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    Mathematicians under the Nazis
    Mathematicians under the Nazis
    Mathematicians under the Nazis
    Ebook503 pages16 hours

    Mathematicians under the Nazis

    By Sanford L. Segal

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    About this ebook

    Contrary to popular belief--and despite the expulsion, emigration, or death of many German mathematicians--substantial mathematics was produced in Germany during 1933-1945. In this landmark social history of the mathematics community in Nazi Germany, Sanford Segal examines how the Nazi years affected the personal and academic lives of those German mathematicians who continued to work in Germany.


    The effects of the Nazi regime on the lives of mathematicians ranged from limitations on foreign contact to power struggles that rattled entire institutions, from changed work patterns to military draft, deportation, and death. Based on extensive archival research, Mathematicians under the Nazis shows how these mathematicians, variously motivated, reacted to the period's intense political pressures. It details the consequences of their actions on their colleagues and on the practice and organs of German mathematics, including its curricula, institutions, and journals. Throughout, Segal's focus is on the biographies of individuals, including mathematicians who resisted the injection of ideology into their profession, some who worked in concentration camps, and others (such as Ludwig Bieberbach) who used the "Aryanization" of their profession to further their own agendas. Some of the figures are no longer well known; others still tower over the field. All lived lives complicated by Nazi power.


    Presenting a wealth of previously unavailable information, this book is a large contribution to the history of mathematics--as well as a unique view of what it was like to live and work in Nazi Germany.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateNov 23, 2014
    ISBN9781400865383
    Mathematicians under the Nazis
    Author

    Sanford L. Segal

    Sanford L. Segal is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Rochester and the author of Nine Introductions in Complex Analysis.

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    • 5/5
      I reviewed a manuscript for Princeton University Press, and they rewarded me with my choice of $300 worth of their books, and this ($85!) book was one that I opted for. Although I'm a mathematician, I'd tended to be uninterested in, and therefore ignorant of, the history of math, and I was surprised to learn how many of the big names in math were faculty at German universities in the 1930s. Now I know which of those big names were enthusiastic Nazis, which were essentially apolitical, and which were Jewish. Only glimpses of the horror of Nazi policy towards Jews make it into the book, most notably the decision of FelixHausdorff and his family to commit suicide as their fate at the hands of the Nazis became more and more certain. More often, the Nazis come across as incredibly officious busybodies, dictating in great detailthe unbelievably stupid way they wanted German universities to be run.

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