Erwin Finlay Freundlich (1885–1964)
by Ernest Mandler
- Date painted: 1938
- Oil on canvas, 110.5 x 83.5 cm
- Collection: University of St Andrews
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After finishing his thesis with Felix Klein at the University of Göttingen in 1910,Erwin Finlay Freundlich became assistant at the Observatory in Berlin, where he became associated with Einstein. During a solar eclipse expedition in 1914 to verify general relativity, World War I broke out and he was interned in Russia. After the war, he was engaged in construction of a solar observatory in Potsdam, the Einsteinturm =(Башня Эйнштейна (обсерватория на горе Телеграфенберг в Потсдаме, 1917 г. либо 1920—1921 гг.Эрих Мендельсон - архитектор, )
and he was director of the Einstein-Institut.
In 1933 Hitler came to power and Freundlich was forced to leave Germany; he had a Jewish grandmother and his wife was Jewish. He was appointed professor at the University of Istanbul, which was reformed by Kemal Atatürk with the help of many German scholars.