Gauss Museum

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Photo from 1914: The house where Carl Friedrich Gauß was born, Wilhelmstrasse 30 in Braunschweig. It was completely destroyed in the firestorm of October 15, 1944.

The Gauß Museum was located on the ground floor of the house where Carl Friedrich Gauß was born at Wilhelmstrasse 30 in Braunschweig . It existed from its opening on April 30, 1929 until the building was completely destroyed by the bombing of October 15, 1944 .

history

Photo around 1900: Gauss' birthplace in the middle. The towers of the Katharinenkirche in the background.

The mathematician , astronomer , geodesist and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauß was born on April 30, 1777 in a small half-timbered house at Wilhelmstrasse 30. His parents were the street butcher Gebhard Dietrich Gauß (1744–1808) and his wife Dorothea, born from Velpke . Bentze (1743-1839). He spent the first years of his life in this house, growing up in poor conditions, but enjoying the favor of the Brunswick Duke Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand , who promoted him, due to his mathematical talent, which he recognized at an early age . In 1795 Gauß moved to Göttingen to study at the Georg-August University .

The opera singer at the Hoftheater Braunschweig Georg Hieb , a great admirer of Gauß, rented a room in the house where he was born in 1911 in order to be able to display some memorabilia there. The objects came from Gauß descendants from the USA (Gauß 'sons Eugen and Wilhelm had emigrated there) and from his only brother who remained in Braunschweig.

During the First World War , this small exhibition was moved to the " Vaterländisches Museum ", as the room on Wilhelmstrasse was needed for other purposes. Towards the end of the war, the collection was significantly expanded through a donation from the daughter of the Göttingen orientalist Heinrich Ewald . Ewald had been married to Gauss's eldest daughter Minna for the first time.

On the occasion of Gauß's 150th birthday in 1927, consideration was given to bringing the items back to their original location. Carl Joseph Gauß , the oldest living descendant of Gauß in Germany and director of the University Women's Clinic in Würzburg , had promised Braunschweig's Lord Mayor Paul Trautmann that he would leave important parts of his great-grandfather's estate on the condition that the city transfer the house where it was born. Carl Joseph Gauß was the son of Gauss's only German grandson, Carl Gauß, who died in Hameln on January 22, 1927 , and of which he was the sole heir. The city finally acquired the dilapidated house in September 1927 and adapted it to requirements: due to the acute housing shortage, many tenants lived in it, and replacement apartments had to be procured before they could move out. The building was then renovated, including a caretaker's apartment. Three rooms on the ground floor served as museum rooms. The front room to the right of the entrance, which Hieb had already used for his collection, was set up as a living room for a middle-class family around 1800. It contained u. a. Furniture from the Gaussian family.

The back room was the actual museum, in which numerous certificates and other documents were displayed in showcases . Including Gauß ' doctoral diploma , which he received on July 16, 1799 from the University of Helmstedt and the diploma on its 50th anniversary on July 15, 1849 from the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig. The collection also contained first editions of his main works (e.g. the Disquisitiones Arithmeticae from 1801 and the Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientium , published in 1809 ) as well as numerous membership diplomas from academies and scientific societies, including the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg from January 31, 1802 or the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia from January 21, 1853. It also included the honorary citizenship of the city of Göttingen from July 14, 1849, as well as some private correspondence. In addition to various scientific instruments from Gauss's possession, the room also contained photographs of family members and people from his professional environment as well as busts of him - including the one created by Fritz Schaper - and one of Gauss' daughter Minna.

The Gauss Museum was opened on April 30, 1929, Gauss' 152nd birthday, in the presence of Carl Joseph Gauß, his brother Captain William Gauß from Hameln and their wives. The director was the historian and archivist Werner Spieß , who from 1935 was also director of the city ​​archive and the city ​​library of Braunschweig .

Destruction and whereabouts of the exhibits

Memorial plaque at the former location of the house

In the final phase of the Second World War , the most important exhibits, especially the documents, were brought to safety. Like most of the surrounding buildings, the half-timbered house at Wilhelmstrasse 30 was lost in the firestorm of the bombing of October 15, 1944. The rescued exhibits are now in the municipal museum (furniture etc.) and in the city archive (documents etc.). It is planned to make the archive material available in the city archive in digitized form .

The Lower Saxony State and University Library in Göttingen keeps the largest part of Gauss's academic legacy .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manfred Garzmann : Gauß, Carl Friedrich, Prof. Dr. In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-7752-5838-8 , p. 200 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Heinrich Mack: The Gauß Museum in Braunschweig. P. 122.
  3. ^ Richard Moderhack: The former Gauss Museum in Braunschweig. P. 54.
  4. ^ A b c Heinrich Mack: The Gauss Museum in Braunschweig. P. 123.
  5. ↑ Heinrich Mack: The Gaußmuseum in Braunschweig. P. 125.
  6. ^ Henning Steinführer (Ed.): The holdings of the Braunschweig city archive. (= Braunschweiger Werkstücke Volume 56, The whole series Volume 115), Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2018, ISBN 978-3-944939-33-9 , p. 256.


Coordinates: 52 ° 16 ′ 10.6 ″  N , 10 ° 31 ′ 30.6 ″  E