Bernhard Caesar Einstein Biography

Bernhard Caesar Einstein was born on July 10, 1930, in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, to Hans Albert Einstein and Frieda Knecht. He was the grandson of legendary German-born theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. Iconic Serbian physicist and mathematician (and the first wife of Albert) Mileva Marić was Bernhard’s paternal grandmother.

Of the four biological children of his parents, Bernhard was the only one to reach adulthood. While one of his brothers, Klaus, died at age 6 due to diphtheria, Frieda had two more sons later, who too died in infancy. Eventually, Hans and Frieda adopted a girl named Evelyn, who lived till 2011.

Hans worked for a bridge building project. Of Albert Einstein's three children, Bernhard's father, Hans, was the only one to get married and have children. Hans’s sister, Lieserl, either died in infancy or was given up for adoption. Hans’s younger brother, Eduard, was schizophrenic.

Bernhard was raised in Switzerland till age 8, following which he and his family moved to Greenville, South Carolina. Albert Einstein, worried about the rise of the Nazis in Germany, had apparently pushed Hans to move to the US, as he himself had done back in 1933.

Hans initially took up a job as a civil engineer with the US Army Corps of Engineers, after which he taught at the California Institute of Technology and Berkeley. Bernhard’s teenage years were spent in Pasadena.

Bernhard was 2 years old when he first met his grandfather Albert. Later, Bernhard spent time with him in New Jersey and at Saranac Lake in New York. Before his death in April 1955, Albert left his violin and some money for Bernhard.

Bernhard is believed to have told his son Thomas how he would often irritate his grandfather by urinating out the window directly above his study in Princeton. At Saranac Lake, Bernhard would often go out sailing with his grandfather. Apparently, Albert loved to sail was when there was little wind, as he liked harnessing whatever bit of breeze he could capture. Later, Hans too would sail with Bernhard and Bernhard's children on the San Francisco Bay.

Bernhard was not a good student in high school or in his initial years at the University of California (UC) Berkeley. At UC Berkeley, he was good only in German language.

In 1954, he joined the US Army. After his basic training at Fort Ord, near Monterey, California, he was posted in southern Germany.

Following his discharge he joined ETH, Zurich (Federal Institute of Technology) in Switzerland, where he studied physics, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. Professor Pauli, one of Albert Einstein’s former colleagues, taught him quantum physics, a subject Bernhard would later practice.

In 1958, Bernhard lost his mother. Following this, Hans married neurochemist Elizabeth Roboz in 1959.

After getting his diploma at ETH, Bernhard Caesar Einstein went back to the US and began his career as an engineer at Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas. He later also worked at ITT in the Los Angeles, California area and at Litton Industries in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Specializing in electron tube technology and light amplification for night vision, he obtained 4 US patents while working at Litton.

In 1974, he went back to Switzerland and joined Swiss Army Research Lab in Thun, working in laser technology. He obtained another US patent there.

Bernhard Caesar Einstein met Doris Aude Ascher when he was stationed in Germany. They fell in love and married in 1954. They had five children: Thomas Martin Einstein (born in 1955 in Switzerland), Paul Michael Einstein (born in 1959 in Switzerland), Eduard Albert “Ted” Einstein (born in 1961 in Dallas, Texas, US), Mira Einstein-Yehieli (born in 1965 in the US), and Charles Quincy Ascher “Charly” Einstein (born in 1971 in the US).

Some sources state that Bernhard divorced his first wife after a long marriage and married a ceramic artist named Doris Schweizer in 1998. However, not much is known about this incident.

Bernhard Caesar Einstein passed away on September 30, 2008, at Insel Hospital in Bern, Canton of Bern, Switzerland. He was 78 years old at the time of his death. The cause of his death was apparently renal failure, or vascular disease.