Mathwar/Personlist/Froehlich Albrecht
Albrecht Froehlich
(* May 22nd 1916 in Munich, † November 8th 2001)
German Mathematician famous for his major results and conjectures on Galois module theory in the Galois structure of rings of integers.
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Life
In 1933 Albrecht left the Gymnasium. His brother Herbert was now 28 years old, had obtained his doctorate at the University of Munich for a thesis on the photoelectric effect in metals supervised by Sommerfeld, and was completing his habilitation thesis. Betti was married and living in Palestine. Political events which began in that year, however, would change completely the future course of the lives of the Fröhlich family. On 30 January 1933 Hitler came to power and on 7 April 1933 the Civil Service Law provided the means of removing Jewish teachers from the universities, and of course also to remove those of Jewish descent from other roles. Albrecht joined a group of Jewish students with left wing views who openly opposed the Nazis. Soon he realised that opposition was impossible for his father was beaten up and he was arrested. As soon as he was released he went to the French Consulate and within hours he was safe in Alsace. His parents followed a few days later, joining him in Alsace. By this time Herbert had been appointed as a privatdozent at the University of Freiburg, but he was dismissed under the Civil Service Law.
After working in a chocolate factory in Alsace for a year Fröhlich, with his parents, went to Haifa in Palestine, a move which was possible since his sister lived there. He worked at a number of manual jobs to earn money to support himself and his parents. First he worked on roads, then as an electrician on the railways. His brother Herbert, after going to Physico-Technical Institute in Leningrad in 1934, found that political situation again forced him to escape. He went to England where from 1935 he held an appointment as a lecturer in physics at the University of Bristol. When the war ended, he wrote to his brother in Haifa, suggesting that he come to England and study for a degree at Bristol. Perhaps we should pause for a moment and reflect that Fröhlich, the subject of this biography, was now nearly thirty years old, yet had no university education. At the age by which most mathematicians had produced their most innovative work, he had no formal school qualifications and still was undecided about what subject he should study at university. After first considering taking a degree in engineering, he soon settled on mathematics.