Mathwar/Personlist/Toeplitz Otto
Otto Toeplitz
(* August 1st 1881 in Breslau, † February 15th 1940 in Jerusalem)
German born mathematician, working on infinite linear and quadratic forms. He was a professor at Bonn from 1928 until 1935, when he was removed from office by the Nazis because he was Jewish. He emigrated to Palestine in 1939, and died in Jerusalem.
Life
Otto Toeplitz came from a Jewish family which contained several teachers of mathematics. Both his father, Emil Toeplitz, and his grandfather, Julius Toeplitz, taught mathematics in a Gymnasium and they also both published mathematics papers. Otto was brought up in Breslau and he attended a Gymnasium in that city. His family background made it natural that he also should study mathematics.
It was not until 1913 that Toeplitz was offered a teaching post as extraordinary professor at the University of Kiel. He was promoted to ordinary professor at Kiel in 1920. A major joint project with Hellinger to write a major encyclopaedia article on integral equations, which they worked on for many years, was completed during this time and appeared in print in 1927. In 1928 Toeplitz accepted an offer of a chair at the University of Bonn.
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. All civil servants who were not of Aryan descent (having one grandparent of the Jewish religion made someone non-Aryan) were to be retired. However, there was an exemption clause which, among others, exempted non-Aryans who had been in post before 1914. Toeplitz kept his lecturing post in Bonn in 1933.
However Toeplitz was dismissed from his chair by the Nazis in 1935 despite the exemption clause in the Civil Service Law which was simply disregarded after decisions at the Nuremberg party congress in the autumn of 1935. Toeplitz had not instantly left Germany in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. As a proud Jew he started working for the Jewish community from that time. On a local level he united Jewish schoolchildren in Bonn and its vicinity bringing them to a Jewish school which he founded. On a country wide by level he selected gifted students for scholarships which allowed them to study abroad.