LYRICS
Germany's rediscovery of Einstein began in 2003
when he was picked by millions of television viewers in a survey as one of the best Germans of all time .
Born in the Bavarian city of Ulm in 1879,
Einstein moved to Switzerland at 17 to evade military service .
After graduating from the Polytechnic School in Zurich
he wrote scientific papers in his spare time while working as a Swiss patent officer .
In 1908, Einstein's miracle year,
he formulated his theory of relativity, an explanation of the relationship between time and space
that challenged a view of the universe that had stood since the days of Sir Isaac Newton 200 years before .
Einstein's fame soared in 1919 after his theory was proven .
He won a Nobel Prize in 1921,
after which Germany and Switzerland both claimed him as theirs .
Einstein returned to Germany in 1914 and lived in Berlin for 19 years
before fleeing Hitler's Nazis in 1933 .
He took a post at Princeton University, and spent the rest of his life there .
His house in Berlin was ransacked by the Nazis .
Einstein gave up his German citizenship in 1932
and became a naturalised American citizen in 1940.