CHAPTER 1
Origin and Background
Childhood
I was born in 1907. The suburb of Berlin where 1 was born and grew up was dominated by the cable factory of the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (A.E.G.), of which my father, Heinrich Peierls, was the managing director. He came from a family of Jewish merchants in Breslau (now Wroclaw) and had risen rapidly in the new industrial empire of the A.E.G. He had not been a great success at school; his abilities were not in academics, and the teaching seems to have been very uninspired. So, at the suggestion of the school, he left early. At this time the death of his father had left the family short of money, and he took up a commercial apprenticeship. In his time this involved a very tough regime. Working hours were long. When he asked his employer for permission to leave early on his last day before leaving town on a night train, so that he could have a farewell dinner with his mother, permission was given rather grudgingly: "Your train does not leave until 11." He moved to Berlin to take a junior post in the A.E.G. In approximately twelve years he became the managing director of a large factory.
My father was respected as an outstandingly efficient administrator. He would always anticipate ways in which plans, big or small, could go wrong because of misunderstandings or because people did unexpected things, and he would try to prepare for such mistakes. One of his favourite sayings was, "No man is wise enough to think of all the ideas that can occur to a fool." I am told he was the first to introduce time-and-motion study in German industry.
As a busy man who had to husband his time, he had a device to get rid of visitors who stayed too long. There was a button under his desk that he could press without being noticed, and this would alert a secretary to come in and say he was wanted urgently somewhere in the factory. He once told this to a colleague he visited in his office, who in turn confided his own scheme: when a long-winded visitor would arrive, he would say a code word to his secretary, and she would appear after a reasonable interval to tell him that the deputy director wanted him urgently. At that very moment, the secretary appeared and said just that. My father departed hurriedly in spite of the colleague's protestations that it was all a mistake.
He was good with people because he understood them, and because he respected them with all their frailties. Even now, nearly forty years after his death, I still encounter people who remember his help or kind advice with gratitude. He was not religious and did not like philosophical discussions of ethical principles; but it was obvious to him, and he made it obvious to us, that certain things were just not done.
He was a great raconteur and had an inexhaustible stock of jokes and anecdotes. Many of these were Jewish jokes of the kind that Jewish people liked to tell about each other but did not like to hear from Gentiles. The jokes often poked fun at the stereotypical characteristics of Jews, as in the one about the difference between Jews and Gentiles: "If a Gentile has had a glass of beer and is still thirsty he will say 'Waiter, another glass!' If a Jew has had a glass of beer and is still thirsty, he will go to his doctor and ask 'Have I got diabetes?'" Then, there was the question of what every Jewish housewife possessed: "The best husband, the sweetest children, one room too few, and nothing to wear." He was also not above a rather more primitive kind of humour, as in the riddle: "What is this: You eat with it, you drink from it, you write with it, and you sleep in it?" The answer: "A spoon, a glass, a pen, and a bed."
He also had a great stock of amusing happenings. One of his favourites was the story about the factory director's wife in a small suburb of Dresden, who returned from town on the last suburban train at night, and went to the toilet at the station. She found that the door lock was faulty and could not be opened from the inside. She called for help, but the station staff had gone home, and she was trapped inside. Hours later she heard steps and again shouted for help. The night watchman heard her and opened the door: "But Frau Direktor, what are you doing here?" She explained that the door would not open from the inside. "Nonsense," he said, "I will show you," and before she could stop him, he was inside, and of course the door did not open for him either. So there they both remained until the station staff came on duty in the morning and released them. They promised each other, and also made the station people promise, not to talk about this incident; but because the watchman had not clocked in on his rounds, he had to appear at a disciplinary hearing. The lady had to testify where the watchman had spent the period from midnight to 6 A.M. The result was such embarrassing ridicule that her husband had to move to another town and another job.
Father claimed that people from Breslau were afraid of appearing ostentatious. He used to tell us how, in a train on holiday abroad, some passengers had ticket booklets whose coupons indicated, by their colour, that the travellers had left home, and were returning home, by second class, while all intermediate travel was by first class. Evidently they did not wish to be seen travelling in luxury. He then said, "These people must be from Breslau." And so they were.
He also delighted in teasing my grandmother, his mother-in-law, about the story of the partridge. She was in charge of the household when my mother was away, and the canteen manager, who had been shooting partridge, offered some to us, as was his practice. But my grandmother told him we could not use them. When Father remonstrated, she replied; "You men don't understand these things, but I have checked: they will not keep till Sunday!" The thought of eating partridge on a weekday evidently had not occurred to her.
Father was not very good with his hands, and, for example, he never learned to tie a knot. He had his boots fitted with special hooks on which he could anchor the laces without tying them. He also could not shave himself, and the barber came daily to shave him.
My mother, his cousin, nee Elisabeth Weigert, was eleven years younger. She was a gentle person and very attractive. I do not remember her very clearly because from the beginning of the First World War, when I was seven, she was very busy with charitable and other volunteer work, and we did not see much of her. Later she suffered from depression, from which she had barely recovered when she developed Hodgkin's disease and died in 1921.
I was the youngest in the family, being eight and six years junior to my brother and sister, respectively. I was looked after by an adoring nanny, who complied somewhat...
