Margarete Kahn

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Stumbling stone in memory of Margarete Kahn

Margarete Kahn , called Grete Kahn (born August 27, 1880 in Eschwege ; deported to Piaski on March 28, 1942 and disappeared there), was a German mathematician and Holocaust victim. She is one of the pioneers in women's studies . In her PhD she dealt with the topology of algebraic curves.

Life

Margarete, called Grete, was the daughter of the Eschweg merchant and factory owner of flannel goods Albert Kahn (1853–1905) and his wife Johanne, née Plaut (1857–1882). She had an older brother Otto (* 1879) and a younger half-sister. Five years after the early death of his wife Johanne, the father married her younger sister Julie (1860-1934), with whom he had a daughter, Margarete's half-sister Martha (* 1888).

After attending primary school from 1887 and from 1889 to 1896 the Höhere Töchterschule, Grete Kahn was prepared for her Abitur in private tuition until 1904 , as there were hardly any girls ' high schools in Hesse at that time . In 1904 she was admitted to the Abitur examination at the Royal High School in Bad Hersfeld . This made her one of the small elite of young women who were allowed to take the Abitur at boys' schools at the beginning of the 20th century .

Konrad Duden, who was the headmaster at the time, signed her Abitur certificate .

Since Prussia did not allow women to study regularly until the winter semester of 1908/09, Kahn and her friend Klara Löbenstein first visited the universities of Berlin and Göttingen as guest students . In addition, Kahn attended lectures and mathematical exercises at the Technical University of Berlin . Then Kahn studied mathematics , physics and propaedeutics in Berlin and Göttingen. At the Georg August University in Göttingen she heard, among others, David Hilbert , Felix Klein , Woldemar Voigt , Georg Elias Müller ; in Berlin she attended lectures by Hermann Amandus Schwarz and Paul Drude at the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences . The algebraic geometry became their field. Together with Löbenstein she was able to contribute to Hilbert's sixteenth problem . Hilbert's sixteenth problem dealt with the topology of algebraic curves in the complex projective plane . As a difficult special case, Hilbert mentioned in his formulation of the problem the proof that there are no sextics made up of 11 separate ovals. Kahn and Löbenstein developed methods to deal with this problem.

Against the resistance of her Berlin lecturers in particular, but supported by the University of Göttingen and Felix Klein, Kahn received his doctorate in 1909 under David Hilbert in Göttingen with A General Method for Examining the Shapes of Algebraic Curves and was thus one of the first German women to receive a doctorate in mathematics was awarded (with mathematics then part of the philosophical faculty). She took the oral exam - again together with Löbenstein - on June 30, 1909.

She was denied an academic career because women in Germany were only admitted to habilitation from 1920 . She therefore decided to go to school and in October 1912 got a job in the Prussian school service, where she worked as a teacher for secondary schools in Katowice , Dortmund and from 1929 in Berlin-Tegel .

As a Jew, she was given a forced leave of absence by the National Socialists in 1933 and released from school in 1936. She had to do forced labor as a factory worker at Nordland Schneeketten . On March 28, 1942, Kahn was deported to Piaski and has been missing since then.

On September 13, 2008, a stumbling stone was laid in front of Rudolstädter Straße 127 in Wilmersdorf in memory of Margarete Kahn, and on May 26, 2010 in front of her former parents' house at Stad 29 in Eschwege. In 2013 a street in Leverkusen was named after her.

Fonts

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Victims of the persecution of Jews under the National Socialist tyranny in Germany 1933–1945 . Volume 2. Federal Archives 2006. ISBN 3-891-92137-3 . P. 1595
  2. ↑ York-Egbert König: A life for mathematics - 90 years ago Grete Kahn was the first Eschwegian to take the doctoral examination.
  3. ↑ York-Egbert König: A life for mathematics - 90 years ago Grete Kahn was the first Eschwegian to take the doctoral examination.
  4. ↑ Alfred Gottwaldt; Diana Schulle: The "Deportations of Jews" from the German Reich from 1941–1945 - an annotated chronology. Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 978-3-86539-059-2 , p. 188, correct older information in the Berlin memorial book and at Kempner, who name Trawniki as the destination station.
  5. ↑ Renate Tobies (Ed.): "All male culture in spite of". Women in math and science . With a foreword by Knut Radbruch . Campus, Frankfurt a. M./New York 1997, ISBN 3-593-35749-6 , pp. 50 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ Berlin.de: Stolperstein Rudolstädter Str. 127
  7. ↑ Grete-Kahn-Str. in Leverkusen-Opladen
personal data
SURNAME Kahn, Margarete
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kahn, Grete
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician and Holocaust victim
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Eschwege
DATE OF DEATH after March 28, 1942