Theodor Vahlen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Theodor Vahlen

Karl Theodor Vahlen (born June 30, 1869 in Vienna , † November 16, 1945 in Prague ) was a German mathematician and a representative of the anti-Semitic " German Mathematics ".

Life

Theodor was the son of the classical philologist Johannes Vahlen , studied in Berlin in 1890 , received his doctorate there in 1893 under Lazarus Immanuel Fuchs on "Contributions to an additive number theory" and in 1911, with a stopover in Königsberg (where he became a private lecturer in 1897), became professor of mathematics in Greifswald , where he taught since 1904. Originally he dealt with pure mathematics such as number theory and the fundamentals of geometry . With his appointment in 1911 he turned - not least for ideological reasons - to applied mathematics , there in particular elementary construction and approximation methods. In 1923 he was rector of the University of Greifswald.

During the First World War he acted as battery chief and department commander, most recently as major of the reserve in the 6th Royal Saxon Field Artillery Regiment No. 68

In 1919 Vahlen was initially a member of the German National People's Party (DNVP). In 1923 he joined the Greater German People's Party , an Austrian equivalent of the NSDAP . In 1924 he became a member of the NSFP Reichstag and the first NSDAP Gauleiter in Pomerania (NSDAP membership number 3,961), where he published the National Socialist daily newspaper Der Norddeutsche Beobachter . In 1927, however, the publication was stopped under pressure from Hitler and Vahlen was dismissed as Gauleiter because he belonged to the group around the brothers Gregor and Otto Strasser , a Nazi group with socialist tendencies founded after the Hitler coup in 1923 , which distanced itself from and after Hitler Was systematically ousted from the party. In the same year, after a long trial in Greifswald, Vahlen was dismissed with no entitlement to a pension because he had the Reich flag and the flag of Prussia pulled down from the university building on Constitutional Day 1924 .

After a stopover in 1930 as a professor at the Technical University of Vienna and his rehabilitation in the NSDAP, he was able to teach again at Greifswald University as a professor of mathematics in 1933 . From 1933 he worked in the Prussian Ministry of Culture, from April 1934 as head of the university department. From 1934 to 1937, Vahlen headed the Science Office as Ministerialdirektor in the newly founded Reich Ministry for Science, Education and Public Education . In this position he was able to promote the anti-Semitic efforts of the mathematician Ludwig Bieberbach for a "German Mathematics", with whom he brought out a magazine of the same name in 1936 " Deutsche Mathematik ". In 1937 he had the position because of his involvement in the power struggles leave that to the downfall of John Stark as President of the German Research Foundation led. He was one of the main representatives of the anti-Semitic “ German Physics ”, a phenomenon corresponding to “ German Mathematics ”. From 1934 he was also a professor at the University of Berlin. From 1933 to 1945 Vahlen was a member of the Senate of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society .

In 1939, Vahlen was initially appointed provisionally as President of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin by Reich Education Minister Bernhard Rust , ignoring the Academy's right of nomination. He was supported by Ernst Heymann as Vice President, Helmuth Scheel as Director and Ludwig Bieberbach and Hermann Grapow as secretaries. Although he was not confirmed in subsequent elections to the academy, Vahlen remained president. Due to enforcement problems in the academy, Vahlen, now 74 years old, submitted a resignation to the responsible Minister of Education in 1943, which was granted with effect from April 1, 1943. In 1944/45 Vahlen worked as a lecturer at the German University in Prague. At the end of the war he was imprisoned in Prague. He died in Czech custody in November 1945.

Vahlen was a member of the SA from 1933 to 1936. In 1936 he joined the SS and in 1943 was given the rank of SS Brigade Leader .

Vahlen dealt with number theory (including continued fractions ), geometry (especially geometric constructions) and applied mathematics (theory of the compass, ballistics , celestial mechanics).

literature

  • Wolfram Fischer, Rainer Hohlfeld, Peter Nötzoldt: The Berlin Academy in Republic and Dictatorship . In: Wolfram Fischer (ed.): The Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin 1914–1945 , Berlin 2000, pp. 556–561 ( online ).
  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , pp. 176-177.
  • Bärbel Holtz (edit / ed.): The minutes of the Prussian State Ministry 1925–1938 / 38. Vol. 12 / II. (1925-1938) . Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim 2004. ISBN 3-487-12704-0 ( Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences [Hg.]: Acta Borussica . New series .)
  • Kyra T. Inachin: "Martyrs with a small group of faithful". The first Gauleiter of the NSDAP in Pomerania Karl Theodor Vahlen, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 49 (2001), pp. 31–51 ( online ).
  • Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .
  • Anne Christine Nagel : Hitler's educational reformer. The Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education 1934–1945 , Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt a. M. 2012, ISBN 978-3-596-19425-4 .
  • Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze Theodor Vahlen- on the guilt of a German mathematician in the fascist abuse of science , NTM series of publications on the history of natural sciences, technology and medicine, Volume 21, 1984, pp. 17–41
  • Erich Stockhorst: 5000 people. Who was what in the 3rd Reich . Arndt, Kiel 2000, ISBN 3-88741-116-1 (unchanged reprint of the first edition from 1967).
  • Literature on Theodor Vahlen , Library of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , pdf

Fonts

  • Rational function of roots, symmetrical and affect functions , Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences , Vol. 1–1, 1899.
  • Arithmetic Theory of Forms , Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 1–2, 1900.
  • Abstract geometry. Investigations on the basics of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry , Leipzig 1905, 2nd edition 1940, Deutsche Mathematik, supplement 2 ( online ).
  • Constructions and approximations in systematic representation , Teubner 1911 ( online ).
  • Ballistics , Berlin, de Gruyter, 1922, 2nd edition 1942.
  • Deviation and compensation , Vieweg 1929.
  • The Paradoxes of Relative Mechanics , Leipzig 1942, Deutsche Mathematik, Supplement 3.
  • Science, education and popular education in the National Socialist state, Spaeth & Linde, Berlin 1937.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mathematics Genealogy Project
  2. ↑ Chronicle of the Rectors of the University of Greifswald ( Memento of the original of February 24, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-greifswald.de
  3. ↑ a b Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 176.
  4. ↑ Kyra T. Inachin: "Martyrs with a small heap of faithful". The first Gauleiter of the NSDAP in Pomerania Karl Theodor Vahlen, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, vol. 49 (2001), pp. 31–51.
  5. ^ Theodor Vahlen ., Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, Academy Library, 2002
  6. ↑ a b Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 637.
  7. ↑ Wolfram Fischer, Rainer Hohlfeld, Peter Nötzoldt: The Berlin Academy in Republic and Dictatorship , in: Wolfram Fischer (ed.): The Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin 1914–1945 , Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2000, pp. 556–561 , ISSN  0949-7285
  8. ↑ Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon for National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 177.
predecessor Office successor
Hermann Schwarz Rector of the University of Greifswald in
1923 		Paul Schroder
personal data
SURNAME Vahlen, Theodor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vahlen, Karl Theodor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician and National Socialist politician, MdR
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1945
Place of death Prague