Letter from Albert Einstein to Émile Vandervelde

Albert Einstein was moved to write this letter to Émile Vandervelde when he resigned as Minister of Public Health on January 27, 1937. In it, Einstein shows his support for Vandervelde’s decision to resign. He also explains his thoughts on what was happening in Spain, that he was ashamed of the attitude of the European democracies and that this was motivated not just by the fear of another European war but also by despicable financial interests.

That someone like Einstein would write a personal letter to Vandervelde should not be surprising given the international stature of the Belgian Socialist leader in the 1930s. Under his leadership, Belgian socialism was deeply engaged in the Workers’ and Socialist International and played a key role in its political activities. For this reason, his departure from the Belgian government had an impact on international Socialism.

In his letter, Einstein draws a direct connection between Vandervelde’s resignation and the Spanish Civil War. The resignation was caused by the cabinet crisis provoked by the “Borchgrave affair”, the assassination of Baron Gérard-Jacques de Borchgrave in a Republican controlled area of the front lines. The assassination unleashed a diplomatic crisis that had major consequences inside the Belgian cabinet as well as within the executive of the Belgian Workers’ Party (POB). In the midst of negotiations between the Belgian and Spanish governments to determine who was responsible for Borchgrave’s murder and the reparations to be paid, Vandervelde used the Le Peuple newspaper to undermine the position of Foreign Affairs Minister and fellow Socialist Paul-Henri Spaak in order to benefit the Republic. The ensuing tensions threatened the existence of the governing coalition. Given the profound disagreement on Spain between Spaak, who had the support of Finance Minister Henri Deman, on the one hand, and Vandervelde, who had the support of the other three Socialist ministers on the other, Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland accepted Vandervelde’s resignation as a way of preserving the coalition.

The “Borchgrave affair” had brought the split within the POB over Spain into the open.