Einstein and his friend Friedrich Adler both applied for the chair of the University of Zurich’s physics department. Adler told the university that if they had the chance to hire Einstein, they should hire Einstein instead of himself.
Adler soon turned his attention to politics, as he hated Austria’s support of WWI. This lead Adler to assassinate the Minister-President of Austria. Adler’s father tried to save his son by arguing Friedrich was insane, but Friedrich instead argued his political position, and I presume he appeared quite sane while doing so. Einstein wrote to help but stopped short of saying Adler was insane.
From prison Adler delighted that he could think about physics again, and wrote to Einstein describing what he thought was a flaw in relativity. Adler’s father seized on this as further evidence his son was insane (because he dared to argue with Einstein)! The father wrote to leading physicists for confirmation of this. The physicists were in a bind because they could see Adler made a normal mistake, but not an insane one.
Adler was sentenced to death. Turbulent times lead to an offer of amnesty for all political prisoners in exchange for an apology, but Adler refused to apologize. Eventually Adler’s sentence was commuted.
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