Mileva Marić

The one who graduated fifth in Einstein's class at the Zurich Polytechnic Institute was a young woman named Mileva Marić. During the two years before graduation, she and Einstein were lovers. Marić was from Hungary and almost four years older than Albert. She shared Einstein's passion for science, and she had something mysterious that he found irresistible. The couple married in Bern in 1903, and Marić became the mother of all three of Einstein's children. In the end the preoccupation of the big man with his work - and other women - became too much of a problem for her. They separated in 1914 and divorced in 1919. Mileva Marić died in 1948.

Elsa Löwenthal

The last straw that breaks the camel's back of Einstein's marriage with Mileva Marić was his relationship with Elsa Löwenthal. She was his niece in two ways. Her mother and Albert's were sisters and their fathers were full cousins. Einstein had known Elsa since childhood, but their relationship only started in 1912 during a visit to Berlin, where she lived. After the split with Marić in 1914, they moved in together. Contrary to the mysterious intellectual Marić, Elsa had little interest in science and looked somewhat like a matron. She was the strong guard and caretaker Einstein needed, exhausted from work and the rest of life's pressure. They married in 1919.

Womanizer

Einstein had countless affairs throughout his life. This humorous genius with its striking appearance seemed to exert a magnetic appeal on women. Einstein happily played the game: "The top half plans and thinks while the bottom half determines our destiny," he once wrote. His conquests included women of all walks of life. Before marrying Elsa, he had first considered her twenty-year-old daughter Ilse. And it was still not enough for the irrepressible Einstein: he had a romance with his secretary Betty Neumann, apparently with the consent of Elsa. Although Einstein was charming and friendly, and somewhat selfish, his attitude toward women was sometimes chauvinistic, like the time when he found his son's fiancé not attractive enough and therefore scolded him.