ALBERT Einstein鈥檚 elegant summer house, built on the shores of a lake in the village of Caputh near Berlin in 1929, is causing the local authority headaches. Einstein spent much of his time at the house before the Nazis forced him to leave in 1933. He called it 鈥渕y paradise鈥�.
The Caputh local authority bought the house for a bargain 5000 marks. It was used by the Hitler Youth and the Luftwaffe. After the war, the house was taken over by the East German government, which used it as a guesthouse for prominent Eastern bloc scientists.
Since German reunification, the local authority has developed the house as a tourist attraction. But this is against the wishes expressed in Einstein鈥檚 will and has run into widespread criticism.
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Now there are at least a dozen claims to ownership of the property, including that of Einstein鈥檚 last living relative, Eva Kayser, the 84-year-old second wife of his son-in-law.
According to the German news magazine, Der Spiegel, sorting out these claims will be 鈥渁lmost as complicated as the theory of relativity鈥�.