretly (so Dollie doesn't notice) prefer to imagine a Hanserl." The child must have been born shortly before 4 February 1902, when Einstein wrote: "... now you see that it really is a Lieserl, just as you'd wished. Is she healthy and does she cry properly? [...] I love her so much and don't even know her yet!" The last time "Lieserl" was mentioned in their extant correspondence was in Einstein's letter of 19 September 1903 (letter 54), in which he showed concern that she had scarlet fever. His asking "As what is the child registered?" adding "We must take precautions that problems don't arise for her later" may indicate the intention to give the child up for adoption. As neither the full name nor the fate of the child are known, several hypotheses about her life and death have been put forward:
Michele Zackheim, in her book on "Lieserl", Einstein's Daughter, states that "Lieserl" had a developmental disability, and that she lived with her mother's family and probably died of scarlet fever in September 1903. Another possibility, favoured by Robert Schulmann of the Einstein Papers Project, is that "Lieserl" was adopted by Marić's close friend, Helene Savić. Savić had a child by the name of Zorka who was blind from childhood and died in the 1890s. Her grandson Milan N. Popović, upon extensive research of the relationship between Einstein and Marić, rejected the possibility that Zorka was "Lieserl", and also favoured the hypothesis that the child died in September 1903. A letter widely circulated on the Internet on the "universal force" of love, attributed as "a letter from Albert Einstein to his daughter", is almost certainly specious. The introduction to the letter claims that the letter was received by the "Jerusalem Hebrew University's Einstein Papers Project." Firstly, no such organization with that exact title exists. Secondly, neither the Albert Einstein Archives under the “Library Authority” of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, nor the Einstein Papers Project at Caltech in Pasadena California hold a copy of such a letter. The tone, content, and even the language of the circulated letter (appearing only in English) present as being incongruous with all other known Einstein correspondences to his family. This letter of unknown origin first appeared on the Internet in 2015.
== Hans Albert Einstein (Albert's first son) ==
Hans Albert Einstein (May 14, 1904 – July 26, 1973) was born in Bern, Switzerland, the second child and first son of Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić. Hans earned his doctorate at ETH Zurich in 1936 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1938. He was a long-time professor of Hydraulic engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, widely recognized for his research on sediment transport. Hans Albert had four children, three biological sons and one adopted daughter, Evelyn Einstein. Of Hans Albert's biological sons, only Bernhard Caesar Einstein lived to adulthood. Bernhard himself had five children with his wife, Doris Aude Ascher. Bernhard was an engineer with multiple patents.
== Eduard "Tete" Einstein (Albert's second son) ==