Mathwar/Personlist/Hausdorff Felix
Felix Hausdorff
Felix Hausdorff (* November 8th 1868, † January 26th 1942) was a German mathematician who is considered to be one of the founders of modern topology and who contributed significantly to set theory, descriptive set theory, measure theory, function theory, and functional analysis.
Life
Hausdorff studied at the University of Leipzig, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1891. He taught mathematics in Leipzig until 1910, when he became professor of mathematics at the University of Bonn. He was professor at the University of Greifswald from 1913 to 1921.
When the Nazis came to power, Hausdorff, who was Jewish, felt that as a respected university professor he would be spared from persecution.
However, he lost his position in 1935. Though he could no longer publish in Germany, Hausdorff continued to be an active research mathematician, publishing in the Polish journal Fundamenta Mathematicae. After Reichskristallnacht in 1938 as persecution of Jews escalated, Hausdorff became more and more isolated. In 1942 he was sent to a concentration camp, Hausdorff committed suicide together with his wife, Charlotte Goldschmidt Hausdorff, and sister-in-law, Edith Goldschmidt Pappenheim, on the 26th of January.