The marriage of Mileva and Albert Einstein is an intriguing topic that will always provoke discussions. They met while studying, and before she finished them, Mileva got pregnant and gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Lizerl.
Albert and Mileva were married in Bern on January 6, 1903. Some time before the wedding, Lizerl fell ill with scarlet fever. It is not known whether she died or was given up for adoption. Only when Mileva joined Albert in Bern, the child was not with her.
In the years that followed, Albert and Mileva had two more children - sons Hans Albert and Eduard. They say that both boys were very attached to their mother, who practically raised them on her own, because their father spent most of his time at work.
However, there were also happy memories.
"My father knew how to put work aside and watch us play for hours," the older Hans said later.
Eduard's health was of particular concern to his parents. The boy was ill from birth and often knew how to cry for no reason. In a letter to a friend, Albert wrote that he was sure that his son would not be able to "grow into a healthy person".And, there were more and more quarrels between parents… Both boys had a hard time withstanding their parents' divorce in 1914. Eduard was only 4 years old at the time. They lived with their mother while Einstein remarried - his distant cousin with whom he was in love as a boy.
Mileva continued to take care of the children and for a while it seemed that Eduard would overcome his problems. For a start, he showed exceptional intelligence - at the age of six he read Shakespeare, and soon Kant, Schopenhauer, Plato…
As he grew up, he became interested in psychiatry, and especially in the work of Sigmund Freud. However, as time went on, he found it increasingly difficult to bear the burden of his father's glory.
- It is difficult to have such an important father, because you feel unimportant and insignificant - he pointed out on one occasion.
Eduard Einstein, the son of Albert Einstein, was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 20. He was very smart and successful however his symptoms caused him to be put in a mental institution where he eventually died.
When he was 20, Eduard first tried to kill himself. They say that the reason for that was the unrequited love of a girl. He was admitted to the hospital and shortly afterwards he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Mileva, on the doctor's recommendation, then placed him in a mental hospital in Zurich, and this decision proved fatal! Cruel treatments in hospitals of this type at the time only worsened the mental state of young Eduard. After only two weeks in this institution, he could no longer read, had longer conversations, and increasingly lost his cognitive abilities.
It is not known if and how often Albert came to visit his son, but after 1933 he could not do that anymore. Then Hitler came to power in Germany, so Einstein, a visiting professor at Princeton University, would be prevented from returning to his homeland.
His second wife Elsa said that his son's health condition worried Albert a lot. He allegedly planned to bring his son to America, but his mental state, and later the war, prevented him.
- My son is the only problem that remains without a solution - Einstein wrote.
Edward never saw his father again. Mileva had to sell two houses due to debts arising from his treatment. Allegedly, in the later disputes between Mileva and Alberta, Eduard served as a "debt for undercutting". In one correspondence, Albert demanded that Mileva return some money to him and threatened to expel Eduardo from the will if he did not do so.
Mileva died on August 4, 1948, and after that, practically no one cared about Eduard anymore. He ended his life alone and abandoned, within the walls of the Burgelci psychiatric asylum in Zurich. He worked as a hospital gardener and died in 1965 at the age of 55.
It's a fine line between genius and madness! No one knows when the line is crossed