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.