Mathwar/Personlist/Ledermann Walter
Walter Ledermann
(* March 18th 1911 in Berlin, † May 22nd 2009 in London)
Life
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 exempted non-Aryans who had civil service appointments before the end of World War I. Although Schur qualified under this clause he was initially expelled from his professorship and was only reinstated after the intervention of Schmidt. He was not, however, allowed to lecture but he examined Ledermann before the end of 1933.
Ledermann was nearing the end of his studies for the Staatsexamen (which would allow him to teach) when Hitler came to power and began passing the anti-Jewish legislation. In order to complete the course he had to write a dissertation and be given an oral examination. Schur gave him the topic for his dissertation On the various ways of expressing an orthogonal matrix in terms of parameters and conducted his oral examination in November 1933. At the oral he was examined by Schur and also by Bieberbach who was wearing Nazi uniform.
It was quite clear to Ledermann that he had to leave Germany to escape the Nazi persecution of the Jews. He had already made many strenuous efforts to find a way to leave Germany before his oral.