Latter Years

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While Albert was in Germany the First World War broke out. When 93 German scientists signed a manifesto defending Germany's war conduct four other scientists including Albert Einstein signed an antiwar counter-manifesto. After the war was over Albert finally became a legal citizen of Germany to support the new country's democracy.

During the 1920's Albert traveled to England, France, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and South America; he even made it to Japan. In 1922 he traveled to Sweden to accept a Nobel Prize for physics. From 1930 to 1933 he traveled to Pasadena's California Institute of Technology for the winter, he spent the spring in Berlin, and the summers near Berlin at Caputh.

When Nazi's came to power they denounced Albert's theory of relativity and called him a "Jewish-Communist physicist". During this time his safety was feared and gave him reason to believe in a world government instead of nationalism, for this reason he supported Zionism.

In 1932 Albert left Germany never to return and in 1933 he renounced his German citizenship. His property was confiscated and his name was on the first Nazi list of people who were stripped of their citizenship. When he renounced his citizenship many countries offered Albert teaching positions at their universities, but he declined because he already had joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He arrived in America in the fall of 1933 and in 1940 he became an American citizen.

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When the Second World War broke out Albert warned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and later David Lloyd George of the Nazi danger, but they did not listen. Albert tried to help noted academics who were leaving Germany and so he joined the Displaced German Scholars to try and find homes form the refugees.

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In 1936 his second wife died, but his step daughter stayed with him to be his secretary and housekeeper. On April 13, 1955 Albert became fatally ill. He finished some work that he needed to complete. Four days later his doctor left knowing he was sleeping peacefully, but after a while his nurse, Roszel, noticed he was having difficulty breathing. Roszel tried to wake him and when she did he murmured something in German that she did not understand. He took two deep breaths and then died; the date was April 17, 1955. His body was cremated except his brain which was to be used for study.