Current site:
- Mathematics
- Historical facts
- The 30s
The consequences of the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 quickly became very noticeable for mathematics in Göttingen, and they were devastating. Although mathematics and science was affected throughout Germany, here the effects proved more profound than in most other institutions.
The situation from 1929 on was already extremely critical. The financial situation was very strained. The major economic crisis coincided with the inauguration of the Mathematics Institute. The universities were generally overcrowded, because many young people could not find work. They were even encouraged to register as students instead of registering as unemployed. At the same time, there were hardly any prospects for the new generation of academics, since many positions were eliminated. Moreover, the violent political controversies of this time were played out within the faculty as well, poisoning the working atmosphere.
Some professors tried to alleviate the worst consequences of the crisis through private initiatives. Courant and some other mathematicians and physicists advocated that full professors compensate for the others' salary reductions out of their own pocket, and this brought them the lasting hatred of some of their colleagues. Max Born organized a concert whose proceeds were used to support talented students in financial need. These measures, however, provided only small consolation in comparison to the extent of the crisis.
Against this background came the political takeover and the subsequent Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service on April 7, 1933. Although there was hardly a single professor of mathematics or physics to whom this law was directly applicable, it caused the nearly complete destruction of the Faculty of Mathematics. Some of the mathematicians were Jewish, as was Hermann Weyl's wife; for them, and through them also for their colleagues, the signs of the time were unmistakable. Several mathematicians including Weyl, Courant, Noether and Bernstein emigrated, and so did the physicists Born and Franck.
At the beginning of the 1933-34 winter semester, only Gustav Herglotz and Edmund Landau remained in Göttingen. That semester's lectures by the 56-year-old Landau, one of the leading number theorists of his time, were boycotted because Landau was a Jew. He moved soon afterwards to Berlin, where he died in 1938. Landau's pro-Nazi assistant Werner Weber took over the leadership of the Mathematics Institute in March 1934, bringing mathematics to an incredible low point so soon after its peak.
Renewed attempts were naturally made to appoint well-known German mathematicians to Göttingen. There was the hope of an immediate reconstruction. The young but already prominent number theorist Helmut Hasse was appointed in April 1934; he was also to take over the management of the institute. A dispute arose between Weber, who did not want to give up his position, and Hasse. It was at bottom a dispute over whether mathematical or political considerations should have priority; Hasse's motivation was primarily scientific, Weber's political. On May 29, Weber refused, in front of the dean, to hand over his institute key.
After Hasse's threat to withdraw his acceptance of his appointment, a solution was found. Erhard Tornier, a mathematician and Nazi party member, was appointed as well, and Weber took on tasks in other cities. Neither Tornier nor his two successors remained for long. Hasse tried to save whatever could be saved. The young and brilliant Carl Ludwig Siegel was appointed, but the efforts were futile under the circumstances. The war kept approaching, and there was no time to build new research groups. Under the circumstances, it became increasingly difficult for young people to dedicate themselves to math and science. Siegel, who attracted disapproval by his neutral political stance, fled in the first days of the war through Norway to America. Only a shadow of the old mathematics remained in Göttingen.
Through an agreement with England, Göttingen, as well as Oxford and Cambridge, were spared during the war. As a result, many young people could take up their studies in Göttingen once the war was over. The economic situation was very bad, and after the war losses there were very few university teachers. Everyone had a hard path before them. But many new students, repulsed by the nightmare of the preceding years, turned to academic study. Thus the academic reconstruction in Germany stemmed in large part from Göttingen.
Nevertheless, Göttingen could not return after the war to what it had been before it. The sciences blossomed especially in the USA, to which many scientists and mathematicians from Europe had fled. Only a few of them returned, among them Siegel, by then viewed as one of the greatest mathematicians of his time. He returned to Göttingen in 1952, and worked here until his death in 1981.
Today no city can be the center of mathematics as Göttingen once was; mathematics has become far more multifaceted. But in Göttingen today mathematics is again alive, and the mathematical institutes of the Faculty of Mathematics are prominent centers of international academic cooperation.