Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks…..Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly..- Albert Einstein, Time magazine, 23rd December, 1940 p. 38
January 30, 2008
Einstein, the Nazis and the Catholic Church
Posted by aelianus under Catholicism, National Socialism[34] Comments
January 30, 2008 at 5:56 am
I’ll be darned. That is one heck of a wonderful quote.
January 30, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Funny, I’ve never heard Richard Dawkins quote that. I wonder why?
January 30, 2008 at 4:17 pm
It is a wonderful quote, but it is dated 1940; it would be interesting to know if Einstein held the same view after the war.
January 30, 2008 at 5:12 pm
“Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty. Up till then I had not been interested in the Church, but today I feel a great admiration for the Church, which alone has had the courage to struggle for spiritual truth and moral liberty.” – Albert Einstein
Pinchas E. Lapide, Three Popes and the Jews, p.251
January 30, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Why history feels like forgetting Mit Brennender Sorge (1937), the tributes leading Jews and Israelis of the 1940s and 1950s for Pius XII and all the risks hundreds of nuns took to shelter Jews in their convents is beyond me. Oh, well, other than the anti-Catholicism of communists and leftists, of course.
January 30, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Thanks aelisnus! I can use the quotation without fear of retribution!
January 30, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Nice one!
January 31, 2008 at 4:35 am
that quote has been found to be fake by none other than christopher hitchens in his book ‘god is not great’.
January 31, 2008 at 8:07 am
Oh right, like that piece of paper trash holds any authority whatsoever.
January 31, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Well it definitely appeared in the 23rd December, 1940 issue of Time attributed to Einstein because the full text is in the archive section of their website. So Christopher Hitchens must be claiming Time made it up or got it wrong. What is his evidence for that?
January 31, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Ah, I just found the passage from Hitchens. He has no case for denying the attribution to Einstein at all. He says,
“As the analyst William Waterhouse has pointed out, it does not sound like Einstein at all. Its rhetoric is too florid. It makes no mention of the persecution of the Jews. And it makes the cool and cautious Einstein look silly, in the sense that he claims to have once ‘despised’ something in which he also ‘never had any special interest.’ There is another difficulty, in that the statement never appears in any anthology of Einstein’s written or spoken remarks.” [In fact all William Waterhouse says is he couldn't find it in 'The Expanded Quotable Einstein']
So there are two ‘arguments’ there:
1)He wouldn’t have said it so he didn’t (this is not an argument unless anyone didn’t notice).
2) No one has attributed it to him except the people who did (this is also not an argument in case anyone hasn’t noticed).
He goes on to say that Einstein wrote a letter in 1947 in which he complained that he once made a remark about a man or churchmen (Hitchens seems unsure) which has since been “exaggerated beyond all recognition”. The quote is from Hitchens not from Einstein. There is no suggestion that Einstein indicated in this letter that he was referring to the quote from Time. Hitchens seems not to have read the 1947 letter. I have also tracked down the (very short) article by William C. Waterhouse, whoever he is, he doesn’t seem to have read the letter either and gives no more information about it than Hitchens (other than this reference: Unpublished letter, Einstein Archives, item number 58-548). If there was any direct mention by Einstein of the 1940 article in Time presumably Waterhouse would quote it. He doesn’t. The letter does exist because its in the Einstein Archives catalogue, so if anyone who reads this blog lives near the Hebrew University of Jerusalem please go along and transcribe it for us!
As it is it looks like it is the 1947 letter that has been “exaggerated beyond all recognition”. For now I will stick with Time magazine rather than Hitchens garbled account of what someone else who hadn’t read this letter says that someone else said who had read it said. Even if we accept that account all it tells us is that Einstein said he once said something about some one who may have been a Churchman which has since been garbled in some unspecified way. That could refer to literally anything.
January 31, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Hitchens makes a complete ass of himself every time he opens his mouth or his laptop to remark upon Christianity.
When I opened “God is Not Great”, my eye fell IMMEDIATELY on a completely garbled story about Thomas Aquinas that he had completely mixed up with another.
February 16, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Hitchens is correct. I have a copy of “Albert Einstein the Human Side” which was edited together by Helen Dukas, his secretary, from letters from the Einstein Archive. Einstein stated that he did not state those words and it did not reflect his views. That is why Dawkins did not quote it. It would be unethical.
February 17, 2008 at 1:52 am
According to the extract in the online text of Albert Einstein the Human Side he did speak with a journalist on this topic just after Hitler came to power but said his comments had been “elaborated and exaggerated beyond recognition”. I note there are longer versions of this quote dating from 1939 so it doesn’t originate in Time. I wonder what the source is of the quotation in Pinchas E. Lapide’s Three Popes and the Jews? This is more explicit but briefer than the one in Time.
February 23, 2008 at 2:10 am
Yes, and also that the “statement, even if reduced to my actual words (which I do not remember in detail) gives a wrong impression of my general attitude.” (p. 94) He then went on to say that ethics should not be tied to myth or athority; that ethics is strictly a human endeavor. A partial facsmile copy of the book is available here. Best,
May 20, 2008 at 2:01 am
Just throwing a somewhat second-hand info the fray. I came upon this site while searching for the exact quote. I was watching Antique Road Show and a lady had a of letters her minister father had written. A member of his church had asked after the authenticity of the Einstein Church/Nazi quote. So he wrote to “Time”, the magazine in which he had the article containing the quote. They responded with a letter stating that it was true but did not give a source. Unsatisfied, he wrote to Einstein himself. Einseiin responded by saying..and I’m paraphrising like mad here…something to the effect that it was a long time ago, his view was altered for a bit. I’m sure I’m killing it but the gist of it was, basically, It was taken to mean more that I meant it to, and also I don’t realy feel that way now. Whatever the stuff the chick had was cool, it was all the letters involved. The letter fromth parishoner, “Time”, and obviously, Einstein.
May 25, 2008 at 4:55 am
The complete transcripts of the Antiques Roadshow is available online at http://www.pbs.org. The episode was the May 19, 2008 episode in Las Vegas. The minister asked Einstein if the quote was accurate, and Einsteing wrote back:
“It’s true that I made a statement which corresponds approximately with the text you quoted. I made this statement during the first years of the Nazi regime — much earlier than 1940 — and my expressions were a little more moderate.”
August 28, 2008 at 7:40 am
Paulinus:
I think Dawkins never mentioned it because it has nothing to do with religion. Dawkins likes arguing with religious ideas, not the political arm of the Catholic Church or Einsteins views of the church either. I don’t understand what the big deal is with this quote, the Catholic Church is just as much as a political figure as it is religious, I think Einstien was referring to the political arm, in no way was religion mentioned which is why Dawkins wouldn’t have given it a second glance.
August 28, 2008 at 10:53 am
Mmmm. Dawkins seems very keen on the religion-is-the-root-of-almost-all-evil-stuff-that-happens “argument”, which would likewise, I would have thought, refer to the “political arm”.
October 19, 2008 at 6:05 pm
so, which is more likely to be the product of legend: the Time reference, or all the denials and obfuscations of the Time reference?
One would have to say that a quote that is the subject of such fierce debate must be some quote indeed.
October 19, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Occam’s Razor, kiddies.
What agenda would Time have in misquoting Einstein in favor of the Church?
On the other hand, what agenda would Christopher Hitchens, for example, have in denying that such a quote is possible?
The answer I trust is obvious.
Sometimes you just have to think for yourself, especially when trying to learn the truth.
October 19, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Autumn as spectacular in Virginia as they say it?
December 29, 2008 at 6:38 am
Here is the site where I found the quote…
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,765103,00.html
http://www.bonhoefferblog.wordpress.com
June 9, 2009 at 11:52 am
The point is:
- A second-hand quote is NOT a quote.
- The article in Time was written by someone making a huge praise on the Church, and quotes Einstein without any suitable reference.
- The point is not to prove that the quote is true; where on Earth is the original article when someone says “I heard Einstein say this”? Why every reference to those words refers to the second-hand quote of December 23rd, 1940, and not to the issue where those original statements were made? Simple: that issue just does not exist.
- Those who say that Einsten denied saying that have documents to prove it (a private letter in the Einstein Archives in Jerusalem).
The quote is false. But, if this is a matter of faith, any argument is a loss of time.
June 14, 2009 at 10:04 am
The statement first appeared in an article entitled “German Martyrs” which was published in Time magazine on 23 December 1940.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,765103,00.html
You will find it posted on many religious websites and repeated by clergymen. Christian historian Michael Burleigh quotes it point-blank in Sacred Causes (2007, p. 213).
Nevertheless, the analyst William Waterhouse has exposed the statement as an exaggeration at best and a fabrication at worst by those eager to abuse Einstein’s fame rather than convey his real opinions (Skeptic, Vol. 12 , No. 3, Fall 2005).
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_kmske/is_3_12/ai_n29239454/?tag=content;col1
For starters, the statement appeared without any source or attribution when it was first published in Time. It is not known whether the reporter personally heard Einstein say it. The statement does not appear in the definitive collection of Einstein’s sayings, The Expanded Quotable Einstein.
In addition, the language it too flamboyant compared to Einstein’s usual style, with its reference to “great editors” and “flaming editorials”. The statement is also unlikely to have come from a scientist, stating as it does that Einstein “despised” something immediately after saying that he “never had any special interest” in it.
For comparison, here is a statement that Einstein definitely made in 1933:
I hope that healthy conditions will soon supervene in Germany and that in future her great men like Kant and Goethe will not merely be commemorated from time to time but that the principle which they taught will also prevail in public life and in the general consciousness.
As Waterhouse points out, Einstein (like most German Jews) hoped for support not from Christianity as such, but from the German Enlightenment tradition.
Waterhouse’s enquiries with the Einstein Archives in Jerusalem lead to the discovery of a letter written by him in 1947 stating that in the early years of Hitler’s regime he had casually mentioned to a journalist that hardly any German intellectuals except a few churchmen were supporting individual rights and intellectual freedom. He added that this statement had subsequently been drastically exaggerated beyond anything that he could recognise as his own.
Why do religious-types think that massaging statements by non-believers into a support of the faith approximates an argument for the truth or usefulness of religion? I have long grown tired of this bogus and dishonest tactic. If a theist told me Richard Dawkins’ or Charles Darwin’s opinion of the colour of an orange, I would go back to the horse’s mouth.
June 14, 2009 at 5:31 pm
“Why do religious-types think that massaging statements by non-believers into a support of the faith approximates an argument for the truth or usefulness of religion?”
I suppose those that do, do so for the same reason that non-religious or anti-religious types think selective presentation of history proves the wickedness of religion, or that evolution proves there’s no God. Still, for your comment to have any point in this discussion, you’d need to show, I suppose, that the TIME reporter was a papist, or at least a “religious type”. I expect most folk who pass it on just think “oh look, how nice!” and have no idea that Einstein was misquoted. E.g. my co-blogger, who you will note was quite happy to accept that it is not a true quote once there was some evidence.
June 14, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Unfortunately, Time doesn’t even give the name of the writer who wrote the original article, let alone who/ where/ how the statement from Einstein was noted, so your demand to show that he or she was a papist is a bit of a non-starter.
To get a sense of what I’m driving at, I’d recommend watching Dawkins’ speech at the American Atheist Conference 2009 where he exposes apologists’ tactics of quoting-mining atheist scientists:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,3752,Richard-Dawkins-at-American-Atheists-09,Richard-Dawkins
Pay particular attention to where he says that in The Blind Watchmaker (1986) he began a chapter stating that the explosion of fossils in the Cambrian period is so amazing, “It is as though the fossils were planet there without any evolutionary history.” However, this was a piece of rhetorical overture intended to whet the reader’s appetite for what was to follow. Sadly, it has been mined by apologists out to misrepresent Dawkins as doubting evolution.
June 14, 2009 at 8:01 pm
(rolls eyes)
I made no demand of any kind, daftie. I said that the only way in which I could see the quoted comment being relevant to the discussion on this post was *if* this could be done (because that is the earliest recorded instance of the misrepresented version – of course, the reporter might have received it in the “improved” version from some source we don’t know).
I expect you got hold of the wrong end of the stick partly through my use of “you” – I try to keep things casual in tone on the blog.
About your Dawkins-being-misquoted thing:
one example of wilful mis-representation for another:
http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/05/agora-and-hypatia-hollywood-strikes.html
What have we proved? That there are tedious morons all over the place? Has anyone called that into question?
You’ll note one of the Einstein denials a commentor mentions was a reply to a query by a religious type asking if it were authentic. We don’t know who produced the inaccurate version nor why (could have been an anti-religious type hoping to make it look as though religious types go around misquoting famous people to gain reflected glamour for their cause).
Fortunately for all of us, Jesus came to save sinners, irrespective of our moronickness, grasp of historical method or of inductive proof of Tarski’s truth definition. Less fortunately, my epistemology examiner will not be Jesus, so I had better get back to my book.
June 14, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I think everything of substance you have written is already covered in the combox discussion. Did you bother to read it?
June 14, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Meow! Yes, I did read the other comments. My contribution is taken from a draft of a paper I am currently preparing on religion’s role in the rise of Nazism. If I do say so myself, my comment addresses all the issues surrounding the quote far more succulently than the other comments. I also included a link to Waterhouse’s original article, which no one else has done.
“Don’t have a cow, man!”
– Bart Simpson
June 14, 2009 at 3:58 pm
* succinctly
Flipinn’ spell check!!!!
June 14, 2009 at 5:16 pm
It’s mildly irritating when the comboxes are cluttered up with large quantities of text saying things that have already been said, and the impression that it has been simply pasted in, the author not bothering to write a reply to the discussion itself, increases the irritation considerably.
Thanks for the link though. Why not write a short comment adding it, and I’ll delete your long one?
June 14, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Now you’re just being childish. Daftie? I don’t think I came across that one even in the playground…
I don’t think this is going to work, berenike. The signs are not good. You’re studying theology for one thing. I’ll leave you to your false prophet (Matthew 16 – how come we’re still waiting?!), your immoral doctrine of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice and your ponderings of the shape and colour of fairies’ wings.
But before I do, I’ll leave you with this piece by a theology graduate with a first in the subject which should enable you to reconsider your life’s pursuits:
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=280
June 15, 2009 at 8:27 am
? Who’s studying theology? ??
I put in daftie to sound less tetchy, which I have a tendency to do (and be) – I’m glad it at least sounded fluffy, even if you got quite the wrong impression of my intention. Must use more smilies
You cut&paste a looooong comment adding, as you did not deny, nothing new of substance (except the link). This is annoying. Rather than delete it, I point out it’s annoying. When I point out that something you have said is not relevant to the discussion unless you can show something which we don’t know (i.e. who garbled the quote and why) you think I’m telling you to show it. Then you say “this isn’t going to work” and scram!
I have the impression that all you really want to say, “what you’re driving at”, is “religious-types think that massaging statements by non-believers into a support of the faith approximates an argument for the truth or usefulness of religion”, with ?possibly? the secondary intention of making Religious Types such as myself look or feel stupid. Why are you telling us that you are tired of this bogus tactic? No-one’s employed it on this blog, as far as I know, and no-one on the thread has denied that there are tedious idiots of all sorts among “religious-types”. So what exactly do you want to say? And why do you want to say it on this post?
You could assume that despite being religious I am not a complete fool, nor mendacious, and that when I write something I don’t mean more than I have in fact written
After all, if religion is the cause of war and hatred and prejudice and irrationality and AIDS, and yet Cath the HardCore Calvinist can have patient amicable (interesting and fruitful) discussions with me about things where each thinks the other holds a terrible wicked immoral and blasphemous (not to say utterly historically baseless and surely anyone could see it’s wrong – hello Cath 
) doctrine, cannot a modern rational type such as yourself manage to do so as well? 