EINSTEIN S PROPOSALS FOR THE NOBEL PRIZE 517
him for the peace prize, initiated in 1934, grew into an international campaign.
In January 1936, more than 500 members of the parliaments of Czechoslovakia,
England, France, Holland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland signed petitions
nominating him for the peace prize. He stayed in the concentration camp until
May 1936, when he was moved to a prison hospital with a severe case of tuber-
culosis. In the fall of 1936, Goering offered him freedom in exchange for a dec-
laration that he would refuse the peace prize if it were awarded to him. Von
Ossietzky refused. In November 1936 he was awarded the peace prize for 1935.
On January 30, 1937, Hitler decreed that no German was henceforth permitted
to receive Nobel prizes of any kind. The Nobel committee nevertheless awarded
to Germans the chemistry prize in 1938 and the medicine prize in 1939. Both
awards were declined. Von Ossietzky stayed in a prison hospital until, in May
1938, he died of tuberculosis.
- January 17, 1940. Einstein writes to Mrs de Haas-Lorentz: 'Together
with some local colleagues, I have proposed Otto Stern and [I. I.] Rabi for the
invention of new methods for the measurement of molecular magnetic moments.'
In 1944 the prize for 1943 is awarded to Stern, the one for 1944 to Rabi.
- January 1945. Einstein sends the following telegram: 'Nominate Wolf-
gang Pauli for physics prize stop his contributions to modern quantum theory
consisting in so-called Pauli or exclusion principle became fundamental part of
modern quantum physics being independent from the other basic axioms of that
theory stop Albert Einstein.'
In 1945 Pauli receives the physics prize 'for the discovery of the exclusion prin-
ciple, also called the Pauli principle.'
- November 18, 1947. Einstein writes to Guy von Dardel, 'I would find it
quite justified that Raoul Wallenberg should receive the Nobel prize [for peace]
and I am gladly permitting you to mention this expression of my opinion to any
person.'* On December 10, 1947, three members of the Swedish Riksdag formally
propose Wallenberg to the Storting.
In 1944 Wallenberg, born in 1912 in Stockholm, was appointed third secretary
to the Swedish legation in Budapest, with the task of organizing a large-scale
action of relief from Nazi terror. He and his staff managed to bring about 20 000
people under the direct protection of the Swedish legation. His name soon became
legendary. Several times the Nazis unsuccessfully tried to entrap and kill him.
Early in 1945 Wallenberg fell into the hands of the Soviet army, which was occu-
pying Budapest. He vanished. It is certain that at the turn of 1946-7 he was in
cell No. 151 of the Lubianka prison in Moscow. It is believed by some that he
may still be alive today. In 1947 Einstein wrote to Stalin, 'As an old Jew, I appeal
to you to find and send back to his country Raoul Wallenberg.. .[who], risking
*I learned much about this case from Wallenberg's half-brother, my friend Guy von Dardel, and
from a paper on Wallenberg by G. B. Freed, from which I have quoted liberally [Fl].
