**Albert Einstein helped piano teacher Rosa Schmid obtain compensation. Illustration by Marco Heer.**

The case of Einstein, a fake doctor and an unpaid debt

A landlady from Bern asked for Albert Einstein’s help in taking action against an ex-tenant who had not paid rent. The prominent scientist did not rest until justice was done.

Franziska Rogger

Franziska Rogger is a freelance historian.

Website: franziskarogger.com

People tend to think of Albert Einstein as an open book. His love letters are as well-known as his famous scientific works. Even details of his daily telephone conversations were published in 2025. However, the touching story of how and why the great Einstein personally intervened to help an unknown “young lady” from Bern achieve justice is less well known.

**The unmistakeable Albert Einstein photographed in Argentina in 1925.** Wikimedia

Albert Einstein’s scientific genius, love of women and pacifism is well documented. He helped victims of Nazi terror and was rather distant with his wives and children. When making personal decisions, he applied wisdom and foresight. He was also prepared to go to unusual lengths to combat injustice. His campaign against “miracle doctor” Leander Tomarkin is a good illustration of that. Tomarkin passed himself off in Europe and America as a famous doctor, original inventor of medicine and non-stop organiser of international medical congresses. The always-on-the-go “Doctor” Tomarkin had rented a room as a young man from piano teacher Ms Rosa Schmid in Bümpliz, a district of Bern. However, he “forgot” to pay her. Rosa Schmid was a resourceful and free-spirited woman of modest means who led a frugal but independent life.

**Leander Tomarkin in his laboratory, photographed in 1924.** Tomarkin private archive

When, years later, Rosa discovered in the press to her astonishment that her former lodger was rubbing shoulders with royalty and prominent scientists, she turned to the world famous Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein who was living in Berlin at the time. Having written to the Federal Council and Italian Duce, Benito Mussolini, to no avail, she told Einstein that Tomarkin had owed her CHF 500 for years. However, he had been cunning enough to “engage in some skilful manoeuvring to avoid paying”. Schmid openly asked Einstein in late March 1932 if he would use his influence to make Tomarkin settle his debt.

Begging letters were a daily occurrence for famous people like Albert Einstein. Rosa Schmid must have appeared to Einstein as an obscure piano teacher living anonymously in an urban area. However, despite that her letter did not go straight into the bin. In fact it is still among the Albert Einstein Archives in Jerusalem. The great scientist somewhat surprisingly made Schmid’s problem his business.

He also had skin in the game

Einstein’s interest in the matter was partly due to his love of justice, but it was not the only reason. Leander Tomarkin had been trying to enlist the services of the famous scientist as a supporter, speaker and patron for his medical foundation. Einstein, however, was not convinced by Tomarkin and confronted him with Schmid’s allegation of his unpaid debt on 20 April 1932. Einstein had wanted to see how Tomarkin would react, as he was concerned that his official involvement with a company managed by Tomarkin could potentially prove problematic.

Although put on the spot by this unsavoury episode from his past, Leander Tomarkin immediately penned a four-page letter disputing that he owed the Bernese piano teacher anything. He audaciously protested against her alleged attempts at blackmail. This caused Einstein to demand “objective proof” from Rosa Schmid on 26 April. If she could prove Tomarkin’s financial or even purely moral misconduct, he would officially cut all ties with him.

**Rosa Schmid (left) with Paul Klee and his sister Mathilde, photograph taken in 1934. She regularly met up with Hans, the father of the Klee siblings, to play the card game Jass.** Private archive of Niklaus Schmid-Heimes

Rosa Schmid was able to provide Einstein with acknowledgement of the debt, debt collection documents and a certificate of loss. A prominent Ticino lawyer who had also lodged with her while a student in Bern had procured these documents for her. On 3 May 1932, Albert Einstein was surprisingly informed by Tomarkin’s lawyer that the matter had been entirely settled. Schmid had received the CHF 500 – albeit without ten years of interest. Moreover, the payment had been contingent on her accepting that the quarrel had all stemmed from a mix-up, a basic accounting error. That would ensure Dr. L. Tomarkin’s name remained untainted by the affair.

Einstein cut all ties with Tomarkin

However, Einstein was unconvinced and he sent Rosa Schmid the lawyer’s letter at the end of May to hear what she had to say about it. Schmid explained some days later that she had desperately needed the money and had, to her regret, made this deal with Tomarkin.

On 11 June 1932, Albert Einstein firmly instructed Leander Tomarkin “to ensure”, that his name would “no longer be associated with” his foundation. The physicist had diligently and earnestly researched the Tomarkin-Schmid affair for two-and-a-half months. Apart from having his own good reputation and standing to consider, he stressed that he did not want to be involved with anything “that could be damaging to other people”. He told Rosa Schmid: “I’m pleased that you got justice.”

**Albert Einstein distanced himself from Tomarkin in 1932. He did not want anything more to do with the fake doctor’s foundation.** Wikimedia

The episode also had an unfortunate epilogue. When Tomarkin’s foundation was looking for funding, accommodation and laboratory access for persecuted scientists in 1933, they looked to Einstein as he was known to be sympathetic in these situations. However, on 2 May of that year, he showed himself to be unmoved and said: “The letter about the Tomarkin Foundation looks better than it really is. I know about Mr Tomarkin as I successfully prevailed upon him to honour an old debt to a former landlady to the value of CHF 500; he initially tried to smoothly talk his way out of it. When the core is rotten like that, what does it tell you about the outer layers?”

**Rosa Schmid pictured here at a family gathering in September 1957, insisted on being paid the rent, which…** Private archive of Niklaus Schmid-Heimes

**… seriously undermined the self-proclaimed Doctor Tomarkin, ultimately leading to his unveiling as a charlatan.** Private archive of Tomarkin

Einstein considered Tomarkin persona non grata from then on. He protected his good reputation, helped a Bernese piano teach to receive what she was due and lived up to the saying: “Einstein only cares about money when it is being misused to the detriment of people.”

More of: 20th / 21st century Research Women in history

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