Wilhelm Hauser

Wilhelm Hauser (born August 10, 1883 in Endingen am Kaiserstuhl , † September 8, 1983 in Wandlitz ) was a German mathematician and university professor.

Life

education

Wilhelm Hauser was the son of the Jewish businessman Gustav Hauser and his wife Manchen and was also the great-grandson of Hirsch Hauser (1783–1867). He had the older siblings Recha (* 1869), Flora (* 1872), Laura (* 1874), Karl (* 1877) and Siegfried (* 1881) as well as Julius (* 1890), who was born after him. Wilhelm attended elementary school in Endingen from 1889 to 1893, then secondary school in Kenzingen . At the same time he was learning Latin because he had a firm intention of studying after school. In 1899 he moved to Karlsruhe on his own in order to obtain the Abitur in a secondary school. Because of his accommodation here, Hauser made the acquaintance of several people, including the ministerial official Krauth and his daughter Else as well as revolutionary student groups from the University of Karlsruhe . He also discovered his joy in going to the theater. The young Hauser was supported in high school primarily by the mathematics professor Treutlein. After taking his Abitur in 1902, Hauser first had to do his military service as a one-year- old. He came to the 1st Infantry Regiment in Munich and was mainly assigned to guard duty. Wilhelm Hauser then enrolled at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and studied mathematics and physics. He attended lectures by Alfred Pringsheim (mathematics), Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen , Theodor Lipps (logic) and Ferdinand von Lindemann (differential and integral calculus) , among others . Hauser studied one semester in Heidelberg , where he also attended lectures in astronomy and philosophy with Kuno Fischer , then he moved to the University of Erlangen . Here he completed his studies under the scientists Max Noether and Paul Gordan in 1907 with a dissertation on the subject of resultant and discriminant formation in the theory of elliptical theta functions with the result summa cum laude .

Between 1907 and 1914

One of his doctoral supervisors suggested that Hauser should go to the University of Vienna to pursue an academic career in the field of theoretical mathematics . However, he had discovered his preference for teaching in good time and preferred to take a state examination in mathematics. According to the understanding at the time, one had to complete another natural science subject. The Baden Ministry of Culture, which was responsible for him, therefore advised to study chemistry . Wilhelm Hauser now attended chemistry and physics lectures at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau , this time under the tutelage of Professor Franz Himstedt . Even before he graduated, Professor Jacob Lüroth made him aware of a vacant teaching post at the Ladenburg Secondary School near Mannheim, and the Ministry of Education employed him there before his exams due to a lack of applicants. He now taught arithmetic in the lower grades and mathematics and botany in the upper grades. In the spring of 1908 Hauser got an opportunity for his first foreign business trip - he took part in the International Congress of Mathematicians in Rome . He was able to extend his stay in Italy to a total of five months and visited Rome as well as Naples and climbed Mount Vesuvius . After returning to Freiburg, he passed his state examination in mathematics, physics, chemistry and education with very good grades. He then got a job as a teaching trainee at the girls' high school in Mannheim . Due to health problems (hoarseness in his lessons), Hauser was transferred to a grammar school in Lörrach at his request , with much more nature in the area. However, it did not last long here and after various applications in January 1913 he took up a position at the secondary school in Pforzheim . Hauser's resignation from the Jewish community is to be regarded as significant at this time - after all, a higher school career was associated with membership of a religious community at that time.

Operations in the First World War

Instead of a planned vacation trip with the family of his brother Siegfried in August 1914, with the beginning of the First World War, he was called up for military service in the Landwehr Regiment 40 in Karlsruhe. A few days later the regiment was relocated to Alsace and had its first battles with French troops near Mulhouse . After completing special assignments “to secure the German troops” and a few stations in the context of the positional war up to the Vosges , Wilhelm Hauser , who had meanwhile been promoted to officer’s deputy, received the Iron Cross First Class (EK I). Because of his lack of religion, further official applications for promotion to officer were denied. The trick of a regimental commander with the question of whether Hauser wanted to fight God or the idea of God, which he answered with "no", led to a promotion to the rank of Royal Prussian lieutenant in the winter of 1916/17. Officers were needed to continue the war. - In May 1917, Hauser's Landwehr Division was loaded onto the Eastern Front and came to Galicia . Although the Army High Command made its own efforts to influence the course of the war through contacts with Russian troops and to obtain background information on the situation on the Russian side, the unplanned fraternization that was spreading between Russian and German soldiers was to be prevented. Hauser now had to organize such relationships himself. He followed with interest how soldiers gained the upper hand in the Russian positions and so the ideas of Red October spread. Wilhelm Hauser had received a copy of Lenin's pamphlet "An Alle" in Russian and German and read it carefully. Contrary to the current regulations, he did not hand over the paper, but kept it under his personal documents (it only fell into the hands of the Gestapo in 1933). In February 1918 Hauser even accepted an invitation to visit a village 40 kilometers behind the front, where he was warmly received and entertained. However, the contacts had not changed the situation on the Eastern Front.

Following a short leave from the front, Wilhelm Hauser had to report to the western front again to take part in the spring offensive around St. Quentin . In the summer the regiment was in Lorraine . From September 1918 Wilhelm Hauser was deployed as regimental commander and during a crash course for mine throwers in Hagenau in Alsace he experienced the collapse of the German Empire and with it the war fronts as a result of the November Revolution . He returned to his family in Pforzheim.

First political experiences

Hauser already had initial ideas about politics in high school. As part of a Sedan celebration , he had to recite a poem that dealt with the fate of a French couple (then called Francs Tireurs , i.e. partisans) during the German raids.

Until the outbreak of the First World War , Wilhelm Hauser had begun to pass on his knowledge of astronomy in popular science lectures in workers' education associations. In this context, various discussions about world political issues were held with the course participants; at that time the first Moroccan crisis was current. Issues of state relations with one another, property acquisition and social problems were discussed, among other things. This is where Hauser expressed himself as a pacifist for the first time : "... he would n’t have a shotgun on his back because of the Mannesmann tubes."

The experiences and contacts closely connected with the war experiences led more and more to a social democratic stance Hauser and consequently in 1919 to his entry into the recently founded German Democratic Party , whose ideals were supported by personalities such as Albert Einstein , Otto Nuschke and others. He also became a member of a Masonic lodge and also got to know detailed social democratic ideas through contacts with Gustav Wenk, an editor of the Volkswacht magazine from Bielefeld , as well as railway officials, with whom he was to have a long friendship. In 1919, Hauser and colleagues founded a housing association .

The years from 1918 to 1933

The social changes after the end of the First World War were also reflected in Baden - the Grand Duke abdicated, workers 'and soldiers' councils were established and took over public authority. Wilhelm Hauser's attitudes towards this development led to a rethink that he later referred to as the “mutation process”.

Initially, however, the job was given top priority again. In the summer of 1919, Hauser successfully applied for the position of mathematics teacher at the Freiburg secondary school, and in 1920 the entire family moved to Freiburg im Breisgau . In addition to the pure natural sciences, he also provided his students with the environment for creative development.

The conclusion of the Rapallo Treaty in 1922 confirmed to Wilhelm Hauser above all the importance of international understanding, underpinned by his own experiences at the front. The treaty was welcomed by the public as “the first peace work ever to be established in Europe”. Hauser formulated his quintessence as follows: "Today war is no longer a means of resolving disputes among civilized peoples, because it appears so terrible that it destroys the people for whose political liberation a war may be unleashed." In a daily newspaper, Wilhelm Hauser made the connections between the arms industry of a country and the supply of all warring countries clearly visible. In public appearances and in personal notes he began to educate people about the beginning arms race in the 1920s and joined the German Peace Society (DFG). Developments in the DDP, on the other hand, increasingly disappointed Wilhelm Hauser, so that he became a member of the SPD instead in 1922 .

In his later published biography, Hauser summarized his new global political stance as follows. "... I had dealt more theoretically with the armaments issue in the early and mid-twenties and when I only appeared here and there in meetings in southwest Germany, at the beginning of the second half of the twenties there was a comprehensive, one - I can say - large parts of the agitational activity encompassing the Weimar Republic . Objectively, this was related to the danger of the arms race, which had grown in the meantime, against which one could not only oppose the 'classical' pacifist ideals. Subjectively, my engagement was primarily determined by the fact that in the meantime - after an emotional, spontaneous decision in favor of the SPD - I had begun to familiarize myself with something that had until then - with the exception of August Bebel's Die Frau und der Sozialismus - what remained was a book with seven seals, namely the publications of the labor movement. In the mid-twenties I read Engels ' work On the Path of Socialism from Utopia to Science and Lenin's work on imperialism , and I also tried to familiarize myself with the basic ideas of capital . ”Hauser was involved in the Baden peace movement Strong in the 1920s, together with the Catholic Franz Keller and the politicians Rolf Gustav Haebler and Richard Luft . He gave innumerable lectures in various German cities on "the international relations of war suppliers" and thus actively pursued peace propaganda. Newspapers like the Dortmunder General-Anzeiger, Chronik der Menschheit (Schweidnitz) or Das Andere Deutschland disseminated his ideas in larger articles ( Disarmament and Security , State and Wehrmacht , Tomorrow War Again! ) And thus found a wide readership.

As head of a committee at his school, Wilhelm Hauser campaigned for the construction of student dormitories , in which school lessons were given in the great outdoors but at the same time everyday coexistence was important. The stay with his class in such a home on the Schauinsland mountain and the later exchange with a Hamburg high school were important educational experiences for him.

Because of his peace agitation and the appearance of his son Harald in favor of communist ideals, the SPD leadership in Freiburg excluded Wilhelm Hauser from the party in 1932. This decision was also based on the recently declared incompatibility of party membership and membership of the DFG. The spreading National Socialism and finally the seizure of power led to extensive arrests of pacifists, Wilhelm Hauser was also arrested on March 19, 1933 in his Freiburg apartment. After a brief interrogation, he was sent to prison, but was released in the middle of the night. The dismissal was due to the upcoming Abitur exams and the personal auditions of students at the instigation of the school director! After another imprisonment shortly afterwards, the Baden Ministry of Culture transferred Wilhelm Hauser to Tauberbischofsheim in August 1933 , where the family followed him. Here he could still teach at the grammar school, but it soon became unsafe for him here too. Only in recognition of his military services in the First World War was he spared expulsion from Germany. He was forced to apply for his retirement, which happened "at the end of June". At the beginning of 1934 Hauser discussed the consequences of early retirement with his son Harald - the family was planning to emigrate . He tried "in various directions to get a job abroad", but initially did not succeed. Numerous plans followed, suggestions from good friends for stays in the USA , but a prolonged illness of his son Oskar led him to stay in the area. An apartment was rented in Günterstal . Former friends and colleagues withdrew due to political developments. In this context, Hauser considered re-entering the Jewish religious community in order to “express his political solidarity with the faithful Jews during this time of persecution.” However, because of the accompanying ceremony of a ritual cleansing bath , he decided not to do so. - In 1935 Wilhelm Hauser accompanied his brother Julius to Palestine and took the opportunity to get to know Jerusalem and Tel Aviv . Here he also met some relatives of the Hauser tribe and former friends and had intensive conversations. However, he returned to the beloved Black Forest. Wilhelm Hauser wrote down his observations about the political changes in Germany and gave the notes to the editors of the Basler National-Zeitung ; they were used for editorial purposes for reporting on Germany. - Since the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1938, all Jews had to have a “J” and a Jewish first name entered in their personal documents and other materials. Together with events that were really precipitous, such as the occupation of the Rhineland , the vote on the whereabouts of the Saar region and the annexation of Austria , the conclusion of a German-British naval agreement and finally the Sudeten crisis with the Munich Agreement, Hauser made the irrevocable decision to become National Socialist Germany to leave. Since his passport expired on January 31, 1939, he applied for a new one in November 1938 - which led to a summons to the Gestapo. Wilhelm Hauser was now held in prison together with other Jewish men, almost at the same time as the Reichskristallnacht . On the following day, a special train brought all those now designated as “ Jews under protective custody ” to the Dachau concentration camp . His brothers Siegfried and Karl were also here. An official petition from the French Colonial Minister Marius Moutet via an influential German lawyer finally led to Wilhelm Hauser's (and his brothers) release on December 15, 1938. However, a planned departure could no longer come about - the suitcases were quickly packed and on December 30, 1938, he and his wife reached the city of Basel .

In emigration

They soon reached St. Louis in France via Switzerland and initially found accommodation with a family of friends. His wife Else then returned to Germany. At the end of January Wilhelm Hauser received - again with the help of Moutet - a residence permit for Paris. Hauser was able to earn his living by taking private lessons in mathematics. In the free hours he explored Paris, he also wrote a detailed report on his Dachau experiences and sent it to the French Ministry of the Interior, believing that “the French government at the time had an interest in knowing which crimes were committed Germany both against the Jews and against Hitler’s political opponents in general ”.

During those weeks in Paris Hauser tried incessantly to get a proper job abroad, preferably in the USA. On the other hand, he learned from his wife that the Quaker aid organization in Oxford (England) was looking for a teacher who could take over the management of a home for young Jews. He applied and took up the new position on August 1, 1939 despite poor knowledge of English. Since Hauser could not get along with the Jewish students, who came from a broad social environment and with very different school knowledge, nor with the caretaker couple, devout Jews from Austria, he resigned the management of the home on January 1, 1940. The beginning of the Second World War marked a significant turning point in Hauser's stay in England . He had learned that his wife and son Oskar had been arrested and taken to various camps - Else to the Rieucros camp near Mende , Oskar to Libourne near Bordeaux .

Through the placement of the Quakers, Wilhelm Hauser received a guest position at the Quaker School in Sibford , with the aim of becoming more familiar with the educational methods of this aid organization. In the village he lived with private individuals who, at his request, could obtain the release of his wife through the English politician RA Butler. But nothing came of it because on the very day of her planned departure from France for England (May 10, 1940) the war between Germany and France began.

The English authorities began interning Germans living in the country in the summer of 1940, regardless of their political views. Wilhelm Hauser fell into English captivity and was held successively in various camps in southern England, in the middle of England and on the Isle of Man . In order to be able to actively help against the German fascists, Hauser volunteered for the English army. After a medical examination, he was classified as fit for military service, but not drafted due to his advanced age. But he received a work permit. So he was again a teacher at Quaker schools, first in Reading , then in York at the Bootham School. In September 1941 he took a permanent position at the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne , which was soon relocated to Penrith in the Lake District due to the war . Hauser's main subjects here were again mathematics and physics, and he also took on the task of preparing some boys for attending secondary school in Cambridge . His teaching, but above all his extracurricular commitment, was highly valued by the directors, as a later job reference shows:

"Dr. Hauser has been a great help with the school's leisure activities. He supported us in the debating club and he has now also taken care of the school chess club, which is very flourishing and successful. After all, his help with swimming is indeed very valuable. "

He was able to continue his political activities at the school because he found like-minded people in the teaching body. He read progressive newspapers such as the Daily Worker , The Times or Reader's Digest and historical-political books on the history of the working class (for example by Jürgen Kuczynski ). He sought and found a connection with the Free Germany movement . So - with technical tasks and various matters in his free time - Wilhelm Hauser stayed in Newcastle in England until 1946. There he had received the news that his wife and son Oskar had survived the war. He was in close contact with Harald and his family anyway.

Return to Germany and Hauser's career up to the founding of the GDR in 1949

Wilhelm Hauser applied to the Home Office through the Free German Movement (FGM) to be able to return to Germany as soon as possible. At the same time, he thought intensively how the new school system in Germany would have to be set up in order to be able to educate “social people” - they should feel responsible for their fellow human beings, develop community spirit and thus build a new social society. This should not be limited to peoples or races. This endeavor was very much in favor of the democratic construction in the German states; active German anti-fascists were sought for new management tasks.

After correspondence with Harald and Oskar, who meanwhile lived and worked in the four- sector city ​​of Berlin , and considerations on his part not to help shape the new beginning in his home town of Baden (which was in the French occupation zone), he tried to find a position in the eastern sector. After lengthy bureaucratic detours, the Allied Control Council finally granted the civilian Wilhelm Hauser permission to leave the country. He was able to pack his bags and leave England on June 29, 1946 on a military transport. He had received a promise from the British military authorities in Berlin that he could be employed as a lecturer at the Technical University in Berlin-Charlottenburg. This is how Wilhelm Hauser came to Berlin. - The extensive experiences of his family during the time of fascism contributed to the fact that he immediately became politically active again and joined the re-established SPD. Together with former comrades in arms from the German Peace Society and other upright men, Hauser began to play an active role in Berlin's social life. Instead of teaching at the Technical University, in August 1946 he began working in the Central Administration for National Education with the task of solving the problems of studying for workers 'and peasants' children and helping to set up preparatory schools. He later assessed that he had to work on "an enjoyable task from both an educational and a political point of view". In the central administration he became a consultant for the new pre-study institutions with examination authorization. He drafted a school and university reform, according to which these preparatory study facilities are only temporary solutions and the main goal is to create unified schools. The heads of these schools should then be given the right to delegate the most suitable students to study. The separation between the humanities teaching content and the technical-craft would have to be removed. Studying should no longer be a privilege; [...] In addition to research and teaching, universities must also be educated to become responsible citizens. In the new office Wilhelm Hauser now had close contacts with both Soviet and renowned German scientists such as Robert Rompe and Ernst Hadermann . As a man of practice, he also gave lectures to interested people or even on the radio on the new goals, but also on the important experiences from two world wars. His attitude was expressed briefly and succinctly in the lecture topic to new teacher course students in Potsdam-Babelsberg, "Disgust for war".

During a vacation in January 1948, Wilhelm Hauser returned to his hometown and to other previous places of work. There he gave lectures on his reforms and life at the Berlin universities and had numerous conversations with public figures. In doing so, he had to recognize that the political upheaval had not taken place clearly enough, although earlier comrades-in-arms against the war in Baden , such as Leo Wohleb , Paul Fleig or Erwin Eckert , had taken on positions of responsibility . Hauser summarized his observations in the following travel report as follows: "In southern Baden, political life is almost completely stagnant". Based on this knowledge, Hauser finally gave up the idea of ​​ever taking up a teaching post in his southern German homeland of Freiburg, Karlsruhe or Lörrach.

In 1948 Wilhelm Hauser was appointed to the Brandenburg State University of Potsdam , which was founded on October 20, 1948 and later became the Potsdam University of Education . Here he had to help set up the new teaching facility in accordance with the goals he had formulated himself and to lead the mathematics seminar as a professor or to set up his own institute for mathematics. He began his first course “Introduction to Higher Mathematics” in front of around 30 mathematics and physics students. Young graduates soon joined the faculty and other demanding seminars such as differential calculus I, II and III were held. Later scientists such as Harry Apelt , Siegfried Brehmer , Horst Melcher , Johannes Thomas , Horst Belkner and Eckart Zemlin emerged from his seminar .

Tasks at the Potsdam University from 1949 until his retirement in 1956

In 1951, the Brandenburg Ministry of Science transferred the management of the General Science Faculty to Wilhelm Hauser, and after its dissolution, on November 25, 1953, he became the dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the same Brandenburg University. On his 70th birthday, the institution was the first scientist to award him an honorary doctorate "in recognition of his outstanding services to the development of the university, to the education of students and to the education of young people."

As dean , he particularly promoted distance learning and abolished the diploma in favor of teaching qualifications at this university. So he gave the impetus for development as a pedagogical university .
Under the influence of the Second Party Conference , he also took care of lectures and exercises on Marxism-Leninism at his educational institution. In these special events Hauser brought the students closer to personalities in science such as Socrates or Giordano Bruno but also in philosophy and politics such as Thomas Müntzer , Ernst Thälmann or the Scholl siblings .

He also took on the duties of a student dean, whose function later became the prorector for student affairs. In his spare time, Hauser worried about the city's cultural development, he became a member of the Kulturbund of the GDR and co-founder of the Club of Intelligence on December 11, 1954.

From October to November 1954 he was an official member of a university delegation to the Soviet Union under the leadership of Walther Neye , which also included scientists and theologians from the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin . The trip, including to Moscow , Leningrad and Georgia , served an extensive study of the organizational, cultural and political design of the educational work. He was also able to familiarize himself with the teaching and life of the Orthodox Church .

In 1956 Hauser retired.

Familiar

Else Krauth became his wife on August 7, 1909. The couple moved into an apartment in the Black Forest near the Rhine . His wife had completed training as a kindergarten teacher, but then turned to singing herself .

In 1911 the family moved to Lörrach when Hauser was transferred; Harald Hauser was born here on February 17, 1912 . From 1914, during the First World War and until 1919, the family lived in Pforzheim and then moved to Freiburg im Breisgau, where their second son Oskar Hauser was born on November 29, 1920 . Here Wilhelm Hauser maintained closer contact with his brother Siegfried (* 1881) and his family. When he emigrated to England, he had intensive correspondence with his son Harald, as well as with his brothers, his sister and many other friends in various countries; but often only via cover addresses. He was considered the "active center" of the large Hauser family.

After Hauser's re-entry into teaching at the University of Potsdam, the family moved to Potsdam.

Two years after his retirement, during which he still held occasional lectures, Hauser moved with his wife to Dresden in 1958, near his son Oskar. In 1962 his wife died there. Wilhelm Hauser brought his experience and his desire to participate in social life to the activities of the National Front , the Intelligence Club and the housing party organization . He was friends with Lea Grundig , Heinz Lohmar , Walter Weidauer and Max Seydewitz , among others . Hauser was a member of the GDR Peace Council and received the German Peace Medal in 1963 . He observed world events carefully, so that for example the spread of Zionism in Israel but especially the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia preoccupied him and challenged him to make public statements.

After Oskar Hauser was appointed to the Humboldt University, Wilhelm moved to Wandlitz . He spent the last years of his life here more calmly - walks, swimming, reading books and many daily newspapers, correspondence or discussions and visits from his family now determined the course of the day, month and year. He has written articles for the horizon , the world stage and regional newspapers on current political issues.

On his 100th birthday Wilhelm Hauser received congratulations from the GDR government.

Hauser died a short time later in Wandlitz.

literature

• Günter Wirth : The Hauser Chronicle, story of a family. Buchverlag Der Morgen , Berlin 1982, 2nd edition 1988, ISBN 3-371-00174-1 .

Web links

• Short biography of Wilhelm Hauser in the DRAFD Wiki
• Short biography from the estate holdings in the Federal Archives , accessed on April 7, 2020.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Günther Wirth: The Hauser Chronicle . Berlin 1982, p. Family tree .
2. ↑ Hauser Chronicle, p. 50.
3. ↑ Hauser Chronicle, p. 85
4. ↑ Hauser Chronicle, p. 89
5. ↑ Hauser Chronicle, p. 127
6. ^ Hauser Chronicle, p. 133
7. ↑ Hauser Chronicle, p. 136
8. ↑ Hauser Chronicle, p. 160
9. ↑ site of Quaker Sibford, accessed 15 July 2011 ( Memento of 2 August 2013, Internet Archive )
10. ↑ Hauser Chronicle, p. 171
11. ↑ Hauser Chronicle, p. 285
12. ^ Hauser Chronicle, p. 304
13. ↑ Hauser Chronicle, p. 313
14. ↑ Johannes Thomas: About the existence of an infinite number of real eigenvalues ​​for a certain class of Sturm's differential equations together with certain non-self-adjoint secondary conditions . In: Mathematische Nachrichten, Heft 10, 1955. doi: 10.1002 / mana.19550140404
15. ↑ Hauser Chronicle, p. 322
16. ↑ Congratulations to Wilhelm Hauser. Greetings from the Central Committee on the 100th birthday. In: Berliner Zeitung from August 1983