Mathwar/Personlist/Friedrichs Kurt

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Kurt Friedrichs


 (* September 28th 1901 in Kiel, † December 31st 1982 in New Rochelle)

Life

In January 1933 Hitler came to power in Germany. Just days after this Friedrichs met Nellie Bruell, a young Jewish girl, as a ball in Braunschweig. It became increasingly clear that, although Friedrichs was not directly affected by the Nazis laws against Jews, many of his friends and colleagues were directly affected in a very serious way. Lewy had left Germany as soon as Hitler came to power, and soon Courant was dismissed from his post and was forced to emigrate to the United States. Nellie, who was now Friedrichs' girlfriend, was also dismissed from her position as an assistant at the Technische Hochschule. Friedrichs visited Courant in New York in the summer of 1935, officially to work with him on the second volume of Courant-Hilbert, but in fact mainly to see if it might be possible for him to emigrate. Of course obtaining positions in the United States was not easy but Courant said he would do everything he could.

By the time Friedrichs had returned to Braunschweig, the Nazis had passed laws forbidding marriage between Aryans and non-Aryans. Not only could he now not marry Nellie but he was forbidden to see her. They met infrequently in secret at the house of a friend. He began to make plans to emigrate, but he did not tell even his parents so that they could truthfully say that they were unaware of what he was about to do if questioned after he had left. He used a trick to escape, getting a visa to go to Paris to visit his sister who was living there. Nellie did not have the same problems leaving since her father's home was in Lyon and she held a French passport. She also left Germany and went to Lyon to await instructions from Friedrichs.

Friedrichs arrived in New York on 4 March 1937. He had not been allowed to take any money out of Germany but Courant arranged accommodation for him.


Sources

St.Andrews

Wikipedia