Mathematicians during the Third Reich and World War II

Died
Imprisoned
Hidden
Emigration
Non-Emigrants
Working in war related research
Near nazi
General Information

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Died:

Berwald, Ludwig: Dismissed 1939 in Prague; Deportation by Gestapo to Lodz where he died in April 1942.

Blumenthal, Otto: [SCHAPPACHER, SIEGMUND,PINL]
dismissed 1939 from Aachen and - for a short while - kept in "protective custody". Editor of 'Mathematische Annalen' until 1938. In 1939 he went to Holland. When the Netherlands had fallen, he refused the help of Dutch friends and was deported to Theresienstadt where he died 1944.

Cavailles, Jean: [MENZLER-TROTT]
Member of the resistance. Killed by the Gestapo 1944. See also here and here .

Dickstein, Samuel:
Died in the nazi bombing of Warsaw in 1939.

Epstein, Paul: [SIEGMUND, PINL]
Frankfurt 1919 until 1935, suicide after summon from Gestapo August 1939.

Froehlich, Walter:
In 1939 dismissed in Prague, 1941 deported to Lodz and died there 1942. See also here and here.

Hartogs, Fritz [BAUER, PINL]
Committed suicide 1943 in Munich. See also here and here .

Hausdorff, Felix: [SIEGMUND, PINL]
As Paul Mongre he published also poems and theater plays. He had to retire 1935 from his chair in Bonn. In 1941 he was scheduled to go to an internment camp but managed to avoid being sent. However by 1942 he could no longer avoid being sent to the internment camp and, together with his wife and his wife's sister, he committed suicide.
Hausdorff-Edition 1 and 2.

Pick, Georg:
Retired in Prague 1929. He was deported to Theresienstadt in 1940 and died there in July 1942. See also here and here

Remak, Robert: [SIEGMUND, PINL]
Arrested in the Kristallnacht Nov. 9-10 1938 and put into Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After 8 weeks released and went to Amsterdam. 1942 again arrested by German forces occupying Amsterdam and taken to Auschwitz where he died. See also here

Saks, Stanislaw:
1942 killed by Gestapo in Warsaw.

Schauder, Juliusz Pawel:
Killed by Gestapo 1943 in Poland.

Tauber, Alfred:
died in Theresienstadt 1942

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Imprisoned:

Balas, Egon[BALAS: Will to Freedom]
Underground resistance fighter in Hungary; imprisonment, torture, escape and hiding, see here.

Banach, Stefan:
In Lwów he was on good terms with Russian occupation troops 1939. He returned from Kiev to Lwów after German invasion of Russia. He had to feed lice one hour a day with his blood in the institute of Prof. Weigl. In this institute Prof. Weigl produced anti-typhus vaccine. The 'feeders' like Banach had the remaining time left for organizing the underground University courses. In July 1944 the Russain troops retook Lwów. He died 1945 of lung cancer.
See Weigl.html, Weigl_Lwow_2003_4.pdf page 15, and a short biography by Waclaw Szybalski and Stanislaw Kosiedowski.

Borsuk, Karol:
imprisoned in Poland

Caccioppoli, Renato:
In May 1938 Hitler was visiting Naples with Mussolini: Caccioppoli, who had already shown his opposition to fascism, convinced an open-air restaurant orchestra to play La Marseillaise, and made a speech against Italian and German dictators. He was arrested and he should have been tried by a special political court instituted by the fascists against their opponents, but he managed to be declared mad and to be eventually sent to an asylum.

Funk, Paul:
Dismissed 1939 in Prague, deported to Theresienstadt 1944, survived.
See also Der Mathematiker Paul Funk wird mit der "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften konfrontiert von Gerhard Oberkofler Jahrbuch 2005 : Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstands ; (2005), S.200-217, and
Kuehler Abschied von Europa - Wien 1938 und der Exodus der Mathematik

Grell, Heinrich:
In his lectures on algebra he stressed the beauty of Emmy Noether's theories. He was arrested, kept in conentration camps for months. From 1939 he worked as a scientist for Messerschmitt. See also Kurzbiographien and Univ. Halle.

Hellinger, Ernst: [SIEGMUND, PINL]
Uni Frankfurt 1914, 1936 forced to retire, 13.Nov. 1938 put into concentration camp Dachau for six weeks, emmigration to USA Febr. 1939, Northwestern Uni Evanston, 1949 Illinois Institute of Technology. Died Nov. 1949.

Herzstark, Curt
Developed a portable calculator (the Curta Calculator); imprisoned from 1943 - 45 in KZ Buchenwald, where he worked on his calculator.
See e.g. Oral Interview 1, Curta 2, 3, 4, .

Kaluznin, Lev:
1941 arrested in France, 1942 to concentration camp Wahlsburg. 1945 return to Paris.

Marczewski, Edward:
near the end of the war he was captured and sent to a labour camp in Wroclaw.

Mohr, Ernst.
Sentenced to death, but survived.

Pinl, Max:
Student boycott of his lecture on relativity mathematics, arrest by Gestapo 1939, six months inprisonment "on remand". From 1940 theoretical work in industry and at Brunswick aviation research institute.

Renyi, Alfred:
In 1944 he was forced to a fascist Labour Camp but somehow managed to escape. He obtained false papers and hid for six months avoiding capture. During this time his parents were held prisoners in the Budapest ghetto. Alfred rescued them with an extreme act of bravery: He got hold of a soldier's uniform, walked into the ghetto, and marched his parents out.

Schwarz, Stefan:
Fled from Prague to Slovakia 1939; November 1944 he was betrayed to the SS, arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen, later to Buchenwald. In April 1945, when Schwarz was near death, Buchenwald camp was liberated and his life was saved.

Turan, Paul:
spent 32 months in a nazi labour camp from 1941 to 1944 in Hungary.

Wazewski, Tadeusz:
Spent two years in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

Weil, Andre: [YANDELL]
He was a conscentious objector and so wished to avoid military service. He fled to Finland as soon as war was declared. He was sent from Finland back to France where he was put in prison. His sister Simone Weil was a leading figure in the French Resistance. Having used the army as a reason to get out of prison, Weil had no intention of serving any longer than he possibly could. As soon as the chance to escape to the United States came, he took it at once.

Zarankiewicz:
He paid dearly for teaching in the underground university for in 1944 he was sent to a labour camp in Germany. He survived this experience and returned to Warsaw at the end of the war in 1945.



In Russia:


Gnedenko, Boris:
In 1937 he was conscripted into the Red Army on 1 December. He was sent to Bryansk but on 5 December he was arrested. He had been denounced by one of the members of the Mathematics Department who had been with him on the summer trip. Gnedenko was imprisoned with 120 other prisoners in a cell built for six people and was constantly interrogated about statements he had made on the summer trip: confirm that Kolmogorov was the ringleader of a group of "enemies of the people" centred in the mathematics department. Without warning he was released after six months.

Krawtchouk, Mykhailo:
In 1937 Krawtchouk was accused of being a Polish spy and also a bourgeois nationalist. He was arrested, tried and sentenced to twenty years in prison and five years in exile. He died at the age of 49 in Kolyma, one of the Labour Camps set up by the Gulag.

Noether, Fritz:
In 1934 retired in Breslau, went to Tomsk, USSR. In 1937 he was arrested. He was not heard of again. See also here

Zeckendorf, Edouard:
1940 Zeckendorf was interned as a prisoner of war until 1945.



In England:


Hirsch, Kurt:
Emigration with jewish wife to England; POW in England as an enemy alien ia a camp on the sle of Man working a as a cook; soon released and returned to Leicester.

Mahler, Kurt:
Emigration, spent three months as "an enemy alien" in the camp on the Isle of Man.

Neumann, Bernhard:, see also the interview
1932 Uni Berlin, emigration to England 1933, 1935 degree from Cambridge, unemployed until 1937, lectureship in Cardiff, 1939 briefly interned as an enemy alien, 1940 released, joined the Intelligence Corps. 1946 lecturer in Hall; 1948 Manchester. Married to Hanna Neumann (maiden name Caemmerer).

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Hidden:


Freudenthal, Hans:
1930 in Amsterdam, hiding during nazi occupation.

Lakatos, Imre, born as Imre Lipschitz:
Changed his name to Imre Molnar to avoid nazi persecution in Debrecen.

Levy, Paul:
Left Paris 1942, hiding in Lyon and Macon.

Steinhaus, Hugo:
Spend the war years from June 1941 hiding from the nazis in Poland.

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Emigration:


Artin, Emil: [YANDELL]
Emigrated 1937 from Hamburg to USA, because his wife was Jewish. 1958 returned to Hamburg.

Bergman, Stefan:
In 1937 forced to leave Russia.

Bernays, Paul:
In 1939 dismissed in Goettingen, moved to Zurich.

Bernstein, Felix:
Deprived of his chair in 1934 by Hitler's policies, Bernstein emigrated to the USA teaching at several universities, but he returned to Goettingen in 1948.

Born, Max:
Born was forced, as a Jew, to flee Germany in 1933.

Brauer, Richard:
1925-1933 Koenigsberg, lost position, emigration to USA, Lexington, Uni Kentucky, died 1977 in Melmont, MA

Cohn-Vossen, Stefan:
Barred from lecturing 1933 in Cologne, moved to Moscow where he died 1936. See also here

Courant, Richard: [MEDAWAR, SIEGMUND, YANDELL, PINL]
1922 Goettingen, 1933 removed, emigration to England, New York Uni Died 1972 in New Rochelle, NY.

Dehn, Max Wilhelm: [YANDELL, SIEGMUND, PINL]
Frankfurt 1921 to 1935, 1938 forced to leave his post. 1940 emmigration to USA.

Erdelyi, Arthur:
He was awarded a doctorate in 1938 but because of the nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia he was told he had to leave the country by the end of 1938 or be sent to a concentration camp.

Fano, Gino:
Deprived from his chair in Turin by fascists 1938, went to Switzerland.

Fraenkel, Adolf:
He was a fervent Zionist and, after leaving Kiel, he taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1929.

Frank, Philipp:
He remained at the German University in Prague until 1938 fleeing to the United States after the German occupation.

Friedrichs, Kurt:
1932 Braunschweig, 1937 joined Courant, after having experienced problems. Died 1982 in New Rochelle, NY.

Froehlich, Albrecht:
Escaped 1933 from Munich to France and Palestine. Later on Professor in England.

Geiringer, Hilda:
Emigration with von Mises, see also here.

Goedel, Kurt:
emigration 1940 from Vienna to USA

Gumbel, Emil:
leftist pacifist, who left Germany already 1932. See also Heidelberg Ausstellung

Hadamard, Jaques:
When France fell in 1940, Hadamard and his family escaped to the USA where he was appointed to a visiting position at Columbia University. However, he failed to find a permanent post in America. Hadamard left the United States soon after and spent a year in England before returning to Paris.

Hamburger, Hans Ludwig:
Dismissed 1935 in Cologne, went to Britain in 1939. Short internment. See also here

Helly, Eduard:
He fled from Austria to save himself and his family, emigrating to the United States in 1938.

von Hippel, Arthur:
Emigration 1933 because of Jewish wife and political opinion.

Landau, Edmund:
Goettingen until 1933, (boycott against Landau organized by Teichmueller), moved to Berlin, lectured in Cambridge, Holland. Died 1938 in Berlin.

Lasker, Emanuel:
emigration 1933

Ledermann, Walter:
Oral examination 1933 by Schur and by Bieberbach (in nazi uniform). 1934 emigration to St. Andrews, Scotland

Loewner, Karl:
Forced to leave Prague when the nazis occupied Czechoslovakia. Moved to USA; Brown Uni and Syracuse Uni. Died 1968 in Stanford.

Lukacs, Eugene:
emigration form Vienna to USA.

Lukasiewicz, Jan:
Fled Ploand 1939.

Menger, Karl:
In 1938, as a result of the political situation in Austria, he resigned his chair and accepted a post in the USA

von Mises, Richard:[SIEGMUND, GOLOMB, PINL]
Berlin until 1933, then Istanbul, Turkey until 1939, USA Harvard, died 1953 in Boston. Together with Hilda Geiringer von Mises. See also here and here .

Muentz, Chaim (Herman):
In 1933 emigrated to Leningrad. Emigrated to Sweden; died 1956. See also 1 or 2

Neugebauer, Otto:
Founder of Zentralblatt; moved to Copenhagen 1934. 1938 Springer Verlag insisted that Zentralblatt be produced in accordance with nazi principles. He resigned. Founded Mathematical Reviews.
See also

Noether, Emmy: [SCHAPPACHER, YANDELL, SIEGMUND, PINL]
1915-1933 Goettingen, 1933 dismissed, emigration USA, Princeton, died 1935. See here and also here

Prager,William:
Dismissal in Karlsruhe 1933, emigration to USA. See also here or here

Pringsheim, Alfred: [BAUER, JENS, PINL]
Father-in-law of Thomas Mann. From 1933 to 1939 his life was made impossible as a non-Aryan. His house (Arcisstr. 1 near Koenigsplatz) in Munich was taken away and eventually he moved to Zurich.

Rademacher, Hans:
He was forced out of his professorship in 1933 because of his pacifist views and he left Germany in 1934. He spent the rest of his life in the United States.

Rado, Richard:
1933 Berlin, emigration to England.

Reichenbach, Hans:
1933 he fled to Turkey and 1938 he emigrated to the USA.

Rogosinski, Werner Wolfgang:
Loss of "venia legendi" 1936. 1937 invitation to Cambridge. See also here or here

Schur, Issai: [SCHAPPACHER, SIEGMUND, PINL, GOLOMB]
1919-1935 Berlin, 1939 emigration to Palestine, died 1941

Schwerdtfeger, Hans:
In 1939 he emigrated from Prague to Australia and Canada. " ... most of our friends were Jewish and I was not prepared to work for the nazis." See also here

Siegel, Carl Ludwig:[YANDELL, SIEGMUND]
Although he was not affected by the Civil Service Law of the nazis, he hated the nazi regime. He was in Goettingen until early 1940, Denmark, Norway, USA Advanced Study at Princeton until 1951, 1951 return to Goettingen.

Szasz, Otto:
Uni Frankfurt 1914, 1933 lost position, emigration to USA to MIT, Brown Uni, 1936 Uni of Cincinnati, died 1952.

Szegoe, Gabor:
From Koenigsberg 1934 moved to USA; 1938 Stanford.

Toeplitz, Otto: [SIEGMUND, BORN, PINL]
1928 Uni Bonn Chair, 1935 dismissed by nazis, 1939 Jerusalem Uni, 1940 died in Jerusalem.
Otto Toeplitz Teilnachlass and his son Uri (Erich) , member of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
TOEPLITZ, Uri: Und Worte reichen nicht - Von der Mathematik in Deutschland zur Musik in Israel. Eine jüdische Familiengeschichte 1812-1998.

Wald, Abraham:
emigration from Vienna to USA.

Weyl, Hermann: [SIEGMUND, SCHAPPACHER, PINL]
1930-1933 Goettingen, emigration to USA, Princeton until 1952.

Zorn, Max:
1933 he was forced to leave Germany because of the nazi policies. Went to USA.

Zygmund, Antoni:
Drafted to Polish army 1939; In 1940 escaped with his wife and son from german controlled Poland to USA; Chicago until 1980.

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Non-Emigrants:


Borel, Emile:
Minister of the Navy (1925-40). After his arrest and brief imprisonment under the Vichy regime he worked for the Resistance.

Faber, Georg:
Munich, Goettingen, Wuerzburg. chair of of TU Munich during the war, 1945 appointed rector of TU Munich.

Fischer, Ernst:
Prematurely retired 1938 in Cologne, reinstated 1945.

Grunsky, Helmut[GOLOMB, St.-Andrews-Biography of Bieberbach]
He resisted pressure put on him by Bieberbach not to use Jewish referees and he had to leave his position as editor of the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik in 1939.

Herglotz, Gustav:
Remained in Goettingen 1933.

Hilbert, David:[YANDELL]
Remained in Goettingen
Als Hilbert 1934 von dem NS-Reichsminister Rust gefragt wurde, ob das mathematische Institut durch den Weggang der Juden und Judenfreunde gelitten habe, gab Hilbert zur Antwort: "Jelitten? Dat hat nich jelitten, Herr Minister. Dat jibt es doch janich mehr!" (Nach Fraenkel 1967, S. 159.) Lit. N. Schappacher.

Hopf, Heinz:
Zurich, was able to provide refuge for friends who had to flee Germany (e.g. Schur), still German citizen. 1943 should move back to Germany or lose citizenship. Applied for Swiss citizenship. After the war was able to help his German friends (visit to Oberwolfach).

Kamke, Erich:
Because of his Jewish spouse he was retired 1937 from Tuebingen, and reinstated 1945. See also here and here

Krein, Mark:
Was accused of Jewish nationalism 1941 and dismissed. Potapov tried hard to influence the Odessa university authorities to reverse there decisions. 1952 dismissed for a second time.

Kuratowski, Kazimierz:
Risked his life to teach in illegal educational establishment through the war in Poalnd.

Levi-Civita, Tullio:
was strongly and actively opposed to fascism. After he was dismissed from his post in Padua, he died of stroke.

Loewenheim, Leopold:
He was forced to retire in 1934 (he was a quarter non-Aryan !) and lost his mathematical manuscripts, 1000 drawings and models and much more in the 1943 bombing of Berlin. Loewenheim survived and taught mathematics again after the War.

Loewy, Alfred:
Shortly before his death 1935 he was forced to retire by the nazi regime since he was Jewish.

Magnus, Wilhelm:[YANDELL]
He refused to join the nazi Party and, as a consequence of this, was not allowed to hold an academic post during World War II. Instead he had to work in industry.

Moufang, Ruth:
1937 no permission to teach; she became an industrial mathematician working on elasticity theory. In fasct this gives Moufang the unique position of being the first German woman with a doctorate to be employed in industry. She may actually be the first ever such woman anywhere. 1946 Professor in Frankfurt, she holds a unique position here as the first German woman professor

Perron, Oskar [JENS, TOEPELL]
Helped Pringsheim in Munich to emigrate. See also.

Reidemeister, Kurt:
Suddenly dismissed 1939 because of his frank comments on earlier disturbances by nazi students. He fought back and was reinstated.

Rellich, Franz:
Dismissed from Goettingen 1933. Professor in Damrstadt (1942) and Goettingen (1946)

Schmidt, Erhard:[SIEGMUND]
1920 Berlin, remained there during difficult years (very patriotic, but not a nazi)

Tietze, Heinrich:
He spent the difficult years of nazi control of Germany at Munich. Caratheodory retired 1938; until 1944 no succesor because of complex political considerations. Short list of candidates: Herglotz, van der Waerden and Siegel. However, all three were opposed by the nazi professors at Munich for political reasons.

van der Waerden, Bartel:[SCHAPPACHER]
1931 Leipzig, refused to give up his Dutch citizenship. 1948 Amsterdam, 1951 Zuerich
interview.

Winkler, Wilhelm:
1938 he was forced to resign from both his government post and his university professorship in Austria.

Zermelo, Ernst:
Disciplinary proceedings were opened against him in 1935 for refusal of the Hitler salute and disparaging remarks about the "Fuehrer"; he forestalled the result by resigning.

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Working in war related research:


Cochran, William:
At Princeton he was involved in war work examining probabilities of hits in naval warfare. By 1945 he was working on bombing raid strategies.

Crank, John:
War work on ballistics.

Dantzig, George:
From 1941 to 1946 he was head of the Combat Analysis Branch, U.S.A.F. Headquarters Statistical Control.

Dirac, Paul:
He worked during WWII on uranium separation and nuclear weapons.

Erdoes, Paul:
He didn't want to work in Los Alamos.

Givens, James:
In 1940 assistant of von Neumann. See also here and here .

Hamming, Richard:
He joined the Manhattan Project in 1945.

Hanbury Brown, Robert
Pioneer of the radar development. See also.

Householder, Alston:
In 1944 he became involved in the war effort (in biology).

von Karman, Theodore:
In 1912 he accepted a post as director of the Aeronautical Institute at Aachen in Germany. He visited the USA in 1926 and four years later he was offered the post of director of the Aeronautical Laboratory at California Institute of Technology. Despite his love for Aachen, the political events in Germany persuaded him to accept. In 1933 he founded the U.S. Institute of Aeronautical Sciences where he continued his research on fluid mechanics, turbulence theory and supersonic flight. Died 1963 in Aachen.

Lanczos, Cornelius:
During the year 1928-29 Lanczos was Einstein's assistant in Berlin, returning to Frankfurt in 1929. In 1931 Lanczos spent a year as a visiting professor at the University of Purdue in Lafayette, Indiana. Returning to Germany he found the political situation there becoming unacceptable for someone of Jewish origin and he returned to a Professorship at Purdue in 1932. Lanczos spent the year of 1944 working for the Boeing Aircraft Company and, in 1946, he resigned his post in Purdue to take up a permanent appointment with Boeing.

Lindemann, Frederick, or Lord Cherwell
Scientific adviser of Churchill

Macdougall, Donald
Statistical adviser of Winston Churchill

von Neumann, John:
Until 1933 he still held academic posts in Germany but resigned these when the nazis came to power. During and after World War II, von Neumann served as a consultant to the armed forces. His valuable contributions included a proposal of the implosion method for bringing nuclear fuel to explosion and his participation in the development of the hydrogen bomb. From 1940 he was a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee at the Ballistic Research Laboratories at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. He was a member of the Navy Bureau of Ordnance from 1941 to 1955, and a consultant to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory from 1943 to 1955.

Schoenberg, Isaac:
During the years 1943-45 he was released from the University of Pennsylvania for war work as a mathematician at the Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Maryland, where he developed the theory of splines.

Synge, John:
He also spent a short time as ballistic mathematician in the US Air Force during 1944-45.

Tukey, John:
He joined the Fire Control Research office to contribute towards the war effort. The work here involved statistics.

Turing, Alan: (see also turing)
When war was declared in 1939 Turing immediately moved to work full-time at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. Turing's brilliant ideas in solving codes, and developing computers to assist break them, may have saved more lives of military personnel in the course of the war than any other. Together with another mathematician W G Welchman, Turing developed the Bombe, a machine based on earlier work by Polish mathematicians, which from late 1940 was decoding all messages sent by the Enigma machines of the Luftwaffe. By the middle of 1941 Turing's statistical approach, together with captured information, had also led to the German navy signals being decoded at Bletchley. Turing was arrested for violation of British homosexuality statutes in 1952 when he reported to the police details of a homosexual affair. He had gone to the police because he had been threatened with blackmail. He was tried as a homosexual on 31 March 1952, offering no defence other than that he saw no wrong in his actions. Found guilty he was given the alternatives of prison or oestrogen injections for a year. He accepted the latter. After that the police began to investigate his foreign visitors. Turing died of potassium cyanide poisoning while conducting electrolysis experiments. The cyanide was found on a half eaten apple beside him.
See also

Ulam, Stanislaw:
He worked on the hydrogen bomb in Los Alamos.

Wiener, Norbert:
During World War II he worked on gunfire control.

Wilkinson, Jim:
In 1940 Wilkinson began war work which involved mathematical and numerical work on ballistics. He also worked on the thermodynamics of explosions but asked for a transfer. He became Turing's assistant at the National Physical Laboratory in London in 1946.

Wilks, Samuel:
He worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was a member of the National Defense Committee.



In Germany:


Boseck, Karl-Heinz: Wiki Document
Studying Mathematics in Berlin and leading a group for numerical computations in the KZ Sachsenhausen (English webpage).

Helmut Joachim Fischer: Autobiography, Collection of activities related to KZ.
Building in KZ Sachsenhausen a group of inmates for doing numerical calculations, e.g. in connection with numerical simluations.
See Die Mathe-Nazis, Autobiography "Erinnerungen Teil II Feuerwehr fuer die Forschung", page 99-103", and
the book by Sanford L. Segal "Mathematicians under the Nazis, chapter : Mathematics in the Concentration Camps".

More literature to the Numerical Computational Group in the KZ Sachsenhausen:
Related chapter out of the book by Segal.
Angewandte Mathematik und Anwendungen der Mathematik im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland by H.Mehrtens.
Die Mathe-Nazis by Judith Luig.
Haeftlingsforschung by G. Simon.


Collatz, Lothar: [MENZLER-TROTT]
Dr. HU Berlin, 1938 Habil., Priv.Doz. Karlsruhe, 1943 Hannover. Working on eigenvalue problems in connection with V2. Biography and here .

Doetsch, Gustav Pacifist before 1933, then nationalsozialistic behaviour. Working in war related research at the RLM (Reichsluftfahrtministerium).

Gentzen, Gerhard: [MENZLER-TROTT]
Died 1945 in Prague.

Hasse, Helmut:
1934-1939 Goettingen, applied for membership in the NSDAP, but was turned down, because one of his ancestors was Jewish. 1939-1945 working in Berlin on problems in ballistic. 1945 return to Goettingen, dismissed by British occupation forces. 1946 research position at Berlin Academy. 1949 Humboldt Uni East Berlin. 1950-1066 Hamburg.

Hopf, Eberhard:
In 1936, at the end of the MIT contract, Hopf returned to Germany (Leipzig). In 1942 Hopf was drafted to work in the German Aeronautical Institute. In 1944, one year before the end of World War II, Hopf was appointed to a professorship at the University of Munich. Returned to USA 1947.

Prandtl, Ludwig:
See also here. Working on aerodynamic problems. See also here or here .

Suess, Wilhelm
Founder of "Mathematisches Institut Oberwolfach".

Walther, Alwin : [MENZLER-TROTT]
Working on problems in connection with V2. See also here or here , or here

Wielandt, Helmut:
1941 engaged in research in meteorology, cryptology, aerodynamics; 1942 Kaiser Wilhelm Institue and Aerodynamics Research Institute at Goettingen.
See also and this.

Zuse, Konrad:
See also 1 and 2 and 3.
The Third Reich's Aerodynamic Research Institute funded his work and he completed building the Z2 which was still an experimental computer. He then progressed to build the Z3 which was the first computer which Zuse built to be used rather than to test out his ideas. The Z2 and Z3 computers were electromechanical relay machines and the Z3, completed in 1941, had an electromechanical memory composed of relays as well as an electromechanical arithmetical unit. Z3 was the first operational program-controlled calculating machine and was used by the German aircraft industry to solve systems of simultaneous equations and other mathematical systems which were produced by the problems of dealing with the vibration of airframes put under stress. However when Zuse proposed a computer based on electronic valves, the proposal was rejected on the grounds that the Germans were so close to winning the War that further research effort was not necessary. Some of Zuse's computers were destroyed in bombing raids near the end of the war although the Z3 was reconstructed in 1960 for display in a museum in Munich. Zuse began work on his Z4 computer in 1942, and it was almost complete when, due to continued air raids, it was moved from Berlin to Goettingen. After only a few weeks Goettingen was in danger of being captured by the advancing Russian troops and the Z4 was moved again, this time to the small village of Hinterstein in Bavaria. The Z4 was coded the Versuchsmodell 4, or V4, and hidden in the cellar of a house, where it was found by Britsh and American troops fearing flying bombs because of the relationto V1 and V2.

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Near nazi:


Deutsche Mathematik

Bieberbach, Ludwig Georg Elias Moses:[YANDELL, SCHAPPACHER, HEIBER]
First defended Schur January 1933, but then persecuted his Jewish colleagues. As Ledermann's examiner he was wearing a nazi uniform when conducting the oral examination for the Thesis. He developed the notion of a 'German' synthetic style mathematics as opposed to the abstract 'Jewish' analytic style. He founded a journal Deutsche Mathematik to encourage this German style in mathematics but, happily, the journal failed. Schur was forced to resign from the Commissions of the Prussian Academy of Sciences after Bieberbach had written (on 29 March):- I find it surprising that Jews are still members of academic commissions. Many mathematicians feel that Bieberbach could not have honestly held the views he did, rather the feeling is that he was ambitious to become the leader of German mathematics and followed a route which he thought would make him successful in this. After the end of World War II in 1945 Bieberbach lost all his positions because of his political involvement

Blaschke, Wilhelm:
Chair in Hamburg; seduced by the nazi ideas he attacked Neugebauer.

Teichmueller, Oswald:[SCHAPPACHER]
A member of the nazi party, he played a major role in getting the students at Goettingen to dismiss Landau. He wrote 34 papers in the space of about 6 years, 21 being published in Deutsche Mathematik, the journal for German style mathematics founded by Bieberbach. He published papers which used the controversial abstract methods of his teacher, Emmy Noether, though not quoting her. Teichmueller joined the army in 1939, fighting at first in Norway but he was last heard of on the date given above for his death, involved in heavy fighting along the Dnieper.

Tornier, Erhard: [SCHAPPACHER]
nazi mathematician, who was dismissed 1939.
See also.

Vahlen, Theodor: [SCHAPPACHER, HEIBER]
nazi mathematician with high position in the nazi administration. Died 1945 in Prague.
See also 1 and 2 .

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German Universities during the "Third Reich":

Berlin:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Bonn:
bonn33.htm

Frankfurt:
1

Goettingen: [BORN]
Saunders MacLane and Geschichte. See also and here.

Heidelberg:
Rosenthal-en.htm.

Munich:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6

Vienna (Wien):
1 and Kuehler Abschied von Europa

Prague (Praha, Prag):
1 and 2

Publishing in the Third Reich by V. Remmert

Princeton:
The Princeton community in the 1930s. (e.g. Artin, Dantzig, Freudenthal, Friedrichs, Givens, Goedel, Hopf, Hotelling, Koopman, Koopmans, Landau, Neugebauer, Noether, Schur, Siegel, Tucker, Tukey, Turing, Ulam, van der Waerden, Veblen, von Neumann, von Karman, Weil, Weyl, Wiener

History of the DMV:
1 and 2

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Further Mathematicians:

Caratheodory, Constantin:
1938 retired in Munich.

Fejer, Lipot:
Jewish, in 1939-1945 in Budapest.

Zaremba, Stanislaw:
died 1942 in Krakow

Women:
1, and 2.

School books and nazi mathematical arithmetic problems:
1, 2, 3, and 4.

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General Information in the Web:

University St. Andrews, Scotland, History of Mathematics archive

Lebensdaten beruehmter Mathematiker/innen, Uni Freiberg

The mathematics Genealogy Project

Famous Mathematicians

Kurzbiographien (Artin, Bernstein, Bieberbach, Blaschke, Blumenthal, Cohn-Vossen, Courant, Froehlich, Grell, Landau, Mises, Neugebauer, von Neumann, Noether, Rademacher, Rellich, Remak, Rogosinski, Schur, Siegel, Toeplitz, Zorn)

Vertriebene, Kollegen in einer dunklen Zeit

DMV Kurzbiographien

DMV Dissertationen.

Oberwolfach and the Nazis, in the book by Sanford L. Segal "Mathematicians under the Nazis".

Oberwolfach Photo Collection .

Geometry.Net, Scientists

Talk: Mathematiker auf der Flucht vor Hitler.

Aspects of Italian mathematics during the fascist period by Michele Benzi
Science and fascism, Scientific Research Under a Totalitarian Regime by Michele Benzi

Allgemein: Verfolgte MathematikerInnen here and here.

Juedische Mathematiker im "Dritten Reich"

seminar talks.

Mathematicians 1933-1945

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Books and articles:

BAUER, Friedrich L., Pringsheim, Liebmann, Hartogs - Schicksale juedischer Mathematiker in Muenchen, Sonderdruck 1 aus den Sitzungsberichten der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1997. Muenchen 1997.

BERGMANN, Birgit, EPPLE, Moritz, Jüdische Mathematiker in der deutschsprachigen akademischen Kultur, ISBN 978-3-540-69250-8

BOOSS-BAVNBEK, BERNHELM, and HOYRUP, JENS, Mathematics and War. Birkhäuser Verlag, 2003.

BORN, Max, Mein Leben. München 1975. (Englisch: My Life)

CONANT, Jennet, Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

CORNWELL, John, Hitler's Scientists. (Deutsch: Forschen fuer den Fuehrer)

EPPLE, Moritz, und REMMERT, Volker, Eine ungeahnte Synthese zwischen reiner und angewandter Mathematik, in: Kaufmann, Doris hg.: Geschichte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus Band I, 258-295

FERMI, Laura, Illustrious Immigrants

HEIBER, Helmut, Universitaet unterm Hakenkreuz

JENS, Walter und Inge, Frau Thomas Mann, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2003.

KRANTZ, Steven, Mathematical Apocrypha: Anecdotes

MEDAWAR, Jean, und PYKE, David, Hitler's Gift. London 2001.

MEHRTENS, Herbert, Das "Dritte Reich" in der Naturwissenschaftsgeschichte. In: Naturwissenschaft, Technik und NS-Ideologie, hg. v. Herbert Mehrtens und Steffen Richter, Frankfurt 1980, S. 15-115.

MENZLER-TROTT, Eckart, Gentzens Problem, Mathematische Logik im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland, Basel, 2001.

PINL, Maximilian, Kollegen in einer dunklen Zeit Teil I, Jahresbericht DMV (JDMV) 71 (1969) S. 167-228.

PINL, Maximilian, Kollegen in einer dunklen Zeit Teil II, JDMV 72 (1971/72) S. 165-189.

PINL, Maximilian, Kollegen in einer dunklen Zeit Teil III, JDMV 73 (1969) S. 153-208.

PINL, Maximilian, und DICK, Auguste, Kollegen in einer dunklen Zeil, Schluss, JDMV 75 (1974) S. 166-208, Nachtrag und Berichtigung JDMV 77 (1976) S. 161-164.

PINL, Maximilian, und FURTMÜLLER, Lux, Mathematicians under Hitler. In: Yearbook Leo Baeck Institute 18 (1973) S. 129-182.

REMMERT, Volker R., Vom Umgang mit der Macht: Das Freiburger Mathematische Institut im "Dritten Reich" 1999, 14 (1999), 2, 56-85

SCHAPPACHER, Norbert, unter Mitwirkung von KNESER, Martin, faschverband - Institut - Staat. In: Ein Jahrhundert Mathematik 1890-1990. Braunschweig/Wiesbaden 1990.

SEGAL, Sanford, Mathematicians under the nazis. Princeton 2003.

SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE, Reinhard, Mathematiker auf der Flucht vor Hitler. Braunschweig/Wiesbaden 1998.

STRAUSS, Herbert, ROEDER, Werner, Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933-1945 / International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945: Bd II: Arts, Sciences, and Literature

TOBIES, Renate, Biographisches Lexikon in Mathematik promovierter Personen, see also here

TOEPELL, Michael, Mathematiker und Mathematik an der Universität München - 500 Jahre Lehre und Forschung. Habilitationsschrift Mün-chen 1992. Algorismus - Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik und der Naturwissenschaften Band 19 (1996).

TOEPLITZ, URI, Und Worte reichen nicht - Von der Mathematik in Deutschland zur Musik in Israel. Eine jüdische Familiengeschichte 1812-1998. Mit einem Vorwort von Niels Hansen. Konstanz 1999, 2. Auflage 2000, 276 Seiten, 24,54 €. ISBN 3-89649-351-5

YANDELL, Benjamin, The Honors Class. Natick 2002.